Middle-Earth 4.0

[Palladion]

Honestly you can probably keep the magic items as long as you reflavour them or remove the flashier effects. LotR doesn't have much magic but oh look, this sword was forged my men of Numinor and now you can cut through undead like butter. This armour light as silk but that doesn't prevent it stopping a hit from a troll.

And make identifying them (for those that adhere to those rules strictly) more a function of History than Arcana.

 

[rabath]

Magic items in middle earth

There are plenty of named items (mainly weapons) in Middle earth. though few might be magical in D&D terms. Both Orcrist and Glamdring both glowed near orcs (faint blue light). Anduril (Narsil reforged) burst into flames.

If you want a low magic campaign consider as has been suggested with incremental bonuses, but away to deal with it is increasing levels of masterwork items. eg th items give the same effect as magical weapons but with non magical bonuses.

There are few creatures that will be resistant to weapons requiring magic to hit. Those few that are are well known eg Ringwraith/Nazgul, maybe the Balrog of Moria but you can use the Balor as a model for it.

Most items of note will be Dwarven or Noldorian elves. However you will find items of Westernesse (Made by Numenoreans). However one way of getting some to the DM's side of the screen can be done via Sauron when was smithing amongst the Noldor with Celimbor. Or even through Dragons conquering dwarven mines - or even out of Moria. This is entirely plausible as Sauron was the right hand of Morgoth/Melkor so there will be a connection which will result in those beings helping him. Tolkien even hints at this in his work.

All up there are ways to give non magical bonus items in middle earth, with out moving away from Tolkien, just be careful when considering using named items by Tolkien.

 

[ShaggySpellsword]

I've done similar things. My magic item houserules:

All characters receive a +1 awesome bonus to damage, attacks, and all defenses at level 3. This bonus goes up by 1 every 5 levels. They also gain a +1d6 crit bonus per +1 awesome bonus they have.

All characters gain a bad-ass bonus to wearing armor at paragon tier and again at epic tier equal to the appropriate masterwork material bonus.

There is no more craft magic item ritual, instead, it is replaced by a bunch of individual magic item creation rituals--1 per magic item at the level the magic item first appears. That way, it's a big deal if a craftsman learns "craft flaming sword."

Eliminate all enhancement bonuses from all magic items. If they have bonuses that ramp-up with higher-level versions, instead they just ramp up when the wielder hits the higher level. If they modify the critical dice of weapons, then they modify whichever dice your awesome bonuses grants you. That way, if you get a flaming sword at level 3, it can stay with you all your adventuring career.

The DM then just controls which rituals are availible and which magic items are availible. All magic items can be very special, no character NEEDS magic items, and the math is not thrown out of whack.

For a Middle Earth twist, I might even cut magic item creation from Ritual Casting and create a new feat--Magic Item Craft.

 

[Grimstaff]

Cool stuff WHW4!

If you want to further restrict magic in the game you could require all non-martial classes to be multi-class only.

I could see Gandalf as a high level Warlord/Arcane Initiate...

 

[Talysian]

I've done similar things. My magic item houserules:

All characters receive a +1 awesome bonus to damage, attacks, and all defenses at level 3. This bonus goes up by 1 every 5 levels. They also gain a +1d6 crit bonus per +1 awesome bonus they have.

All characters gain a bad-ass bonus to wearing armor at paragon tier and again at epic tier equal to the appropriate masterwork material bonus.

There is no more craft magic item ritual, instead, it is replaced by a bunch of individual magic item creation rituals--1 per magic item at the level the magic item first appears. That way, it's a big deal if a craftsman learns "craft flaming sword."

Eliminate all enhancement bonuses from all magic items. If they have bonuses that ramp-up with higher-level versions, instead they just ramp up when the wielder hits the higher level. If they modify the critical dice of weapons, then they modify whichever dice your awesome bonuses grants you. That way, if you get a flaming sword at level 3, it can stay with you all your adventuring career.

The DM then just controls which rituals are availible and which magic items are availible. All magic items can be very special, no character NEEDS magic items, and the math is not thrown out of whack.

For a Middle Earth twist, I might even cut magic item creation from Ritual Casting and create a new feat--Magic Item Craft.

