ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Just a small suggestion, but I feel like it should be addressed. There's absolutely zero benefit to playing a bree-man right now. The xp penalty for playing a hobbit or dwarf is only 10% more, and both of them have nice stats and abilities that more than make up for this. My suggestion is to make Bree-Men have a +25% xp advantage rather than the 0 they currently stand at. The alternative is to just increase the xp penalty for the other subraces but this would unbalance them. A neat ability or like an extra skill point every 3 levels (a la dnd) may make up for it.


It's just kind of ridiculous that Nandor have a 5% xp penalty but have grace of the eldar and superior stats (besides -2 strength but realistically that's such a small penalty that it would almost never matter). The important part really is the special abilities rather than the stats. Every single racial ability can potentially be gamebreaking if the stat gets pumped high enough, and to only suffer -5. Specifically Dunedain are kind of ridiculous in this category. It's kind of frustrating because as a Bree-man or (-woman) you pretty much have to take the dungeons in the prescribed order as the old forest will just straight up kill most breemen at levels 1-3, and if you do wind up doing it then you exit the same level as any nandor would've been. Lorewise it also makes sense that the most short-lived of the races (besides maybe hobbits iirc) would level significantly faster than the ones who live thousands of years.

Or how about at character generation granting an extra stat point and talent point? You know, to show the versatility of the human race.

I've never liked the idea of short lived races leveling faster.

On the other hand maybe Bree-men could start off with more gold, or more potions, or something to give people a bit more incentive to play them.

Or... how about an extra talent mastery point at level 1?

I kind of miss Kobolds. Faster leveling in tome 4 would be really really strong, however. The extra stats and talents from the extra levels would make even a race with as low a hit die as kobolds be broken in t4.

A single extra stat point/talent really would make up for the attribute disadvantages (which it does in DnD), but the innates in tome 4 are just so strong that an extra talent point every 4 levels really wouldn't exactly make up for it (especially if it is generic rather than class). Bree-men are always going to be the hardest to play of any of the races. You can get something like +40 or +60% speed with grace of the eldar without trying very hard, and a Dunedain archmage or any other willpower based class can out-regen the dps of being fully surrounded by elites (I've been stunned by things like Snow giant cheftains and had them and their compatriots beat on me only to have like 60% of my hp left when I'm unstunned and to have it still keep going up the entire fight. Not on hard, only on normal). It also totally nullifies any threat from poison.

I'm currently playing a noldor pyro, but I have no real idea how high that base gets, and dwarfs have never been my thing. Luck of the Hobbit is a bit strange, I don't actually know how luck functions in te4.


I guess what I'm saying is that while increased leveling would be slightly broken, it would be so no moreso than any of the other innate abilities. And giving an additional talent point every 4 levels or something would have the effect that a max level breeman would be the most powerful skill-wise, which seems sort of wrong to me. A nice alternative I think could be allowing bree-men to have access to more categories and giving them more category points, allowing them to spread their points further if they so wish. (Or giving them a special tree of human only skills, which is uh ... a bit of workaround as well. Also I have no idea what skills could be "human only"). Another option would be to give them a .30 or so bonus on every skill tree.

Starting with more gold is one option. Another option is just to give them a huge multiplier on score. (Score still exists, right? It's been forever since I checked one of my char's dumps).

Nevuk wrote:Bree-men are always going to be the hardest to play of any of the races.

Right, time for me to play one!

madmonk wrote:

Nevuk wrote:Bree-men are always going to be the hardest to play of any of the races.

Right, time for me to play one!

Try a bree-man berserker or shadow-blade. It's a nightmare to hit level 2 with the latter and the former well... I think I got one to level 15 once. Then she (because all of my beserkers are female for some reason) was 1 hit by a skeleton warrior. A generic one.

+! vote for extra starting talent point for bree-men. even w/ that point they are massively underpowered, and it gives some incentive to play the 'generic' race.

Then she (because all of my beserkers are female for some reason) was 1 hit by a skeleton warrior.

There's your problem....if you're playing a beserker you can't ever get hit!

I think BreeMen/Women being the weaker race sorta makes sense - 'fixing' that artificially feels a bit too gamey to me...

One possible bonus that feels right to me, and could help starting players a bit: make the race get better prices in Bree, since it's their home town.
You know, shopkeepers could be a bit more generous with a compatriot, while they'd try to rip off foreigners - these pesky dwarves/elves/dunadan/halflings, you just can't trust them

Human beings didn't just become the dominant race in Middle Earth by accident. They're incredibly adaptable. I'd suggest an extra talent category point at level 1 instead of a mere talent point. That would be real incentive to play them.

Yeah, maybe my post earlier came off a bit sarcastic.

But I really do think an extra talent (category point) mastery is what they need.

It opens up a lot of level 1-10 builds that you wouldn't be able to pull off with other races (A first level mage with Time Prison!!! or how about a cunning based fighter that starts off with Dirty Fighting!!).

It's more interesting then extra stat points or class talent points and goes into the adaptability thing of the human race. They break stereo types, an extra talent category point at level 1 lets them do that.

And for the power gamers that don't want to put that point into an unlearned category, they can spend it on min/maxing their favorite talent and I'm sure it won't be anymore game breaking then Grace of the Eldar.

Oops! I missed the fact that you'd already suggested this. I should add that I agree with all your points. Extra category point would make humans quite interesting.

Done (the talent category point)