Buckland Forester - The One Ring Theoretical - Company of the Marsh Bell

This is going to be something of a challenge. Hobbits of the Shire, as compared to the other cultures

Pathfinder halfling art, but good enough.

hobbits do not have the best stats to be fighters off the bat. Pippin and Meriadoc manage it quite well, both achieving some laudable achievements, including Pippin killing a troll chief on his own, over the course of Lord of the Rings and even Bilbo, who was more of a burglar, managed to slay hundreds of spiders in his adventure. However, they all came into that capability later in their story.

So to start we have the basic culture attributes of a Hobbit of the Shire. This is the starting selection of common skills, favored Stealth, good Courtesy score; decent scores in Awareness, Song, Search, Persuasion, and Riddle; and some capability in Travel and Insight. There's also the Hobbit cultural blessing of Hobbit Sense. After noting all that, we get to the choices. Hobbits of the Shire are a Prosperous culture.

The first choices we get are between the two sets of weapon skills. The choice here is between favored bows and favored short sword. The safe choice is to go bows since this hobbit isn't going to have much endurance to start and staying off the front lines is a good idea. I could pick up short sword later as favored skill and I think I'll go with that option. I'll go with the bows for now and build up melee ability as we go along.

This comes to the next choice which is to choose two traits from the starting list of options. We have six options: Cooking, Gardening, Herb-Lore, Smoking, Story-Telling, and Tunneling. None of these are particularly warrior oriented. Tunneling will be of use in underground situations so that goes in. Now as to the others, the two I am looking at three. Herb-lore is useful for finding antidotes or medicinal herbs as well as identifying poisons. Story-telling can be used to remember bits of old battles and stratagems or to share tales with other folk. Smoking is another trait that can be used for communing with people and the smoke can also be used to find hidden passages or other such things. I think I'm going with the Story-Telling option there.

Next we come to the background. We also need to look at the traits that come with each of the backgrounds as well as their Attributes and the associated favored Skill. Because Heart adds to both Endurance and Hope, I am looking to have either 7 or 6 Heart. All of the backgrounds have a Body between 2 and 4. I'm looking mostly at the Bucklander background. That would be a favored Awe skill, Heart 6, Wits 4, Body 4, and a choice of traits between: Energetic, Fair-Spoken, Merry, Nimble, Proud, Quick of Hearing, Reckless, and True-Hearted. I think True-Hearted and Nimble for her traits.

Next we come to Calling. I think there are two good choices to look at: Slayer and Warden. Slayers seek revenge against a specific enemy type, for hobbits that would likely be wolves or orcs. Wardens have started to learn about the Shadow and seek to protect people in general. Either would give our hobbit two favored skills. Slayer would allow us to choose that out of Movement and Personality scores while Warden allows us to choose out of Survival and Personality. Movement is Athletics, Travel and Stealth while Survival is Explore, Healing, and Hunting. We already have Favored Awe and Favored Stealth due to the background and culture. I'm going to come to the idea that she's a Brandybuck from the edge of the Old Forest that had stumbled upon the ranger cordon around the Shire and has shared tales with them. For the favored skills, I think I am going with Hunting and Explore. We note that down with the Shadow-Weakness of Lure of Power and the trait Shadow-Lore.

Now come to choosing between Valor and Wisdom. Wisdom vs Valor seems like an easy choice, but on the other hand, Virtue allows for some inherent bonuses such as increasing maximum Endurance, Favored Attribute scores, and some very applicable Cultural Values. Valor will give us an improved item of some sort all of which are rather nice themselves. However, in this case, especially since we're tying her into the rangers and going with Warden, I think we'll choose Wisdom as starting at level 2 rather than Valor.

As to what Virtue to pick. The cultural virtues include Small Folk, which makes the character's parry score based on Favored Wits when fighting creatures larger than her; Brave in a Pinch, which allows for sometimes ignoring the penalties of Weary; Tough in the Fibre, which allows for quicker recovery; and the Art of Disappearing lets me hide easier. The general Virtues all me to increase Hope or Endurance by 2; increase damage dealt by 1; gain a new favored skill or weapon; or raise one of my Favoured Attributes. I think I'll be taking the Small Folk for the better Parry rate.

