Aragorn Was A Fifth-Level Ranger, Yadda Yadda

[Palanan]

From what I've seen, it's pretty standard in the Playground to dismiss characters from fantasy literature, and especially from Middle-Earth, as self-evidently lower-level and implicitly inferior. Aragorn and Gandalf in particular seem to be favorite targets.

Now, I am absolutely not interested in arguing this one way or another, but rather in understanding whether this was ever thoroughly worked out, based on a specific set of examples, or if it's one of those "everyone knows" memes that grew out of casual statements and internet assumptions.

Is there, in fact, a detailed framework correlating Aragorn and other characters to a particular level, based on analysis of encounters in the original books? Are there specifics that exist somewhere, or once existed?

I understand very well that comparing Tolkien's works to 3.5 expectations is a dodgy mismatch at best. And yet, the claims are often made, and I'd like to understand what they're based on.

[Psyren]

Let's turn this around:

What level do you think he is, based on the capabilities he's displayed in the books?

[Zman]

This One (http://kuoi.org/~kamikaze/RPG/gandalf.txt) has been around since apparently 1977.

[Eldariel]

Honestly, 5 is the minimum level that was considered. There's nothing restricting them to not being higher; Ranger 5/Fighter 15 Aragorn wouldn't meaningfully differ from Ranger 5 far as what's seen in the books goes since his combat capability cannot really be directly transferred onto D&D.

[kabreras]

For Gandalf considering 3.5 i even think we could find the spells he used even beeing level 3 (2d levels spells).

Tolkien is E6.

As for aragorn...

Well what did he do that couldnt have been done by a level 3 ish ?

[johnbragg]

From what I've seen, it's pretty standard in the Playground to dismiss characters from fantasy literature, and especially from Middle-Earth, as self-evidently lower-level and implicitly inferior. Aragorn and Gandalf in particular seem to be favorite targets.

Now, I am absolutely not interested in arguing this one way or another, but rather in understanding whether this was ever thoroughly worked out, based on a specific set of examples, or if it's one of those "everyone knows" memes that grew out of casual statements and internet assumptions.

Is there, in fact, a detailed framework correlating Aragorn and other characters to a particular level, based on analysis of encounters in the original books? Are there specifics that exist somewhere, or once existed?

I understand very well that comparing Tolkien's works to 3.5 expectations is a dodgy mismatch at best. And yet, the claims are often made, and I'd like to understand what they're based on.

People have already linked the old Dragon Magazine article.

But for those who don't like clicking links, there were two lines of argument:

1. For Aragorn and other melee characters, it's a circular argument--Aragorn is a match for the orcs. (And, by extension, Gandalf is a match for the Balrog.) That only proves that Aragorn is a match for the orcs--Aragorn could be level 5 and the orcs 1st level warriors, or the orcs could all be Barbarian 12s and Aragorn level 20.

2. Listing the spells and abilities Gandalf is shown using in the books. Some divinations, casting light, lightning effects. None of which is beyond the ken of a 5th level wizard. (The Tolkien corpus also goes into detail about the nature and power levels of the type of angel GAndalf was, but that would translate into d20 as Gandalf being a Maiar with Sorcerer or Wizard (or some Middle-Earth specific base class) levels.

Gandalf isn't teleporting, or creating walls out of thin air, or turning trees into rocks and vice versa.

[Elderand]

Here is another article

http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/587/roleplaying-games/dd-calibrating-your-expectations-2

[Nettlekid]

Just to make a point, I don't think the Tolkien characters translate to D&D very well at all. Because if they do, then Gandalf is definitely a Druid. His decent skill with a weapon suggests medium BAB, not poor like a Wizard. He's cast spells like Animal Messenger, Fire Seeds, and has been implied to be able to cast Control Weather. He's clearly more Wisdom-based than Intelligence-based, and Shadowfax is his Animal Companion. All those things scream Druid, not Wizard. And yet he's a Wizard. So to judge a character's D&D build based on their in-book/movie exploits is...misleading, at best.

[Phelix-Mu]

The whole problem is one of in incongruency.

1.) Elf in the book doesn't mean elf in the game. T.elves are practically minor gods by D&D standards. They have less visible magic than pretty much everything in D&D, but their basic stats are quite powerful, and T.elves are ageless a magnitude beyond those of D&D. Their basic ability as seen in the book and movie should be "Ex: Take 20 on one action once per round as a free action." They aren't auto-win, but they pretty much only die through a combination of bad luck and massively outnumbered.

2.) Orc in the book is not orc in the game. Orc breeding in the book varies, but the originals were mutated/twisted elves. As per all T.elves, this could make them ridiculously strong, but little is given about how they match up, except that T.main characters=bunches of orcs. Even if they are significantly watered down, T.orcs are much more formidable than normal orcs in the game (which are laughably weak).

3.) Wizard in the book is not wizard in the game. Wizards in the book are essentially the embodiments of outsiders sent to live in Middle Earth. They are good at melee, are pretty damn tough, and have a bunch of spammable, relatively weak spells (based on D&D's cosmic power metric).

4.) Mortality and accuracy. This is more of an issue in the movies, but the book backs it up in a narrative sense. Some of the heroes in the books are up against the kind of action economy that normally spells certain death in D&D. This suggest either enemies well-below suggested CRs, or that the heroes are putting out the kind of hit:kill efficiency that implies at least a higher-level (or higher-optimization). The default game assumes stronger=higher level, so just because we can model the heroes with lower-level schtick doesn't mean that is terribly accurate (since D&D establishes an almost arbitrarily low-level at which nigh-invulnerability to CR-appropriate challenges can be established).

In a fairly mundane setting like Tolkien, armour should probably be more effective than it is (or at least more consistently portrayed). In the books, little is said of it, and many of the characters only really seem to armour up for planned battles. Many skirmishes and unexpected encounters were fought in leathers, IIRC (something which would be quasi-suicidal at low-levels in D&D).

So, in conclusion, many of the touchstones that we might use to determine strength of Aragorn (like how many orcs he can kill, how much damage per attack) really don't translate well. In D&D, a bunch of commoners can group together to kill an orc. Based on many of the orcs in the book, I got the impression that they could curbstomp average humans (since they were competition for elves in numbers, and elves>>humans).

All that said, if you dumb the heroic scale in Tolkien down a bit to make the translation easier, most of the stuff can be modeled at fairly low level, since the hardest combats portrayed were essentially mook-fests and a few boss fights against melee toughs (which are usually terribly weak bosses in D&D).

The real problem is that all the goal posts in D&D shift based on optimization level. A high-op ranger can do everything Aragorn did in the stories very early on. But the assumed npc ranger in the books (even scaled up slightly to model a PC instead of an NPC) would have to wait much longer to acheive the same.

[sideswipe]

Has anyone considered that Gandalf multi classed. he shows way more fighting prowess then a wizard.

he also has the ability to transfer spells through his sword. now even taking this as shocking grasp he needs 3 levels in duskblade.
he can also talk to animals or at least pass messages through them. the quickest way to do this is with 1 level of druid. not taking wildshape.

so wizard 5/ duskblade 3/ druid 1

im sure there is more that can be had but this is without taking it too far.

[Phelix-Mu]

An obligatory mention, which should have been included earlier, against using scenes in the movie as "canon." Much artistic license was taken, mostly in extremely good taste, but also to increase the appeal of the story in the cinematic medium. Much detail was added to numerous scenes that were somewhat shorter in the books.

[Gemini476]

(The Tolkien corpus also goes into detail about the nature and power levels of the type of angel GAndalf was, but that would translate into d20 as Gandalf being a Maiar with Sorcerer or Wizard (or some Middle-Earth specific base class)
I'd actually hold that Olórin was just a straight Maiar, with the associated SLAs and a magic ring.

"Take now this Ring," he said; "for thy labours and thy cares will be heavy, but in all it will support thee and defend thee from weariness. For this is the Ring of Fire, and herewith, maybe, thou shalt rekindle hearts to the valour of old in a world that grows chill"

Or Maiar have some form of lesser spellcasting. Who knows.

As for trying to figure out what level a fictional/real character is in D&D terms? Yeah, that won't work. You can figure out how to make the character with a specific build or something, but someone else could probably make a reasonable approximation with a different set of levels and classes.

I've seen an E6 Superman, for instance, as well as some other superheroes. You could fill an entire 20 levels with his build if you tried, however.


As for Aragorn being low level, I think that might have to do with the hypercompetence that high-level character evolve. When you have more than 121 HP you can survive a fall from orbit, for instance, and Olympic champions are somewhere in the E6 range when it comes to skills.
Oh, and he's a Ranger 'cause he's a Ranger while Gandalf is a Wizard 'cause he's a Wizard. I'm not entirely sure where the Ranger's spells came from, though. Aragorn does some healing and such, but not really magic? Yeah, I dunno.

[Eldariel]

Probably Ranger 'cause of his tracking capabilities. I'd almost guarantee he needs Swift Tracker to be capable of all the tracking feats he performs. He might also need land speed increase such as Barbarian.

He's most certainly skilled with sword & shield and bow so that fits. Champion of the Wild to do away with his spells, or turned into King's Hands for healing.

[Zman]

Tolkien just used the E6 Variant where you Gestalt after Level 6.

[Zonugal]

I'd say Gandalf is a higher-level character just from his battle with the Balrog.


Gandalf and the Balrog fell for a long time, and Gandalf was burned by the Balrog's fire. Then they plunged into water at the bottom, which Gandalf later said was cold as the tide of death and almost froze his heart. There they fought until the Balrog fled into dark tunnels, where the world is gnawed by nameless things, older even then Sauron. Gandalf pursued the creature until it led him to the spiraling Endless Stair, and they climbed it until they reached Durin's Tower in the living rock of Zirakzigil, the pinnacle of the Silvertine above the clouds. There they fought until at last Gandalf threw down his enemy, and Balrog broke the mountain-side as it fell. Then darkness took Gandalf, and he passed away. His body lay on the peak. The entire battle, from the confrontation on the Bridge of Khazad-dûm to the mutual demise of the Balrog and Gandalf, had taken ten days.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Zman
This One has been around since apparently 1977.

Aha, thank you very much. That may well be the ur-article which spawned the meme.


Originally Posted by Elderand
Here is another article

http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/...expectations-2

Thanks. I'd seen that referenced before, but hadn't come across the link, so that's quite helpful.

As I mentioned above, I'm here for sources and analyses, rather than to argue for any particular level or perspective. Any other articles, blogs, threads, etc. would certainly be welcome.

[SowZ]

I'd say Gandalf is a higher-level character just from his battle with the Balrog.

Most of that is racial abilities. I wouldn't be against the idea that Gandalf is ECL 10, but only 6th level, because of Istari LA.

Cutting off this argument before it comes up: Balrog in D&D is miles above Balrog in LOTR. Saying the Balrog is ECL 20 in LOTR is way, way off. It doesn't have a tenth of the D&D Balrog's powers. We can probably assume the LOTR Balrog is well under 20 ECL, which is an argument against a 20th level Aragorn since then the foe would not be beyond them.

In the movies, it is easier to limit Aragorn's level since the cliff fall wasn't too long but enough to bring him to negative hit points. It also means he isn't, say, 3rd level or so in the movies since the fall should have killed him.

[SiuiS]

From what I've seen, it's pretty standard in the Playground to dismiss characters from fantasy literature, and especially from Middle-Earth, as self-evidently lower-level and implicitly inferior. Aragorn and Gandalf in particular seem to be favorite targets.

Now, I am absolutely not interested in arguing this one way or another, but rather in understanding whether this was ever thoroughly worked out, based on a specific set of examples, or if it's one of those "everyone knows" memes that grew out of casual statements and internet assumptions.

Is there, in fact, a detailed framework correlating Aragorn and other characters to a particular level, based on analysis of encounters in the original books? Are there specifics that exist somewhere, or once existed?

I understand very well that comparing Tolkien's works to 3.5 expectations is a dodgy mismatch at best. And yet, the claims are often made, and I'd like to understand what they're based on.

Yes, Gandalf as a fifth level magic user was vetted with book examples. This was on an old dragon magazine.

Aragorn is either a less well done example from the same article, or if it was an addendum. I can say with certainty however, that the truth of it has shifted with time. Gandalf may have been a fifth level magic user, but his level of wizard would probably be different. The related "Einstein was a fifth level expert" is followed up by math, but is a completely separate assessment.

[Dalebert]

This One (http://kuoi.org/~kamikaze/RPG/gandalf.txt) has been around since apparently 1977.

That idiot obviously didn't take into account all the boulder smashing, greater dispel magics, and counter-spelling of Sauron shadow magic that he did in The Hobbit movies. Sheesh.

Also, Ratagast(sp?) the Brown is def a druid, but that prolly didn't even need to be said.

[Phelix-Mu]

The whole issue is pretty silly, though. D&D assumes a certain level of npcs and magic that is pretty much just totally absent in the books. There may be "adventurers" in the books, but they probably are all under 3rd, and strictly martial; all elves are named npcs with some colossal T.elf LA/RHD, and all magic-users (casters capable of more than the standard elf) are countable on two hands. There may be "magic swords" in the books, but they are pretty much all named too. Tolkien is pretty much the polar opposite of "magic mart."

Thus, this is akin to modeling characters in D&D with almost no magic, with few items, with almost non-existent WBL. In short, why are we using D&D?

[Zman]

That idiot obviously didn't take into account all the boulder smashing, greater dispel magics, and counter-spelling of Sauron shadow magic that he did in The Hobbit movies. Sheesh.

Also, Ratagast(sp?) the Brown is def a druid, but that prolly didn't even need to be said.

Umm.. That idiot wrote that article 35 years before the Hobbit Movies...

[Spuddles]

Just to make a point, I don't think the Tolkien characters translate to D&D very well at all. Because if they do, then Gandalf is definitely a Druid. His decent skill with a weapon suggests medium BAB, not poor like a Wizard. He's cast spells like Animal Messenger, Fire Seeds, and has been implied to be able to cast Control Weather. He's clearly more Wisdom-based than Intelligence-based, and Shadowfax is his Animal Companion. All those things scream Druid, not Wizard. And yet he's a Wizard. So to judge a character's D&D build based on their in-book/movie exploits is...misleading, at best.

Yup, after the hobbit came out we all rolled up dwarves. Except me I rolled a druid1/wizard1. It was a lot like radegast, if radegast worshipped the gibbering nightmare that dwelt in the center of the world, hungering for the end of all things.

[sideswipe]

now i tell you who would be around ECL 10 at least would be elrond.

all elves in the LOTR are faster, smarter and more pretty and charming then humans with a resistance to magic, seeing in the dark and with better overall eyesight and senses.

all of this screams a type of pale drow to me (ignoring light blindness)

so elrond is a pale drow, at least 7 levels of cleric as he uses remove disease/curse depending on your interpretation of the morgul blades affliction.

he was noted for being a great warrior and general so at least 1 level in marshal

this adds up to ECL 10 at least. without giving him too much into being the top general in an elven army second only to the king of the elves Gil-Galad

what do you guys think? especially with all elves being a variant of drow since there godlike power compared to humans?

[Phelix-Mu]

Even pale drow doesn't quite cover it. Tolkien elves (T.elves) are also remarkably resilient, stronger than normal humans, immune to most ailments, broadly immune to the "ravages of time", immune to death by aging, and generally just better at everything. This is doubly true of elves born in the Undying Lands, who we should just grant divine rank 0 to and be done with it.

Finally, elves are also a bit of an abstraction. The strongest among them are simply old or blessed with good bloodline. Sure, they've seen some wars and such, but nothing that should have given much experience. They are thus more akin to dragons, beings that just get stronger without any real justification. The older elves were closer to the dawning of the world, when everything was stronger/better, and thus immune to the dimming of the world that is present in the current age of man.

For those that had seen the light of the lanterns or the trees of old in the West, almost anything was possible. Finwe fought a god (Morgoth) armed with pretty much only his sword/giant balls, and actually managed to permanently injure that god before he got smote by Grond. I don't think any combo of drow powers/levels of duskblade lets you do that.

[awa]

i disagree that lord of the ring orcs are more powerful then d&d orcs

From what i recall most breeds were less powerful then men and only a threat due to massive numbers. In fact if i remember correctly cross breeding orcs and humans made them more powerful.

in regards to harming gods and stuff ill admit i never read the prequel stuff but i will point out that just like a balor and a balorog arnt the same thing there is no reason to assume a lord of the ring god is as powerful as a d&d god.

[TypoNinja]

now i tell you who would be around ECL 10 at least would be elrond.

all elves in the LOTR are faster, smarter and more pretty and charming then humans with a resistance to magic, seeing in the dark and with better overall eyesight and senses.

all of this screams a type of pale drow to me (ignoring light blindness)

so elrond is a pale drow, at least 7 levels of cleric as he uses remove disease/curse depending on your interpretation of the morgul blades affliction.

he was noted for being a great warrior and general so at least 1 level in marshal

this adds up to ECL 10 at least. without giving him too much into being the top general in an elven army second only to the king of the elves Gil-Galad

what do you guys think? especially with all elves being a variant of drow since there godlike power compared to humans?

Considering almost all the big magic seen involves power components or items of power helping people out, I'd say your assumptions are on shaky ground at best.

Observable magic is the easiest thing to notice for a power benchmark, but Tolkien's world is not based around Vancian magic. The Wizards seem extremely dependent on their staffs, Gandalf is helpless at the top of a tower when his is taken, Saruman appears no more than human after being chased from Isengard and appearing in the Shire his powers seemingly revoked.

Almost every piece of magic seen done has required a focus, or power component of some kind. This complete departure from "Typical" D&D magic makes it almost impossible to peg a power level on any given task.

Even treatment of the Poison from the knife doesn't have to be magical, simply a high enough heal check. Its easy to draw conclusions based on what you see on screen/read but with so many ways to accomplish the observed effect its much harder to be sure you've got the right assumption.

[Gemini476]

i disagree that lord of the ring orcs are more powerful then d&d orcs

From what i recall most breeds were less powerful then men and only a threat due to massive numbers. In fact if i remember correctly cross breeding orcs and humans made them more powerful.

in regards to harming gods and stuff ill admit i never read the prequel stuff but i will point out that just like a balor and a balorog arnt the same thing there is no reason to assume a lord of the ring god is as powerful as a d&d god.
Well, there's only one god in Arda, that being Eru Illuvatar. He's basically on the level of Ao, if you want a comparison to D&D.

The Valar are more like angels, really, although extremely powerful angels. They definitely have some Divine Ranks to use D&D terms.

Do note that by the time Fingolfin got around to wounding Morgoth seven times, Morgoth was quite weakened from how he was in his raze-mountains-level-valleys phase. He put all his Power into middle-earth and the creatures he had created, not entirely unlike how Sauron ended up doing with the One Ring.

Oh, and the reason why crossing Orcs with Men made something better was because the Uruk-hai could stand sunlight and were far more intelligent. Both were qualities that were lacking in the standard Orcs, but do note that the only Uruk-hai came from Isengard.

[The Grue]

From what I've seen, it's pretty standard in the Playground to dismiss characters from fantasy literature, and especially from Middle-Earth, as self-evidently lower-level and implicitly inferior. Aragorn and Gandalf in particular seem to be favorite targets.

I think you've got a pretty serious case of misconstrued intent. Saying that Aragorn and Gandalf are in D&D terms low-level characters is hardly "targeting" them for "dismissal" as "inferior". It's actually a commentary on the degree of power levels that D&D covers. If 5th or 6th level Aragorn represents an exceptional yet mundane human, the argument goes, then what must a 10th level character be like? Or 15th? A 20th level must be nigh-godlike.

It's not an argument that the characters are inferior and unimpressive. It's an argument that 6th level represents the pinnacle of mundane human achievement, which is something that's often misinterpreted when designing characters and campaign worlds. You needn't be a 20th-level Expert to be the best blacksmith in the land; at 4th level you're already pretty damned impressive, and at 5th or 6th you're probably one of the best in the entire world.

Campaigns not infrequently have an absurd level of power creep because it's assumed that the limit of human achievement is reached at level 20. But then you start seeing weird artefacts creep in; Why does the elderly (20th level) King need to hire the plucky low-level adventurers to slay a red dragon, when he can solo it himself? How does a a legendary gladiator (20th-level) fall from the highest mountain in the world and walk away without a scratch? These characters are assumed to be mundane, and yet they're capable of things that a normal human shouldn't. The issue is not that the system is "unrealistic"(I mean, apart from the magic and elves and stuff), it's that the expectations of the players are miscalibrated.

[Phelix-Mu]

i disagree that lord of the ring orcs are more powerful then d&d orcs

From what i recall most breeds were less powerful then men and only a threat due to massive numbers. In fact if i remember correctly cross breeding orcs and humans made them more powerful.

in regards to harming gods and stuff ill admit i never read the prequel stuff but i will point out that just like a balor and a balorog arnt the same thing there is no reason to assume a lord of the ring god is as powerful as a d&d god.

