Topic: Weariness from travel

[JohnK]

I'd like to represent weariness from travel in my middle earth campaign. Does anyone use some kind of related rules?
I'm thinking some kind of light house rules like this: After a number of (Co+Co+SD) days travelling, there is some risk of bodily and morale weariness. After that, and depending on the danger of the area, a RR roll is made against 10 lvl Attack of Weariness when crossing the plains of Angmar, for example. This roll is repeated every day in that area, and a failure means a -2 on activity.
Alternatively my house rules on Hope and Despair can be used found on the Guild Companion September 2015, with the modification that travelling through shadowlands demands a roll of despair each day!

[Hurin]

RMU has rules for what you're looking for, though it uses a new mechanic (Fatigue). See section 2.4 of the new Arms and Character Law.

[JohnK]

Thanks for the info but I made a search on the forum (I am not playtesting RMU) which didn't help a lot. Could you name a certain thread that I might follow?

[Hurin]

The only threads I could link you to would be ones in the RMU playtesting areas, so I doubt those would be of much use to you. FYI, it is free to sign up for playtesting RMU; you just need to sign in. So if you wanted to download the new Arms and Character Law just to see the new Fatigue rules, you could do that.

Basically, there are now 'Fatigue checks' that work similar to RRs. If you fail, you start accumulating penalties to actions. Make checks dependent on how fast you are moving: just normal hiking (without a rest) requires a check every two hours. Moving at a running speed requires a check every 5 minutes, etc.

[jdale]

Exhaustion recovers at a rate of 1/minute of rest, so it doesn't inherently cover the idea of weariness from prolonged difficult conditions. But you could apply a penalty on exhaustion checks which would result in characters becoming exhausted more quickly. This is how extreme temperatures, altitude, hunger, and lack of sleep are handled. It seems reasonable that this could also reflect being overwhelmed, depressed, etc.

If you take a look at the RMU Arms & Character Law beta, the fatigue/exhaustion rules start on page 18.

[JohnK]

I've downloaded the RMU arms law and seems very interesting! The rules on fatigue are what I was looking for, though, as I far I checked it, the file does not cover something like strategic morale which I think plays an important role in a middle earth game. Probably I will continue with the house rule on Hope and Despair for that part...