The new 20′s
It is different. I have a level 21 Captain on Bullroarer and I am already Friend with Bree which gives me a nice discount on horses in that area (not that I’m using it atm.). With Ally I will have a discount on all the vendor items and I assume something equally nice awaits me at Kindred.
Bree Reputation
One of the reasons my reputation is that high is the fact that Haudh Iarchith[1] has been revamped. It has been brought to level 20 and split, the solo part (spiders, kergrim and fat wights/darkwater) now consist of a three separate dungeons – well the kergrim dungeon is a single room with 5-6 (providing Marrow is home) mobs – accessible through various mounds in the Northern Barrow Downs (all are named and visible on the new map), haven’t been too far South but I assume it’s similar there. All mobs inside happily drop Barrow-Downs Treasure and Trinkets of Cardolan along with Mathoms and Well-kept Mathoms (I assume Mathom House reputation will be brought down as well). I haven’t seen any of the elusive Shard-droppers in there though.
Bree Rep vendors offer some helmets and cloaks but they require level 30, it’s safe to assume you will be Kindred for some time when you reach it.
Skirmishes
Skirmishes now start at level 20 and you no longer need to gather any sheets of paper from humanoid monsters. Just speak to Skirmish Captain, go through the tutorial and you’re ready. However if you are a Free Player you will have free access only to 2 skirmishes: Siege of Gondamon and Trouble in Tuckborough, you can read more about skirmishes and F2P in an article over at Casual Stroll to Mordor. Lowering the requirements also means creating some new armour sets, weapons and jewelry and a new “rank” – Recruit.
To me bringing it to level 20 is maybe too much, at this level you are still in the kind of situation where mobs die after a few seconds – well, certainly not my case, I’m a captain but other classes would probably agree. The fights overall seems too easy but it’s not that skirmishes are hard overall. Nonetheless I finished the tutorial and picked up an Archer. I went ahead and bought a helmet and a nice greatsword with Westernesse damage. The next day I decided to try Trouble in Tuckborough:
So there I am trying to liberate the town of Tuckborough, first mob – Venomous Blood-Arrow – 400 morale, I put him to my Archer’s attention and start running towards the lieutenant, I think I was able to score on hit before he fell. I should probably mention that my Archer is effectively at level 24 and does 100 damage with his auto-attack, I do barely half as much and my herald does 10 providing the weather is nice. Lieutenants at this level really pose little threat, I’d be interested to see how group skirmishes go though and 12-man raid at level 20? Well that might certainly be interesting. Anyway, Encounters were a little more “challenging” as they got about 1200 morale. Got Fíkthrokh who wasn’t really hard though he certainly seemed to be and Old Fright who pummeled my archer in four or five hits (did I mention I cannot hold aggro over my soldier?), luckily for the rest of us (my herald and me) he managed to get the bear to about half morale and we finished him. At the final courtyard my herald kinda rushed ahead and pulled half of the mobs there though we dispatched them quickly. At last we met Filzof – 600 morale. I know fights aren’t about the morale of mobs and there are other things that affect difficulty but at this level it still is about overcoming one single obstacle and that’s the mob’s morale. He barely had the time to say his monologue. All in all, 21 minutes, but that’s because I wasn’t really aiming for the time. One thing to mention, my herald has bigger pathing issues than my soldier.
Now the rewards, I got 64 Marks, one Veteran Recruit (I sense a big oxymoron) bounty and four normal Recruit bounties and in the chest I’ve found 8 silver, yay! And of course I got two Eruilan and then two Recruit Marks (barter ration 1:5).
The final count of one Trouble in Tuckborough is:
- 124 Skirmish Marks
- 54 silver
- close to 4k XP (one level is about 20k)
I have of course sold and bartered everything. At this point – unless you absolutely positively must have that one piece of cosmetics – Eruilan marks have no use other than barter (25 marks each). You probably want to have a different soldier appearance but that particular trait isn’t available before level 30. As the rewards go one yellow piece of heavy armor costs 15 SM and a purple one (veteran) costs 30 with no special (First, Second, etc.) mark needed. But of course it’s skirmish armour, you’ll probably find better stuff at your local crafting center. Archer being 4 levels above me doesn’t need upgrading and I cannot wear personal traits yet. I suppose after a few skirmishes I would be swimming in Skirmish Marks as the lieutenant slayer deeds will yield a big chunk of them. On the other hand, the new rewards from Great Barrow will cost a little more than the classic skirmish stuff and players might not have that many SM to spare.
Overall I like the changes, at least Free players are probably going to spend quite some time in Bree-land. And the reputation would certainly come handy, I never understood why (even in SoA days) would players gather reputation at later levels when they no longer need it. After you’ve left Bree for Lone-lands or North Downs you weren’t likely to be coming back.
- [1] Sindarin for Mound of Bloodfog ↩
Tags: low-level, reputation, skirmishes