Because the militia doesn't cost 2 gold each. They're all equipped, and armoured, and trained, and fed, all by this lord. Heck, leather armour and crossbows, we're talking 2,500 gold invested already. They're an investment in keeping order in the town. He can't have them traipsing off into the wilderness all the time.
No, but the Baron has alredy paid the equipment (and in all fairness, if they are militia, they probably came with their own weapons. That's why they are militia, not professional soldiers).
In any case:
And if that's the case, why hire 1st level adventurers to clear out a kobold den, when clearly 50 trained militia could? Because it's a game, and so the plot is developed to give a reason why. It doesn't mean that the 50 guards couldn't do it.
EXACTLY. And that's the reason they can survive 12 crossbows as well.
On the flip side, if the town guard can't fight off a couple of manticores, why is the town still around and not razed to the ground by them already? Something must be preventing them. Perhaps the acknowledgement that arrows can hurt and kill, especially when a lot are being shot at you.
That's easy. Because of adventurers
. Which is the way the game is developed to have a plot reason, as you said 2 minutes ago.
Sure did. Notice he didn't say a baby D&D troll. While we can keep going back and forth, drawing parallels, the fact is that D&D does not emulate Middle Earth. Inspired in some ways, certainly, but that's about all. So why is your troll any more acceptable than mine?
That's a moot point. You could assing that baby troll whatever CR you want in D&D, yes. He could be a baby troll 25 level solo. Just like Smaug could be a lvl 4 minion and a LotR rat could be level 30 elite. That does not make any sense, however. If you judge a troll like the one in the book/film, by D&D standards, it's no more than CR 4-5. It does not have the size, or the strength, or the resiliance, of a Giant. It is not tougher than a D&D troll (it does not even regenerates). It's not invulnerable, have no magic, does not fly...
And it's not a bunch of low levels. We even agreed that Gandalf is level 27 at least, and he's running from the low level goblins just as much as the others.
Just like Fizban did in Dragonlance. Because he is a NPC controlled by DM, a plot device who is there to give advice and some nice plot hooks. He is able to go toe to toe with Balrogs, go figure.
I don't want to really limit my game. I'd prefer access to levels and abilities. Obviously, a Middle Earth D&D would be a heavily modified version of the game. You could model it by limiting leveling, or you can redefine what the levels represent in respect to the world being modelled. You prefer the first method, I prefer the second, neither is wrong.
The problem is level and abilities make the characters break the LotR inmersion. At 15 level, in D&D, a fighter can put his full plate, jump, and break the world record. That's not believable in LotR. There are two ways to avoid that:
a) forbid the player to be 15th level
b) forbid the player to have the skills, abilities, powers and feats of a 15th level character.
Both are actually the same, the second one just disguises it. It's like saying "you are 15th level, but you have skills max as a 6th level char. You can have spells, but you are limited to 6 caster levels. You have hit points, but not too much, aproximatedly like a 6th level character. But hey, I allow you to be 15th level. I am so much generous than E6, am I not?
Sure, but for game purposes, the dragons may as well be ancients.
I think I do not make my point across. There's no way Aragorn could kill a dragon, being ancient or not. If a Portal is open between Middle Earth and GreyHawk, Aragorn travels to GreyHawk, he could not defeat a regular, normal adult dragon. If the Fellowship finds an ice trapped normal, adult dragon in a iceberg, Captain America style, he couldn't defeat either. The martial prowess Tolkien gives him in his description is not just enough. A dragon, regular, normal, would eat several baby trolls for lunch. Aragorn can't. They aren't even in the same league. Drizzt Do Urden, however, can defeat dragons. Beowulf can, as well. Or Sigfried. Sir Lancelot could defeat dragons. Achilles could, for sure. Or Cuchulain, or Bhima. Elric of Melnibone could defeat dragons too. Aragorn can't, for the same reasons Jon Snow can't either. It's not their league.
It's not like D&D can support a character like Feonor either, as even a level 30 character couldn't take on platoons of level 27 elites. But the First and Second ages are different scales. The balrogs then were likely paragon threats to Feonor's epicness.
That's true. Feoner would be like 35+.
Hoewever, there are other characters in LotR who aren't first age. Let's take a look to them. If, in your opinion, Aragorn is paragon (around 10th level in 3.5, or around 15th or so in 4e)... what level are then Elrohir and Elladan, Elrond's sons?. What level is Celeborn? What's the level of Glorfindel then? What's the level of Khamul the Dragon Lord? Or the Witch King? Or Elrond himself? It's simply impossible to fill them in the same scale, if Aragorn is 15th level.
I do think it's little. My current 4E character has leveled up to 8 in less than a month game time. It's never taken a character of mine 10 years to go up a level. So why wouldn't I think a seasoned adventure of 50 years would have a good number of levels under his belt?
Background is not adventure. Aragorn is a dunedain, a long lived character. He has being adventurign for 50 years. I once made a lvl 1 elf character who was 200 years old and had been adventuring for a century. That does not change the adventure itself, it's background, in D&D terms. The adventure starts when Frodo takes the ring from Bilbo.
Why couldn't Aragorn kill 12 archers? He certainly kills multitudes of orcs, and we've been equating low level bowmen to low level orcs.
Because his character isn't described badass enough to dodge arrows. However, let's assume he does. Isn't exactly that your problem? That you find unbelievable that characters survive 12 shots?
My comments on Achilles were in relation to the movie rendition as well. Hence my comments that if a character has never been hit before (as the movie Achilles is presented as), then sure, he wouldn't be concerned by the bowmen.
But PCs have been hit and hurt by arrows likely a dozen times over, maybe even brought to near death by them. Why shouldn't they then still be concerned about bows?
Remember, hit points also represent dodges, etc. In that scene, Achilles character maybe has 350 hp and the Dm is describing him dodging the arrows, getting a bit of fatigue and nothing else.
Hrm ... I seem to remember Leonidas and Co. being concerned about the rain of arrows on them, else they wouldn't have bothered with shielding themselves. They also weren't expecting to survive, it was a matter of stubborn honour and of how many enemies they could drag down with them.
I don't see the difference. The PC might have shields too.
Again, I'm not saying that higher level PCs should go running and crying when some guards point bows at them. All I'm wanting is for there to be a perception that this is a dangerous situation. If all the characters are cocky badasses, then sure, the guardsmen aren't a concern. For a grittier kind of mindset, like say LotR or 300, the characters should be going into things feeling like it could be their last.
for those, it's better to use a system that does not use levels. Or use levels, but in a different way, not a way that implies that when you are 20th, you kill ancient wyrms and balors.
Maybe not everyone's cup of tea, but it's the D&D style that I prefer playing. It's not likely something to be fully achieved in D&D, since in the end 'save or die' and insta-deaths are usually not fun.
I agree with that. There are systems that get this kind of gritty systems (and actually I enjoy a few of them). In Legends of the Five Ring, for most characters, 1 hit is almost 1 ko. Nobody will laugh at 12 bows. Nobody.
However, D&D isn't well suited for that. You could suit it, or a d20 variant, but the cost is getting Balors, Ancient Dragons and beholders out. You can't make a 12th level character who can survive a Beholder, but is scaried of 12 goblins with shortbows. It just does not float.
