D&D 5E Using Adventures in Middle Earth rules in 5e without using Middle Earth

[lyle.spade]

I'd like to hear about how you're using the AiME rules (from both the PG and LMG) in 5e games that are not set in Middle Earth. I've 'ported classes, cultures, virtues, journeys, the shadow, and fellowship rules into a new homebrew world, as briefly described below.

• Classes: I replaced the barbarian, bard, fighter, ranger, and rogue with the slayer, warden, warrior, wandered, and treasure hunter, respectively. The other PHB classes are playable as written, with the exception of the warlock (not allowed - doesn't fit the world well). I like that the AiME classes I'm offering don't have magic options. This provides greater class niche protection, and is more like 1e, which in this case I like. Cleric, Druid, Monk, Paladin, Sorcerer, and Wizard are all available, IAW the PHB.
• Cultures/Races: The story is set, at least initially, in a kingdom that our play group created a few years ago, and I've added to the timeline by two centuries, providing new things and some familiar background. I am using some of the human cultures to represent the regional differentiation of people from around the realm, reskinning them with new names. Hobbits aren't part of the world, and so gnomes and halflings are RAW from the PHB. Half-orcs and half-elves are also RAW as from the PHB, and I reskinned the Elves of Mirkwood to be from the massive, ancient forest in this realm.
• Virtues: They're options available as provided in the AiME PG, along with PHB Feats or stat boosts every four levels.
• Journeys: Haven't use this system yet but I am eager to try it out in a few sessions once we get beyond the establishing shots of the campaign. I am marking the areas of the realm and around it in accordance with the Terrain Difficulty table (p176) and intend to use the rules as written.
• Fellowshp Phase: We've used online tools for extensive story-building between sessions, and also got a lot of mileage out of the kingdom-building system from PF's Kingmaker AP. I like that the Fellowship Phase focuses instead of character and party development, rather than politics and economics, and I think I'll use it as written.
• Shadow: Everyone's happy to have dumped alignment as a system, and we're all familiar with VtM's Humanity system, which the Shadow seems a lot like to me. I see no immediate need to alter the rules at all and will play them out as written.

Any thoughts from your end? Have you used any of these in a non-ME setting? Have you experienced any problems with them?

 

[BookBarbarian]

AiME offers a lot for any low magic setting. The Journey's and Audiences to a lot to improve the value of a character that is focused on the Exploration or Social pillars of the game. I also like how they split up the Human cultures as something in between the Variant and Non-Variant Human of the PHB.

The Wanderer is clearly a Spelless ranger, and in exchange for it's spells it gets great bonuses for the Journey system. Fair trade in my opinion. Treasure hunter and warrior are nearly interchangeable with the PHB Rogue and Fighter, minus the spellcasting options. Likewise the Slayer and the Barbarian, however I like the Foehammer subclass more than the magic based Totem Warrior, or the exhaust yourself to death Berserker.

My few nitpicks are as follows. Warden doesn't seem to have gotten much in exchange for being a Bard that lost full-Spellcasting. For my game I'm going to combine the Wardens Gift die from the class with the Battlemasters superiority dice. I'll probably split the Maneuvers from the PHB into three lists to match the subclass options.


Also I noticed you left the Scholar of of your list of AiME classes. I feel this one should be reworked as well. It feels like a Wizard/Cleric mashup that has no spells and not enough to make up for the lack of them. I'll probably give it a limited spellcasting based on the list of spells in the AiME Loremasters Guide. The one that lists which spells would probably be appropriate to work into Middle-Earth. I might make all spells only available to cast as rituals. I'm still working on that one.

All in all. I'm planing on running all my 5e games with this rule-set regardless of setting.

 

[lyle.spade]

Good points, and thanks for responding. I think the Warrior and Slayer both serve as interesting variants to their PHB versions, and fine substitutions for them, especially if low-magic is desired. For me, I want the niche protection for casters from other classes, and while the Eldritch Knight, for example, is pretty cool, I would rather keep the spells in the hands of traditional casters. I agree that the Warden could be seen as having been short-changed, and I like your house rule to address that.

