Middle-Earth 4.0

[mattador]

Mithril shirt wasn't that great... Troll took down Frodo with a single hit. He was fine afterwards because he got to use a bunch of healing surges after the fight...

To WHW4, if you have any MERP campaign info that you're planning to translate to 4E could you post it here? For example, Noldor Elves are very much just like Eladrin, but would you substitute some other ability for their Fey Step? Would you make Dunedain exactly as humans or would they have some other stat adjustments? I'm just curious.

 

[garyh]

Mithril shirt wasn't that great... Troll took down Frodo with a single hit. He was fine afterwards because he got to use a bunch of healing surges after the fight...

To WHW4, if you have any MERP campaign info that you're planning to translate to 4E could you post it here? For example, Noldor Elves are very much just like Eladrin, but would you substitute some other ability for their Fey Step? Would you make Dunedain exactly as humans or would they have some other stat adjustments? I'm just curious.

I'd suggest making the Dunedain Half-Elves in 4e terms. It sets them off from regular Men nicely, and they do have elvish blood. Plus, it's not like you really need to save the actual Half-Elf race for Elrond, he's more of an Eladrin after his choice to be an elf anyway.

 

[WHW4]

To WHW4, if you have any MERP campaign info that you're planning to translate to 4E could you post it here? For example, Noldor Elves are very much just like Eladrin, but would you substitute some other ability for their Fey Step? Would you make Dunedain exactly as humans or would they have some other stat adjustments? I'm just curious.

Our DM was planning to use Eladrin for the Noldor; we didn't discuss the fey step specifically, although had a PC chosen that race I'm sure we would have tackled it. I can't see it being horribly out of place. Tolkien hints at alot of magic that the reader doesn't really see, it could just be one more aspect of otherworldliness they possess. You could flavor it to whatever you imagined.

Thought I'd give an update, since this topic managed to stay on the first page. We began in the Iron Hills, and were sent by none other than Dain Ironfoot himself to investigate the areas and interlopers surrounding the much dreaded Lonely Mountain. This was to be a scouting mission only. Our first session went well, we had a dwarf warlord, a dwarf barbarian, a dwarf fighter (me), and a longtooth shifter rogue. Let me explain that last one, heh.

Tolkien talks about skin changers, and even mentions werewolves a couple of times. This is where I love that he hasn't written everything out in too much detail. The shifter is one of a very low population race that lives in Mirkwood, and was found when only a toddler by my dwarf, who himself was a refugee from Lonely Mountain. He has adopted the shifter as his pseudo-child and instilled in her all things dwarven. We may investigate finding her relatives/race in a future arc.

The changes we made (+1 Def/Atk/Dmg per 5 lvls, and keeping masterwork armor at stated cost but waiving the "enchantment") seemed to work well at the 6th level we decided to start at. We faced challenges equal to our level (as the DM was new with the 4th monsters) and did well, with only one close call when our barbarian was set upon by a shadar-kai controller (reflavored as a "conjuror of cheap tricks" ) and his henchmen.

All in all, we had a blast and never missed our magic items. We worked out that when magic items make their appearance they will just be using properties from weapons, handpicked by the DM to insure balance.

Oh, and although regenerating trolls aren't usual Tolkien fare, we've decided to leave things as whole-cloth as possible. Therefore we were much afraid to hear some trolls might be haunting the ruins of Dale, and promptly bought Lake-town out of alchemist's fire.

 

[Palladion]

Oh, and although regenerating trolls aren't usual Tolkien fare, we've decided to leave things as whole-cloth as possible. Therefore we were much afraid to hear some trolls might be haunting the ruins of Dale, and promptly bought Lake-town out of alchemist's fire.

If I recall, Tolkien's trolls turned to stone by sunlight (from The Hobbit). Maybe vulnerability to radiant damage or even something akin to the beholder eye tryant (MM 32) petrifying ray?

 

[WHW4]

If I recall, Tolkien's trolls turned to stone by sunlight (from The Hobbit). Maybe vulnerability to radiant damage or even something akin to the beholder eye tryant (MM 32) petrifying ray?

Some of the trolls do, yes; then again some don't. Again, I like how Tolkien didn't have an exhaustive list of every quality of every beastie - gives a DM alot of wiggle room.

Our DM usually decides what creatures/badguys we fight based on two things - firstly, in an established campaign setting like Middle-Earth, location is considered. Secondly, our level. It's a close second though.

I would imagine we will encounter hill-trolls if we encounter any at all.

Oh, thought I'd share an interesting occurence. A raven (one of the intelligent, yet non-talking kind) followed us from the Iron Hills to act as a messenger between our expedition leader (one of Durin's line) and Dain. Once in Lake-town we decided send this guy off ahead of us to possibly contact the ravens who inhabited the Ravenhill guard tower on the slopes of the Lonely Mountain. We made our way north en route to Ravenhill the next morning, intending to get the ravens to help us scout the area safely and give us any information we'd need. It never came back to us during the journey there, and when we arrived at the tower there were no ravens anywhere. We slept in the ruins of the guard tower and were attacked in the dead of night by the cursed remains of the dwarves who fell defending that place from Smaug. We prevailed and buried them with honor.

Rest well, brothers.

But the mystery remains; where be those ravens?

Maybe we could get this thread moved, I'm not trying to stray off topic and we've kind of moved off of the rules side of things.

 

[rabath]

Tolken did more than Hint, Beorn from the Hobbit is a shapeshifter though he becomes a bear. Sauron prior being stuck in th elidless eye form could adopt almost any guise.

Even with out Magic, Items made by Mastersmith of Noldorian or Dwarven background should be better than just plain master-work items imho.

 

[monboesen]

Then let me bring it back to rules issues.

I am more or less in the same boat as your DM. We use Iron Heroes rules and have for some years, but though the system is great at creating very diverse fighter type characters, I find it less ideal as a DM.

Like your DM I find 4ed's more laid back and creative approach to monsters easier to work with and IMO it results in more interesting combats.

My solution has been to scrap all Iron Heroes rules for monsters and adopt a 4ed mindset. So I now assign monster stats according to monster role (brutes dont have great attack bonuses, but do a lot of damage when they hit etc.), use encounter powers and the recharge mechanic and steal lots of monster power ideas from the 4ed Monster Manual.

So far it has worked out great. My players are happy that they can keep playing their beloved characters (several are casual players and not keen on new rules) and I enjoy prepping for the game far more than before.

 

[vagabundo]

I remember Mike Mearls had a post somewhere detailing how to rip out magic items.

I cannot, for the life of me, remember where.

 

[WHW4]

My solution has been to scrap all Iron Heroes rules for monsters and adopt a 4ed mindset. So I now assign monster stats according to monster role (brutes dont have great attack bonuses, but do a lot of damage when they hit etc.), use encounter powers and the recharge mechanic and steal lots of monster power ideas from the 4ed Monster Manual.

Interesting, as I plan on running an Iron Heroes campaign sometime early next year and was really wanting to use some ideas from 4th edition monsters. My problem though is coming up with level equivilent powers. Did you kind of make Brutes, Soldiers, etc. as a sort of villain class, like they have already? Also on the powers, did you go with something the monster had already (of a higher or lower level), or did you use the action zone rules to get a similar effect?

I don't dislike making 3.5 monsters, per se, it's just I hate having to remember feats and stuff for three-five different types of critters. The feat mastery system kind of made it harder on that end of the screen (although as a player I absolutely love it).