The LotR god in question created orcs, perverting the work of the god that created all of reality, among numerous other acts of serious evil. That at least merits him some kind of godhood, in my mind. Otherwise, I agree with your oranges v apples point.

Orcs in LotR:

- Bred from elves twisted by evil magic. This makes them faster-breeding, light-sensitive, but most importantly, really evil. I think they actually don't age, but usually die from violence due to their extremely backstabby ways.

- Some orcs are stronger than men. They may not individually be stronger than the men of Gondor (our only real comparison), but I'm pretty sure they are stronger than normal men (otherwise they'd rank below normal men in Sauron's armies, and I'm pretty sure they don't). The men of Gondor bear the last of the blood of the men of Westernesse, and clearly are a breed above, say, the men of Bree.

- "Orcs" in Tolkien seems to be more of a collection of breeds, but little detail is given into how they actually differ/if it's only superficial, at least as I recall. The orcs/goblins of Moria are different than the orcs of Morodor, are different from Uruk-hai, are different from the orcs of old in Beleriand when Morgoth still walked the world.

- The only way in which the Uruk-hai (orcs with the blood of men in them) are stronger is that they are not weaker in the light (and thus they generally perform better in the field/as trackers). The orcs of Morodor face this challenge (which is largely a moot point since manipulating light and bringing darkness is clearly also among Sauron's strategies), but can still be driven to fight even when weakened by fear of punishment.

[SowZ]

The LotR god in question created orcs, perverting the work of the god that created all of reality, among numerous other acts of serious evil. That at least merits him some kind of godhood, in my mind. Otherwise, I agree with your oranges v apples point.

Orcs in LotR:

- Bred from elves twisted by evil magic. This makes them faster-breeding, light-sensitive, but most importantly, really evil. I think they actually don't age, but usually die from violence due to their extremely backstabby ways.

- Some orcs are stronger than men. They may not individually be stronger than the men of Gondor (our only real comparison), but I'm pretty sure they are stronger than normal men (otherwise they'd rank below normal men in Sauron's armies, and I'm pretty sure they don't). The men of Gondor bear the last of the blood of the men of Westernesse, and clearly are a breed above, say, the men of Bree.

- "Orcs" in Tolkien seems to be more of a collection of breeds, but little detail is given into how they actually differ/if it's only superficial, at least as I recall. The orcs/goblins of Moria are different than the orcs of Morodor, are different from Uruk-hai, are different from the orcs of old in Beleriand when Morgoth still walked the world.

- The only way in which the Uruk-hai (orcs with the blood of men in them) are stronger is that they are not weaker in the light (and thus they generally perform better in the field/as trackers). The orcs of Morodor face this challenge (which is largely a moot point since manipulating light and bringing darkness is clearly also among Sauron's strategies), but can still be driven to fight even when weakened by fear of punishment.

Most breeds of Orc are both smaller and dumber than men, though, by the time the books are set in.

[Phelix-Mu]

Most breeds of Orc are both smaller and dumber than men, though, by the time the books are set in.

Go ahead and source me on smaller. Do we have evidence that they are weaker than men, though? I don't know if we ever have a good chance to see normal men (not men of Gondor) fight normal orcs of any kind in the books (the Rohirrim fought Uruk-hai).

There was the fight at the end of the Hobbit (and it has been an age since I read that), but I'm not even clear where those orcs came from. Moria?

[MukkTB]

I think the OP may be misjudging the motive behind some of these claims. It may sound dismissive of Tolkien characters saying they were *only* level 5 or 6, but the real key point is that high level D&D characters get ridiculous fast, especially spell-casters. We don't think Tolkien characters are underpowered. We think D&D characters become overpowered.

There are some gods in literature who would look upon an unoptimized level 20 3.5E wizard with envy. Most of the time when we point out how many book/movie/tv characters could probably have been pretty low level we're actually critiquing the 3.5 system itself. Some of us feel that high level stuff gets stupidly strong. That's why E6 is a thing. Its a way of having a D&D world more grounded in realism.

[Lancaster_Road]

Go ahead and source me on smaller. Do we have evidence that they are weaker than men, though? I don't know if we ever have a good chance to see normal men (not men of Gondor) fight normal orcs of any kind in the books (the Rohirrim fought Uruk-hai).

There was the fight at the end of the Hobbit (and it has been an age since I read that), but I'm not even clear where those orcs came from. Moria?

Well, the Rohirrim give us one example, though not a good one. The group that kidnaps Merry and Pippin is made up of, if I recall:

-Goblin orcs pursuing from Moria
-Orcs of Mordor sent or patrolling by order of Sauron
-Uruks of Saruman who were sent to retrieve the ring

They all momentarily put it aside when the fight on Amon Hen started, and later they fell to in-fighting and then the Rohirrim slaughtered them. So we know that a superior numbered fighting force can overcome chaotic unprepared mixed groups of unallied orcs.

The goblins from The Hobbit were from the Misty Mountains I think.

[The Grue]

I think the OP may be misjudging the motive behind some of these claims. It may sound dismissive of Tolkien characters saying they were *only* level 5 or 6, but the real key point is that high level D&D characters get ridiculous fast, especially spell-casters. We don't think Tolkien characters are underpowered. We think D&D characters become overpowered.

There are some gods in literature who would look upon an unoptimized level 20 3.5E wizard with envy. Most of the time when we point out how many book/movie/tv characters could probably have been pretty low level we're actually critiquing the 3.5 system itself. Some of us feel that high level stuff gets stupidly strong. That's why E6 is a thing. Its a way of having a D&D world more grounded in realism.

This is pretty much the Cliffnotes version of my post on page 1. ;)

[Scootaloo]

I'd say Gandalf is a higher-level character just from his battle with the Balrog.


Gandalf and the Balrog fell for a long time, and Gandalf was burned by the Balrog's fire. Then they plunged into water at the bottom, which Gandalf later said was cold as the tide of death and almost froze his heart. There they fought until the Balrog fled into dark tunnels, where the world is gnawed by nameless things, older even then Sauron. Gandalf pursued the creature until it led him to the spiraling Endless Stair, and they climbed it until they reached Durin's Tower in the living rock of Zirakzigil, the pinnacle of the Silvertine above the clouds. There they fought until at last Gandalf threw down his enemy, and Balrog broke the mountain-side as it fell. Then darkness took Gandalf, and he passed away. His body lay on the peak. The entire battle, from the confrontation on the Bridge of Khazad-dûm to the mutual demise of the Balrog and Gandalf, had taken ten days.


The big secret?

Gandalf isn't a wizard.
Nor is he a Druid, though that was a good guess on Nettlekid's part.

Gandalf is a bard.

Witness; he has high charisma. Sir Ian of course delivers this well in hte movies, but even in the dried-up pages of the source material, he's smooth, persuasive, and.. .well actually kind of full of it.

Which brings us to your quote from the work. Every detail of that story is from Gandalf's own narrative. Zirakzigil? Silvertine? the endless Stair? What are these places? They're nowhere, but they sound awesome. What really happened was that Gandalf and the Balrog fell off the bridge, and Gandalf used feather fall, and the time between then and reappearing to the Fellowship was just him finding his way out. Naturally that's a pretty awful story, so you get him battling endlessly against this mighty foe, atop the spires of Durin's Tower, everyone's all impressed and so on and so forth.

Gandalf's research on the Ring? Bardic knowledge. He either knows everything or knows where to go, who to talk to to learn about everything.

He never once casts spells that don't appear on the Bard list. Even Shadowfax is Summon Monster II!

He's proficient with simple weapons and the longsword, but maybe not AS proficient as the melee types around him.

He doesn't memorize spells from a book or the like. He doesn't commune with a deity or with nature for his magic. His magic just is - and is cast through use of oratory, persuasion, and heroic gestures.

Gandalf is a character who uses his social ability to manipulate and guide others further along the story he wishes to see done. His knowledge is deep and broad, drawn from sources all over the world. he bolsters his allies' morale and resolve just by his presence. His magic focuses on charm and enhancement, drawing others into his wishes, creating illusions of light and smoke and shadow, and he casts it through force of personality rather than intellect and study. In a fight, instead of throwing fireballs and lightning, he's in the thick of it, dual-weilding a staff and longsword.

Gandalf is a bard.

Which is fitting as he's basically Vainamoinen re-imagined as a semi-Germanic character.

[Phelix-Mu]

Gandalf is a character who uses his social ability to manipulate and guide others further along the story he wishes to see done. His knowledge is deep and broad, drawn from sources all over the world. he bolsters his allies' morale and resolve just by his presence. His magic focuses on charm and enhancement, drawing others into his wishes, creating illusions of light and smoke and shadow, and he casts it through force of personality rather than intellect and study. In a fight, instead of throwing fireballs and lightning, he's in the thick of it, dual-weilding a staff and longsword.

Gandalf is a bard.

Which is fitting as he's basically Vainamoinen re-imagined as a semi-Germanic character.

This is actually decent analysis, and is more in keeping with the Scandanavian and British Isles influences that make up most of Tolkien's inspirational materials, from what I've read. The magic of Norse and Celtic mythologies was much more of the enchantment/flash-glitz school, and less of the cosmic power variety. Wizards were seen as wise men, leaders of men, and forgers of will (be it their own or those they mentored). Witness Odin, Merlin, and Math (think that's how it's spelled...hehe, how the years pass), who were all much more creatures of wit and word than vaporizing their enemies.

The Fair Folk and Norse elves are a bit of a different creature, but their magic was pretty much deemed to be racial (along with the crafting arts of the Nibelungen, or dwarves, of whom even the gods were jealous). Tolkien elaborated extensively on the elves as the First-born of Iluvatar, set up dwarves as a side project of one of his lesser gods, and generally much of magic is very un-vancian acts of will and words of power (much in keeping with Sorcerer/Bard flavor). Basically the insights into the inner working of things.

I'm not sure if I'd make Gandalf entirely Cha-based, but it's about as good as any of the other mental stats at generalizing his skill set (and Bardic Lore helps him b.s. the rest of it).

[Scootaloo]

This is actually decent analysis, and is more in keeping with the Scandanavian and British Isles influences that make up most of Tolkien's inspirational materials, from what I've read. The magic of Norse and Celtic mythologies was much more of the enchantment/flash-glitz school, and less of the cosmic power variety. Wizards were seen as wise men, leaders of men, and forgers of will (be it their own or those they mentored). Witness Odin, Merlin, and Math (think that's how it's spelled...hehe, how the years pass), who were all much more creatures of wit and word than vaporizing their enemies.

Math ap Mathonwy - right name, but wrong guy. Math was a straight-up fighter-type. His nephew Gwydion was the cunning magician guy :) There's also Taliesin. But generally yeah, these guys, and Vainamoinen who I mentioned, all fall into the mold from which we derive the idea of bard, druid, and wizard... who were all pretty much the same thing at the time, and surely bore no resemblance to the Vancian magic of hte game (and thank you that term has been stuck on the tip of my tongue for WEEKS, but I couldn't remember it!)


I'm not sure if I'd make Gandalf entirely Cha-based, but it's about as good as any of the other mental stats at generalizing his skill set (and Bardic Lore helps him b.s. the rest of it).

He's one of those people who didn't realize Wisdom is a dump stat for bards :smallbiggrin:

[Phelix-Mu]

Thanks for the prompt correction. Celtic mythology was always an area of vagueness for me (ironic given my genetics), and it's been untold years since I cracked open a good mythology text. Ah, good times back in high school. Once sold a prof of mine on a term paper outlining my custom D&D pantheon as my mythology project. Hehe. Never had as much fun in thirty-odd pages.

I think, given Tolkien's profession, that it's only natural for the power of words and the influence of the storyteller to come through in his tales. From the song of Iluvatar, to the language of the elves, to the dark speech, there are many aspects of mythological views on language that carried through into the setting.

Contrast this with a more mathematical/simulationist angle often represented in D&D, in which a specific mechanical effect changes some aspect of the world or evokes a gross impact. A more subtle emphasis on inspiration/fear/manipulation (and flashy lights!) vs a more "tinkering with the laws of reality."

Anyway, I think there is a significant dichotomy which really limits the usefulness of the comparison.

[Gwendol]

Go ahead and source me on smaller. Do we have evidence that they are weaker than men, though? I don't know if we ever have a good chance to see normal men (not men of Gondor) fight normal orcs of any kind in the books (the Rohirrim fought Uruk-hai).

There was the fight at the end of the Hobbit (and it has been an age since I read that), but I'm not even clear where those orcs came from. Moria?

The standard orc is smaller than man; sam and frodo have little trouble passing as orcs in mordor. They may be broader and strong, but are no match for men in single combat.

[Jan Mattys]

For those that had seen the light of the lanterns or the trees of old in the West, almost anything was possible. Finwe fought a god (Morgoth) armed with pretty much only his sword/giant balls, and actually managed to permanently injure that god before he got smote by Grond. I don't think any combo of drow powers/levels of duskblade lets you do that.

How dare you give Finwe the credit? :smallfurious:
It was mighty Fingolfin who fought Morgoth and injured him.
The ballsiest, most awesome and most paladinesque of all Noldor.

:smalltongue:

[Bogardan_Mage]

I think you've got a pretty serious case of misconstrued intent. Saying that Aragorn and Gandalf are in D&D terms low-level characters is hardly "targeting" them for "dismissal" as "inferior". It's actually a commentary on the degree of power levels that D&D covers. If 5th or 6th level Aragorn represents an exceptional yet mundane human, the argument goes, then what must a 10th level character be like? Or 15th? A 20th level must be nigh-godlike.
Must they, though? I've always felt that those who put forward this argument fail to follow through on their extrapolations of higher levels. The whole point of this analysis is to carefully examine what characters are capable of doing and what is possible at various levels. However, I seldom see any examination of what is possible at level 20, or even level 10. It's just taken as given, once it's established that level 5 is the peak of real world achievement or thereabouts, that clearly level 20 must be fabulously powerful. So what are level 20 characters capable of doing that "must be nigh-godlike"?

Well they can take a lot of damage is probably the main point. It's long been argued what precisely HP is supposed to represent but it just keeps growing in a mostly-straight line as level increases so that's one area where instinct turns out to be right: 20th level characters have approximately four times the hit points as 5th level characters. So certainly you have super-human endurance, at least. You can also survive injuries that would kill a normal man four times over. I will say here, though, that HP at any level produces some odd effects. Even Justin Alexander's Einstein build heals at an altogether unnatural rate, despite having been manoeuvred into a "suitable" HP total.

Jump is, I think, the only non-opposed skill that doesn't have a cap. That is to say, the higher you roll the further you jump, with no limit. All other skills either have set DCs or are opposed checks and thus difficult to calibrate in terms of real world effects (who's to say how many ranks in Sense Motive that person you're trying to Bluff has?). As The Alexandrian article notes, it's quite easy to break world records at low levels by piling on a lot of bonuses. However, because so much of that comes from bonuses, that means there are no more bonuses left at high levels. All you're getting from those extra 15 levels is an extra 15 ranks, and a few extra points of STR. You'll jump maybe double the world record. Definitionally super-human but nigh-godlike? You can't even leap a short building in a single bound.

Please let me know if I've missed anything but I think those two are the only unambiguous cases. Everything else is based on taking inherent assumptions of what a Level X character is supposed to be able to do and homebrewing things for them to be able to do (Alexander claims that Einstein's discoveries constitute a DC 40 Knowledge check, but no such DC exists RAW) which is exactly what this kind of analysis is supposed to avoid. By my reckoning, Level 20 characters are certainly more powerful than level 5 characters, but certainly not four times as powerful and likely not in the ways that you would instinctively expect. D&D characters advance different traits in different ways, making Level 20 characters a lot more lopsided than I would imagine a god should be.

[icefractal]

By my reckoning, Level 20 characters are certainly more powerful than level 5 characters, but certainly not four times as powerful and likely not in the ways that you would instinctively expect.IME, they're quite a bit more than 4x as powerful. Which is appropriate, as the CR system would peg them at 192x as powerful (every +2 levels is 2x the power).

Now how much more powerful exactly are they? Well, that depends on the class. For non-casting classes, the power curve is closer to linear. Still more than 4x as powerful, in terms of straight combat ability, but they haven't undergone a paradigm shift - they still have the same basic capabilities, they're just better at them. Although keep in mind that via items, they'll have filled some of the gaps in - like flight.

For a caster, the difference is much larger. A 20th level Wizard has no only more spells than a 5th level Wizard, but those spells are individually far better, he has more feats and abilities that improve said spells, and most of the weaknesses he previously had are gone. I mean, we're talking about the difference between "starting to have impressive capabilities, when prepared for the situation" and "can respond to things before they happen with his clone army he commands from a demiplane, has dozens of contingencies if someone even manages to get there".

[SowZ]

Must they, though? I've always felt that those who put forward this argument fail to follow through on their extrapolations of higher levels. The whole point of this analysis is to carefully examine what characters are capable of doing and what is possible at various levels. However, I seldom see any examination of what is possible at level 20, or even level 10. It's just taken as given, once it's established that level 5 is the peak of real world achievement or thereabouts, that clearly level 20 must be fabulously powerful. So what are level 20 characters capable of doing that "must be nigh-godlike"?

Well they can take a lot of damage is probably the main point. It's long been argued what precisely HP is supposed to represent but it just keeps growing in a mostly-straight line as level increases so that's one area where instinct turns out to be right: 20th level characters have approximately four times the hit points as 5th level characters. So certainly you have super-human endurance, at least. You can also survive injuries that would kill a normal man four times over. I will say here, though, that HP at any level produces some odd effects. Even Justin Alexander's Einstein build heals at an altogether unnatural rate, despite having been manoeuvred into a "suitable" HP total.

Jump is, I think, the only non-opposed skill that doesn't have a cap. That is to say, the higher you roll the further you jump, with no limit. All other skills either have set DCs or are opposed checks and thus difficult to calibrate in terms of real world effects (who's to say how many ranks in Sense Motive that person you're trying to Bluff has?). As The Alexandrian article notes, it's quite easy to break world records at low levels by piling on a lot of bonuses. However, because so much of that comes from bonuses, that means there are no more bonuses left at high levels. All you're getting from those extra 15 levels is an extra 15 ranks, and a few extra points of STR. You'll jump maybe double the world record. Definitionally super-human but nigh-godlike? You can't even leap a short building in a single bound.

Please let me know if I've missed anything but I think those two are the only unambiguous cases. Everything else is based on taking inherent assumptions of what a Level X character is supposed to be able to do and homebrewing things for them to be able to do (Alexander claims that Einstein's discoveries constitute a DC 40 Knowledge check, but no such DC exists RAW) which is exactly what this kind of analysis is supposed to avoid. By my reckoning, Level 20 characters are certainly more powerful than level 5 characters, but certainly not four times as powerful and likely not in the ways that you would instinctively expect. D&D characters advance different traits in different ways, making Level 20 characters a lot more lopsided than I would imagine a god should be.

Get into the upper teens, knowing things almost no one has ever known before, knocking down a stone wall with a single swing of a stick, swimming through acid, falling off a cliff, balancing on a 1 inch wide severely slippery sloped surface in full maille, turning someone who doesn't like you into a friend with one minute of talking, killing giant monsters, leaping much farther than anyone really could, etc. etc. all become borderline trivial if you are even slightly optimized towards that sort of thing, and downright cake walks if it is a true focus for you.

[Seto]

Assuming that Gandalf and Aragorn are indeed around 5th level, what build do you think Galadriel would have ? (The point has probably been brought up quite a few times, but I haven't seen it discussed myself)

[SowZ]

Go ahead and source me on smaller. Do we have evidence that they are weaker than men, though? I don't know if we ever have a good chance to see normal men (not men of Gondor) fight normal orcs of any kind in the books (the Rohirrim fought Uruk-hai).

There was the fight at the end of the Hobbit (and it has been an age since I read that), but I'm not even clear where those orcs came from. Moria?

They are significantly smaller. In one particular instance, a 'Huge Orc chieftain' is 'nearly man-high' and that is a big deal. Most in the books are more comparable to hobbit size, some not even making it to Sam's shoulders. The image of hulking brutes should really be saved for Uruk's, who are described as much larger than standard Orcs, and possibly the earliest Orcs, (who may have been twisted elves. It varies.)

Anyway, Uruk's are physically stronger and smarter than normal Orcs. Breeding with Men made them superior in just about every way. Now, this may not have been the case in the first or second age when Orcs may have been very powerful. It is hard to say.

[TuggyNE]

How dare you give Finwe the credit? :smallfurious:
It was mighty Fingolfin who fought Morgoth and injured him.

True, but technically Finwe also fought Morgoth, considerably earlier. It uh… didn't go very well then either.

