How to describe Strider's combat on Weathertop

[Wicht]

They didn't lose their shape, they lost their mounts. The horses were trained to bear them and died in the river. They had to return to Sauron to retrieve new mounts, as normal horses would not bear them. The fear effect is a two-edged sword in that regard.

"Eight out of the Nine are accounted for at least," said Gandalf, "It is rash to be too sure, yet I think that we may hope now that the Ringwraiths were scattered, and have been obliged to return as best they could to their Master in Mordor, empty and shapeless."
-The Ring Goes South, The Fellowship of the Ring

 

[Desdichado]

CH: I agree that d20 is a fine vehicle to translate the setting. The CODA system itself was an already existing system that was coopted to do it (as the BRP was coopted to do CoC, and that system was fairly widely regarded as being quite appropriate for that setting.) For my money, with d20 CoC, the Wheel of Time, Star Wars, Spycraft, etc. I've become convinced that d20 with some modifications can handle any genre as well as any other system. However, d20 and D&D are not the same thing. If you can wrap your mind around it, you can make D&D classes seem Middle-earthy enough, but as the classes were not designed with that model in mind, it's a bit of a leap. Personally, I think the classes need at the very least a new spell list, but preferably they turn into something more similar to the Sovereign Stone magic classes, or even the Star Wars Force Adept class, or something like that.

LV: I agree that Fellowship of the Ring was the premier fantasy movie of 2001, and has a claim, at least, on being the premier fantasy movie to date. However, that doesn't mean that every single aspect of it should be translated to a D&D game. Personally, I thought the combat scenes were among the more poorly done aspects of LOTR, as the camera angles and such were not conducive to the viewer even seeing what was going on half the time. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's a fine question to ask and all that, but I'm a bit surprised to hear you say you want to adapt LOTR combat into your game. I sure wouldn't want to do that. As much as I like LOTR (and those who's seen me post on this board for a while now know that I really like Tolkien discussions of any kind) I'm not trying to retell it, even when I'm playing in Middle-earth as my camaign setting.

 

[Lord Vangarel]

Joshua Dyal: I'm not attempting to retell any portion of the film/book. What I do think is a good idea is that if a scene seems exciting then by looking at it in D&D terms may allow me to make my combats more exciting. For example, were the Ringwraiths forced to retreat by Strider doing some nice move or did they retreat for roleplaying reasons, i.e. they'd done their task and didn't want to face a potentially powerful foe at that time?

By finding the answer to the above I can either add a cool combat maneuver to the game (mad sword swinging reduces attack roll but forces everyone back) or I can think more about monster motivations. Now I admit I should be thinking like this all the time!

 

[Desdichado]

OK, good point. Sorry for the misconstrued intentions. Thought you were a fanboy for a minute there! Uh, j/k.

 

[mmadsen]

Personally, I thought the combat scenes were among the more poorly done aspects of LOTR, as the camera angles and such were not conducive to the viewer even seeing what was going on half the time.

True. Of course, that's true of just about any Hollywood movie. Wider, easier-to-follow fight scenes require actors with some real stunt-fighting skill (as in Hong Kong). Editing together countless, hard-to-follow, tight shots is much easier.

 

[Desdichado]

Yes, but much less satisfying. [sigh] I sure do miss the days of Errol Flynn in Hollywood, let me tell you!

 

[mmadsen]

I sure do miss the days of Errol Flynn in Hollywood, let me tell you!

Something's wrong with the world when The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) isn't available on DVD! (King Kong too! Grrrr...But that's another topic...)

 

[Desdichado]

mmadsen, truer words were never spoken. And Captain Blood too!

 

[mmadsen]

I don't think any game could balance Noldor and, say, Hobbits, adequately. That is, no matter what system you use, some beings are just going to be more powerful from the start.

But game balance isn't simply about being equally powerful; it's about being equally powerful at the same level or for the same cost. Fortunately 3E provides an ECL mechanic, but we could probably just as easily make all Noldor high-level. They could have the same stats as mere Humans and still be super-powerful that way.

 

[Warchild]

It really is a matter of perception. I don't think any game could balance Noldor and, say, Hobbits, adequately. That is, no matter what system you use, some beings are just going to be more powerful from the start. So it's not really about the game system, in that regard.

I don't know about that. That is what templates were created to do and the ECL modifiers worked great for me and a friend of mine worked on the LOTR conversion. We didn't finish it as no one else in our groups were interested, but we did a lot of work in the couple weeks we worked on it. The different types of elves just had progressively higher tempalte penalties. I think the biggest was a +4 template cost.

Magic...I'm a firm believer in the concept that it's in how you describe it, and in spell lists. The spell list for the Decipher game we've seen has a lot of spell names that seem to evoke 3e counterparts. That list also seems to jibe with many spell lists proposed for a d20 ME conversion. I'd say that if one were so inclined, one could go through the d20 spells and rework some aspects (maybe make most of them require a verbal, singing component, for example). Adding in a fatigue element may not be all that necessary - you could look at the limited number of spell slots a caster has as also gauging how fatigued a spellcaster is. Same mechanic, slightly different way of looking at it. Use a system akin to what was found in the Wheel of Time RPG, or simply fold D&D spells into the Psionics system. The point is, the game mechanics of d20 can handle LotR magic; I think the problem lies in people's perceptions of what D&D magic is.

To some extent i agree, perception is the most powerful equation in the matter. But a ME conversion deserves its own take, i think. I was working on a skill-based system after i had the two resident ME-freaks explain how magic is supposed to work in ME.

Overall, I don't think LotR presents a massive problem for a d20 conversion. d20 has been used for a wide variety of settings so far, and a conversion of LotR doesn't require anything more radical to be done to the system than what has been done in Call of Cthulhu d20, Dragonstar, or one of the Polyhedron minigames.

I agree completely with you on this. Although i've adapted several of the D20 mechanics that Spycraft uses for my next "D&D" game. I like their mechanic modifications and think they are a very good improvement over the stock D&D rules. I would use them for a ME D20 conversion as well.

But hey! The d20 Middle Earth conversion site is still around. We could always use contributions! The link is in my sig.

I'm headed over there right now!