Thread: Pipe Weed minor buffs

Pipe weed has been around for so long with no real benefit. The shire sweet leaf was the only one with a purpose, but now thats gone too. How can we make something so important to lore more important to the game? How about some minor buffs.
My idea - Make trail food and pipe weed go hand in hand! Pipe weed can give minor buffs to 2 different stats, but it cannot be the same stat that you have with trail food. For instance- as a warden i would have the superior potato scones (+68 vitality) trailfood then i could pick a pipeweed buff to compliment it. The pipe weed i use could not have vitality on it and would be ideally used to boost the stats that arent considered the classes main stat. So i would go for the pipeweed that gave +20 to will and agi. 2 stats with minor boosts to help compensate in the world of no stat caps which force us to stack our main stats and forget about our minor ones.

Id love to hear other peoples ideas about pipe weed becoming useful as well. Love some dev feedback as well

I am totally on board with this. Not only in the sense of character development but also from an avid farmers point of view. The idea of growing an item as integral to lore as pipe-weed holds a lot of charm but it is a complete time and money sink with no pay-off. Maybe the stat thing is an obvious answer and Turbine wants some things in game to be for nothing but the sake of lore (exploration deeds!). Still...having a good smoke with your fellowship should be more important, especially for hobbits

It would be nice for pipe weed to become one of those must have bag-occupiers like food, tokens and other essential crafted items. Ill think more on this as i play and try and figure out where a good pipe break will have the most impact!

The game definitely needs to make use of pipeweed. I like your ideas, although maybe it would be too complicated to code, too bug-prone, given the variety of things (food, armour, jewelry, weapons) we have that also buffs and boosts. Would it work if different kinds of pipeweed gave temporary boosts to morale, power, resistances, and hope? I'm picturing raids where everyone stops for a smoke break

I like it from a gaming point of view.

Not sure they can do it tho.
They might suffer the wrath of parents and anti-smokers.
And I agree a little.


Smoking is good for you?
Not really a message you want to give to children.
( it's okay to do, but to actually give you a benefit)
I like how using alchohol in gave gives you the debuff.

If anything smoking should do the same.

Smoking was an integral part of relaxing in middle earth. Maybe it could just counter finesse for instead? Its taking a toll on wardenkind

My idea would be to boost a stat and reduce another one
Exemples:
Shire pipe weed could do +20 Will, -20 Fate
Firebreath pipe weed, +200 Tactical mitigation, -500 finesse
And so on

It could be used to focus a stat and reducing another

It would prevent any OverPower effects

my 2 cent

Are there any hidden deeds with pipe-weed in-game, such as those for food? They could probably be coded in with little problems (but I'm not much of a programmer!)

Or introduce a new festival organisation for pipe-weed enthusiasts similar to the Inn League and Ale Association with quests and unique rewards for Kindred status - more indirect and harder to achieve rewards so less chance of complaints from the anti-smoking lobby (I am an ex-smoker, but not a righteous [sp?] one).

There is a dearth of activity in the Shire's pipeweed fields, so encouraging something in-game to utilise them would be great and would see more pipe-weed in the AH, giving farmers an opportunity to sell something other than spring/winter/black barley...

I was disappointed when they removed pipe-weed as a necessary ingredient for a loremaster skill.

In fact, I made my LM a historian for shire sweet.

I'd like there to be some use to pipe-weed in the game.

I fully support this idea (and I think this thread should actually be in the Suggestions forum).

Originally Posted by Rainith

I fully support this idea (and I think this thread should actually be in the Suggestions forum).

Thanks! Ill go put it there now

Originally Posted by HardWolf

I was disappointed when they removed pipe-weed as a necessary ingredient for a loremaster skill.

In fact, I made my LM a historian for shire sweet.

I'd like there to be some use to pipe-weed in the game.

^ This. I had bags full of Shire sweet-leaf saved for my LM's use and now it's all worthless.


I really liked having to interact with other folks/crafters to obtain my LM sweet-leaf stores.

Oh well... this game has gone the way of solo-fication ever since skirmishes were introduced.

I totaly agree with most said here.
I had my LM only a couple of levels away from getting the rez skill, so I made a load of pipeweed to have on hand, only to have them change it right before I could use it.
I would love to see the use of pipeweed re-introduced for the LM skill as well as for other purposes.

If I were the one doing it, I would give certain types of pipeweed different effects based on what kind and what tier they were.
At the very least, based on the tier seeing as how it would be easier that way from a programing standpoint, I assume.

Starting at lower tier, your effects would be a slight drowsy effect like you get from the low tier drinks.
Tiering up, I could see removing the drowsiness and adding something like a 5 minute +8% run speed buff, or +5% crafting crit chance.
Maybe even having specialty ones that do a slight DOT while smoking it, or ones that add desease, fear, poison or wound.

Then at tier 7 I believe that it would be great to get a 5 minute +1 hope buff.
I think that if they could get a +1 hope buff from a high tier pipeweed to stack only once per person over the 5 hope cap using only the pipeweed to acomplish this, it would give it a definite end-game use by allowing you to go over the normal limit for hope, but not so far as to make it over-powered.
Also, it would go along with lore very well, I belive, in the sense that it was a pleasant break for Merry and Pippin when they found and smoked the Old Toby in Isengard. Thus, the addition of 1 hope would accompany both aspects of utility and lore in a nice way in my opinion.