[Kalmageddon]

I... really don't get this discussion.
LotR and Tolkien's mythos in general are nothing like D&D, which in turn might have taken inspiration from Tolkien's works, but has taken so many liberties that it's more about small references then actual inspiration.
Halflings in D&D are nothing like hobbits, orcs in D&D are nothing like Tolkien's orcs, elves in D&D are nothing like Tolkien's elves.

Thus, comparing the two media is ridiculous. As said before, high level mundane characters in D&D are not noticeably different from low level because all they do is hit things with their weapons. Could LotR be acted out using 20th level mundanes and a whole bunch of high level npc and monsters? Of course. I mean, the only argument you could present against this is that the combat takes too little time, as high level characters and monsters in D&D are bullet sponges. But I think we can all agree that both in the movies and in the books, Aragorn hitting the same orc again and again, chipping away at its hitpoints because the orc has like 150 would be ridicolous.
And yet in LotR all the characters are supposed to be among the best at what they do, which means "high level" in D&D terms.

As for magic, in Tolkien's world it works in a completly different manner from D&D so comparing a D&D wizard with Gandalf is simply absurd. There is no common ground except for the fact that both of them use a staff and are called wizards.

And one last thing... This might shock you a bit but... D&D can't represent everything with its rules. You can only play a very specific kind of setting, which is best described as a medieval fantasy Marvel or DC universe, with superheroes being called adventurers. Anything else simply can't be done well under D&D rules as written.

[Yora]

Actually, in D&D-terms, Gandalf is a solar with polymorph any object to get a human shape. Though it's a fact burried in the supplemental background material and doesn't actually come up in The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings (though hinted at with his resurrection).

The Alexandrian article is probably the defining one, which more or less nailed down 6th level as the equivalent for fantasy literature heroes in D&D 3rd Edition. It also probably led to the creation of the E6 variant.
He later mentioned that apparently most people took kind of the opposite lesson from his article than he intended. E6 says that character advancement should stop at 6th level, because after that it gets rediculous. What he actually meant to say was that you don't have to get to 20th level to become superhuman powerful. You can already play such games at 8th and 10th level, and when playing at these levels, you should treat the PCs as rediculously powerful superhumans.

[Bogardan_Mage]

IME, they're quite a bit more than 4x as powerful. Which is appropriate, as the CR system would peg them at 192x as powerful (every +2 levels is 2x the power).

Now how much more powerful exactly are they? Well, that depends on the class. For non-casting classes, the power curve is closer to linear. Still more than 4x as powerful, in terms of straight combat ability, but they haven't undergone a paradigm shift - they still have the same basic capabilities, they're just better at them. Although keep in mind that via items, they'll have filled some of the gaps in - like flight.
I think you've misunderstood what I mean by power, I admittedly used it in an unorthodox way. As I said, different traits advance at different rates, and combat ability does indeed advance faster than skills. But does that make a level 20 fighter nigh-godlike? He's certainly a lot better at hitting things than his level 5 counterpart, and he can take a lot more damage. But, you know, there are people in the real world who are better at fighting than other people. Is the level 20 fighter godlike or just really good?


For a caster, the difference is much larger. A 20th level Wizard has no only more spells than a 5th level Wizard, but those spells are individually far better, he has more feats and abilities that improve said spells, and most of the weaknesses he previously had are gone. I mean, we're talking about the difference between "starting to have impressive capabilities, when prepared for the situation" and "can respond to things before they happen with his clone army he commands from a demiplane, has dozens of contingencies if someone even manages to get there".
Yeah, spells ruin everything. My justification is that Wizards are already nigh-godlike, attributing that to their level misses the point.


Get into the upper teens, knowing things almost no one has ever known before, knocking down a stone wall with a single swing of a stick, swimming through acid, falling off a cliff, balancing on a 1 inch wide severely slippery sloped surface in full maille, turning someone who doesn't like you into a friend with one minute of talking, killing giant monsters, leaping much farther than anyone really could, etc. etc. all become borderline trivial if you are even slightly optimized towards that sort of thing, and downright cake walks if it is a true focus for you.
I've addressed some of those already. It goes without saying that level 20 characters are capable of superhuman feats, it's just that as superhumans go, they're not that impressive. They're more on the level of an action movie hero who does some things that aren't really possible but are close enough if you suspend disbelief a little. But they're not Superman and they're not even close to gods.


Actually, in D&D-terms, Gandalf is a solar with polymorph any object to get a human shape. Though it's a fact burried in the supplemental background material and doesn't actually come up in The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings (though hinted at with his resurrection).
Gandalf isn't a Solar, he's a Maia. There is no statblock for Maiar. False analogy to a conceptually similar D&D monster is completely missing the point of the exercise.

[Yora]

In that case the exercise has no point.

[johnbragg]

I... really don't get this discussion.

OK, we'll try again. It's an exercise in thinking about D&D. What should a 10th level character be able to do? How many 10th level characters are (should be) running around the campaign setting? Why isn't every setting Dark Sun where immortal magelords have enslaved cities and ruined everything?

So the idea is to take heroes from non-D&D fiction, translate them into D&D character sheets, and see what we're looking at.

How do you go about doing that? One way is to say, Gandalf and Aragorn are Teh Awesome, so peg them at level 20 and scale everything else in their world to match.

The other approach is to look at the spells, Su and Ex abilities used, and figure out the minimum power level that makes sense.


Thus, comparing the two media is ridiculous. As said before, high level mundane characters in D&D are not noticeably different from low level because all they do is hit things with their weapons.

The exercise has also been done translating superhero statblocks into D&D statblocks--Marvel Universe characters top out at Class 100 strength, ability to lift 100 tons, find the D&D Strength table, do the conversion, etc.


Could LotR be acted out using 20th level mundanes and a whole bunch of high level npc and monsters? Of course. I mean, the only argument you could present against this is that the combat takes too little time, as high level characters and monsters in D&D are bullet sponges. But I think we can all agree that both in the movies and in the books, Aragorn hitting the same orc again and again, chipping away at its hitpoints because the orc has like 150 would be ridicolous.

Or you could run the combat with 5th level melee fighters and 1st level orcs. With results a lot closer to the books (and the movies).


And yet in LotR all the characters are supposed to be among the best at what they do, which means "high level" in D&D terms.

That's the entire focus of the argument. The argument is that the biggest badasses around, in history and in most fiction, top out at level 5 or 6. That makes D&D settings outliers, with entire town guards composed of 3rd level fighters with a 7th level guard captain.

That has implications when you start other discussions, such as "How can you balance high level warrior-types against high-level casters", when most of the answers amount to making them casters, or making them superheroes.

If say Spider-Man stats out as ECL 12, that gives a different perspective on what a 12th level straight-classed Fighter or Barbarian should be able to do.

(I have no math to back up Spider-Man as ECL 12.)


And one last thing... This might shock you a bit but... D&D can't represent everything with its rules. You can only play a very specific kind of setting, which is best described as a medieval fantasy Marvel or DC universe, with superheroes being called adventurers. Anything else simply can't be done well under D&D rules as written.

That's the point. With D&D as usually played, you can pretty much only play D&D. If you want to fix/tweak/hack D&D, you need to understand D&D, and one of the things you need to understand is the effects of "character level" being a concept.

(The system is more adaptable than that, you can do a lot of things in d20 systems. There may be systems better suited to it, but D&D is still the gold standard for table-top roleplaying, and you can do a lot of things with table-top roleplaying.)

The exercise leads to different answers for different people.
Options include
Let's play E6--leveling stops at 6, with post-6 advancement through feats
Let's play GURPS or another non-leveling system
Let's play a less stats-oriented system that emphasizes story and roleplaying.
USe Tome of Battle to make melee characters more like superheroes and keep up with the casters.
Play D&D but ban Tier 1-2 casters so there's no issue of "keeping up."
Let's play 4E because there is more class vs class balance there.

And of course:
Screw it, let's keep playing 3.X.

[AMFV]

The problem is that the tone and attitude of LoTR and Middle Earth is so different from 3.5 as to be almost insurmountable. It'd be like trying to model nWoD in D20, and you can ask Monty Cook how that worked out for him...

It's just stylistically different, E6 doesn't represent it well for that very reason. It's closer but the fundamental world assumptions are too different.

[Alleran]

Actually, in D&D-terms, Gandalf is a solar with polymorph any object to get a human shape. Though it's a fact burried in the supplemental background material and doesn't actually come up in The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings (though hinted at with his resurrection).
I would probably peg Gandalf as an Astral Deva or a Planetar, actually. Powerful, yes, but a "lesser order" of angel than the least of the Valar (which I'd likely mark as Solars with Divine Ranks), and after all, he was also behind Saruman in power (so Saruman could be a Planetar while Gandalf was an Astral Deva, and the latter got upgraded to a Planetar when the Valar resurrected him).

[Legato Endless]

How dare you give Finwe the credit? :smallfurious:
It was mighty Fingolfin who fought Morgoth and injured him.
The ballsiest, most awesome and most paladinesque of all Noldor.

:smalltongue:

Hey now! Fingolfin is a badass, but awesome Paladin of the Noodle? Ecthelion would have taken out both legs of the god of evil. :smalltongue:

[Alleran]

Hey now! Fingolfin is a badass, but awesome Paladin of the Noodle? Ecthelion would have taken out both legs of the god of evil. :smalltongue:
Guys.

Eärendil. (http://static1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120521124404/lotr/images/4/42/Dragon_of_the_First_Age_by_rubendevela.jpg)

[Tengu_temp]

I think you've got a pretty serious case of misconstrued intent. Saying that Aragorn and Gandalf are in D&D terms low-level characters is hardly "targeting" them for "dismissal" as "inferior". It's actually a commentary on the degree of power levels that D&D covers. If 5th or 6th level Aragorn represents an exceptional yet mundane human, the argument goes, then what must a 10th level character be like? Or 15th? A 20th level must be nigh-godlike.

The real purpose of the Aragorn argument is to create grounds for the good old "99% of people are level 1 commoners with maybe a 12 in a single stat at most" stance. A stance that I find complete and utter bull.

Just by rolling 3d6 for every stat, you have a 4% chance to get a 18 in something. Level 1 characters are too incompetent to represent veterans with years of experience in their chosen trade well; I find the D20 Modern model, where level 1 characters are teenagers or really inept adults, level 2 ones are just starting their career and level 3 ones are experienced with it, to be much more realistic (as much as anything in DND can be realistic). And, first and foremost, the "Aragorn is level 5" article is swarming with errors, misconceptions, and selective applying of rules. It's not a good article.

Also, some people were saying that Tolkien's magic is much weaker than DND magic, and Gandalf can be easily represented as a low-level caster. This is completely untrue. Tolkien's magic is completely different from DND magic. In DND, spells are simple fire-and-forget effects with direct, set results; you cast Fireball, you cast Sleep, you cast Teleport, and they always do the same thing. Tolkien's magic is much more subtle, and while it has less flashy immediate effects, it's much more powerful in the long run. Every large-scale battle where Gandalf participates is as much about the normal combat as a clash of wills between him and Sauron/Saruman/the Witch King/etc. A wizard's presence alone can bring valor to his allies and fear to his enemies, and not because he casts a Mass Heroism or Fear spell, but because magic is a powerful, subtle force that shapes the whole world.

Coincidentally, that's how magic tends to work in most works that weren't influenced by DND's simplistic effect-based system. And it's a much more interesting, mystical approach that I vastly prefer to turning mages into brain-powered machineguns.

[AMFV]

Also, some people were saying that Tolkien's magic is much weaker than DND magic, and Gandalf can be easily represented as a low-level caster. This is completely untrue. Tolkien's magic is completely different from DND magic. In DND, spells are simple fire-and-forget effects with direct, set results; you cast Fireball, you cast Sleep, you cast Teleport, and they always do the same thing. Tolkien's magic is much more subtle, and while it has less flashy immediate effects, it's much more powerful in the long run. Every large-scale battle where Gandalf participates is as much about the normal combat as a clash of wills between him and Sauron/Saruman/the Witch King/etc. A wizard's presence alone can bring valor to his allies and fear to his enemies, and not because he casts a Mass Heroism or Fear spell, but because magic is a powerful, subtle force that shapes the whole world.

Exactly that's what I was trying to say, although perhaps more eloquently worded. Asking what levels spells Gandalf could cast is tantamount to asking what a D&D Wizard's Gnosis is... they're not really compatible models.

[Larkas]

--snip--

Hey, now that I think about it, Gandalf could probably be modeled as a Battle Sorcerer with an Item Familiar Staff, where he stores some spells. And in a world where most everything is not immune to mind-affecting effects, it might make sense to invest heavily into that.

[AMFV]

Hey, now that I think about it, Gandalf could probably be modeled as a Battle Sorcerer with an Item Familiar Staff, where he stores some spells. And in a world where most everything is not immune to mind-affecting effects, it might make sense to invest heavily into that.

But Gandalf wouldn't exist in D&D, at least in 3.5, because he doesn't exist that way in that world. You could have somebody with the same Narrative role, a la Elmenster, but Gandalf as he was in LoTR makes no sense in 3.5, since the system has a completely different world. I mean you could stat out an nWoD vampire, or a Martial Adept in 3.5, but they wouldn't work at all as they did in Shadowrun or in nWoD, because the worlds are built in different ways.

[Rogue Shadows]

Just by rolling 3d6 for every stat, you have a 4% chance to get a 18 in something.

...you sure about that? 'Cause I'm pretty sure it's actually only a .46% chance, and that the odds go something like this:

3 - .46%
4 - 1.39%
5 - 2.78%
6 - 4.63%
7 - 6.94%
8 - 9.72%
9 - 11.57%
10 - 12.50%
11 - 12.50%
12 - 11.57%
13 - 9.72%
14 - 6.94%
15 - 4.63%
16 - 2.78%
17 - 1.39%
18 - .46%
Also, equally, you have a .46% chance of getting a 3 in something, too. Statistically speaking, however, the average result of 3d6 is about 10.5. This is represented by having 10 and 11 be the +0 modifier. And rolling 4d6 and dropping the lowest die skews the average result a bit more towards 11.5, admittedly.


Level 1 characters are too incompetent to represent veterans with years of experience in their chosen trade well;

You sure? 'Cause it really isn't that hard to get up to a +15 skill modifier at 1st level through entirely mundane means (+4 ranks, +2 ability, +2 aid another, +2 equipment, +3 skill focus, +2 one of the +2/+2 skill feats), which allows you to take 10 and hit DC 25 skill checks, or take 20 and hit DC 35 - not bad considering most skills top out at DC 40, and DC 40 generally represents a "best in the world" effort.

Combat skill is better represented by just having such characters be higher level anyway; even still you can broadly achieve anything you want to represent by level 3 or 4 at the most.


And, first and foremost, the "Aragorn is level 5" article is swarming with errors, misconceptions, and selective applying of rules. It's not a good article.

Identify three that relate to Aragorn. For the record, this is what the article used to reach that conclusion:

Take Aragorn, for example. He’s clearly described as one of the best warriors in Middle Earth. But what do we actually see him do? Let’s take The Fellowship of the Rings as an example:

He leads the hobbits through the wilderness with great skill. (The highest Survival DC in the core rules is DC 15. A 1st level character can master the skill for non-tracking purposes. Aragorn, as a master tracker, would need to be 5th level, have at least one level of ranger, and have spent one of his feats on Skill Focus (Survival) to achieve all of this.)
He drives off the ringwraiths at Weathertop. (It’s difficult to conclude anything from this because it’s one of the more problematic passages in the book when subjected to analysis. If the ringwraiths are truly impervious to harm from any mortal man, why are they scared off by a guy waving two “flaming brands of wood”? Are they vulnerable to fire in a way that they’re not vulnerable to mortal weapons? The point is, the true strength of the ringwraiths is obscure, so it’s impossible to know how tough Aragorn would need to be in order to accomplish this.)
Aragorn treats Frodo’s wound, unsuccessfully. (The highest Heal DC is 15. As with Survival, Aragorn could have mastered this skill at 1st level.
In Moria (fighting orcs): “Legolas shot two through the throat. Gimli hewed the legs from under another that had sprung up on Balin’s tomb. Boromir and Aragorn slew many. When thirteen had fallen the rest fled shrieking, leaving the defenders unharmed, except for Sam who had a scratch along the scalp. A quick duck had saved him; and he had felled his orc: a sturdy thrust with his Barrow-blade. A fire was smouldering in his brown eyes that would have made Ted Sandyman step backwards, if he had seen it. (Aragorn slays no more than six or seven CR 1/2 orcs in this encounter. A trivial accomplishment for a 5th level character.)

Even if you follow Aragorn all the way through The Two Towers and The Return of the King, you’ll find that this is fairly representative of what he accomplishes. The only other notable ping on the radar is his ability to use athelas, and even if we don’t assume that’s merely an example of him knowing athelas’ properties (with a Knowledge (nature) check), it’s still just one ability.

[AMFV]

...you sure about that? 'Cause I'm pretty sure it's actually only a .46% chance, and that the odds go something like this:

3 - .46%
4 - 1.39%
5 - 2.78%
6 - 4.63%
7 - 6.94%
8 - 9.72%
9 - 11.57%
10 - 12.50%
11 - 12.50%
12 - 11.57%
13 - 9.72%
14 - 6.94%
15 - 4.63%
16 - 2.78%
17 - 1.39%
18 - .46%
Also, equally, you have a .46% chance of getting a 3 in something, too. Statistically speaking, however, the average result of 3d6 is about 10.5. This is represented by having 10 and 11 be the +0 modifier. And rolling 4d6 and dropping the lowest die skews the average result a bit more towards 11.5, admittedly.



You sure? 'Cause it really isn't that hard to get up to a +15 skill modifier at 1st level through entirely mundane means (+4 ranks, +2 ability, +2 aid another, +2 equipment, +3 skill focus, +2 one of the +2/+2 skill feats), which allows you to take 10 and hit DC 25 skill checks, or take 20 and hit DC 35 - not bad considering most skills top out at DC 40, and DC 40 generally represents a "best in the world" effort.

Combat skill is better represented by just having such characters be higher level anyway; even still you can broadly achieve anything you want to represent by level 3 or 4 at the most.



Identify three that relate to Aragorn. For the record, this is what the article used to reach that conclusion:

Take Aragorn, for example. He’s clearly described as one of the best warriors in Middle Earth. But what do we actually see him do? Let’s take The Fellowship of the Rings as an example:

He leads the hobbits through the wilderness with great skill. (The highest Survival DC in the core rules is DC 15. A 1st level character can master the skill for non-tracking purposes. Aragorn, as a master tracker, would need to be 5th level, have at least one level of ranger, and have spent one of his feats on Skill Focus (Survival) to achieve all of this.)
He drives off the ringwraiths at Weathertop. (It’s difficult to conclude anything from this because it’s one of the more problematic passages in the book when subjected to analysis. If the ringwraiths are truly impervious to harm from any mortal man, why are they scared off by a guy waving two “flaming brands of wood”? Are they vulnerable to fire in a way that they’re not vulnerable to mortal weapons? The point is, the true strength of the ringwraiths is obscure, so it’s impossible to know how tough Aragorn would need to be in order to accomplish this.)
Aragorn treats Frodo’s wound, unsuccessfully. (The highest Heal DC is 15. As with Survival, Aragorn could have mastered this skill at 1st level.
In Moria (fighting orcs): “Legolas shot two through the throat. Gimli hewed the legs from under another that had sprung up on Balin’s tomb. Boromir and Aragorn slew many. When thirteen had fallen the rest fled shrieking, leaving the defenders unharmed, except for Sam who had a scratch along the scalp. A quick duck had saved him; and he had felled his orc: a sturdy thrust with his Barrow-blade. A fire was smouldering in his brown eyes that would have made Ted Sandyman step backwards, if he had seen it. (Aragorn slays no more than six or seven CR 1/2 orcs in this encounter. A trivial accomplishment for a 5th level character.)

Even if you follow Aragorn all the way through The Two Towers and The Return of the King, you’ll find that this is fairly representative of what he accomplishes. The only other notable ping on the radar is his ability to use athelas, and even if we don’t assume that’s merely an example of him knowing athelas’ properties (with a Knowledge (nature) check), it’s still just one ability.

Those are actually the movie, and not the book as far as I can tell. Aragorn has a larger breadth of knowledge in the book. Including some perform ability. If you were going to model Aragorn he'd be level 20 in D&D and level 6 in E6, not because of his capabilities but because narratively he's one of the most powerful humans in the world, so that'd be his role in D&D or E6, maintaining his role is more important that equally matching his abilities.

[Rogue Shadows]

Those are actually the movie, and not the book as far as I can tell. Aragorn has a larger breadth of knowledge in the book. Including some perform ability. If you were going to model Aragorn he'd be level 20 in D&D and level 6 in E6, not because of his capabilities but because narratively he's one of the most powerful humans in the world, so that'd be his role in D&D or E6, maintaining his role is more important that equally matching his abilities.