From here we're going to choose to set the Favored levels of our Attributes. I think we'll be setting the 3 point bonus to Body, the 2 point bonus to Wits, and the 1 point bonus to Heart. This makes her Favored Attribute levels at Body 7, Wits 6, and Heart 7.

The last thing we have is to spend experience. We have ten points. I am going to increase Explore and Hunting to 2 each, which is 6 pts. That leaves 4 points left. I could increase her Short Sword skill by 1, but instead I think I am going to increase her Awe to 2 for 3 pts. For the last 1 point, I will increase Battle to a rank of 1. I do plan to eventually give her the axe skill due to the idea that she's one of the foresters on the border of the Old Forest.

All that remains is to do figured characteristics and choose gear. Endurance for hobbits is 16 + their Heart score, so for us that comes to a total of 22. Hope for hobbits is 12 + their Heart score which is 18. So, with the Endurance in mind I'm going to choose war gear. You have to keep aware of Encumbrance and Endurance when choosing gear. A dagger, a short sword, and bow seem good choices. That brings her to an Encumbrance of 2. So now we come to the big problems. Her armor is going to either be a leather shirt or a leather corslet. If we had gone for Valor we could have had some armor with reduced encumbrance, but that's neither her nor there. I'm thinking we'll be leaning on that high Parry and risk the low armor so I'll go with leather shirt, encumbrance 4 and +1d armor, instead of leather corslet at encumbrance 8 and +2d armor. 

Beyond the armor, I need to decide whether or not to take a piece of headwear or a shield. We can't use a great shield because hobbits are small so that's off the table. I am not seriously considering a piece of headwear really but a shield adds to Parry so I'm considering that. A buckler is +1 Encumbrance for +1 Parry. A shield is +3 Encumbrance for +2 Parry. I think I will take a buckler as it is still traveling light, but does still give a bonus to the Parry.

That hits all the choices done, so here's our character.

Meliot Roper

Most of the Shire thinks itself safe and sound, but some of the Bucklanders know that evil sits on their doorstep. Meliot is one of the hobbits that keeps an eye on the Old Forest and the terrible things within. It was in this way that she came to acquaintance of the rangers that have started to appear on the borders of the land. They had always come now and again but their appearance of late has been much more frequent. There was some worry at first, but eventually it became clear that these big folk were performing a similar task, watching the Old Forest, keeping an eye on the borders of the wild around the borders of civilized land.

Meliot managed to surprise one by slipping out of the shadows to sit at their campfire. She was quite proud of herself until it became obvious that the person she had surprised was young and a bit absent-minded, by the standards of the rangers at least. Meliot has since been sharing her lore of the evils of the Old Forest and learning more of the evils of the world. It has firmed her resolve to stand in the way of evil and broadened her horizons, taking her out into the Wilderland.

Culture: Hobbit of the Shire

Cultural Blessing: Hobbit-Sense

Calling: Warden

Shadow Weakness: Lure of Power
Standard of Living: Prosperous
Age: 41

Endurance: 22

Hope: 18

Shadow: 0

Valor: 1

Wisdom: 2
Standing: 0

Encumbrance: 7

Fatigue: 7

Parry: 4+1

Parry vs Bigger Folk: 6+1

Specialties: Tunneling, Story-Telling, Shadow-Lore

Distinctive Features: True-Hearted, Nimble, (Small)

Body: 4 (7)

Heart: 6 (7)
Wits: 4 (6)

Personality: Awe 2, Inspire 0, Persuade 2

Movement: Athletics, Travel 1, Stealth 3

Perception: Awareness 2, Insight 1, Search 2

Survival: Explore 2, Healing 0, Hunting 2

Custom: Song 2, Courtesy 3, Riddle 2

Vocation: Craft 0, Battle 1, Lore 0

Bows 2, Short Swords 1, Dagger 1

Rewards: None

Virtues: Small Folk

War Gear

• Weapons
• Bow - Damage 5, Edge 10, Injury 14, Encumbrance 1
• Short Sword - Damage 5, Edge 10, Injury 14, Encumbrance 1
• Dagger - Damage 3, Edge G, Injury 12, Encumbrance 0
• Armor
• Leather Shirt - Protection 1d, Encumbrance 4
• Buckler - Parry +1, Encumbrance 1