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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5598470" data-attributes="member: 4937">"They're certainly terrible for emulating Tolkien's Hobbit and Lord of the Rings stories, in which Bard kills Smaug with a single arrow, Legolas kills a fell beast in the night with a single arrow, the Witch King of Angmar dies from one stab from a lowly hobbit and a follow-up by Eowyn, etc."SmaugBard's black arrow is part of the inspiration for the Arrow of Slaying.  Additionally, in game terms, Bard seems to cast some sort of spell on the arrow prior to firing it when he bargains with the arrow and reminds it how well he has treated it and honored it.Additionally, Tolkien appears to be using some sort of called shot/critical hit mechanic; see 'Good Hits and Bad Misses' from Dragon Annual #4 (IIRC) .  They are also a standard feature in 3e.Legolas vs. Fell BeastIt's difficult to know how many hitpoints a fell beast has, but 1e terms it's unlikely to be that many given that a Balor is only 8+8 HD.  Morevoer, it's a flying creature with a burden.  IIRC my flying rules correctly, Legs only has to deal a fraction of its damage to 'bring the creature down' that he needs to do to kill it.  A sufficiently wounded flying creature must land even if it isn't dead, and even one that is not yet dead will crash if wounded sufficiently.   And again, we mustn't overlook the possibility that Tolkien is a very forward looking DM and using critical hits.In 3e terms, this is even more easily explainable as the maximum damage of reasonably optimized 3e characters is enormous compared to CR of their level.Merry & Eowen vs. A WraithThis only is a problem if you think the Witch King isn't a Wraith.  Wraiths after all have only 5HD, and an average of 23 h.p., so its not at all impossible for two mid-level characters to take one down in two blows.If Merry is a 6th level rogue and Eonwen is a 5th level Cavalier, which seems reasonable for the power level of the campaign, then Merry is doing a triple damage backstab in this scene with a dagger +1 that appears from the text to have some sort of enchantment that is especially effective against undead.  It's concievable that with a good roll depending on the enchantment involved that Merry can kill the Witch King with that blow alone, and certainly some have read the text that way.  Eonwen as a shield maiden of the King presumably has a +1 broadsword, a bonus for cavalier training and possibly a 16 STR, so I'd think that even if we don't over think this the average damage of both hits is more than sufficient to explain the death of the Wraith.Personally, I think from the text the Witch King seems to also have been acting under some sort of curse, the terms of which reduced all damage from male humans to the Witch King to zero, but which greatly enhanced (doubled?) the damage to the Witch King from females and non-humans (thus ensuring the terms of the prophecy).   If that is the case, it remains easy to explain the death of the Witch King even if he's an advanced Wraith of 8-10 HD.</blockquote>

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