I'm pretty sure the Alexandrian article is using the book, dude, as among other things, he quotes and/or paraphrases the book.

Like, for the ringwraiths, this is the last paragraph of Fellowship, Chapter XI, A Knife in the Dark:

Even as he [Frodo] swooned he caught, as through a swirling mist, a glimpse of Strider leaping out of the darkness with a flaming brand of wood in either hand.

The chapter ends before we learn how Aragorn drove off the ringwraiths with just two flaming brands of wood, though.

[bluntpencil]

Characters who roll 18s don't take levels in Commoner, they're a cut above the average, so take levels in heroic classes, or at least Expert or Warrior. They have the natural talents to go forwards in these classes.

Furthermore, Aristocrats won't have 10s and 11s everywhere, since they will have had better feeding as children, and better education.

[Legato Endless]

Guys.

Eärendil. (http://static1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120521124404/lotr/images/4/42/Dragon_of_the_First_Age_by_rubendevela.jpg)

Wow that is some awesome artwork. Though the scale is still off in keeping with dramatic license. Or that boat is absolutely huge.

Alright fine, destroying a dragon who blocked out the sky and whose fall destroyed a mountain range is a better feat. But Earendil had like, epic gear from Aman. And the half elf racial template, which is totally hax. Not to mention how he talked the DM into allowing that mythic lineage feat. Props to the player though, greatest mariner seemed like a lame prestige class until I knew the setting had flying boats.


Also, some people were saying that Tolkien's magic is much weaker than DND magic, and Gandalf can be easily represented as a low-level caster. This is completely untrue. Tolkien's magic is completely different from DND magic. In DND, spells are simple fire-and-forget effects with direct, set results; you cast Fireball, you cast Sleep, you cast Teleport, and they always do the same thing. Tolkien's magic is much more subtle, and while it has less flashy immediate effects, it's much more powerful in the long run.

Coincidentally, that's how magic tends to work in most works that weren't influenced by DND's simplistic effect-based system. And it's a much more interesting, mystical approach that I vastly prefer to turning mages into brain-powered machineguns.

Pretty much. The entire exercise is best served as a fun attempt at creating variants of popular characters to play as in your system. Any notion of creating actual equivalency is farcical due to various different baseline assumptions in the systems and the (justified) lack of adherence to reality on both.


If you were going to model Aragorn he'd be level 20 in D&D and level 6 in E6, not because of his capabilities but because narratively he's one of the most powerful humans in the world, so that'd be his role in D&D or E6, maintaining his role is more important that equally matching his abilities.

Not to mention, what straight Ranger or lvl 6 PC can command an army of thousands of incorporeal undead?

(assuming we aren't twinking said lvl 6 out with esoteric combinations of items and the like, which is beside my point)

[AMFV]

I'm pretty sure the Alexandrian article is using the book, dude, as among other things, he quotes and/or paraphrases the book.

Like, for the ringwraiths, this is the last paragraph of Chapter XI, A Knife in the Dark:

Even as he [Frodo] swooned he caught, as through a swirling mist, a glimpse of Strider leaping out of the darkness with a flaming brand of wood in either hand.

In any case the Alexandrian Article isn't taking into effect his narrative role and import. Since that matters more, the reason he was able to drive off the Nazgul is because they were frightened of the descendant of a King of Numenor, because that's some pretty substantive power there, he's one of the best Human fighters to have ever lived.

So by that logic, and the DMG world construction tables he should be very high level, if not epic level.

[Rogue Shadows]

Not to mention, what straight Ranger or lvl 6 PC can command an army of thousands of incorporeal undead?

That had nothing to do with his actual abilities, though, just his bloodline as an heir of Isildur. He could have been a 1st-level CW Samurai and he still would have been able to command the army.


In any case the Alexandrian Article isn't taking into effect his narrative role and import. Since that matters more, the reason he was able to drive off the Nazgul is because they were frightened of the descendant of a King of Numenor, because that's some pretty substantive power there, he's one of the best Human fighters to have ever lived.

Even when matched against the Witch King of Arnor, who could be slain by no man?


So by that logic, and the DMG world construction tables he should be very high level, if not epic level.

It's poor logic. The Ringwraiths are supposed to be untouchable by mortal men except by enchanted swords, but Aragorn isn't using an enchanted sword, he's using two logs that are on fire. Even if they have some kind of special weakness to fire (which is inferred purely from the fact that Aragorn apparently used fire to drive them off), the article itself points out that the power of the ringwraiths is difficult to judge, especially seeing as most of what the wraiths themselves do can be fairly well represented by...well, wraiths (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Wraith), by just making the D&D wraiths corporeal.

[hamishspence]

Alright fine, destroying a dragon who blocked out the sky and whose fall destroyed a mountain range is a better feat. But Earendil had like, epic gear from Aman. And the half elf racial template, which is totally hax. Not to mention how he talked the DM into allowing that mythic lineage feat. Props to the player though, greatest mariner seemed like a lame prestige class until I knew the setting had flying boats.

I must admit, this made me chuckle.

[AMFV]

That had nothing to do with his actual abilities, though, just his bloodline as an heir of Isildur.

But it does have to do with his abilities as they relate to the world around him. He is defined by Gandalf as being one of the most dangerous individuals in the world. So in an E6 system he's level 6, probably with many bonus feats, in a 3.5 system he's 18+. In whatever world he occupies he is near the top level of ability, regardless of what that actually means for his abilities.

[Dread_Head]

The real purpose of the Aragorn argument is to create grounds for the good old "99% of people are level 1 commoners with maybe a 12 in a single stat at most" stance. A stance that I find complete and utter bull.

Just by rolling 3d6 for every stat, you have a 4% chance to get a 18 in something. Level 1 characters are too incompetent to represent veterans with years of experience in their chosen trade well; I find the D20 Modern model, where level 1 characters are teenagers or really inept adults, level 2 ones are just starting their career and level 3 ones are experienced with it, to be much more realistic (as much as anything in DND can be realistic). And, first and foremost, the "Aragorn is level 5" article is swarming with errors, misconceptions, and selective applying of rules. It's not a good article.

Also, some people were saying that Tolkien's magic is much weaker than DND magic, and Gandalf can be easily represented as a low-level caster. This is completely untrue. Tolkien's magic is completely different from DND magic. In DND, spells are simple fire-and-forget effects with direct, set results; you cast Fireball, you cast Sleep, you cast Teleport, and they always do the same thing. Tolkien's magic is much more subtle, and while it has less flashy immediate effects, it's much more powerful in the long run. Every large-scale battle where Gandalf participates is as much about the normal combat as a clash of wills between him and Sauron/Saruman/the Witch King/etc. A wizard's presence alone can bring valor to his allies and fear to his enemies, and not because he casts a Mass Heroism or Fear spell, but because magic is a powerful, subtle force that shapes the whole world.

Coincidentally, that's how magic tends to work in most works that weren't influenced by DND's simplistic effect-based system. And it's a much more interesting, mystical approach that I vastly prefer to turning mages into brain-powered machineguns.

But rolling for stats is something only PC's are meant to do and it makes sense for them to have higher stats as they are the heroes. Commoners and other NPC classes are meant to use one of the arrays, with the assumption that most of them are using the basic array of straight 10's a few better than normal using the standard array and exceptional NPC's starting with the elite array. I don't like this part of the system as it makes building challenging NPCs harder but it is the basic assumption from the DMG.

I'd also say that most commoners in a traditional pseudo-medieval d&d society will be doing jobs which don't require high levels of competence and can thus be modelled pretty accurately at 1st or 2nd level. Only master craftsmen and their ilk really require more than level 2 to achieve their accomplishments.

I do agree with you about comparing magic between d&d and LOTR though. Whilst some of the things Gandalf achieves can be modelled by low level spellcasting from d&d most of it such as as you pointed out the battles of will between gandalf and his various enemies can't be.

I think if I was going to try modelling Gandalf I would use the Spirit Shaman class. I liked the earlier suggestion that he uses druid casting rather than wizard and I feel the spirit chastising abilities represent very well his powers against the incorporeal undead ringwraiths.

[Rogue Shadows]

But it does have to do with his abilities as they relate to the world around him. He is defined by Gandalf as being one of the most dangerous individuals in the world.

In Middle Earth. How'd he stack up against Drizzt Do'Urden? After all, Drizzt is explicitly not 20th level (in fact the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting has him as a Fighter 10/Barbarian 1/Ranger 5 of Mielikki), yet he's one of the greatest warriors in Abeir-Toril, a world brimming with epic-level characters.

It's not just about balancing Aragorn against everyone else in Middle Earth. If we're going to model Middle Earth in d20 at all, then it also has to stack against other worlds built around the d20 system. Making Aragorn 20th level is implicitly saying that he's a match for Drizzt Do'Urden, but do you really think Aragorn could take Drizzt around the time of, say, Passage to Dawn, based on what Aragorn has accomplished from Fellowship through Return?

[AMFV]

In Middle Earth. How'd he stack up against Drizzt Do'Urden? After all, Drizzt is explicitly not 20th level (in fact he is a Fighter 10/Barbarian 1/Ranger 5 of Mielikki), yet he's one of the greatest warriors in Abeir-Toril, a world brimming with epic-level characters.

It's not just about balancing Aragorn against everyone else in Middle Earth. If we're going to model Middle Earth in d20 at all, then it also has to stack against other worlds built around the d20 system. Do you really think Aragorn could take Drizzt around the time of, say, Passage to Dawn?

If we're building Middle Earth in D&D we have to translate it appropriately, it doesn't work as it is, so either you're losing the low magic, gritty feel, or you're losing the power level as represented. Middle Earth doesn't model in D&D at all, at least not well, which is why the "Aragorn was a 5th Level Ranger" falls flat, It's like saying "Aragon was a Gangrel with Blood Potency 2", you're clearly taking one thing into a system with differing base assumptions about the world. If you want to work Middle Earth into d20 then it will be at best a paraphrase, or you'll lose the entire setting.

Furthermore, the fact that Witch King whom Aragorn could not kill was afraid of him is certainly a sign. The Nazgul could certainly lose their forms and that was very inconvenient for them. As happened just a few chapters later.

[johnbragg]

Not to mention, what straight Ranger or lvl 6 PC can command an army of thousands of incorporeal undead?

One with a homebrew race "Heir of Isildur" that has Plot abilities.


But it does have to do with his abilities as they relate to the world around him. He is defined by Gandalf as being one of the most dangerous individuals in the world. So in an E6 system he's level 6, probably with many bonus feats, in a 3.5 system he's 18+. In whatever world he occupies he is near the top level of ability, regardless of what that actually means for his abilities.

That's assuming what is to be argued. Statting out Gandalf and Aragorn began as an exercise in determining how common high level characters should be. The idea of the article is that often, the highest level people in the world will be level 10 and below.

[awa]

in regards to level 20 mundane characters a low opp barbarian can dismantle a tank with his bare hands or kill a rino in a head butting contest (4+1 for using both hands, power attacks in a round deals at least 100 damge to an object able to tear through 3 inches of iron every 6 seconds)

put an elephant in a headlock (26 grapple vrs 20+str)

have knives bounce off his skin (dr 5)
jump over 40 feet reliable

can reliably survive complete immersion in lava or falls from orbit (70 dam average 120 dam max) vrs 135 hp assuming 10 con and no rage)

If you tell me you read a story where aragorn was attacked by a bear and he crushed its skull with a single blow of his bare hand, Id say that does not sound like something he would be able to do.
you tell be beowulf did that and i say yeah that sounds about right

[Rogue Shadows]

If we're building Middle Earth in D&D we have to translate it appropriately, it doesn't work as it is, so either you're losing the low magic, gritty feel, or you're losing the power level as represented. Middle Earth doesn't model in D&D at all, at least not well, which is why the "Aragorn was a 5th Level Ranger" falls flat, It's like saying "Aragon was a Gangrel with Blood Potency 2", you're clearly taking one thing into a system with differing base assumptions about the world. If you want to work Middle Earth into d20 then it will be at best a paraphrase, or you'll lose the entire setting.

I disagree. Eberron, for example, is a campaign world where most of the most powerful NPCs hover around 10th level, but it is nevertheless depicted as a world of High Adventure!

I don't think that Middle Earth loses anything by being a similar world, where most of the most powerful NPCs cap out at around 5th or maybe 7th level.

Heck, just consider Red Hand of Doom. I think it's fair to say that it's held up as one of the most engaging and successful modules D&D's ever produced. It's a big adventure where the players battle armies, fight dragons, defend a city and defy a goddess. Yet it's a 6th-12th level adventure, and frankly in my run-through I found that it actually worked just fine as a 5th-9th level one.


Furthermore, the fact that Witch King whom Aragorn could not kill was afraid of him is certainly a sign. The Nazgul could certainly lose their forms and that was very inconvenient for them. As happened just a few chapters later.

But without knowing the actual powers of the ringwraiths, it's largely moot knowledge. Knowing that A is better than B but not as good as C doesn't mean much if you don't know what any of the variables actually are.

The article itself seemed to largely use that nothing Aragorn did that is defined in D&D is beyond the ability of a 5th level character. And this is true - a 5th level character can make any Knowledge (nature) or Survival check he wants, can kill orcs all day long without breaking a sweat, etc.

[AMFV]

One with a homebrew race "Heir of Isildur" that has Plot abilities.



That's assuming what is to be argued. Statting out Gandalf and Aragorn began as an exercise in determining how common high level characters should be. The idea of the article is that often, the highest level people in the world will be level 10 and below.

Well in 3.5 it doesn't even work as that... since the exercise would run directly contradictory to the already established rules for character level sorting. The whole thing is a kind of counterproductive exercise anyways. Especially in 3.5

In AD&D or D&D were Middle Earth is a better fit, it's... less so...


in regards to level 20 mundane characters a low opp barbarian can dismantle a tank with his bare hands or kill a rino in a head butting contest (4+1 for using both hands, power attacks in a round deals at least 100 damge to an object able to tear through 3 inches of iron every 6 seconds)

put an elephant in a headlock (26 grapple vrs 20+str)

have knives bounce off his skin (dr 5)
jump over 40 feet reliable

can reliably survive complete immersion in lava or falls from orbit (70 dam average 120 dam max) vrs 135 hp assuming 10 con and no rage)

If you tell me you read a story where aragorn was attacked by a bear and he crushed its skull with a single blow of his bare hand, Id say that does not sound like something he would be able to do.
you tell be beowulf did that and i say yeah that sounds about right

But Aragorn could drive off the Nazgul, something very few (No) other characters were shown to do. They even charged straight into Rivendell, so that's an informed ability, but its a damned impressive one.

[johnbragg]

Well in 3.5 it doesn't even work as that... since the exercise would run directly contradictory to the already established rules for character level sorting. The whole thing is a kind of counterproductive exercise anyways. Especially in 3.5

In AD&D or D&D were Middle Earth is a better fit, it's... less so...


Well, the original "Gandalf Was a 5th Level Wizard" article was from a Dragon Magazine from the 1970s...

And yes, one implication of the thesis is that the DMG tables for how common high-level NPCs are in different sized cities are borked.

[awa]

But Aragorn could drive off the Nazgul, something very few (No) other characters were shown to do. They even charged straight into Rivendell, so that's an informed ability, but its a damned impressive one.

we arnt given enough info to know how hard that task is so it cant be used as a bench mark of power whos to say a barbarian with his massive fort saves could not have done the something

[limejuicepowder]

But it does have to do with his abilities as they relate to the world around him. He is defined by Gandalf as being one of the most dangerous individuals in the world. So in an E6 system he's level 6, probably with many bonus feats, in a 3.5 system he's 18+. In whatever world he occupies he is near the top level of ability, regardless of what that actually means for his abilities.

So I infer from this that you think the orcs are all in the 10-15th level range, then? As are all of the soldiers of Gondor, and Rohan? While Aragorn is of course significantly superior to orcs, he can't just slaughter hundreds of them as he pleases - heavily outnumbered, say 15 to 1, Aragorn will loose. This is completely off when you consider the martial ability of a level 18+ character in DnD. There is effectively no amount of CR 1 mooks that can be assembled that will take down a 20th level fighter.

I follow the logic you are using, but I strongly disagree with it. Simply, DnD encompasses a huge difference in power from the lowest level to the highest. Just because Aragorn is the best in his world, is doesn't follow that he is the pinnacle of skill in a typical DnD world.

E6 was made for a reason. Sometimes, people want to play a more mundane, realistic, and gritty campaign that higher level character are incompatible with. Tolkien's world is a perfect example of it: yes there are extraordinary people, but they aren't so powerful that they stop caring about things like armies, or fortifications, or anything else that traditional warriors care about.

[Rogue Shadows]

Well, the originalAnd yes, one implication of the thesis is that the DMG tables for how common high-level NPCs are in different sized cities are borked.

Even in a metropolis of 25,000 people, (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16595777&postcount=93) average roll results will give you only a total of 78 NPCs of 10th level of above. Only 4 of them are 20th level, and each of those 4 are Commoners. Only about 2.4% of the population ends up being 2nd-level or higher.

And that's in a metropolis, which 1% of all D&D settlements are. Fully half are Village-sized or lower and so impose a community size penalty to NPC level generation rolls, which means it's possible to have no members of ANY PC class present (and no aristocrats or adepts, either). Even the smallest thorp with the worst possible roll results, meanwhile, will still produce a settlement with 18 commoners, 1 warrior, and 1 expert, all 1st level.

[Pan151]

As far as level progression in DnD goes, and what it means in terms of the world, I've always went with the same progression as in the NWN series. That is:

lv1 is a beginner at what they do. A young man who knows a thing or two about swords. A little kid that's good around locks and traps. A girl that has recently become an apprentice to the local wizard.

lv5 is a local big-shot. The local guard captain. The village's priest. The chiftain of a small tribe.

lv10 is a nation-wide big-shot. A major town's elite knight. The arch-chief of the Orc tribes in the general area.

lv15 is the elite of the nation. The arch-mage of a major city. The knight-captain of the biggest fortress in the country.

lv20 trancends the boundaries of regular people. He/she is the person for whose achievements epics will be sung for centuries to come.

lv30 trancends the boundaries of mortals. He/she walks among the gods not as a pawn, but as a fellow player in their schemes and plans.


That is the only level scaling that makes sense to me, considering the ECLs of all the various famous NPCs/mythical monsters/gods in DnD. E6 may have its merits, but it is unfortunately incompatible with a lot of stuff in core DnD mechanics and lore.

It is however much closer than regular DnD to the mechanics of the actual LotR tabletop game, as well as LotR itself, I'll have to agree.

tl:dr DnD and LotR are 2 universes that work very differently. You can't adapt one into the other without changing some fundamentals from at least one of those. At best you can play a LotR-inspired "not-quite-DnD" or a "not-quite-LotR"-inspired DnD. Compairing level scalings between the 2 universes is thus somewhat pointless.

[hamishspence]

There is effectively no amount of CR 1 mooks that can be assembled that will take down a 20th level fighter.

1 in 20 strikes, even from a 1st level commoner vs massive AC, will always hit.

O-Chul points this out to Haley:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0417.html

and similar principles may apply here.

2000 1st level commoners, in groups that are using Aid Another, attacking the same person a group at a time, will eventually wear them down.

And if they all have bows, and all fire at the same target, even without Aiding (which might not be possible to do with bow attacks), you're looking at 100 hits per round.

[awa]

just arbitrarily saying aragorn must always be the best fighter in the world magically increasing in skill so he is always as good as or better then other fictional characters is silly.

How does he compare to goku the best martial artist in the dbz universe aragorn must always be the best fighter in the world so clearly he is equal to a martial artist who can shatter planets.

Thats silly dbz world operates on wildly different logic so trying to say that just becuase aragorn is the best in his low power world then clearly he must be the best in every world is nonsensical. Now a monk in d&d is nowhere near as powerful as one in dbz but the same thing still holds the d&d worlds have a much higher power level then the lord of the rings world.

and the thing you have to remember just becuase the settings weaker does not mean it's worse just becuase goku can kill aragorn does not mean he is a bad character or even a worse one.

[AMFV]

That's assuming what is to be argued. Statting out Gandalf and Aragorn began as an exercise in determining how common high level characters should be. The idea of the article is that often, the highest level people in the world will be level 10 and below.

And that exercise makes a lot more sense in 1970, than it does today. Today, we have 3.5 which is clearly not intended to model the sort of fantasy that one sees in the Lord of the Rings. It's kind of a varied high power fantasy of a very different sort.


....

tl:dr DnD and LotR are 2 universes that work very differently. You can't adapt one into the other without changing some fundamentals from at least one of those. At best you can play a LotR-inspired "not-quite-DnD" or a "not-quite-LotR"-inspired DnD. Compairing level scalings between the 2 universes is thus somewhat pointless.