I left the Scholar off intentionally for two reasons: I see no place for it in my campaign; and I agree with your assessment of it. It seems like an NPC class, and a good one at that, but not one that would add a lot to a party that experiences adventures that are balanced between the five pillars of 5e.

 

[BookBarbarian]

It totally makes sense to leave Scholar off for your games. I'll need it for running my Middle-Earth game since it's the only class that supports the Loremaster Gandalf or Elrond type character, but I definitely need to bring it up to par. Right now it's best ability seems to be "Get Information out of the DM" which works fine if you have a co-operative DM but sometimes you don't.

I've also thought about taking some cantrips, giving them more mundane descriptions and letting the scholar use those to beef up it's power.

Still a work in progress.

 

[GlassJaw]

Overall I liked the book a lot. Really high production values and lots of innovative ideas. The Journeys, Audiences and Fellowship rules are great and you can use them almost out of the box for even a "standard" 5E game.

The Shadow rules are well done as well and with some tweaking, could be applied to specific settings (like Ravenloft) or just to give your campaign a different feel.

Honestly my least favorite part of the book was the new classes and races (cultures). The cultures felt rather bland, especially the various humans. I also don't like that the feats (virtues) are primarily culture-specific. There are some good ones in the mix and feels like a lost opportunity for not opening up access more.

I'll echo what BookBarbarian said about some of the classes. Warden is cool; I really like the concept of a spell-less bard. But does feel like it's missing something. I think Book is on the right track with giving the Warden some kind of combat maneuver system.

The Treasure Hunter is my favorite class, and the Wanderer definitely has some things that I wish the core 5E Ranger had.

The Slayer suffers from lack of cohesive design or identity. It keeps the barbarian's unarmored defense and heavy armor restriction while raging. But then the Foe-Hammer path removes that restriction and gives further bonuses when wearing armor. The Rider path focuses on mounted combat. What if I don't want to wear armor and my character isn't trained in mounted combat? I don't dislike either path but there should have a been a third option.

The Scholar was the biggest disappointment for me as it was billed as the low-magic answer for 5E. In reality, it's a skill-monkey healer with no benefits in combat (aside from healing). I know AiME is not a combat-heavy setting but no unique combat abilities is a gross design oversight. The class doesn't feel very "Gandalf" to me either.

tl;rd - I would use the non-character rules almost as-is for any 5E campaign, low-magic or otherwise. My current is mostly new players so I haven't thrown more options at them yet but down the road I could see the Wanderer as a Ranger option (or substitute) and the Warden as the basis for a Warlord/Commander-esque class. Some paths could probably be added to the 5E classes without much difficulty too.

But for a low-magic campaign, there is still work to be done. AiME doesn't have any rules on variant casting systems and the Scholar doesn't come close to fulfilling that need.

 

[CapnZapp]

When AiM was first introduced, I got excited.

When I saw the final product, and realized this was not balanced and playtested enough, my excitement died.

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[lyle.spade]

It looks like the vote on the Scholar is "no," and I agree. I get that they were trying to make a Gandalf-esque character, but it falls flat. Unless the GM and that player worked well together, the information abilities of the class wouldn't work well, and as a healer it's pretty lame, too. I see it as an NPC class, as I said, but I long ago reached the point that I don't even stat out most of my NPCs - not unless they're going to be used in combat. There's no reason to waste time determining skill numbers and the like when you're going to plug in an NPC in a pre-decided manner.

 

[BookBarbarian]

Overall I liked the book a lot. Really high production values and lots of innovative ideas. The Journeys, Audiences and Fellowship rules are great and you can use them almost out of the box for even a "standard" 5E game.

The Shadow rules are well done as well and with some tweaking, could be applied to specific settings (like Ravenloft) or just to give your campaign a different feel.

Honestly my least favorite part of the book was the new classes and races (cultures). The cultures felt rather bland, especially the various humans. I also don't like that the feats (virtues) are primarily culture-specific. There are some good ones in the mix and feels like a lost opportunity for not opening up access more.

