The One Ring - Balancing Encounters

Balancing and scaling encounters for The One Ring has come up a lot recently in various online
forums. I’ll confess that I adopt a “take the world as you find it” approach rather than scaling
things. I like games such as Deadlands: The Weird West that adopt this approach. As that
game’s rulebook puts it: “If a big game hunter hires a squad of expert riflemen to cover his back,
it doesn’t make sense that suddenly every rattler [a horrifying Dune style worm] has four
buddies as well.”

Putting things in The One Ring’s terms, if there are 30 orcs in the outpost it is up to the
Player-heroes to decide on charging in, picking off patrols, recruiting allies or trying a stealthy
approach. However, I can sympathise with the people who would like some guidance on
balancing/scaling The One Ring, so I’ve put some thoughts together in this article.

Even for those looking for “balanced” encounters, it should be noted the balance will generally
be aiming at the Player-heroes surviving but with their resources depleted. If every encounter
was a 50:50 shot campaigns wouldn’t last very long!

Benchmarking from existing 2e & 1e adventures

This section contains spoilers for The Star in the Mist.
While we don’t have published guidelines on encounter difficulty, we can take some guidance
from the example landmark in the Core Rulebook, or in 1e’s adventures as it uses a similar rules
system.
In The Star in the Mist we have a range of potential combats.
- Easy brigand encounter: One footpad per player-hero: weak foes with 2D attacks and
only 2 Attribute level.
- Moderate combat encounter: Two Marsh Dwellers per player-hero. 3D melee attacks
and a Shadow (Dread) test at the start of combat makes for a significant challenge.
- Difficult Brigrand Encounter: 1 Highway Robber per player-hero, 2-3 footpads per
player-hero.
- Highway Robbers have 16 Endurance, 3D melee attacks. They’re considerably
tougher and more dangerous than their lowly Footpad minions.
- Challenging Boss encounter: Lady Elwen the Fell Wraith has a 3D melee attack plus
she forces a Shadow (Dread) test at the start of combat and potentially further Shadow
(Dread) tests during combat. Might 2 helps partially address the typical “action economy”
issue of a solo boss gainst multiple Player-heroes, as does her Strike Fear ability.

Taking this as a baseline we can try building the encounters below, along with some example
foes for a given category.
- Easy encounter: 1 foe per Player-Hero with 2-3 attribute level.
- Footpads, Goblin Archers work well here.
Moderate encounter: 2 foes per Player-hero with 3 attribute level.
- Wild Wolves, Orc Soldiers.
 - Difficult encounter: 1 tough foe per Player-hero (4 attribute level) and 2-3 weaker foes
(2 attribute level) per Player Hero.
- Highway Robbers, Orc Guards and other 4 attribute adversaries are good
examples here.
- “Boss” encounter: a Might 2 adversary with Hideous Toughness or Deathless to give it
improved action economy and staying power. Fell abilities like Strike Fear and Dreadful
Spells are good examples here.
- A Great Cave-Troll, Lady Elwen/Barrow Wight with Might 2 or a Nameless thing.

Try adding an adversary with Howl of Triumph to a Moderate Encounter, such as an

Orc-Chieftain or Wolf-Chieftain to a combat to make it harder and more memorable. This also
presents the Player-heroes with an interesting tactical choice: do they go after the Chieftain to
reduce opposing Hate spending, or do they focus on cutting down its lower endurance
underlings, reducing the number of incoming attacks. The choice is harder still against orcs due
to the Orc Chieftain’s high Parry rating.

Remember that Player-heroes go first in combat unless ambushed, so they can often clear out a
decent number of weak opponents quickly.

The One Ring doesn’t give out experience for defeating foes in combat: distracting foes,
intimidating them, sneaking past them or having allies help are all valid choices!

High variance/”swings” & Experience

The One Ring has relatively “shallow” character progression: While characters develop their
skills, improve compart proficiencies and develop new abilities through culture blessings they
can still be swarmed by weak foes or felled by a single arrow. After all, such a fate befell even
Aragorn’s father, Arathorn II!

A lucky Piercing Blow or two on either side of the combat can quickly swing a combat one way
or the other. If the PCs defeat the troll that was the climax of your adventure with a couple of
lucky Piercing Blows in the opening round, let them enjoy the triumph! It will make for a good
story.

Player-heroes tend not to gain much Endurance and Parry as they advance in rank and foes
always have a 1/12 chance to hit thanks to the eye symbol. This keeps mobs of weak enemies
a threat throughout a campaign as these hits drain Endurance and force Protection Tests.
Experienced Player-heroes will eventually hit a lot more often and deal more damage due to
higher Combat Proficiencies, as a high Combat Proficiency boosts accuracy and increases your
chance of a 6. These 6s can be spent on exciting “Special Damage” options.

Given the relatively shallow power curve in The One Ring the guideline above on encounter
difficulty can be gradually increased as Player-heroes rise in Valour and Wisdom. For example,
a “Boss” type foe could be accompanied by minions, or even appear as a pair!
Party make-up
The clue is in the attribute names: different fellowships will literally have different Strength(s)
and weaknesses. A party of high Strength Rangers and High Elves is going to perform
differently in combat to a group of high Wits Hobbits, Men of Bree and Woodmen, with the latter
group more likely to use Stealth to evade opponents, or ambush them if combat is essential.
Similarly, some starting Player-heroes will have invested their Starting Experience in increasing
a Combat Proficiency to 3, but others will focus on skills instead.