Exactly, although AD&D was much closer.


So I infer from this that you think the orcs are all in the 10-15th level range, then? As are all of the soldiers of Gondor, and Rohan? While Aragorn is of course significantly superior to orcs, he can't just slaughter hundreds of them as he pleases - heavily outnumbered, say 15 to 1, Aragorn will loose. This is completely off when you consider the martial ability of a level 18+ character in DnD. There is effectively no amount of CR 1 mooks that can be assembled that will take down a 20th level fighter.

I follow the logic you are using, but I strongly disagree with it. Simply, DnD encompasses a huge difference in power from the lowest level to the highest. Just because Aragorn is the best in his world, is doesn't follow that he is the pinnacle of skill in a typical DnD world.

E6 was made for a reason. Sometimes, people want to play a more mundane, realistic, and gritty campaign that higher level character are incompatible with. Tolkien's world is a perfect example of it: yes there are extraordinary people, but they aren't so powerful that they stop caring about things like armies, or fortifications, or anything else that traditional warriors care about.

E6 is still nothing like Tolkein's world really, it's very different from that setting in the prevalence of magic, in general tone, in how characters operate. It's a different setting entirely, it and 3.5 are both different in tone but you're still not creating something with a tone close to LoTR. You'd need a completely different game for that.


just arbitrarily saying aragorn must always be the best fighter in the world magically increasing in skill so he is always as good as or better then other fictional characters is silly.

How does he compare to goku the best martial artist in the dbz universe aragorn must always be the best fighter in the world so clearly he is equal to a martial artist who can shatter planets.

Thats silly dbz world operates on wildly different logic so trying to say that just becuase aragorn is the best in his low power world then clearly he must be the best in every world is nonsensical. Now a monk in d&d is nowhere near as powerful as one in dbz but the same thing still holds the d&d worlds have a much higher power level then the lord of the rings world.

and the thing you have to remember just becuase the settings weaker does not mean it's worse just becuase goku can kill aragorn does not mean he is a bad character or even a worse one.



Which is what I'm arguing, you can't take something from a different world and just transplant it and still have the character remain intact, either he becomes weak and ineffective, which makes him no longer the same character, or his abilities change.

[awa]

yes an army of thousand of commoners all attacking at once could eventual wear down an a low op fighter (a barbarian would be able to withstand it for a long time) but aragorn would go down instantly to even a fraction of that number.

[awa]

Which is what I'm arguing, you can't take something from a different world and just transplant it and still have the character remain intact, either he becomes weak and ineffective, which makes him no longer the same character, or his abilities change.

i don't accept your argument that aragorns abilities are fundamental to his character and the existence of someone better causes reality to fail or that he suddenly must magical be there superior.

[Seto]

But Aragorn could drive off the Nazgul, something very few (No) other characters were shown to do. They even charged straight into Rivendell, so that's an informed ability, but its a damned impressive one.

Yeah sure. No other characters from Tolkien. But if you put in a 10th-level PC from any common D&D setting, he'll figure out a way to do pretty much anything Aragorn could do.
Besides, the Nazgûl example is kinda botched since this really is an instance where they were driven away because of plot and fluff, not because of crunch (same thing applies to the undead army, btw). Tolkien writes a piece of literature, he doesn't play a RPG : so he doesn't bother with mechanics. Even if you wanna stretch that scene to make it fit into D&D (which is tricky, contrary to the straight sword fights)... I don't know, maybe a 5th level PC could drive off a largely more powerful foe ? Maybe Aragorn made a really awesome Intimidate check with circumstance boni since he's the heir of Isildur ?

The point is, I agree with you when you say Aragorn or Gandalf are the top dogs in their world. It's just that, when you take them and let them loose in, say, a 3.5 world, their capabilities will amount to roughly level 5. For them to be level 18+ would require that the level progression be entirely rewritten in order to fit Middle Earth assumptions. Which is basically what E6 is for (and even then, as Temp said things like magic don't really translate well). And that' fine. But as it stands, assuming 3.5, they're level 5.
Which means that yes, the power level you can have in 3.5 is completely insane and unrealistic. But then everyone already knew that. And personally I'm not bothered by that fact. In my view, capping the rest of the world to level 5, but not the PCs, would cause a crapload more problems than it would resolve.

The most important thing is not how powerful your world and its assumptions allow people to become : the most important thing is coherence. Not realism, coherence. Meaning that, however powerful the PCs (or characters in a work of art) are, the world will always present appropriate challenges, and they'll always find people (NPCs) roughly as powerful as them. (Granted, that's power creep and it has a problem with believability, be it in D&D or in most Shonen... but it has its upsides too. You just have to be careful not overdoing it.) Coherence is preserved when top-dog-Aragorn slashes through armies of orcs. Coherence is preserved when top-dog-Batmanwizard creates his own demiplane to fight the Demigod of Sorcerers. Coherence is not preserved when you take top-dog-Aragorn, throw him against Batmanwizard, and still want him to be a top dog.

[Elderand]

i don't accept your argument that aragorns abilities are fundamental to his character and the existence of someone better causes reality to fail or that he suddenly must magical be there superior.

Worse, Aragorn maybe one of the most dangerous man in the world of tolkien.....at the time of the lord of the ring books.

That is a huge caveat, their have been being whose power was so vast they would have swatted aragorn asside like a fly in the history of middle earth.

One of the theme of tolkien is that things are just getting weaker all the time.

Sauron lived in his own country and had trouble subjugeting armies of men and elves. Morgoth fought against armies of godlike beings, had minions the size of several mountain range, whole flights of balrog and his battle reshaped the world. Not a metaphor, it's actually changed the geography.

[Legato Endless]

That had nothing to do with his actual abilities, though, just his bloodline as an heir of Isildur. He could have been a 1st-level CW Samurai and he still would have been able to command the army.


That's a bit tenuous considering DnD's completely arbitrary relationship to what constitutes plot and actual abilities. Do we give Isildur mid to high level necromancy, considering he was able to create the undead in the first place, or is this just cut scene power to the max? +20 and circumstantial proficiency in casting because of the oath breaker situation?



1 in 20 strikes, even from a 1st level commoner vs massive AC, will always hit.

O-Chul points this out to Haley:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0417.html

and similar principles may apply here.

2000 1st level commoners, in groups that are using Aid Another, attacking the same person a group at a time, will eventually wear them down.

And if they all have bows, and all fire at the same target, even without Aiding (which might not be possible to do with bow attacks), you're looking at 100 hits per round.

Indeed. The action economy is killer in DnD, and illustrates a fundamental difference in principle between it and many dramas where the numberless minions are absolutely worthless.


yes an army of thousand of commoners all attacking at once could eventual wear down an a low op fighter (a barbarian would be able to withstand it for a long time) but aragorn would go down instantly to even a fraction of that number.

And this is based on what precisely?

[AMFV]

i don't accept your argument that aragorns abilities are fundamental to his character and the existence of someone better causes reality to fail or that he suddenly must magical be there superior.

They clearly are. He is described as one of the most dangerous people you'll ever meet, if he ceases to be that, then you've eliminated one of his character qualities. He is never described as "not being able to magic" we only imply that because he doesn't do much magic, although he does do some healing stuff throughout the book, which may certainly qualify.

So you are wanting to remove an actual stated part of the character, to preserve something that isn't a stated part of the character, in a crossover, yes, he'd be weaker, but such a crossover would be nonsensical anyways. It'd be like having the Federation from Star Trek fight the Horde from WoW, obviously the Federation wins, but they have all the advantages, if you wanted to create Gul'Dan in ST:NG, you would create something very different from what was presented in WoW, to preserve the concept of that character.


Yeah sure. No other characters from Tolkien. But if you put in a 10th-level PC from any common D&D setting, he'll figure out a way to do pretty much anything Aragorn could do.
Besides, the Nazgûl example is kinda botched since this really is an instance where they were driven away because of plot and fluff, not because of crunch (same thing applies to the undead army, btw). Tolkien writes a piece of literature, he doesn't play a RPG : so he doesn't bother with mechanics. Even if you wanna stretch that scene to make it fit into D&D (which is tricky, contrary to the straight sword fights)... I don't know, maybe a 5th level PC could drive off a largely more powerful foe ? Maybe Aragorn made a really awesome Intimidate check with circumstance boni since he's the heir of Isildur ?

The point is, I agree with you when you say Aragorn or Gandalf are the top dogs in their world. It's just that, when you take them and let them loose in, say, a 3.5 world, their capabilities will amount to roughly level 5. For them to be level 18+ would require that the level progression be entirely rewritten in order to fit Middle Earth assumptions. Which is basically what E6 is for (and even then, as Temp said things like magic don't really translate well). And that' fine. But as it stands, assuming 3.5, they're level 5.
Which means that yes, the power level you can have in 3.5 is completely insane and unrealistic. But then everyone already knew that. And personally I'm not bothered by that fact. In my view, capping the rest of the world to level 5, but not the PCs, would cause a crapload more problems than it would resolve.

The most important thing is not how powerful your world and its assumptions allow people to become : the most important thing is coherence. Not realism, coherence. Meaning that, however powerful the PCs (or characters in a work of art) are, the world will always present appropriate challenges, and they'll always find people (NPCs) roughly as powerful as them. (Granted, that's power creep and it has a problem with believability, be it in D&D or in most Shonen... but it has its upsides too. You just have to be careful not overdoing it.) Coherence is preserved when top-dog-Aragorn slashes through armies of orcs. Coherence is preserved when top-dog-Batmanwizard creates his own demiplane to fight the Demigod of Sorcerers. Coherence is not preserved when you take top-dog-Aragorn, throw him against Batmanwizard, and still want him to be a top dog.

You can't take Aragorn and have him fight a Batman wizard, as he has no listed stats, and many informed abilities, any translation of his character will be a paraphrase. So your options are create a paraphrase that preserves what was in the Lord of The Rings, the intent and the feel, or create a paraphrase that matches what you think somebody's abilities are, when you've only seen a small fraction of their abilities.

Simply put, they don't work together, they're not settings that could coexist, if you put the Batman wizard in LoTR, he'd suck, since many of his spells no longer exist, sure if you touch the two worlds together, you're creating a system that would be like that, but you can't just mix and match and combine things that were not meant to be combined.



And this is based on what precisely?

That time Aragorn was killed by the horde of commoners, remember?

[Rogue Shadows]

They clearly are. He is described as one of the most dangerous people you'll ever meet, if he ceases to be that, then you've eliminated one of his character qualities. He is never described as "not being able to magic" we only imply that because he doesn't do much magic, although he does do some healing stuff throughout the book, which may certainly qualify.

You know, if Aragon is 5th level, but the overwhelming majority of people in Middle-Earth are 1st level, then he'd still be one of the most dangerous people that anyone in Middle-Earth would ever meet, thereby fulfilling what is apparently your most basic requirement for the character - that is, that his power level be, indeed, over 8,000.


That's a bit tenuous considering DnD's completely arbitrary relationship to what constitutes plot and actual abilities. Do we give Isildur mid to high level necromancy, considering he was able to create the undead in the first place, or is this just cut scene power to the max? +20 and circumstantial proficiency in casting because of the oath breaker situation?

I have no idea. To be completely honest I've only ever read through The Two Towers before I became so utterly bored to tears that I just gave up on Lord of the Rings. And even that took a supreme effort of will.

The Hobbit was better. Though Smaug's death was a major let-down; the movies are already doing a better job in that regard by actually introducing Bard more than a page before he kills Smaug. Otherwise, though, it was nice and concise and stuff actually happened occasionally without people pausing every 10 pages to sing a song about how much better/worse things were 3,000 years ago.

...side note, it would not have taken much effort to turn either The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings into musicals, and I'm not convinced that for The Hobbit it wouldn't have worked.

[The Grue]

1 in 20 strikes, even from a 1st level commoner vs massive AC, will always hit.

Nope. Rolling a nat 20 isn't an automatic critical hit, it's a critical threat. You need to roll again and beat the target's AC to confirm.

You can still do it, but now you have to take into account what the 20th-level character's total AC bonus is. Suffice it to say, it's a lot less than 1 in 20.

[AMFV]

Nope. Rolling a nat 20 isn't an automatic critical hit, it's a critical threat. You need to roll again and beat the target's AC to confirm.

You can still do it, but now you have to take into account what the 20th-level character's total AC bonus is. Suffice it to say, it's a lot less than 1 in 20.

Wrong, it's an automatic hit even if it's not a confirmed critical.

[The Grue]

<--------- facepalm

[Seto]

You can't take Aragorn and have him fight a Batman wizard, as he has no listed stats, and many informed abilities, any translation of his character will be a paraphrase. So your options are create a paraphrase that preserves what was in the Lord of The Rings, the intent and the feel, or create a paraphrase that matches what you think somebody's abilities are, when you've only seen a small fraction of their abilities.

Simply put, they don't work together, they're not settings that could coexist, if you put the Batman wizard in LoTR, he'd suck, since many of his spells no longer exist, sure if you touch the two worlds together, you're creating a system that would be like that, but you can't just mix and match and combine things that were not meant to be combined.

What is character creation in D&D ? Taking a concept and translating it into D&D mechanics at the best of one's ability. I'm sure that a lot of people watched LotR and exclaimed : "oh my god, Aragorn is soooo awesome, I want to play a character who does what he can do !". The point is, you can either make a 20th-level character (because he's a top dog) or make a character who can do what Aragorn can do but have him be 5th-level, because the two can't hold together in D&D, while they do in LotR.
Your position seems to be the first option. That would require a specific rewriting of the level progression to fit LotR. That's fine.

I also agree that the comparision doesn't really make sense and the two worlds don't overlap. But then don't go around saying
"He is defined by Gandalf as being one of the most dangerous individuals in the world. So in an E6 system he's level 6, probably with many bonus feats, in a 3.5 system he's 18+. In whatever world he occupies he is near the top level of ability, regardless of what that actually means for his abilities.". Because that's either false (for him to be 18+ in 3.5 you'd have to completely forget his abilities and have him be able of stupidly powerful things, which would make him an altogether different character, much more so than if you just played him as a 5th-level ranger) or inconsistent (if you also argue that comparing a 3.5 character with a LotR character doesn't make sense as the base assumptions widely differ).

[AMFV]

What is character creation in D&D ? Taking a concept and translating it into D&D mechanics at the best of one's ability. I'm sure that a lot of people watched LotR and exclaimed : "oh my god, Aragorn is soooo awesome, I want to play a character who does what he can do !". The point is, you can either make a 20th-level character (because he's a top dog) or make a character who can do what Aragorn can do but have him be 5th-level, because the two can't hold together in D&D, while they do in LotR.
Your position seems to be the first option. That would require a specific rewriting of the level progression to fit LotR. That's fine.

I also agree that the comparision doesn't really make sense and the two worlds don't overlap. But then don't go around saying Because that's either false (for him to be 18+ in 3.5 you'd have to completely forget his abilities and have him be able of stupidly powerful things, which would make him an altogether different character, much more so than if you just played him as a 5th-level ranger) or inconsistent (if you also argue that comparing a 3.5 character with a LotR character doesn't make sense as the base assumptions widely differ).

But he is capable of stupidly powerful things in the world where he exists. Defeating a Balrog, is insanely powerful, beyond the scope of any mortal still alive in that world at that time, so Gandalf is clearly insanely powerful in that world. I'm saying that any translation of the setting has to be a paraphrase, since the characters don't directly transfer, and you can lose their importance (which is significant for their narrative) or add a couple of abilities (which who knows, they may have had anyways.) In this case the narrative thing wins out to my thinking.

[Legato Endless]

...side note, it would not have taken much effort to turn either The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings into musicals, and I'm not convinced that for The Hobbit it wouldn't have worked.

Ask and you shall receive. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_the_Rings_%28musical%29)

Though I can't comment on the quality, having never seen it myself.

[Seto]

But he is capable of stupidly powerful things in the world where he exists. Defeating a Balrog, is insanely powerful, beyond the scope of any mortal still alive in that world at that time, so Gandalf is clearly insanely powerful in that world. I'm saying that any translation of the setting has to be a paraphrase, since the characters don't directly transfer, and you can lose their importance (which is significant for their narrative) or add a couple of abilities (which who knows, they may have had anyways.) In this case the narrative thing wins out to my thinking.


Paraphrase :
verb
[with object]
express the meaning of (something written or spoken) using different words, especially to achieve greater clarity:
you can either quote or paraphrase literary texts

Essentially, any translation is a paraphrase. So I'm not sure what you really mean here (I'm not dismissing you, I'm genuinely not sure : my mastery of English is not perfect, perhaps "paraphrase" has another meaning, or you were using it metaphorically ?).
As for the rest, I think translating a character in D&D terms (or at least the way people in here usually do) means getting him out of the narrative he's in and putting him in another. If, for example, I want to play Harry Potter, I'll try to come up with a build that describes his abilities, but I won't include England, Hogwarts or flying Fords, because that wouldn't mean anything. Or maybe I might, but that's if I rewrote the HP world in D&D terms, but without D&D assumptions.
That's the difference between just translating a character and making him a playable concept while giving him coherence in relation to the world you're putting him in.

That's to say, if you just want to translate LoTR into D&D terms (assuming that's possible, which I think it is to some extent but it clearly has limits), Gandalf'll be "insanely powerful" and "insanely powerful" will mean around, say, level 5. If you want to make Gandalf into a D&D character in a standard 3.5 world (which is different), you'll have to drop the "insanely powerful" and the rest of the narrative.
"Powerful" here isn't an actual or absolute concept, but it's to be understood in relation to the world. That's why I think it cannot be defined as a character trait when you make said character switch worlds.

[Phelix-Mu]

Yay. Talky talk! And I even managed a series of off-topic comment about which elf king/elder/scion was biggest and most badass (in a world that used to be teeming with all manner of badass).

God came to that one guy, Feanor was it? Well, technically it wasn't god, but close enough. The gods asked him for the silmarils, so that they could restore light to the world after Morgoth, in the Least Original Plan Ever, turned off the lights as his Big Hollywood Sequel. Well, Feanor said "No," and followed it up with a "go suck on it, they're mine, and we'll never give them up." His balls were so big that they screwed all of his undying descendents until well...until there weren't any more around (almost, can't quite recall if they all bit it). Most of them died beating their breasts, as I recall, too. Now that is balls.

*That's a super rough approximation. It's literally a half-decade since I picked that book up (the Silmarillion), and I'm too lazy to wiki the matter atm.

[AMFV]

Essentially, any translation is a paraphrase. So I'm not sure what you really mean here (I'm not dismissing you, I'm genuinely not sure : my mastery of English is not perfect, perhaps "paraphrase" has another meaning, or you were using it metaphorically ?).
As for the rest, I think translating a character in D&D terms (or at least the way people in here usually do) means getting him out of the narrative he's in and putting him in another. If, for example, I want to play Harry Potter, I'll try to come up with a build that describes his abilities, but I won't include England, Hogwarts or flying Fords, because that wouldn't mean anything. Or maybe I might, but that's if I rewrote the HP world in D&D terms, but without D&D assumptions.
That's the difference between just translating a character and making him a playable concept while giving him coherence in relation to the world you're putting him in.

That's certainly true, if the essay was about playing Gandalf, but it's not. It's stating that Gandalf is ultra powerful, and rare and he can be modeled at 5th level so in world that should be considered uber powerful and rare. Which makes sense given that the RPG theory was not very developed at that point.



That's to say, if you just want to translate LoTR into D&D terms (assuming that's possible, which I think it is to some extent but it clearly has limits), Gandalf'll be "insanely powerful" and "insanely powerful" will mean around, say, level 5. If you want to make Gandalf into a D&D character in a standard 3.5 world (which is different), you'll have to drop the "insanely powerful" and the rest of the narrative.
"Powerful" here isn't an actual or absolute concept, but it's to be understood in relation to the world. That's why I think it cannot be defined as a character trait when you make said character switch worlds.

But the problem is that Gandalf wasn't designed for a crossover, so involving characters like that in a crossover is changing so many fundamental assumptions as to basically ruin the setting. The problem is that if you bring other characters into Arda, then they must become less powerful to match the world's rules, so the reverse would likely be true, without Iluvater limiting his power and in a world with different rules Gandalf might suddenly experience a lot more capacity than we see.

[hymer]

@ Phelix-Mu: I make it a point to bring this up when I see the 'Orcs-from-Elves' theory stated as canon. It isn't. Tolkien came up with about eight different ideas for where Orcs could come from (since Melkor couldn't have created them outright), and he didn't like any of them enough to pick it. When comparing the options, he actually leaned more towards Orcs being twisted Men.

@ the thread in general: Aragorn led from the front in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, and came out uninjured.
"[Aragorn, Éomer and Imrahil] were unscathed, for such was their fortune and the skill and might of their arms, and few indeed had dared to abide them or look on their faces in the hour of their wrath."
I haven't seen that one mentioned yet.

