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Throgs Lotro Journal 9 May 2007: Pickled in in the Prancing Pony

Another mysterious bug struck down the inhabitants of Eridor last night and it was late into the night before most adventurers could leave their slumbers and enter the world. Throg and his kinsmen from Pog Mo Thoin decided to celebrate their recovery with a few convivial tankards of ale in the Prancing Pony in Bree. Throg normally has little time for Bree but he will travel a long way for a cold beer in good company. Sadly the beer in the Pony was warm, overpriced and tasteless. Nevertheless it went down with frightening ease - one slug and a tankard was empty.

Our gallant hero is suffering from an inexplicable headache this morning and his memory of the night before is a little hazy. He did take the time to utter a curse upon the landlord for serving him foul ale. His exact words were: "That b*stard must have poisoned me. I had no more than nine or ten tankards before the room turned into a sea with tables, chairs and good folk swimming around in it".

Best not to trouble Throg when he is in this mood as he can turn aggressive. Indeed while in his cups last night he foolishly issued a challenge to combat to all around him. This challenge was taken up by a burglar and a guardian both of whom had considerably more more combat experience than out feisty dwarf. Sadly our dwarf champion did not display the same prowess in single combat that he had earlier diplayed in tankard lifting. Perhaps it is for the best that his memory of he night is somewhat hazy. Interesting to note that the citizens of Bree expressly forbid fighting within the town limits and the combatants had to exit the gates to hold their contests. A good thing in my opinion - it certainly helps to keep the peace within the town.

I will note from having observed these fights that a champion's role in combat is somewhat narrow. He can inflict most grievous harm to his opponent but that is all he can do. Indeed when the battle fervour is upon him our frenzied champion forgets all thoughts of self preservation, neglecting to dodge, block or parry his opponents blows. The Guardian on the other hand has a balance of defensive and defensive skills while the burglar has a most frustrating stun ability - leaving an opponent helpless while the burglar inflicts pain.

It has been said that a champion is the ideal class for facing the dangers of the wilds alone. The combination of heavy armour and high damage output is certainly useful but the narrowness of the champions role can be very limiting. At level 18 Throg tried to solo a level 13 elite tree in the old forest. Our dwarf champion failed miserably and was much disheartened to see a level 18 minstrel take on a similarly possessed oak not long after and vanquish it. The fight took a long time to be sure for a minstrel cannot match the damage output of a champion but the minstrel was able to use stirring melodies to keep up morale for the duration of the encounter.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Just wanted to say I enjoy reading your blog and your roleplaying aspect is really cool, something I wish I was better at.
mbp said…
Thanks Sean - I am delighted you enjoy it - I must admit I am not a great in game role player so I try to ham it up a bit in the blog. I am also delighted to find a fellow lotro blogger. I am studying you tips on running lotro on a less than spectacular graphics card because I am in the same boat.
Anonymous said…
Another reader here that has a blog journal for LotRO...have been developing my RPing in game but my journals are not, although I make them 3rd person.
mbp said…
Delighted to hear from you DM. I'm going to try and figure out how to put links to other blogs on my main page so I can have a lotro bloggers section. Eurpoean lotro has dedicated RP servers but I play on a normal server myself. I am generally too chicken to role play in game. Last night somebody broadcast on the looking for fellowship channel someting along the lines of: "Citizens of Eriador a great evil has come upon our land and stout hearts and strong arms are needed to banish this scourge...." and so on. I thought it was great but it got a few hoots of derision in general chat. Mind you they got a lot of positive responses too and managed to pull a fellowship together very quickly.
Anonymous said…
Great, thanks for the link, I will do the same...enjoy!
Anonymous said…
I have resisted having a links section on my blog for 6 months now but I feel I should highlight the ones I actually 'read' so will be adding a sidebar for that over the weekend. MBP will get a hat tip!

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