D&D 4E Rambling thoughts on 4e and Lord of the Rings.

[B.T.]

One of the things that I like about 4e is that it allows for variance among the various martial classes, which allows for a much lower-magic campaign (and thus makes it perfect for a LOTR-style game). The relative balancing of the classes works in this direction, as does the inclusion of non-magical healing. On the other hand, the prevalence of magical items and relatively inexpensive nature of such (worse than 3e) makes it harder to run a low-magic game using the starting rules (yes, I know there are low-magic variants elsewhere). In addition, the spellcasters that there are start off far more "epic" than their counterparts from 3e, which is a bit of a downer for me. (At-will spells, encounter spells, etc. My warpriest does radiant damage at-will and tosses out heals and saving throws like candy, while the hexblade in the party summons a magical necrotic flail and throws out eldrtich blasts at-will.)

But, to return to the original point, 4e does a lot right with the martial classes. The fighter, warlord, ranger, and rogue all play very differently in combat, and I think that such makes them more satisfying to play than the traditional 3e classes. In 3e, there isn't much support for a captain character, and the barbarian itself is almost the same as the fighter. Even the ranger is mostly a fighter with his feats chosen in advance. (The skill points and spells help, of course.)

D&D has never been Lord of the Rings, of course, but Gygax was influenced by the books. A lot of the "old guard" D&D players cite Lord of the Rings as being their "style" of game (anecdotal, so don't sperg out over this). 4e does a better job of supporting this than 3e, I think, and that's something that 5e should learn from. There are some obvious shortcomings with the 4e system, but making the martial characters more unique wasn't one of them. I think that 5e would do well to take this to heart, as having a LOTR-style game appeals to a number of gamers.

 

[Raith5]

Agree 100%. I was thinking about this when I saw the Hobbit. But it is not only the classes themselves which enable this - system proprieties like Second wind also enable that play style which is martial heavy but also cinematic.

One point I dont like about 4th ed is prescribed roles for certain classes - thankfully it broke down in later 4th and has been bundled off into specialties in DDN.

 

[Stormonu]

While I could see the entire escape from goblintown being done as a skill challenge, I don't see 4E doing any better of a job with LotR than any other edition.

D&D was inspired by a myriad of sources - LotR, Lankmar, Conan, Dying Earth, etc. D&D's strength isn't in how well it models LotR, but how well it lets you play any sort of fantasy.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

One of the things that I like about 4e is that it allows for variance among the various martial classes, which allows for a much lower-magic campaign (and thus makes it perfect for a LOTR-style game). The relative balancing of the classes works in this direction, as does the inclusion of non-magical healing. On the other hand, the prevalence of magical items and relatively inexpensive nature of such (worse than 3e) makes it harder to run a low-magic game using the starting rules (yes, I know there are low-magic variants elsewhere). In addition, the spellcasters that there are start off far more "epic" than their counterparts from 3e, which is a bit of a downer for me. (At-will spells, encounter spells, etc. My warpriest does radiant damage at-will and tosses out heals and saving throws like candy, while the hexblade in the party summons a magical necrotic flail and throws out eldrtich blasts at-will.)

Inherent bonuses aren't hard to understand. (One of my players swears he couldn't handle it without the Character Builder.)

But that wasn't the point you were trying to make. But if I can continue on that a bit, I'm not sure if most of the magic items made the heroes more "badass" (their bonuses being subsumed by inherent bonuses). Sting was more valuable for its warning than its stabbyness. Then again, Beater and Biter seemed pretty badass; they could have been higher-level. (I'm having a hard time picturing either weapon being so badass that they give better bonuses than Gandalf's inherent bonuses, but opinions probably differ on that.)

I think you could model Gandalf as a PC in 4e. You would make him probably a fighter, multiclassed (or hybridized, I guess) with invoker or some other controller class. I don't know how hybridization works, but if it gives him at-will magic abilities, avoid that!

He has the Ritual Caster feat. His skill with rituals is much more impressive than his skill at casting spells, although it's suggested/hinted that he didn't just blast or freeze orcs because that alerts Sauron. (I read somewhere that his ring of fire helped hide him from Sauron.)

LotR has one issue that doesn't work very well with D&D though: narrative combat. It's different in the movies somewhat, but in the books, most "combats" were actually puzzles.