[AMFV]

@ Phelix-Mu: I make it a point to bring this up when I see the 'Orcs-from-Elves' theory stated as canon. It isn't. Tolkien came up with about eight different ideas for where Orcs could come from (since Melkor couldn't have created them outright), and he didn't like any of them enough to pick it. When comparing the options, he actually leaned more towards Orcs being twisted Men.

However it actually happened in the Silmarillion, making it canon even if he debated several different options.

[Rosstin]

GIF unrelated.

http://i.imgur.com/cBrJq3f.gif

[AMFV]

GIF unrelated.

http://i.imgur.com/cBrJq3f.gif

That is in every possible way related.

[hymer]

@ AMFV: You do realize that the Silmarillion isn't canon, right? It's a bunch of notes that Tolkien decided not to have published. They're extremely valuable notes, but also contradict themselves many times.

[AMFV]

@ AMFV: You do realize that the Silmarillion isn't canon, right? It's a bunch of notes that Tolkien decided not to have published. They're extremely valuable notes, but also contradict themselves many times.

They're published works by Tolkien that's as canon as you can get. Although you might argue that they're not, there is no canon standard in Middle Earth, it's not a world where there is reputable canon, it's not Star Trek where they approve everything. Furthermore the Silmarilion is a historical work, so inaccuracies are intentional. Lastly, the Elves becoming Orcs was one I've seen in his notes that were then published, but I've not see the other options
.

Edit: Furthermore it was published at his request, and a draft of it was sent to the publisher who had published the Hobbit, so I'd say it's pretty canon.

[Phelix-Mu]

@ Phelix-Mu: I make it a point to bring this up when I see the 'Orcs-from-Elves' theory stated as canon. It isn't. Tolkien came up with about eight different ideas for where Orcs could come from (since Melkor couldn't have created them outright), and he didn't like any of them enough to pick it. When comparing the options, he actually leaned more towards Orcs being twisted Men.


Not that I doubt your position, but I'd be interested as to what you have found to be the most conclusive source on the topic. All my recollections are so old as to likely be totally erroneous, so my bad, but I am interested in knowing where you came up with that idea, as it isn't meshing well with my memories of the story presented somewhere in, I think, some footnotes in the Silmarillion (or maybe not, who can say). I used to read a stupid amount about and related to Tolkien, so I'd really be interested in any kind of useful source material that I could look at.

[Legato Endless]

GIF unrelated.

That is what epic level charisma looks like folks. And pretty much how it functions in DnD.

[Phelix-Mu]

Tolkien's works that led to the Silmarillion were really just quasi-historical myths and poems, and he wasn't trying to be internally consistent (because myths aren't). That was pretty much his narrative style for historical stuff related to Middle Earth.

It was published after his death by his son, who edited and compiled it. But I think "canon" or "not canon" can't really be applied when the creator was rather tongue-in-cheek not presenting objective truths, but dialectical myths forged out of the relationship between the cultures as they were and their perspective on their past. This is clear in the stark changes that the narrative tone goes through in the Silmarillion.

[Mith]

Gandalf is a bard.

Witness; he has high charisma. Sir Ian of course delivers this well in hte movies, but even in the dried-up pages of the source material, he's smooth, persuasive, and.. .well actually kind of full of it.

It helps that the description of the Ring of Fire can in part be a Cha. boost.

[AMFV]

Tolkien's works that led to the Silmarillion were really just quasi-historical myths and poems, and he wasn't trying to be internally consistent (because myths aren't). That was pretty much his narrative style for historical stuff related to Middle Earth.

It was published after his death by his son, who edited and compiled it. But I think "canon" or "not canon" can't really be applied when the creator was rather tongue-in-cheek not presenting objective truths, but dialectical myths forged out of the relationship between the cultures as they were and their perspective on their past. This is clear in the stark changes that the narrative tone goes through in the Silmarillion.

Definitely I would imagine Tolkien never really tried for a reliable narrator. He was too fond of Epic Poetry for that to be the way it was, it's like a history, full of minor inconsistencies and instances of some bias even. Particularly regarding Numenor. Most of that seems to me to be deliberate.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by hymer
You do realize that the Silmarillion isn't canon, right? It's a bunch of notes that Tolkien decided not to have published.

Neither statement is remotely true.

The Silmarillion was originally meant to be a direct sequel to The Hobbit, which was enormously successful and led to Tolkien's publisher encouraging him to write more in that vein. Tolkien sent them an early draft of The Silmarillion, which wasn't quite what they had in mind, and as a result he began work on what became Fellowship of the Ring instead.

As for the question of canon, Tolkien developed his languages and mythology first, and worked them into The Hobbit as the opportunities arose. The Silmarillion was modified and edited for publication by Christopher Tolkien, but the elder Tolkien had always meant for the work to be published in book form.

[hymer]

@ Phelix-Mu: Well, there's the easy solution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orc_%28Middle-earth%29). :smallsmile:

In Morgoth's Ring, he writes of the idea of Orcs from Men:

This view of the origin of the Orcs thus meets with difficulties of chronology. But though Men may take comfort in this, the theory remains nonetheless the most probable. It accords with all that is known of Melkor, and of the nature and behaviour of Orcs – and of Men.

@ AMFV & Palanan: He did want it all published together, but the idea was to finish it first. Unfortunately he died before he could. We'll never know what it would have looked like if he had finished.

[...] my father come [sic] to conceive The Silmarillion as a compilation, a compendious narrative, made long afterwards from sources of great diversity (poems, and annals, and oral tales) that had survived in agelong tradition

From my HarperCollins 2006 version. That doesn't sound like canon to me.

[AMFV]

@ Phelix-Mu: Well, there's the easy solution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orc_%28Middle-earth%29). :smallsmile:

In Morgoth's Ring, he writes of the idea of Orcs from Men:


@ AMFV & Palanan: He did want it all published together, but the idea was to finish it first. Unfortunately he died before he could. We'll never know what it would have looked like if he had finished.


From my HarperCollins 2006 version. That doesn't sound like canon to me.

Besides which all of his published works are told through narrators who are proven to be from time to time unreliable, that's a trope of the particular kind of epic poetry he was imitating, it's not supposed to be canon in the way that you argue it should. There is no real canon.

But even if there was, the Silmarilion would still count as real canon, the first drafts of it were finished after the Hobbit [I]BEFORE THE LORD OF THE RINGS[I], as I understand it large chunks of it, preceded even that, so way may assume it has some rough edges but there is still a lot of material there that is solid.

[hymer]

There is no real canon.

Then let's not claim that Orcs came from Elves with such certainty.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by hymer
That doesn't sound like canon to me.

Clearly we have entirely different concepts of canon. The Silmarillion contains the founding mythos for Middle-Earth and the world beyond; it's as canon as one can find.

.

[AMFV]

Then let's not claim that Orcs came from Elves with such certainty.

Why can't I, I was told it by Tolkien, in his book. So I can certainly claim that to be the case. Particularly if you're being hard-headed and arguing for something that isn't stated as a possibility in any of his books.

[Rosstin]

I'm a proponent of the theory that LotR characters were around level 5.

I'm in a low-level Pathfinder game right now and I don't think the DM quite gets what it means to be level 1. We fought a DEMON. My character is a Ratfolk merchant (level 1 wizard) who very much is not into the whole killing-powerful-monsters schtick (although he loves all the treasure they've been finding.) Anyway, level 1 characters are WEAK. They can be killed by a housecat, even in Pathfinder.

Now we're level 3, and I expect the difference to be staggering. My character has never had a 2nd-level spell before in his entire life. A 2ND-LEVEL SPELL.

I'm curious how other RPers would model how a character feels when they go from level 1 to level 3. Like, imagine someone is level 1 their entire life, 20+ years, and then suddenly they're level 3. That must be insane for some classes. Even a fighter-- suddenly you're twice as tough and twice as good at killing people.

[hymer]

@ Palanan: I'll accept we differ.

@ AMFV: You can say anything you like. But I don't see how willfully ignoring bits you don't want does any good for the dignity of your statement. Why should Morgoth's Ring be discounted? It was written by JRRT and CT both, just like The Silmarillion. It shows us what JRRT was trying to work out about his mythopeia towards the end of his life. Why would you want to ignore that, even contradict it?

[Phelix-Mu]

Well, the problem as I see it is Tolkien never ironed it out in print. He may have wanted to, but as he left it, it sounds like a series of contradictory positions.

The main issue I have with orcs-from-men, is that it does seem to fall afoul of timelines rather badly. That and I'd generally go with the records of elves over the records of men (and I believe the opening bit of the Silmarillion is an elven tale).

Surely there is no reason the elves would claim orcish connection to themselves if they could blame it on men (and they were quite fond of blaming much on men). So who would be spreading that tale? And what of the longevity of orcs, which in the early days was said to be quite long. I guess Melkor could have extended their lives artificially to prolong their torment, or maybe the first humans lived marginally longer. No idea.

But, in any case, I go with the elves tortured in Utumno bit. Nothing beats taking the First Born of Iluvatar, children of the light itself, loved by Nenya, and turning them into filthy, stinking creatures of hatred and self-loathing, who could not even bear the sight of the sun, let alone the blessed light of the Undying Lands, the birthright and instinctive desire of all elves. I mean, now that is badass.

Making men into evil beasts? That's hardly worth mentioning.

[Rogue Shadows]

I guess Melkor could have extended their lives artificially to prolong their torment, or maybe the first humans lived marginally longer. No idea.

Much as I am a fan of orcs-from-elves as well, I do feel the need to ask - didn't Men used to live much longer back in the day? The race of Numenor and all that?

[AMFV]

Much as I am a fan of orcs-from-elves as well, I do feel the need to ask - didn't Men used to live much longer back in the day? The race of Numenor and all that?

The Race of Numenor had Elven blood actually, from what's his name, the star guy with the boat.

[hymer]

@ Phelix-Mu: For picking an option, that's certainly as good a reason as you could need. :smallsmile:

[Palanan]

On Orcs, here are the two key passages from The Silmarillion:

Chapter 3: "Of the Coming of the Elves," p. 50:


Yet this is held true by the wise of Eressëa, that all those of the Quendi who came into the hands of Melkor, ere Utumno was broken, were put there in prison, and by slow arts of cruelty were corrupted and enslaved; and thus did Melkor breed the hideous race of the Orcs in envy and mockery of the Elves, of whom they were afterwards the bitterest foes.

Chapter 10: "Of the Sindar," pp. 106-107:


And ere long the evil creatures came even to Beleriand, over passes in the mountains...and among them were the Orcs, who afterwards wrought ruin in Beleriand.... Whence they came, or what they were, the Elves knew not then, thinking them perhaps to be Avari who had become evil and savage in the wild; in which they guessed all too near, it is said.

This last phrase ties in directly with the previous quote, emphasizing the connection with Melkor's tortures while also reinforcing that this is something "held true by the wise."

Page numbers from the third Ballentine printing, 1982.

[Phelix-Mu]

The men of Numenor did live longer (far longer), but they did mainly live in Numenor for the longest time. I'm pretty sure the humans of Middle Earth (Numenor wasn't in Middle Earth) were much more like the humans we think of now. But I could be wrong. My headcanon is proving quite dusty today. Another good reason to dig out my copy of The Hobbit and start anew!

Sensibly, Melkor could have stolen men from Numenor, brought them to wherever and warped them. But, I think the timeline is here the problem, as there are implications that elves and orcs were bitter enemies since way back. Years and date-stamps aren't really a thing in much of Tolkien's work, especially way back, but I find it hard to believe that Melkor waited quite so long to get started with his hardcore villany as he would have seemingly had to wait in order to get his hands on the prime humans.

[hymer]

@ Palanan: You also get something along these lines in LotR too, though there it's said by Treebeard (towards the end of the chapter that bears his name, when Pippin asks if the Ents can really destroy Isengard). Treebeard implies (in somewhat ambiguous language) that Melkor created Orcs in mockery of Elves. This is of course not correct, but his belief, obviously.

Edit: Slight change to make my language less ambiguous.

[hamishspence]

And Frodo, in conversation with Sam in Mordor about Orcs, says he thinks that "The Shadow" could not have made them - since it can't make, only "ruin and twist".

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Rogue Shadows
Much as I am a fan of orcs-from-elves as well, I do feel the need to ask - didn't Men used to live much longer back in the day? The race of Numenor and all that?

Here's a key passage on the lives of Men, and their mortality as seen by Elves:

Chapter 17: "Of the Coming of Men into the West", p. 178:


The years of the Edain were lengthened, according to the reckoning of Men, after their coming to Beleriand; but at last Bëor the Old died when he had lived three and ninety years.... And when he lay dead, of no wound or grief, but stricken by age, the Eldar saw for the first time the swift waning of the life of Men, and the death of weariness which they knew not in themselves; and they grieved greatly for the loss of their friends.

Ninety-three is considered old for Men at this early time, which was long before the rise of Numenor.

Also note that Men come into the story well after Orcs have already been established as a twisted mockery of the Elves.

[Phelix-Mu]

The main issue that I have with orcs-from-men, I guess, is that it pretty much is anticlimax for the fall of Numenor, which was supposed to be the doom of all that was true and good and eternal among men, which happened far later. The subsequent descent into obscurity and badness among the descendents of the men of Westernesse would not have been quite so good a story if Melkor had already warped bunches of men into evil beasts (especially if he did it to Numenoreans).

But, in the end it little matters. The story is pretty damn epic either way, and I prefer to think of the orcs of old, more akin to orogs, I guess. Like the boss orcs in the current The Hobbit movies. Badass^2. The more mundane orcs just aren't good enemies for the T.elves, who, especially of old, were powerhouses.

[hamishspence]

In Unfinished Tales, in the section on the Druedain- the "Wild Men" - there's a reference to a connection between them and Orcs, with both sides regarding each other as renegades.

Though, since Orcs predate the awakening of Men- it may simply be a bit of extra human ancestry added to them long after the original "twisting and ruining of Elves".

[hymer]

We know that Elves 'awoke' at one point, and we know the fathers of the Dwarves slept long, hidden. If Tolkien had decided to go the 'Orcs-from-Men' way, maybe he would have said that Morgoth found some hidden humans sleeping, twisting them until they were no longer humans, and so created Orcs.


The more mundane orcs just aren't good enemies for the T.elves, who, especially of old, were powerhouses.

Well, Orcs do tend to get killed off with little trouble when they face Elves. It's not until you get Trolls and Dragons and Balrogs in Melkor's armies that they begin to beat Elves consistently.

[CombatOwl]

People have already linked the old Dragon Magazine article.

But for those who don't like clicking links, there were two lines of argument:

1. For Aragorn and other melee characters, it's a circular argument--Aragorn is a match for the orcs. (And, by extension, Gandalf is a match for the Balrog.) That only proves that Aragorn is a match for the orcs--Aragorn could be level 5 and the orcs 1st level warriors, or the orcs could all be Barbarian 12s and Aragorn level 20.

2. Listing the spells and abilities Gandalf is shown using in the books. Some divinations, casting light, lightning effects. None of which is beyond the ken of a 5th level wizard. (The Tolkien corpus also goes into detail about the nature and power levels of the type of angel GAndalf was, but that would translate into d20 as Gandalf being a Maiar with Sorcerer or Wizard (or some Middle-Earth specific base class) levels.

Gandalf isn't teleporting, or creating walls out of thin air, or turning trees into rocks and vice versa.

In 3e, Gandalf is more correctly portrayed by Bard.

Things Gandalf can do:

Minor feats of magic, all of which can be replicated with the Bard spell list.

Capable in a swordfight, proficient with martial weapons.

Immense knowledge of history and lore.

Inspire people to feats of courage and daring they would otherwise consider insanity.

Gandalf is obviously a bard focused on morale boosting effects and diplomacy.

The movies crank up the power level to "minor wizard", but there's little in the books that actually detail similar feats of magic.

[AMFV]

In 3e, Gandalf is more correctly portrayed by Bard.

Things Gandalf can do:

Minor feats of magic, all of which can be replicated with the Bard spell list.

Capable in a swordfight, proficient with martial weapons.

Immense knowledge of history and lore.

Inspire people to feats of courage and daring they would otherwise consider insanity.

Gandalf is obviously a bard focused on morale boosting effects and diplomacy.

The movies crank up the power level to "minor wizard", but there's little in the books that actually detail similar feats of magic.

He's not really portrayed in 3E at all, but I'd agree that a bard might be better if you were trying to build a Gandalf like character.

Although I'd argue that the original fifth level essay is still bunk, since it deals with conforming your world to the LoTR world, when it's a different system.

[hymer]

The movies crank up the power level to "minor wizard", but there's little in the books that actually detail similar feats of magic.

While generally agreeing with your observations, we do get a sense of some pretty flashy magic now and again, though rearely up close. In the encounter with wolves (that aren't true wolves) after the attempt at Caradhras, there's a lot of fire and flame. In Gandalf's fight with the Nazgûl on Weathertop and in his fight with the Balrog (on the bridge and on Celebdil), there's a lot of flashy things going on, which can be seen for many miles. In going out with the Gondorian cavalry to help Faramir on his retreat from Osgiliath, he does a little bit of a light show, too (The Nazgûl decide this isn't the time to deal with Gandalf and retreat.).
So he does show some striking displays on occasion - but I agree the movies go further (and IMO much too far).

[Nightcanon]

Are we sure that Tolkien orcs are CR 1/2?
At the start of The Two Towers, the three hunters pursued them ceaselessly for a number of days. I'm pretty sure that earlier editions of D&D had specific rules for rangers being able to do this by a particular level; presumably in 3.5 it can be explained by a few feats, possibly Longstrider spells and Bear's Endurance. Of course, the Orcs manage to stay out in front, too, so they presumably have access to similar feats and magicks. Perhaps the Uruks as an elite unit have character levels, meaning that Aragorn, being capable of slaying many of them , is higher than the minimum level to do all that he does.

[Eldariel]

In 3.5 Rangers get Endurance for free too which does enhance the Forced March ability.

[Legato Endless]

I'm in a low-level Pathfinder game right now and I don't think the DM quite gets what it means to be level 1. We fought a DEMON. My character is a Ratfolk merchant (level 1 wizard) who very much is not into the whole killing-powerful-monsters schtick (although he loves all the treasure they've been finding.) Anyway, level 1 characters are WEAK. They can be killed by a housecat, even in Pathfinder.

Now we're level 3, and I expect the difference to be staggering. My character has never had a 2nd-level spell before in his entire life. A 2ND-LEVEL SPELL.

I'm curious how other RPers would model how a character feels when they go from level 1 to level 3. Like, imagine someone is level 1 their entire life, 20+ years, and then suddenly they're level 3. That must be insane for some classes. Even a fighter-- suddenly you're twice as tough and twice as good at killing people.

This is an interesting point, both as an encapsulation of power progression and world consistency. To reply, I rarely if ever feel this in my games. :small frown:

Of the pathfinder/3.5 games I run in, 2 levels doesn't feel very different at all. Oh, I feel more freedom, since I'm a caster in one. I went from limited abilities to far more options. But power? I don't feel stronger at all. There's no atmosphere or environment framed around it. Paizo's Reign of Winter just has one group of witches after another. I know conceptually they're higher in the monster manual, but no effort is made for me to care about this in the world. I don't get any reoccurring enemies to test my prowess against, nor any thematic/lore to compare myself against. When I test myself, the world feels very static, save for the slightly more flashy special effects. Contrast this with say, my last game of Exalted. I went from being a peppy military commander to someone charismatic to stop a battle between two armies by making everyone in the vicinity fall in love with me. (Solar social charms are potent) This was vividly demonstrated.

Now is this a flaw in DnD? No. No it isn't. DnD can model awesome power progression fine. The fact that so many in the playground chafe at the staggering power at higher levels is proof enough of that. But many DMs don't put any effort into how it should work. So either you feel perfectly balanced in all your battles, when some imbalance on both ends would be welcome, or you slaughter your way through dungeons ever so more efficiently, but with no added impact on the outside world. I think part of the issue as Aragorn as a lvl 5 and what it's meant to illustrate is…many DMs suck at making lvl 5 like it really implies a different status of character compared to 1. *shrug*

[Bogardan_Mage]

Even in a metropolis of 25,000 people, (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16595777&postcount=93) average roll results will give you only a total of 78 NPCs of 10th level of above. Only 4 of them are 20th level, and each of those 4 are Commoners. Only about 2.4% of the population ends up being 2nd-level or higher.