Attribute Level 4 foes in particular can be challenging, as many have 4 Health. While some
starting Player-heroes can defeat an Endurance 12 foe in two regular hits or with a single Great
Success, most starting Player-heroes (and indeed most experienced Player-heroes) will require
more successful attacks to defeat an Endurance 12 foe.

Knowing your party matters - treat this article as a guideline rather than as strict rules. Looking
at the dice pool a Player-hero attacks with and against which TN and then repeating this for
their foes can help gauge threats. For example, a 6 Strength Ranger with a Grievous Long
Sword, Buckler and Parry 20 facing an Orc Soldier might be rolling against TN 15 and be able to
defeat her foe in two hits, or with a single Great Success. With 3d in Swords, our Ranger has a
62% chance to hit with each attack. In contrast, the Orc Soldier is rolling 3d against TN 20, for
only a 26% chance to hit.

A Barding with 5 Strength, 6 Heart and 3 Wits will have lots of Hope to spend and shines in
different facets of the game. He’ll hit our Orc Soldier 54% of the time and be hit 39% of the time,
and may need more successful attacks to defeat the Orc Soldier, as even with a Grievous Long
Sword a Great Success isn’t enough to defeat the Orc Soldier with a single blow.

Happily in both case the Orc Soldier has much lower endurance than our brave Player-hero!

Using Hate
https://forum.frialigan.se/viewtopic.php?f=132&t=8573&start=10#p64614 - a helpful post from
one of the rules developers on using Hate in combat.

Adversaries in encounters are generally only appearing in one scene, after which they’re
defeated. While Player-heroes generally have higher Hope, they’re aiming to be in many scenes
across many more adventures, so they need to nurse their resources more carefully.

Therefore, consistent with the developer post linked above, I recommend not simply going
“nova” and rapidly spending Adversary hate down to zero. If you do so, your orc soldiers will be
chucking 4d attacks at your Player-heroes, when even the most skilled Playe-heroes are
starting at “only” 3d combat proficiency. I prefer to spend some hate/resolve on special abilities
to give individual foes their particular flavour, rather than just dumping it all into attacks. This
way, fighting Wargs that use their Great Leap to attack your low Parry fellowship members and
dodge your attacks with their Snake Like Speed will feel different and present new tactical
challenges. This is much more memorable than just using Hate for 1d on attacks and
Protections Tests!

Then you can use Hate/Resolve more judiciously, to make particular encounters harder.
Particularly if it is something you want to be a climatic scene.

For those experienced in the first edition of The One Ring, Hate spending is a notable difference
between 1e and 2e. In 1e adversaries didn’t have the option to spend Hate on any roll to add
1d, they could only do so through Fell Abilities or Revelation episodes from a high Eye
Awareness.

Giving yourself flexibility: variable encounters and goals

As the rulebook for The One Ring notes, it is helpful to consider the objectives of both sides in
any combat, rather than making every fight simply a drawn out slugfest.

For example:
- A scenario while the Player-heroes have to defend a location while allies and company
members complete a skill-endeavour.
- This could be anything from raising a castle door to completing a magical ritual.
- The Skill-endeavour put a natural “clock” on the combat, and better yet it puts the
company in charge of that clock. More Player-heroes devoted to the
Skill-endeavour means fewer are available for the combat. Hope can also be
spent to try to complete the Skill-endeavour more swiftly, by passing more tests
and rollings more 6s!
- A battle where the Player-heroes can withdraw to their own lines when exhausted, but
where their army will fare better if the Player-heroes defeat many lesser adversaries, or
a few of their great captains!
- This takes away many balance worries, as your Player-heroes have a whole
army of potential foes but can fall back when they’re low on endurance, wounded
and they’re running out of Hope.
- A desperate defence to hold a bridge, hill or castle before reinforcements arrive or the
dawn arrives to dispel foul spirits and sap the morale of orcs. Here our “clock” may be
determined by the loremaster, or by actions the Player-heroes took (or failed to take!)
earlier in the adventure.
- The player-heroes are trying to cut their way through overwhelming numbers and escape
to safety. This captures a common situation in the source material, such as the
Fellowship of the Ring’s desperate flight through Moria.

Note that within all of this, it is important to flag situations appropriately, so we don’t end up like
Dragon Age II, where combat encounters had limited use abilities to manage but where their
duration and difficulty was uncertain - your embattled characters would shout “another wave!”
and new foes would simply drop from the ceiling or burst in via doors. This isn’t very satisfying
narratively or tactically, as it made it hard to gauge when to deploy limited use abilities.
Different terrain and objectives help vary tactics on both sides and makes each encounter
memorable. “Remember when we held that old tower against that orc warband?” and “Your
dwarf was a real hero when we cut our way through that orc infested cave and escaped in to the
sun” are much more memorable than Encounter #1 and #2 with a standard orc patrol.

Remember, engagement limits already place a cap on how many foes can attack each of your
heroes at once!

I hope this article helps you in building fun and challenging encounters for your company.