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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JohnSnow" data-source="post: 3868674" data-attributes="member: 32164">I'm quite mindful of Tolkien not being aware of D&Disms. However, in response to your post I looked up the line. I was mistaken, the line is Gandalf's and it's in referense to the threat they present to Sauron.Imrahil of Dol Amroth is commenting on the "jest" of riding forth to face Sauron with only seven thousand knights. He is corrected by Gandalf:"There are names among us that are worth more than a thousand mail-clad knights apiece."We can debate this until the cows come home. Many people think Aragorn can be properly represented by a low level fighter. I beg to differ.Except that his capabilities in his own world bear that out. No, Tolkien's world isn't a D&D world, but if you were to render Middle-Earth as a D&D world (wonkiness of wizards aside), we need to consider the facts.Aragorn is 87 years old. He has been fighting and learning the ways of battle since he was 20. He hunts orcs with ease. He slays them at will. The difference is that orcs are actually treated as a danger to him - although I'll point out that he's never seriously injured in the story - something which could be chalked up to him having a LOT of "hit points" (in D&D terms).He is also one of the few who can ride openly against the Nine and stand against them in open battle. The others are Glorfindel, Gandalf, the sons of Elrond and MAYBE some other Elves and Rangers. That's a pretty short list - and some of the people on it are scarily powerful.The Nine are wraiths who cannot be easily defeated in battle. If anything, they're more powerful than Death Knights. Their Captain, protected as he is by the power of Sauron, can't be slain by a living man. Gandalf could face all nine of them and survive, but not triumph, only flee. The point is that they are dangerous foes even for the most powerful beings in Middle-Earth.Aragorn, using fire, drives them off. They don't leave 'cuz their task is accomplished. They leave because he drives them away from Frodo "wielding a flaming brand in either hand." So Aragorn may not be able to beat the Nazgul, but he can fight them - in reasonable numbers with the right weapons. There's a suggestion that they're vulnerable to fire.What "level" is reasonable for a several thousand year old elf? What "level" is a devil or demon like the Balrog? What "level" is an angel, since that's basically what Gandalf is? D&D defines that. As such, Middle-Earth must be considered in light of that information.You have two choices - bump Aragorn up to a reasonable level, or diminish the maximum level of the most dangerous beings. And I would counter your comment about "power inflation" thusly. Just because someone's not flashy doesn't mean he's weak. A thousand foes slain in single combat is a thousand foes slain in single combat. And Aragorn's probably passed that number a dozen times over.I'm not arguing that Aragorn is a 20th-level character by any stretch. But 10th-13th? Yeah, based on how he's presented in his own world, I'd bet on that.As for magic, Middle Earth basically lacks completely what I call D&D's "flashy powers" -  like teleportation, reversal of death, mind-reading, and (for the most part) flight. You can use that to fix the level of spells at 2nd or whereever, or you can just realize that Tolkien, as an author, recognized the narrative difficulty posed by those powers and decided to leave them out of his narrative.It amuses me that this level issue comes up so frequently with The Lord of the Rings, but not with older myths. I certainly don't hear anybody arguing that King Arthur is  a 5th-level fighter....</blockquote>

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