And that's in a metropolis, which 1% of all D&D settlements are. Fully half are Village-sized or lower and so impose a community size penalty to NPC level generation rolls, which means it's possible to have no members of ANY PC class present (and no aristocrats or adepts, either). Even the smallest thorp with the worst possible roll results, meanwhile, will still produce a settlement with 18 commoners, 1 warrior, and 1 expert, all 1st level.
That's a gross misuse of averages. If you roll 1d6 four times, you're not likely to get four 3s (you're even less likely to get four 3.5s, which is the actual average roll. WotC rounds down all fractions, which is fine for a game but wrong if you're trying to do actual math). You're more likely to get a spread of 5, 4, 3 and 2 (those are the actual average rolls of four d6s rolled together, because some will be higher than the average and some will be lower). So odds are you'll actually get two level 20 Experts and a few level 19 characters (a Fighter, a Warrior, a Rogue, and another Expert, plus a Barbarian or a Monk "where these classes are more common"). You've got an 80% chance of any given Metropolis having a Cleric capable of casting True Resurrection (or any other 9th level spell).

The end result on the population at large isn't very big, but if the "implication" is that such characters shouldn't exist at all (or at least, shouldn't exist without DM dictate) I would argue that it certainly does demonstate such a thing. The DMG suggests that high levels are not common, but they're common enough that some exist in every city (even small cities have a couple of characters in the region of level 10). If Aragorn was a 5th level Ranger and Tolkien had been using the DMG table, Minas Tirith would have had a small but non-zero number of knights capable of kicking his butt without breaking a sweat.

[A.A.King]

As someone who doesn't particularly enjoy Lord of The Rings (this includes both the books and the movies, just not my thing) I thought this thread was quite the fun read. Now let me try to summarize the two sides so we can get the discussion going again (because the orc discussion is just weird for someone who is not a fan. How can there not be one obvious definitive answer.... o_O)

You have side A who say that the lowest possible level that Aragorn and Gandalf have to be is 5. All the abilities they are shown are gained at level 5 or before that, if Gandalf had been a higher level, he should have used higher levels spells. Let's call this side the Direct Translation Side. You look at what you definitely know is true about a character and you look at what best represents that. "Definitely True" has to be very precise, things everyone can agree on, things which don't require assumptions. Simple stuff like "He did X spell which in D&D is Y level so he has to be at least Z level wizard"

Then there is the B side which say that they have to be very high levels. I call this the Indirect Translation Side. They argue mainly from hearsay. They say that they have to be very high level because we know them as the best in their field, which in D&D is near level 20. It isn't so much about what they can do as about what others can do, there can't be warriors stronger then Aragorn so he has to be level 20.

People have so far agreed upon that LotR to 3.5 is a very bad translation to make because of the sheer power differences. The original article ended with saying that he felt the problem was the D&D Magic System, with the scales we use, that the things considered "top of the world" in LotR is level 5ish in D&D. So now I wonder, if everyone agrees on that then why can't we just agree on the fact that there are two ways to look at it? That if we use the Direct Translation then the feats they accomplished seem to only merit level 5 and that if we use the Indirect Translation then there levels would be much higher but that then they could also do more stuff then they could in the books. Just seperate the arguments and then there have to be no more pages of "Nothing suggests he is a level higher then 5" vs "Yeah but he was the strongest so level 18+"

[AMFV]

As someone who doesn't particularly enjoy Lord of The Rings (this includes both the books and the movies, just not my thing) I thought this thread was quite the fun read. Now let me try to summarize the two sides so we can get the discussion going again (because the orc discussion is just weird for someone who is not a fan. How can there not be one obvious definitive answer.... o_O)

You have side A who say that the lowest possible level that Aragorn and Gandalf have to be is 5. All the abilities they are shown are gained at level 5 or before that, if Gandalf had been a higher level, he should have used higher levels spells. Let's call this side the Direct Translation Side. You look at what you definitely know is true about a character and you look at what best represents that. "Definitely True" has to be very precise, things everyone can agree on, things which don't require assumptions. Simple stuff like "He did X spell which in D&D is Y level so he has to be at least Z level wizard"

Then there is the B side which say that they have to be very high levels. I call this the Indirect Translation Side. They argue mainly from hearsay. They say that they have to be very high level because we know them as the best in their field, which in D&D is near level 20. It isn't so much about what they can do as about what others can do, there can't be warriors stronger then Aragorn so he has to be level 20.

People have so far agreed upon that LotR to 3.5 is a very bad translation to make because of the sheer power differences. The original article ended with saying that he felt the problem was the D&D Magic System, with the scales we use, that the things considered "top of the world" in LotR is level 5ish in D&D. So now I wonder, if everyone agrees on that then why can't we just agree on the fact that there are two ways to look at it? That if we use the Direct Translation then the feats they accomplished seem to only merit level 5 and that if we use the Indirect Translation then there levels would be much higher but that then they could also do more stuff then they could in the books. Just seperate the arguments and then there have to be no more pages of "Nothing suggests he is a level higher then 5" vs "Yeah but he was the strongest so level 18+"

The problem is that there are a lot of informed abilities in any work of fiction. We can't work only from shown things because those aren't necessarily reflective of the character. I think you're confusing what is actually best as a Gamist Narrativist debate. The people who believe that the narrative role of the characters is paramount, believe that if you alter the setting to 3.5, or the characters that the narrative role should be preserved.

Then there are those that argue that only the actual abilities that are seen should be preserved, which is again problematic at best. Since we have at least the informed ability to drive off the Nazgul, which isn't saying much but in the grand scheme that's something pretty important. At least if you're focusing on the narrative role of the characters.

The other problem is that the Essay isn't discussing a theoretical crossover, it's not a who would win competition. Which would be a non-sequitur anyway, since the rules become profoundly different in different settings. In a direct crossover things are easy. The essay is arguing based on narrative role and then informed abilities.

It's saying "Since Aragorn was the most powerful in the setting, and he can be modeled by a lower level character, we should assume that lower level characters are more powerful," Which follows if you assume that the informed abilities are definitive of narrative role, but not if you use the interpretation that the narrative role defines the abilities in a given setting. Which to my mind is more realistic, since characters can have a wide variety of abilities to suit the narrative, at least in most genres of fiction, Fantasy fiction, generally works exactly this way.

Edit: Also we have the problem that he is directly stated to be one of the most powerful people in the world, so modeling the character requires that you alter him to fit that, since that's a stated ability not an informed one. The "Aragorn was the most powerful argument" is resulting from an actual statement in the book, so we're not dealing with the supposition that he's the most powerful, but a direct statement to that effect.

If Arda was a 3.5 world, therefore, Aragorn would have to be more powerful, based on the DMG tables themselves. Since we would have higher level characters present in the world.

[SowZ]

Of course, one campaign note unintended for publication is as good as the next.

[A.A.King]

The problem is that there are a lot of informed abilities in any work of fiction. We can't work only from shown things because those aren't necessarily reflective of the character. I think you're confusing what is actually best as a Gamist Narrativist debate. The people who believe that the narrative role of the characters is paramount, believe that if you alter the setting to 3.5, or the characters that the narrative role should be preserved.

Then there are those that argue that only the actual abilities that are seen should be preserved, which is again problematic at best. Since we have at least the informed ability to drive off the Nazgul, which isn't saying much but in the grand scheme that's something pretty important. At least if you're focusing on the narrative role of the characters.

The other problem is that the Essay isn't discussing a theoretical crossover, it's not a who would win competition. Which would be a non-sequitur anyway, since the rules become profoundly different in different settings. In a direct crossover things are easy. The essay is arguing based on narrative role and then informed abilities.

It's saying "Since Aragorn was the most powerful in the setting, and he can be modeled by a lower level character, we should assume that lower level characters are more powerful," Which follows if you assume that the informed abilities are definitive of narrative role, but not if you use the interpretation that the narrative role defines the abilities in a given setting. Which to my mind is more realistic, since characters can have a wide variety of abilities to suit the narrative, at least in most genres of fiction, Fantasy fiction, generally works exactly this way.

Edit: Also we have the problem that he is directly stated to be one of the most powerful people in the world, so modeling the character requires that you alter him to fit that, since that's a stated ability not an informed one. The "Aragorn was the most powerful argument" is resulting from an actual statement in the book, so we're not dealing with the supposition that he's the most powerful, but a direct statement to that effect.

If Arda was a 3.5 world, therefore, Aragorn would have to be more powerful, based on the DMG tables themselves. Since we would have higher level characters present in the world.

That last bit is exactly the different kind of arguing I tried to separate. You say that Aragorn has to be of high level because the book says he was the most powerful in the word. You set him at a high level, granting him extra abilities in the process because in 3.5 the most powerful creatures are just that strong. It's different from what the article linked on the first page did, what other people do. They look at all the spells cast by Gandalf and look at what is required to cast them in 3.5 and then conclude that he is only level 5 (or I guess you could bump him up to level 6 without granting him a new spell level). It's two different ways of doing it. The entire excerise is to illustrate the difference in power levels, it's a way to show that level 20 is just absurdly powerful, something not reached by some of the strongest fictional characters let alone real life people.

Like I said, everyone agrees that 3.5 isn't Middle Earth and can't even pretend to be. You have Aragorn who can do X and is the strongest. Now you can play two games, look at what the minimum requirements are for X and conclude he is level 5 or you can look at the fact that he is the strongest and conclude he is a higher level.

You can't compare the two, it's two different ways of looking at it. You are willing give the Aragorn character extra powers in D&D because he has to be the strongest and others are willing to conclude that in D&D he isn't the strongest because that would require to give him extra powers he was never shown to have.


Obviously it's true that you can't separate a character's shown abilities with his place in the narrative structure and still expect it to be the exact same character. It's not just someones actions that define him, it's also the place around him. Being the strongest is an important characteristic of someone in a work of fiction, and when you lose that it's no longer the same person. But the point is something is going to be lost in translation. You can either have an accurate representation of someones known capabilities which aren't in relation to the setting or you can recreate someone at the same place in the pecking order, giving him extra powers because the setting demands it. However, that would be a much stronger Aragorn in comparison to mooks then he is in the movie. If you then power up the mooks then you change the setting in such a way that you could achieve the same by simply saying that there are no higher level characters.

[SowZ]

The problem is that there are a lot of informed abilities in any work of fiction. We can't work only from shown things because those aren't necessarily reflective of the character. I think you're confusing what is actually best as a Gamist Narrativist debate. The people who believe that the narrative role of the characters is paramount, believe that if you alter the setting to 3.5, or the characters that the narrative role should be preserved.

Then there are those that argue that only the actual abilities that are seen should be preserved, which is again problematic at best. Since we have at least the informed ability to drive off the Nazgul, which isn't saying much but in the grand scheme that's something pretty important. At least if you're focusing on the narrative role of the characters.

The other problem is that the Essay isn't discussing a theoretical crossover, it's not a who would win competition. Which would be a non-sequitur anyway, since the rules become profoundly different in different settings. In a direct crossover things are easy. The essay is arguing based on narrative role and then informed abilities.

It's saying "Since Aragorn was the most powerful in the setting, and he can be modeled by a lower level character, we should assume that lower level characters are more powerful," Which follows if you assume that the informed abilities are definitive of narrative role, but not if you use the interpretation that the narrative role defines the abilities in a given setting. Which to my mind is more realistic, since characters can have a wide variety of abilities to suit the narrative, at least in most genres of fiction, Fantasy fiction, generally works exactly this way.

Edit: Also we have the problem that he is directly stated to be one of the most powerful people in the world, so modeling the character requires that you alter him to fit that, since that's a stated ability not an informed one. The "Aragorn was the most powerful argument" is resulting from an actual statement in the book, so we're not dealing with the supposition that he's the most powerful, but a direct statement to that effect.

If Arda was a 3.5 world, therefore, Aragorn would have to be more powerful, based on the DMG tables themselves. Since we would have higher level characters present in the world.

That argument is backwards logic. By that logic, we also need more spellcasters and magic items and there is a percentage chance ago for has a cloak of resistance +5 and a caps of flight.

[AMFV]

That last bit is exactly the different kind of arguing I tried to separate. You say that Aragorn has to be of high level because the book says he was the most powerful in the word. You set him at a high level, granting him extra abilities in the process because in 3.5 the most powerful creatures are just that strong. It's different from what the article linked on the first page did, what other people do. They look at all the spells cast by Gandalf and look at what is required to cast them in 3.5 and then conclude that he is only level 5 (or I guess you could bump him up to level 6 without granting him a new spell level). It's two different ways of doing it. The entire excerise is to illustrate the difference in power levels, it's a way to show that level 20 is just absurdly powerful, something not reached by some of the strongest fictional characters let alone real life people.

Like I said, everyone agrees that 3.5 isn't Middle Earth and can't even pretend to be. You have Aragorn who can do X and is the strongest. Now you can play two games, look at what the minimum requirements are for X and conclude he is level 5 or you can look at the fact that he is the strongest and conclude he is a higher level.

You can't compare the two, it's two different ways of looking at it. You are willing give the Aragorn character extra powers in D&D because he has to be the strongest and others are willing to conclude that in D&D he isn't the strongest because that would require to give him extra powers he was never shown to have.


Obviously it's true that you can't separate a character's shown abilities with his place in the narrative structure and still expect it to be the exact same character. It's not just someones actions that define him, it's also the place around him. Being the strongest is an important characteristic of someone in a work of fiction, and when you lose that it's no longer the same person. But the point is something is going to be lost in translation. You can either have an accurate representation of someones known capabilities which aren't in relation to the setting or you can recreate someone at the same place in the pecking order, giving him extra powers because the setting demands it. However, that would be a much stronger Aragorn in comparison to mooks then he is in the movie. If you then power up the mooks then you change the setting in such a way that you could achieve the same by simply saying that there are no higher level characters.

No I'm saying that if you convert Arda to 3.5, then you wind up with bassakwards assumptions and problems. It doesn't work in 3.5. Also as far as a Ranger goes we can't tell how effective he is as compared to mooks in D&D, he certainly makes more than 2 attacks per 6 second interval on more than once occasion, sometimes without moving in the movie, so we're using the movie, he is clearly higher level. If we're using the books its more debatable, but the problem is that the effects of level a Ranger, more HP, more attacks per round, more favored enemies, aren't going to be apparent in a narrative, you're assuming because you can model some of his stuff at lower level that he is lower level, but since we don't know the strength of the mooks we have no idea, Aragon could be swinging four times in a six second period, he could be avoiding massive hits (and that much is true, since HP factors in some avoidance and mitigation as well), that we don't see.

He is never injured in the books as far as I recall, so that implies a goodly number of hit points, particularly in the large encounters he participates in, as such we should assume he has a significant chunk of hit points. He can fight larger groups than a melee would be likely able to fight at Level 5, and that implies a higher level.

Your methodology only works if you want him modeled at the lowest level possible, which is what the creator of the essay wanted, he wanted to move his model to prove that there should be less higher level characters, and that's just a bad essay all around, because as we've pointed out the Orcs could easily have class levels as well, and Aragorn, could certainly be much higher level, without us noticing many differences in ability. If he traded away spellcasting ability for bonus feats... Aragorn at level 20 would appear almost identical to Aragorn at level five, if he was fighting level appropriate mooks.

As for Gandalf, he was explicitly limited in his power, so any modeling of him is obviously borked, since he's limited, and is pulling punches, if you put him in a 3.5 setting where that wasn't necessary who knows how powerful he would be? Basically you've modeled a baseball player playing catch with his kid, and then claimed that it was an accurate representation of his pitching, it's not.

So the whole modeling is moot, either side could be argued, I prefer to maintain narrative consistency, at least to my mind that's better than modeling at the lowest possible level, which only works if you're trying to prove the point the essayist is trying to prove and moving the data till it supports your allegations.


That argument is backwards logic. By that logic, we also need more spellcasters and magic items and there is a percentage chance ago for has a cloak of resistance +5 and a caps of flight.

In the assumptions present in 3.5, yes, absolutely you need those things. 3.5 is simply not a compatible setting with Arda. Not in tone, not in scale, not in any way, so you can't convert. You can either create characters in a similar vein, but direct conversion is impossible, so you're paraphrasing. Hell, E6 doesn't even model Arda well. 3.5 does not model low magic settings at all, it's terrible at it. This is a known fact, as such we can assume that it's not good.

Here we'll go this way. Bard defeats Smaug, a dragon of at least Huge size, in one shot... So he'd have to be fairly high level to do that minimum amount of damage (218 damage in one shot), since Aragorn is explicitly on that level, he'd have to be of equivalent level, which is why the whole thing breaks down.

Edit: Which is probably why the "Aragorn is level 5" crowd never try to model Bard the Bowman.

[SowZ]

No I'm saying that if you convert Arda to 3.5, then you wind up with bassakwards assumptions and problems. It doesn't work in 3.5. Also as far as a Ranger goes we can't tell how effective he is as compared to mooks in D&D, he certainly makes more than 2 attacks per 6 second interval on more than once occasion, sometimes without moving in the movie, so we're using the movie, he is clearly higher level. If we're using the books its more debatable, but the problem is that the effects of level a Ranger, more HP, more attacks per round, more favored enemies, aren't going to be apparent in a narrative, you're assuming because you can model some of his stuff at lower level that he is lower level, but since we don't know the strength of the mooks we have no idea, Aragon could be swinging four times in a six second period, he could be avoiding massive hits (and that much is true, since HP factors in some avoidance and mitigation as well), that we don't see.

He is never injured in the books as far as I recall, so that implies a goodly number of hit points, particularly in the large encounters he participates in, as such we should assume he has a significant chunk of hit points. He can fight larger groups than a melee would be likely able to fight at Level 5, and that implies a higher level.

Your methodology only works if you want him modeled at the lowest level possible, which is what the creator of the essay wanted, he wanted to move his model to prove that there should be less higher level characters, and that's just a bad essay all around, because as we've pointed out the Orcs could easily have class levels as well, and Aragorn, could certainly be much higher level, without us noticing many differences in ability. If he traded away spellcasting ability for bonus feats... Aragorn at level 20 would appear almost identical to Aragorn at level five, if he was fighting level appropriate mooks.

As for Gandalf, he was explicitly limited in his power, so any modeling of him is obviously borked, since he's limited, and is pulling punches, if you put him in a 3.5 setting where that wasn't necessary who knows how powerful he would be? Basically you've modeled a baseball player playing catch with his kid, and then claimed that it was an accurate representation of his pitching, it's not.

So the whole modeling is moot, either side could be argued, I prefer to maintain narrative consistency, at least to my mind that's better than modeling at the lowest possible level, which only works if you're trying to prove the point the essayist is trying to prove and moving the data till it supports your allegations.



In the assumptions present in 3.5, yes, absolutely you need those things. 3.5 is simply not a compatible setting with Arda. Not in tone, not in scale, not in any way, so you can't convert. You can either create characters in a similar vein, but direct conversion is impossible, so you're paraphrasing. Hell, E6 doesn't even model Arda well. 3.5 does not model low magic settings at all, it's terrible at it. This is a known fact, as such we can assume that it's not good.

Here we'll go this way. Bard defeats Smaug, a dragon of at least Huge size, in one shot... So he'd have to be fairly high level to do that minimum amount of damage (218 damage in one shot), since Aragorn is explicitly on that level, he'd have to be of equivalent level, which is why the whole thing breaks down.

Edit: Which is probably why the "Aragorn is level 5" crowd never try to model Bard the Bowman.

But now you are being disingenuous to the OP. We could, instead, say 'What if Aragorn were teleported into a D&D world?'

[Ivanhoe]

He's not really portrayed in 3E at all, but I'd agree that a bard might be better if you were trying to build a Gandalf like character.

Although I'd argue that the original fifth level essay is still bunk, since it deals with conforming your world to the LoTR world, when it's a different system.

I remember vaguely a thread somewhere where people argued that Gandalf could also be portrayed as a paladin (holy power, aura of courage, ride, paladin's mount), with all of the fire elemental magic effects either based on outsider Su or sp abilities, plus the elven ring of fire.

[AMFV]

But now you are being disingenuous to the OP. We could, instead, say 'What if Aragorn were teleported into a D&D world?'

I'm being disingenuous to the essay the OP asked about, the OP asked about the origin of that particular model, which was provided. Furthermore that's not what the OP asked, the OP asked about the essay which is based entirely on LoTR, therefore it's entirely using Arda and is a consistent internal world, so teleporting Aragon to Abeir Toril, isn't the point here, the point the author was making is that Abeir Toril should have characters no higher than fifth level.


I remember vaguely a thread somewhere where people argued that Gandalf could also be portrayed as a paladin (holy power, aura of courage, ride, paladin's mount), with all of the fire elemental magic effects either based on outsider Su or sp abilities, plus the elven ring of fire.

Certainly possible, I've heard arguments for bard, really it's possible to build a character many different ways, and the essay thing only makes sense if you try for the lowest model using the classes as stated. Really Gandalf is pulling his punches pretty hard as far as I can tell, since Maia have leveled mountains and reshaped large portions of the world, so he could really be anything.