I'll echo what BookBarbarian said about some of the classes. Warden is cool; I really like the concept of a spell-less bard. But does feel like it's missing something. I think Book is on the right track with giving the Warden some kind of combat maneuver system.

The Treasure Hunter is my favorite class, and the Wanderer definitely has some things that I wish the core 5E Ranger had.

The Slayer suffers from lack of cohesive design or identity. It keeps the barbarian's unarmored defense and heavy armor restriction while raging. But then the Foe-Hammer path removes that restriction and gives further bonuses when wearing armor. The Rider path focuses on mounted combat. What if I don't want to wear armor and my character isn't trained in mounted combat? I don't dislike either path but there should have a been a third option.

The Scholar was the biggest disappointment for me as it was billed as the low-magic answer for 5E. In reality, it's a skill-monkey healer with no benefits in combat (aside from healing). I know AiME is not a combat-heavy setting but no unique combat abilities is a gross design oversight. The class doesn't feel very "Gandalf" to me either.

tl;rd - I would use the non-character rules almost as-is for any 5E campaign, low-magic or otherwise. My current is mostly new players so I haven't thrown more options at them yet but down the road I could see the Wanderer as a Ranger option (or substitute) and the Warden as the basis for a Warlord/Commander-esque class. Some paths could probably be added to the 5E classes without much difficulty too.

But for a low-magic campaign, there is still work to be done. AiME doesn't have any rules on variant casting systems and the Scholar doesn't come close to fulfilling that need.

Yeah, I agree with you completely here. Honestly, I think Unarmored Defense has no place in AiME except as maybe a Beorning Specific trait or virtue. Expanding the list of Open virtues would be a good idea too. There are lots of PHB Feats that could work. Of course since they weren't in the OGL Cubicle 7 couldn't put them into the game, so it looks like its up to us.

 

[BookBarbarian]

When AiM was first introduced, I got excited.

When I saw the final product, and realized this was not balanced and playtested enough, my excitement died.

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

I love AiME, but you're absolutely right. There is a lot that is unbalanced. A little while back on the Cubicle.7 forums I commented on how confusing the Multiclass rules in the LMG were. I was surprised when the Lead designer replied basically telling me that they expect us to try it out and give them feedback, and they could update it later.

So far it's looking like that's part of their design philosophy. Release quickly and adapt as the go. Almost like a Scrum Team.

There was quite a few bits of Errata and variant rules in the LMG, I wouldn't be surprised to see more Errata with all of their products coming out.

So yeah I do feel like I'm playtesting this for them now, but I'll keep adapting to what works best at my table, and raising a stink about thinks that I don't see working.

 

[lyle.spade]

So yeah I do feel like I'm playtesting this for them now, but I'll keep adapting to what works best at my table, and raising a stink about thinks that I don't see working.

I can see where you're coming from, to a point, but overall I don't think it's that extreme. I'm okay with a lack of supposed balance, anyway. I'm perfectly okay with, within reason (as defined by what my table and I like, since it's all personal, anyway), imbalance between classes and races. Life's full of it anyway - talent is not evenly distributed - and expressing that in different forms in the game is interesting.

I like that C7 is open to player feedback over time...after all, if their players are not happy with what they've produced, they lose business. They don't seem to be asserting that they are the keepers of what's ME in 5e, and that's a good position from which to work with such opinionated customers, as gamers are.

I may go back on some of my thoughts over time, which is fine, too - all I've done to date is read the stuff a lot, governed making some PCs, and ran one session. But so much of this at our tables and in these publishing houses is an iterative process, anyway. Fine by me,

I'd thought we were going to play tonight, so I'd have more add, like thoughts on my first use of the Journeys system, but two of my players can't make it, so unfortunately it'll be a few weeks before we can get together again, but after that we ought to be meeting weekly, so hopefully I'll have things to report on over time. If you're using these rules at your table, please add your thoughts on how they're working.