However, I don't think that adding even more of your normal stats, (Will/Fate Etc.) would be a good idea.
That seems like it would be way over-powered and sort of un neccecary.
That's just my opinion though.

And I wholeheartedly agree that it ought to be included in festivals, hobbies, and have deeds and a number of quests attached to it.

Originally Posted by mateos-1

my idea would be to boost a stat and reduce another one

exemples:
Shire pipe weed could do +20 will, -20 fate
firebreath pipe weed, +200 tactical mitigation, -500 finesse
and so on
it could be used to focus a stat and reducing another

it would prevent any overpower effects

my 2 cent

+10000

At the very least pipe weed could make your morale and power regenerate more quickly out of combat. It would give us a reason to take a quick pipe weed break between battles if need be. Perhaps different pipe weeds could be more regenerative for higher level characters.

Originally Posted by Samcharles77

At the very least pipe weed could make your morale and power regenerate more quickly out of combat. It would give us a reason to take a quick pipe weed break between battles if need be. Perhaps different pipe weeds could be more regenerative for higher level characters.

I agree. In the books, characters smoked to relax after an event, not in preparation for one.

As an alternative to increasing OCMR/OCPR, have pipeweed smoking give a flat increase to morale and power at the END of the animation. Low numbers for the low tier stuff and higher numbers for higher tiers. This would prevent it from being used at a pause in mid combat unless the pause was long enough for a complete animation sequence.

Throw an increasing +hope effect on the pipeweed or something, with the rarest types of weed giving +5. It's not overpowered, can easily be replaced by other items (hope tokens), and gives a variety of minor buffs (each point of hope slightly increases your damage and max morale). Or use it as an alternative to trail food (buffs overwrite).

I wouldn't mind seeing pipe weed as an alternative for dread removal. Instead of using Tokens or Dread Removal Skills, maybe the Fellowship that you are in could take a quick 60 second break, bring out some pipes, and smoke a little sweet leaf to remove dread. I like this idea better then whatever it is a token does in term of reality. Do they toss it in the air? Do the Fellowship members take a break and throw tokens at one another? I just don't get it. He he.

I use pipeweed in the 'Moors on my hunter to taunt creeps. :P

Originally Posted by Erasluindor

Pipe weed has been around for so long with no real benefit. The shire sweet leaf was the only one with a purpose, but now thats gone too. How can we make something so important to lore more important to the game? How about some minor buffs.
My idea - Make trail food and pipe weed go hand in hand! Pipe weed can give minor buffs to 2 different stats, but it cannot be the same stat that you have with trail food. For instance- as a warden i would have the superior potato scones (+68 vitality) trailfood then i could pick a pipeweed buff to compliment it. The pipe weed i use could not have vitality on it and would be ideally used to boost the stats that arent considered the classes main stat. So i would go for the pipeweed that gave +20 to will and agi. 2 stats with minor boosts to help compensate in the world of no stat caps which force us to stack our main stats and forget about our minor ones.

Id love to hear other peoples ideas about pipe weed becoming useful as well. Love some dev feedback as well

I love this idea.

It'd also make my farming more beneficial, cause I hardly ever use it.

Another possible idea would make it remove dread or something. That could be cool as well.

From what I've been told, because I've never actually done this myself, doesn't smoking weed make you feel really hungry? So, realistically speaking, whatever bonus you get from pipe weed would need to remove whatever bonus you got from a food item until you ate it again


But, on a more serious note. I like the idea of PW (see? I'm cool...I'm typing it PW now) having a purpose. However, I would like to see it not be a +stat over time bonus, but what about a one time bonus like, smoking out of combat gives you 1000 moral. This has already been suggested, and I like the idea of it being different from food. Food is a bonus for a set amount of time, so smoking could be an instant bonus of some sort.

Another thought, and I think this has been suggested in one form or another, we don't have any food that improves mitigation or finesse right? Foods are resist, recovery boost, or stat boost. So, if you want a "over time" effect like food, make smoking boost mitigation and finesse.

As smoking is a social thing in LOTR, maybe the more people you have in your fellowship smoking the same thing, your bonus could be bigger. For example, 1 person smoking gives a 500 moral hit, but 5 people smoking a 2000 moral hit for everyone.


Last thought. I am chuckling to myself that we're all discussing the benefits of smoking in this game. In real life, pipe weed gives you cancer...in LOTRO a finesse bonus!

I like all the idea's and I think some of them are great. However I hate the idea of carrying around another item in my bags to use for the beggining of a fight.

With that the best idea's in my opinion are the OCMR and OCPR or the replacment of what the hope token does. This way it's either not fully needed or replaces something i already carry.

However the idea of mit bonus's is nice but we do have scrolls for those...

I don't think finesse would be a big deal or game breaker, but in reality this would only be good for the tanks in groups as most of the other guys are behind the lines and should be hit anyway.

I like the dread removal proposed by a couple of above posters. Higher teirs of pipe weed will remove more dread, but have it on a ten minute cooldown. You can use it to get you to neutral dread/hope and then use your hope token to go into positive territory.

I agree, but I think with all the political correctness out there now days, Turbine won't do anything with it other then what we see now in-game. It would be like promoting smoking - tobacco or Mary Jane ..... I have my fingers crossed tho

Originally Posted by Hoolygen

I agree, but I think with all the political correctness out there now days, Turbine won't do anything with it other then what we see now in-game. It would be like promoting smoking - tobacco or Mary Jane ..... I have my fingers crossed tho

You do know we KILL things in this game right!?