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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FDP Mike" data-source="post: 325702" data-attributes="member: 325">Further thougths . . .The book costs $39.95 US.  Frankly, now that I've spent time with it, I think the price is really quite steep.  (My purchase was made at GenCon, an environment in which one tends not to consider some purchases carefully.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> )  I'm comparing it to the 3E core books, the recently released EverQuest: The Player's Handbook (about 400 pages, full colour, for $29.95 US), and Oathbound from Bastion Press (about 350 pages, full colour, for $39.95 US).  The LotR RPG Core Book has 304 pages, the paper is very high quality, and it's full of pics from the films -- but it's meant to be the essential "core" reference for the entire game, so it more and more feels a bit "thin" on content from my perspective.  I want to believe that my purchase was "worth it," but if we get a "revised edition" in, say, 6 months, I'll feel a bit gipped.  Decipher has planned several supplements for the LotR RPG, too, so we'll see.With regard to the errors, at this point it's hard for me personally to say -- I can't immediately "redline" or "break" a system like others can.  In terms of the typos, well, that's just standard stuff, really.  The two bits of missing text that I found need errata, I suppose, though I believe that these oversights do not cripple the game in any severe way.  In terms of the system?  Hmm . . . Currently, impressions (over at Decipher) are that even early on rolling the dice for attacking soon becomes almost unnecessary with the bonuses that characters (primarily Warriors) can accumulate.  I would temper this by suggesting that defensive combat actions such as dodge and parry/block might counteract some of this; moreover, armour provides damage reduction, and in the CODA system damage must work through several "Wound Levels" until an opponent is killed.  Oh, and the rules for mass unit combat are apparently "unplayable" -- i.e., "broken."  The situation does more and more look like Decipher perhaps did not playtest everything thoroughly enough.In the end, I'd say "minor annoyances, but YMMV."  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />I do like the game and the book quite a bit, despite their apparent deficiencies.  With some tweaking, the CODA rules really do offer an elegant system for a more low-powered fantasy game.</blockquote>

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