What is Gandalf's magic? An ability to rouse the spirit.
So is a bard's in a D&D context. And perhaps others. The point is that there is a supernatural component, even if it is presented in a subtle, naturalistic way.
And do you also count Grima Wormtongue as a magician?
I always did, though it seems ambiguous to me. It's also pretty clear that Saruman and Grima's actions were intertwined.
Treating what Gandalf did as analogous to casting Remove Curse in D&D seems to me to miss the underlying dynamic of the episode (although the movie version portrayed it more along these lines).
Clearly, LotR magic is not well represented by the Vancian model. It is not manifested in terms of discrete spells, and its effects may be more subtle and subjective. However, I think it's abundantly clear that even a very skilled human could not do the things he does.
There are a range of issues around building this sort of stuff into an RPG.
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In my view the change of relationship between fictional time and real time for the playing out of an arc is a function primarily of medium, not underlying thematic weight.
I'm pretty much in agreement with that. I like a variety of different basic approaches to natural healing and damage to cover the variety of functions one might want in an rpg. I vary pace tremendously just in my own games, and I imagine others do too.
As for instantaneous healing, there are multiple episodes in LotR that could play out in healing terms in 4e. For instance, Merry is paralysed by fear of the WitchKing, but then is moved to act by Eowyn's bravery - in 4e this would be psychic damage (plus dazing, perhaps) with an inspirational effect from Eowyn then restoring the hp lost to pyshic damage (and/or granting a save vs the daze).
In general I think those types of things are clearly conditions, rather than damage. Psychic damage (in pre-4e D&D anyway) often comes with those sorts of conditions.
Nonmagical condition recovery (as opposed to hp recovery) is a topic that hasn't been broached in this thread, but is interesting.
All "healing" means in this context is "restoration of hit points" (it is the counterpart of "damage" which means "loss of hit points", even when that does not correlate to physical harm, as per psychic damage in 4e or psionically-deal damage in AD&D).
They do, however, correlate to some type of harm. Nonphysical harm often lasts longer than physical harm.
The idea of classes as careers isn't the only take on them.
No, but the distinction I was keying on is that leadership/inspiration is generally not the prime requisite from day one of any archetypical character, though it is often a secondary aspect or something that develops over time. Regardless of whether you look at it as a career or a path, a class is something that a character starts in his late teens or early twenties (or equivalent for nonhumans).
There are certainly fictional barbarians, for example, who might fit the common-language definition of a warlord, but would clearly be of the barbarian class. The Eye of Gruumsh prestige class is one obvious example. Or in real-world terms, there are certainly military officers who are inspirational leaders or great tacticians, but they are still soldiers first. I'm not against leadership, and I tend to think that game rules overemphasize the physical at the expense of the mental. But I still don't see that a base class does any good.