The monsters were OP compared to the heroes, but if the hero could figure out the "catch", they could beat the monster. Aragorn facing the ringwraiths is an example of this. Aragorn couldn't defeat the ringwraiths in combat, but he knew they were terrified of fire (almost comically so), and so could scare them off with a couple of flaming brands. (He basically made an Arcana (?) and an Intimidate check to scare them off. It wasn't really a combat, but a skill challenge, with a failure resulting in combat. Unusually, the skill challenge's level was much less than the monsters' levels, but that's probably par for the course for Tolkien's writing style.)

Same with the trolls. They were much higher-level than the dwarves (in the books anyway, haven't seen the Hobbit movie), and easily defeated them. (Heck, most of the dwarves were probably minions!) Gandalf didn't take them on in combat, but instead took advantage of their almost comical stupidity, as well as their crippling weakness.

Gandalf taking on the goblins/orcs was much the same. Instead of blasting the orcs, Gandalf blinded them... and that was taking advantage of their light weakness, rather than using actual blinding spells, it seems.

I think this kind of thing would also make a Doctor Who game hard to do. You probably can't beat the Cybermen... unless you've got gold. You probably can't beat the Slitheen... unless you've got vinegar.

4e does a few other things right for LotR too. From what I recall, Gimli took a blow to the head and just kept on ticking. Someone spent a healing surge or two after that fight. But Frodo got stabbed by a Morghul-blade and didn't get better. He was basically suffering from a disease track-like curse, and even Aragorn couldn't actually treat the injury. (He could have used the Delay Affliction, which is 6th-level IIRC, non-core, and then let someone in Rivendell use Remove Affliction on him later.)

 

[S'mon]

I think 4e Martial classes can do very well emulating the feel of the LoTR movies. The books, not so much.

If I were doing it, I'd suggest martial classes only, but allow a few arcane and divine multiclass feats, eg Aragorn might be a TWF Ranger with Multiclass Paladin, Elrond a Fighter with multiclass Wizard. Ritual caster feat lets Elves et al use non-battle magic. Gandalf type wizards as PCs would be a problem, but there is no indication of mortal human Wizard types in the books. In the books Gandalf had an at-will burning hands type power, but that derived from him being an Angel wielding the Ring of Fire.

I'm not sure if I would use Inherent bonuses in a LoTR game; acquiring magic bling is such a big part of the books that an Heroic-Tier campaign would work fine without them. If I were going into Paragon & Epic tier though I would use Inherents to avoid the economy-distorting effects of the standard item system, where high level PCs are acquiring and spending hundreds of thousands of gp on gear.

 

[Derren]

One of the things that I like about 4e is that it allows for variance among the various martial classes, which allows for a much lower-magic campaign (and thus makes it perfect for a LOTR-style game).

And why do you need completely different classes for persons who do practically the same thing? Isn't the 3E fighter who can specialize not enough?

 

[B.T.]

Sting was more valuable for its warning than its stabbyness.

[Asperger's] That bonus damage against spiders really helped out in TTT. [/Asperger's]

And why do you need completely different classes for persons who do practically the same thing? Isn't the 3E fighter who can specialize not enough?

Not really. If, for instance, I want an agile two-weapon fighter, he doesn't play that differently from a slow bruiser using a two-handed sword. In theory, you could play two 2e fighters completely differently, but they wouldn't "feel" different from one another. To go back farther to the more traditional four-class setup, a frontline fighter, a sneaky assassin, a healbot cleric, and a fireball-casting wizard all "feel" very different from one another.

 

[Derren]

Not really. If, for instance, I want an agile two-weapon fighter, he doesn't play that differently from a slow bruiser using a two-handed sword.

How? A 2 weapon fighter with spring attack plays much different than a greatsword wielder or an archer. Imo having hardwired combat styles to classes which in the end do exactly the same thing is just stupid.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

A two-weapon-wielding fighter with Spring Attack doesn't work. Spring Attack is a full-round attack. So is two-weapon fighting. (Same thing with a dual-wielding ranger in 3.x though.)

 

[B.T.]

How? A 2 weapon fighter with spring attack plays much different than a greatsword wielder or an archer. Imo having hardwired combat styles to classes which in the end do exactly the same thing is just stupid.

As the fellow above me noted, that doesn't work. Even if it did, what's to stop a greatsword-wielding fighter from using Spring Attack and playing the exact same way? (Note that Spring Attack is a trap option either way, so taking it neuters your character.)