Okay, me again:
The more I think about it (I did think about it today at work, so I am a pseudo-gamer
), the more I like the idea. If you are interested in it, I am willing to help you devellop it. It's about the character classes.
As I already said it's IMO a bad option to have restricted DnD (as it is to have full DnD) classes in a LotR campaign. The fact is that your proposal restricts players to warrior types (and barbarians or paladins are not very LotR IMO) plus rogue. I understand the no-spellcaster rule (and indeed it could make for a refreshing change after years of DnD...), but only-warriors is not very exciting.
So basically I suggest doing a special set of classes derived from d20 modern concept. For the basic classes, let's get inspiration from DARK LORE:
(Excerpt from Dark Lore review on d20 Review)
The fourth chapter goes into the basic classes. Like d20 Modern each is associated with a single attribute. The classes the books has are the Warrior (Strength), Thief (Dexterity), Outlander (Constitution), Scholar (Intelligence), Devout (Wisdom), and Destined (Charisma). Each class is ten levels in length and have many talent trees as options to them. The classes are very flexible and can be used to create a wide assortment of different concepts. With the free multi classing the flexibility is increased dramatically.
Note that these classes don't cast spells, but are based on different concepts, not just combat. Then, there would be prestige classes directly inspired from LotR / Bilbo the Hobbit:
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Ranger: 10 level class based on no-magic DnD ranger, but maybe try to something more in spirit of Ranger of the North as decribed by Tolkien.
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Knight: for Dol Amroth knights and the like.
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Horserider: for Rohirrims and the like.
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Bearsaker: for Beorning shapechangers; class inspired from AU Totem Warrior - bear.
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Archer: for Legolath-like characters.
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Wood Watcher: for Lothorien elven guardians.
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Burglar: for Bilbo like characters.
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Bard: a non-magical bard, an expert in ancient history and riddles, etc.
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Orcslayer: a class of choice among dwarves! Probably that Gimli got that class during his LotR quest.
- And other that I cannot think of right now.
There is many OGC classes and prestige classes that can be used to ease work and not reinventing the wheel. I have lot of DnD OGC files, that could be put to contribution. However, the real work is to describe these classes (I don't like prestige classes that only propose game mechanics, but no real background descriptions). If you could do it, I would be glad to help you with compiling / editing / etc. the game mechanics. Note that English is not my native language, so it's hard for me to do such kind of literacy (much more than write forum posts!).
So if you are interested, just contact me.