Ah, I think we were talking about this, why do you find 4th delivers the best LotR/Middle-Earth campaigns?
First, you need two explicit optional rules and a houserule to get LotR working in 4e. All are quite simple.
The toggles are:
- Inherent bonusses/low magic items
- All PCs are of the martial power source unless you can write a good background reason as to why. Races: restricted and obvious (elves, dwarves, halflings, humans, half-orcs, possibly shifters)
Good background reasons can include "Beorning bear warrior" (warden or barbarian), beserker (either Barbarian or beserker using non-flashy powers), and a number of others.
The house rule is
- Extended rests may only be taken in a "place of safety" (Bombadil's/Rivendel/Lorien/etc.)
This extra rule almost perfectly replacates the rhythm of the early parts of LotR with things getting tenser and tenser and more and more desperate until the PCs manage to reach a place of safety, and then bing. They are back to full strength.
But this is setting the stage.
If you accept that all the party except Gandalf are martial characters then 4e has obvious advantages in terms of depth of treatment. But that's not enough.
First, the skill system. Some characters are clearly more skilled at some things than others - but no one is obviously incompetent. This is how 4e works - and how AD&D does. It's not a bad fit. (There are better - but I think 4e has about everything you need). That said, the only actual bad fit here is 3.X.
Far more importantly there's the magic system. Gandalf, despite being subtle and extremely powerful casts about half a dozen spells in the whole of the trilogy - and none of them that flashy. Whatever Gandalf is he isn't a classic D&D wizard, and given the way he faces down the Balrog sword in hand, the D&D wizard is a truly
terrible match for Gandalf. So for that matter is an AD&D F/MU (or just about any other casting multiclass). Far too much magic. If he's closest to anything outside 4e it's the 3.5 Bard with a range of coincidental spells. On the other hand a combination of AEDU with obviously magical dailies and Ritual Casting suits him perfectly.
Then there's hobbit PC resilience. I'd argue that the hobbits start the campaign as Level 1 PCs - but there's only one time I recall when one goes down in a single stroke (and no, the Morgul knife doesn't count - that's the condition track in action). This is, of course, Frodo in the Mines of Moria against something clearly set up to be higher level than the non-Gandalf high level party members. After the fight, of course, he spends a handful of healing surges with no magical intervention ("Put me down, I can walk") and is more or less OK. Also after the splintering of the Fellowship, Frodo and Sam go through hell (or Mordor) with no bed rest to recover hit points in sight. Getting reduced to 0hp by Shelob (as he was) would put Frodo on 1 or 2hp for the rest of Mordor under any pre-4e recovery rules. He's bleeding out as soon as just about anything goes wrong. Instead he was able to progress through Mordor (he's probably out of surges by now but still at least
has hit points rather than is below zero as soon as Gollum attacks him). Frodo: Healing Surges In Action. And not a cleric in sight.
And there's the combat.
At Helm's Deep Gimli took on and defeated 42 orcs in melee. His AC isn't actually that great - in the books he wears a (non-Mithril) chain shirt. "
"Gimli the dwarf alone wore openly a short shirt of steel-rings, for dwarves make light of burdens" You want to put someone in a chain shirt into a battle with orcs in pre-4e and tell me they killed more than 40 orcs without being laid up for a loooong time? Without clerical healing? What the hell level was he? Even in 4e using mook rules that's pretty good going.
And then there's everyone's favourite rapid-firing and incredibly accurate archer. Legolas. In the book it's unclear - but in the film he's quite clearly a 4e character - his sheer maneuverability and his shooting into melee both say that. This, however, may be an unfair comparison; I believe when putting the archer ranger's powers together film-Legolas was one of the models used for what a ranger should be.
So the magic's a decent match for a significant type of 4e magic (and terrible for classic D&D editions), the hit points, healing, and recovery are a match, the classes are a decent match, the skills are an adequate match, and the slightly cinematic combat's a good match. And there doesn't feel as if there's a hole in the party from lack of casters.