This is how I've been doing my game as well, it seems to work out pretty well, except for the first level the pc's get the new plus, that seemed like a huge power boost. My group is just about to get the second plus so we shall see how that goes. The only problem is I have no reason to really give out $ as my group is kinda on an epic journey...

 

[Wepwawet]

This is how I've been doing my game as well, it seems to work out pretty well, except for the first level the pc's get the new plus, that seemed like a huge power boost. My group is just about to get the second plus so we shall see how that goes. The only problem is I have no reason to really give out $ as my group is kinda on an epic journey...

And what do you do with treasure? How much and when do you give treasure to your players?

 

[WHW4]

And what do you do with treasure? How much and when do you give treasure to your players?

Well, since Iron Heroes doesn't really use up alot of gold and if you go by the standard treasure rules, we always found something else to invest in. In fact we found an abandoned keep in contested territory and set up shop. We began paying for labor and upkeep, hired on some guards and craftsmen and are sinking money for fortification upgrades and new earthworks around the place. We also had to set up trade with local villages and pledge our small garrison of troops to their defense in the event of Orcs coming out of the Mountains of Mist (which they were, 2800 Third Age was when alot of orcs entered Rohan, which our keep is situated just north of)

Albeit we are rebooting the campaign to try it with 4th edition rules, I would assume we would try something similar. A base of operations makes our group really feel connected, and it's a great money sink. It may not be anything he can use for his epic campaign, but it's one idea I'd feel I could toss out there.

Back to our game though, I honestly don't know how to resolve the masterwork armor costs though. It seems like a HUGE power jump from one level to the next when you'd gain access to them (I think layered plate is accessable at +2 enhancement?) So you'd be gaining an AC point from that as well as one from a level possibly, and it would only get worse as it got further along. Myself and another player are going to sit down and discuss it with the DM tonight and see what we can work up.

I don't mind a challenge, but part of the reason our DM wanted to go to 4th is because of the ease with which the monsters play out in combat (something he has trouble tracking sometimes) and building challenging foes for our group was a little much for him under 3.5 IH. He would either build something too low or something way too difficult, and he doesn't have an infinite amount of spare time. I guess we kind of want to have our cake and eat it too, which is exactly what Ie xpect when I own cake.

 

[BendBars/LiftGates]

You could just consider a different interpretation of magic items. They're not the World of Warcraft "fire streaming from your gem-studded axe" items. But the barrow-knives that the hobbits carried for almost the entirety of the Lord of the Rings were "magic" items. Legolas certainly had some kind of elven magic woven into his bow, and he probably got a higher-level item from Galadriel. I would guess that any weapon with a name (Theoden's sword Herugrim, Eomer's sword Guthwine, Bard's Black Arrow) is deserving of some magic, as it was made by elves or dwarves or Numenoreans or whatever. Then there are weapons that are clearly magic: Orcrist, Glamdring, Sting, etc. Then there are weapons that are clearly high-powered magic items: Narsil, Anduril, Grond.

The Lord of the Rings included plenty of magic items that have continued on through the generations of D&D: elven rope, boots and cloaks of elvenkind, elven chainmail. It's just that they're subtler. Even the most famous magic item in all of modern fantasy, The Ring, never shot lasers or gave anyone a +28 damage to Ice attacks.

 

[Falling Icicle]

Instead of giving players the + bonuses from magic items as part of their regular stats, you could instead have magic items "grow" with their wielder. For example, let's say a character gets a magic sword. At level 1, it gives him a +1, at level 6 it goes up to +2, and so on. The higher level the character gets, the higher level the items he uses are treated as.

This idea makes sense to me because it seems that in Middle Earth, magic items seem to be more or less powerful depending upon who uses them. The One Ring in the hands of Sauron is the ultimate magic item, making him almost godlike in power, while in the hands of an inexperienced hobbit it merely grants invisibility.

And of course, as others have said, magic items are much, much, much less common. You don't see magic-marts or people pawning off all the +1 "junk" items they've accumulated in an adventure. All magic items are more like artifacts in that world in their rarity, mystery and sentimental value. Even the weakest magical sword is priceless. Practically every magic item has a name and legend. Heck, Frodo's non-magical mithral shirt was a gift fit for a king! I often wish D&D treated magic items that way.

 

[Danceofmasks]

Yeah, but considering what that mithral shirt could do, it's mechanically equivalent to an awesome D&D magic item.