[SowZ]

I'm being disingenuous to the essay the OP asked about, the OP asked about the origin of that particular model, which was provided. Furthermore that's not what the OP asked, the OP asked about the essay which is based entirely on LoTR, therefore it's entirely using Arda and is a consistent internal world, so teleporting Aragon to Abeir Toril, isn't the point here, the point the author was making is that Abeir Toril should have characters no higher than fifth level.



Certainly possible, I've heard arguments for bard, really it's possible to build a character many different ways, and the essay thing only makes sense if you try for the lowest model using the classes as stated. Really Gandalf is pulling his punches pretty hard as far as I can tell, since Maia have leveled mountains and reshaped large portions of the world, so he could really be anything.

Even within the example, I don't think your argument holds. Not all setting books keep to the DMG. Just the standard setting. What if we look at Middle Earth as a custom setting?

[AMFV]

Even within the example, I don't think your argument holds. Not all setting books keep to the DMG. Just the standard setting. What if we look at Middle Earth as a custom setting?

Fair enough, at what level could a mundane character do 218+ (Sorry make that 223) damage with an arrow, over range... I think if we can figure this out we'll have out answer. They also have to be able to hit AC 26, at least, not even including the range penalties.

Since Bard is not listed as being on of the most dangerous people, and Aragorn is, I think we can conclude that Aragorn is higher level.

We also have Beorn, who is able to change shape into a huge creature, which beats out the standard restriction on Polymorph, and most shapechanging spells, so that would require a much higher level than we otherwise might have.

So if Aragorn is in the same tier as Bard and Beorn, then we must conclude that he's fairly level.

[Talakeal]

I don't think it is a matter of Bard being able to simple one shot a dragon.

To be fair, we don't know what the properties of the black arrow are. It may well be an arrow of slaying which requires a save to avoid death, and Smaug just happened to roll a one.

Or he could have lucked out with a massive crit and forced save to Smaug vs. massive damage.

Or they could have been using the 3 crits equals auto death rule and Bard lucked out.

Or maybe Smaug's "weak spot" gave him some sort of special vulnerability that allowed this.

[SowZ]

Fair enough, at what level could a mundane character do 218+ (Sorry make that 223) damage with an arrow, over range... I think if we can figure this out we'll have out answer. They also have to be able to hit AC 26, at least, not even including the range penalties.

Since Bard is not listed as being on of the most dangerous people, and Aragorn is, I think we can conclude that Aragorn is higher level.

We also have Beorn, who is able to change shape into a huge creature, which beats out the standard restriction on Polymorph, and most shapechanging spells, so that would require a much higher level than we otherwise might have.

So if Aragorn is in the same tier as Bard and Beorn, then we must conclude that he's fairly level.

No, more dangerous doesn't mean stronger. Who's more dangerous? Some Spec Ops Army guy? Or Kim-Jong Un? Who would win in a fight?

Most of Aragorn's power and danger comes from his ability to upset the balance of the realm. Aragorn is a strong warrior, higher than 5th level, I think, but his claim and race and ability to wield Anduril are all more important than his sword skill. So we can't assume every feat that happens is something Aragorn could replicate.

Also, who knows, adult Dragons in LOTR might have the stats of young adult dragons. And it could be using the trip-20 house rule where any one hit can kill anyone. That could explain Sauron's defeat, too.

[AMFV]

I don't think it is a matter of Bard being able to simple one shot a dragon.

To be fair, we don't know what the properties of the black arrow are. It may well be an arrow of slaying which requires a save to avoid death, and Smaug just happened to roll a one.

Or he could have lucked out with a massive crit and forced save to Smaug vs. massive damage.

Or they could have been using the 3 crits equals auto death rule and Bard lucked out.

Or maybe Smaug's "weak spot" gave him some sort of special vulnerability that allowed this.

Well we can't assume houserules or having an item in excess of wealth by level. Also we have the polymorph into a huge creature... which cannot be done till much higher levels, in fact I'm not sure that's even possible in D&D without a special exemption for a mundane character, so that's a pretty powerful ability.

Also dealing 50 damage with a single shot is pretty amazing.


No, more dangerous doesn't mean stronger. Who's more dangerous? Some Spec Ops Army guy? Or Kim-Jong Un? Who would win in a fight?

Most of Aragorn's power and danger comes from his ability to upset the balance of the realm. Aragorn is a strong warrior, higher than 5th level, I think, but his claim and race and ability to wield Anduril are all more important than his sword skill. So we can't assume every feat that happens is something Aragorn could replicate.

Also, who knows, adult Dragons in LOTR might have the stats of young adult dragons. And it could be using the trip-20 house rule where any one hit can kill anyone. That could explain Sauron's defeat, too.

Why does everybody assume we can assume houserules, we're building you can't add houserules, it just doesn't work for modeling. Furthermore Gandalf discussing danger in the Two Towers was pretty explicitly a reference to prowess, since he himself was included and as we see in a few short chapters (I believe the next one actually) he doesn't have political control.)

Also, even if you use the houserule exemption, that certainly doesn't explain Beorn.

[SowZ]

Well we can't assume houserules or having an item in excess of wealth by level. Also we have the polymorph into a huge creature... which cannot be done till much higher levels, in fact I'm not sure that's even possible in D&D without a special exemption for a mundane character, so that's a pretty powerful ability.

Also dealing 50 damage with a single shot is pretty amazing.



Why does everybody assume we can assume houserules, we're building you can't add houserules, it just doesn't work for modeling. Furthermore Gandalf discussing danger in the Two Towers was pretty explicitly a reference to prowess, since he himself was included and as we see in a few short chapters (I believe the next one actually) he doesn't have political control.)

Also, even if you use the houserule exemption, that certainly doesn't explain Beorn.

Uh, yes, we can assume as many house rules as we want. In fact, we have to. We are trying to convert Middle Earth to a D&D setting. We have to house rule. For one, Vancian casting isn't a thing. Two, new settings had variant rules all the time.

Also, WBL can be overshot at any time by anyone. WBL isn't a rule, you know, never was.

Also, I already explained why Baorn could be stronger but less dangerous than Aragorn. Who made that claim about Aragorn, anyway?

[Talakeal]

Well we can't assume houserules or having an item in excess of wealth by level. Also we have the polymorph into a huge creature... which cannot be done till much higher levels, in fact I'm not sure that's even possible in D&D without a special exemption for a mundane character, so that's a pretty powerful ability.

Also dealing 50 damage with a single shot is pretty amazing.



Why does everybody assume we can assume houserules, we're building you can't add houserules, it just doesn't work for modeling. Furthermore Gandalf discussing danger in the Two Towers was pretty explicitly a reference to prowess, since he himself was included and as we see in a few short chapters (I believe the next one actually) he doesn't have political control.)

Also, even if you use the houserule exemption, that certainly doesn't explain Beorn.

Combat in D&D is an abstraction. It doesn't reflect real life or any for of fiction, even D&D fiction as written.

In real life anyone capable of using a bow can potentially kill an elephant in one shot, because in real life an injury to the right spot can cause one to bleed out. Does this mean that everyone in the world needs to be capable of inflicting 104+ damage on a bow crit?

As for Beorn, I would say that he isn't modeled by any existing D&D class except maybe a variant ranger. I would stat him up as a were-bear and be done with it, albeit one with exceptionally good stats and maybe a few class levels. Does it ever say Beorn has to be huge? I remember Gandalf saying he had "grown almost to giant size" but there are a lot of large giants.

[AMFV]

Uh, yes, we can assume as many house rules as we want. In fact, we have to. We are trying to convert Middle Earth to a D&D setting. We have to house rule. For one, Vancian casting isn't a thing. Two, new settings had variant rules all the time.

Also, WBL can be overshot at any time by anyone. WBL isn't a rule, you know, never was.

Also, I already explained why Baorn could be stronger but less dangerous than Aragorn. Who made that claim about Aragorn, anyway?

The point is that the essayist was using D&D to model Middle Earth without house rules or any change in assumptions as was necessary, if you want to write a different essay using different arguments you can. But you can't defend base assumptions that are not the same as those in the essay if you're defending the essay.


Combat in D&D is an abstraction. It doesn't reflect real life or any for of fiction, even D&D fiction as written.

In real life anyone capable of using a bow can potentially kill an elephant in one shot, because in real life an injury to the right spot can cause one to bleed out. Does this mean that everyone in the world needs to be capable of inflicting 104+ damage on a bow crit?

As for Beorn, I would say that he isn't modeled by any existing D&D class except maybe a variant ranger. I would stat him up as a were-bear and be done with it, albeit one with exceptionally good stats and maybe a few class levels. Does it ever say Beorn has to be huge? I remember Gandalf saying he had "grown almost to giant size" but there are a lot of large giants.

Not in the case of the essay though, the essay is using the Fictional material to create combat stats, for what it's worth I agree with you completely. But the essay is the one that wanted to create D&D stats from a book, mostly I'm trying to point out that it's an absurdity more than anything.

Well since Bears are already large and he states that its an unusually large bear it'd have to be at least huge, at least to my reading.

[Shendue]

Everyone is overlooking the fact that there's the official Middle Earth Role-Playing game (MERP), based on Rolemaster from ICE.
The main characters of the novels are all being said in the manual to be all "high level" (i know it's generical).
Also, it should be noted that the manual includes translation rules for D20 games, therefore the levels are relatable.

EDIT:
I found the official levels from MERP:

Balrog: lvl 36 - Maia Fire Spirit.
Gandalf: lvl 40 - Maia (Istar), Mage/Magician, "Gandalf the Grey".
Gandalf: lvl 50 - Maia (Istar), "Gandalf the White".
Saruman: lvl 50 - Maia (Istar), Mage/Alchimist, "The White Wizard".
Arwen: lvl 15 - Half-elf Bard, daughter of Elrond, wife of Aragorn.
Elrond: lvl 65 - Half-elf Animist/Cleric (Bard, Lay Healer, Fighter) of Imladris.
Galadriel: lvl 60 - Noldo Bard/Mystic (Seer), Queen of L?rien.
Legolas: lvl 8 - Sinda Warrior/Fighter, a young Legolas around T.A. 1640.
Legolas: lvl 28 - Sinda Warrior/Fighter, at the time of LOTR.
Aragorn II: lvl 27 - D?nandan Ranger, Member of the Fellowship.
Aragorn II: lvl 36 - D?nandan Ranger, as King Elessar.
Boromir: lvl 20 - D?nandan Warrior/Fighter, Member of the Fellowship.
Faramir: lvl 24 - D?nandan Ranger, married Eowyn.
Theoden: lvl 24 - Rohir Warrior, 17th King of Rohan.
Nazg?ls: lvl 32-60.
Bilbo Baggins: lvl 9 - Hobbit Scout/Thief, Ring-Bearer.
Frodo Baggins: lvl 12 - Hobbit Scout/Rogue, Ring-Bearer.
Peregrin Took (Pippin): lvl 8 - Hobbit Warrior/Fighter.
Samwise Gamgee: lvl 9 - Hobbit Scout/Thief, Ring-Bearer.
Gimli: lvl 8 - Dwarf Warrior/Fighter, Member of the Fellowship.
Gimli: lvl 21 - Dwarf Warrior/Fighter, "Elf-Friend", Lord of Aglarond.

On level conversion rules, the MERP manual states you can multiply the level to 0.75 or 0.6 to adjust the levels.

Also, the lesser use (and power) of magic is addressed in MERP expansions with the rules of "Corruption" that punish players who abuse magic.
It's several times explained that people like Gandalf are actually capable of great magic feats in pratice, but never resort to them purposedly for various reasons.

[AMFV]

Also Beorn is probably a wildshape Ranger/MOMF who just likes bear shapes. Since he can take on a huge shape and that class would allow that.

[Eldariel]

Also Beorn is probably a wildshape Ranger/MOMF who just likes bear shapes. Since he can take on a huge shape and that class would allow that.

I'd expect he'd simply be a Were-Brown Bear Warrior of some kind; that explains the mono-shape much better (peculiar that no base class exists for transformation to a single shape, btw).

[AMFV]

I'd expect he'd simply be a Were-Brown Bear Warrior of some kind; that explains the mono-shape much better (peculiar that no base class exists for transformation to a single shape, btw).

That could work pretty well. Bear Warrior is there but it doesn't do huge. Although to be of note the lowest HD Huge sized bear is 17 HD. So his effective level would be 20 if that were the case. Since the Lycanthrope Template is +3 LA, and he'd need 17 HD of bear.

Edit: Oops sorry, 21, since he'd need one level to start with. So his minimum ECL is 21.

[hymer]

@ Shendue: Thanks for the posting. I wonder how the authors came up with those numbers. Dart board? Picked out of a hat? :smalleek:

[Rogue Shadows]

You know, what amuses me is the Alexandrian article went on to warn explicitly against this kind of thing...


Second, people can be thrown off by some contortion required by D&D in order to get a very specific set of abilities. A character is described as having one very specific ability that only a 5th level druid can have and is simultaneously described as having another ability that only a 12th level ranger can have, so clearly they must be a 17th level character, right?

Well, no. Authors don’t design their characters around the class progressions of the core D&D classes. Take, for example, a character who can assume an ethereal state without casting a spell. The only way to do that in D&D, using only the core classes, is to be a 19th level monk. But if that’s the only special ability the character in question has, it would be completely nonsensical to model them as a 19th level monk – they don’t have any of the plethora of other abilities such a monk possesses. What you’re looking at is a character with a unique class progression or possibly a prestige class. Or maybe a racial ability.

[SowZ]

The point is that the essayist was using D&D to model Middle Earth without house rules or any change in assumptions as was necessary, if you want to write a different essay using different arguments you can. But you can't defend base assumptions that are not the same as those in the essay if you're defending the essay.



Not in the case of the essay though, the essay is using the Fictional material to create combat stats, for what it's worth I agree with you completely. But the essay is the one that wanted to create D&D stats from a book, mostly I'm trying to point out that it's an absurdity more than anything.

Well since Bears are already large and he states that its an unusually large bear it'd have to be at least huge, at least to my reading.

I'm not defending any given article in particular, just arguing the idea that
Aragorn needs be high level.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by AMFV
I'm being disingenuous to the essay the OP asked about, the OP asked about the origin of that particular model, which was provided. Furthermore that's not what the OP asked....

As the OP, I feel rather qualified to comment on this point. My request was for the root sources of the notion that Middle-Earth characters are low-level in D&D, and I think the article from Dragon #5 is probably the earliest example we can hope to find.

However, I'm also interested in any later analyses, especially those which go through the original books in some detail. The Alexandrian article has clearly attracted a lot of attention in the past few years; but is that the only one for 3.5?

Pardon me if someone posted something else I didn't spot amidst all the hubble and rush. I have to say, I didn't expect the thread to take off like this, although I really should've known. Ten facepalm points to Palanan. If only I could get this kind of response to my questions on campaign design....

[Phelix-Mu]

Ten facepalm points to Palanan. If only I could get this kind of response to my questions on campaign design....

Forsooth, I shall step forward to help thee with campaign design, bold Palanan. For thou hast awakened quite the sleeping beast with thine inquiries regarding the justifications for level of X and Y and so forth. Besmirch not thine brow with thine palm, for these internets are like unto a bottle of smoke; even shouldst thou contain them for thine purpose, it is but a bottle of smoke, inconstant, and not to mention trollish.

Nay, I shall speak no more of the folly inherent in this star-crossed comparison twixt D&D and LotR, for that way madness lies.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Phelix-Mu
*all of it*

...o gawd, thank you.

I am near asphyxiated with laughing, but thank you.

:smallbiggrin:

[Rogue Shadows]

Besmirch not thine brow with thine palm, for these internets are like unto a bottle of smoke; even shouldst thou contain them for thine purpose, it is but a bottle of smoke, inconstant, and not to mention trollish.

Hate to do this, but...I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be "thy" palm, "thou containst," and "thy purpose." I'm...let's say about 92% certain that you only use thine when the next letter begins with a vowel, in a similar manner to a and an. Though much like a and an you can probably get away with using thine if the next word begins with an H. "An heroic adventure" is technically proper English, so "thine hand" probably is as well.

Sorry. You learn weird things when you watch My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, including the rules of early-modern English.

[Phelix-Mu]

Hate to do this, but...I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be "thy" palm, "thou containst," and "thy purpose."

Sorry. You learn weird things when you watch My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, including the rules of early-modern English.

I think this plays to my comment on the nature of the internet, but thanks nonetheless.

Should I edit? *tee hee*

[Rogue Shadows]

I think this plays to my comment on the nature of the internet, but thanks nonetheless.

Should I edit? *tee hee*

I don't mind, per se, I'm just now compelled to point out mistakes in early-modern English ever since I watched "Luna Eclipsed" and realized that all the early-modern English that Princess Luna uses is actually correct, rather than an example of Ye Olde Butchered Englishe where the people at DHX just threw "thees" and "hasts" around willy-nilly.

[Phelix-Mu]

I don't mind, per se, I'm just now compelled to point out mistakes in early-modern English ever since I watched "Luna Eclipsed" and realized that all the early-modern English that Princess Luna uses is actually correct, rather than an example of Ye Olde Butchered Englishe where the people at DHX just threw "thees" and "hasts" around willy-nilly.

I actually rather like butchered, mainly because it (sometimes) pokes good fun at the actual usage of older forms of English in pop lit, which in turn is a foil on common usage of modern English. Just think how ludicrous our common parlance today will sound in a decade, much less a century. "Selfie," "hashtag X," and "twerk" (although twerk is rather older than the other two, IIRC) all will sound quite bizarre in just about no time, just like the way people talked in the 90s now sounds slightly weird.

And, bizarrely, this is actually almost on topic. Tolkien was a language wonk and Prof of Philately at Oxford or Cambridge or some such. And the problem of translating from D&D to LotR or vise versa is that they don't use the same language (or even the same general style...highly narrative LotR v somewhat balanced narrative/simulationist D&D).

[hymer]

Tolkien was a language wonk and Prof of Philately at Oxford or Cambridge or some such.

Perhaps you meant 'philology'? I never heard that Tolkien was a professor of postage stamps. :smallwink:

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Rogue Shadows
I'm...let's say about 92% certain that you only use thine when the next letter begins with a vowel, in a similar manner to a and an.

I should know this with more certainty, but I had the impression that "thine" was the plural possessive: thine hands, thine eyes (or thine eyen for the older form that Milton used) as opposed to "thy" for singular, such as thy will or thy love. I'm out of practice these days, but that difference feels true to me.

That said, I honestly didn't notice at the time, because I was laughing too hard. :smalltongue:



As for Tolkien, he was at Leeds and then won an extremely prestigious position at Oxford, all the more so for his comparative youth. He was up against a former professor of his for the spot, and the department head chose Tolkien because he wanted the younger man for the job.

I've been to the pub in Oxford where the Inklings used to meet. I'm not a pub guy myself, but it was still something of a pilgrimage.

.

[Phelix-Mu]

Perhaps you meant 'philology'? I never heard that Tolkien was a professor of postage stamps. :smallwink:

....Well, well, well. I am off to a good start in filling my yearly quota of derp. If I keep to this current rate throughout the rest of 2014, it could be a bumper crop.


Definition of thine (pron)
Bing Dictionary

thine
[ īn ]

1. yours or your: belonging to or associated with you, when "you" is singular

For what it's worth.


Definition of thy (adj)
Bing Dictionary

thy
[ ī ]

1. your: belonging or relating to you, the second person singular possessive corresponding to "thou"

Hardly official, but they look at least partially synonymous with just this simple look.

We are well-and-good off-topic at this point.

[Palanan]

Well, let me say first:


Originally Posted by Phelix-Mu
...I shall speak no more of the folly inherent in this star-crossed comparison twixt D&D and LotR, for that way madness lies.

I generally agree with this; my intention with the OP was to find out, as far as possible, where the assertions and comparisons were coming from, however ill-advised. It seems that in recent years they stem almost exclusively from the Alexandrian article, for better or for worse.



As for thy and thine, here's a relevant quote from one of my favorite books on English:


It is true that the full forms mine and thine long continued to be used before a noun beginning with a vowel or h, as in mine arm, mine host, which we still retain in poetry and in rhetorical use; but in the main my and thy were the forms for the attributive possessive, and mine and thine for the absolute possessive.

This is from The Making of English (http://www.amazon.com/Making-English-Dover-Books-Language/dp/0486451445/) by Henry Bradley, p. 41. It seems there are both phoenetic and grammatical influences at work here, and Rogue Shadows was far closer to the mark than I. Clearly I need to read this book again.

:smallredface:

.

[Broken Crown]

That "Gandalf was 5th Level" 1977 Dragon article is clearly flawed.

The burning pine cones used by Gandalf in Chapter VI of "The Hobbit" are clearly an application of the Fire Seeds spell. The other spells listed in the article (Fireball, Pyrotechnics, and Produced Flame) have very different fluff, whereas I wouldn't be surprised if D&D's Fire Seeds was based on Gandalf's spell in that scene.

Since Fire Seeds is a 6th level spell, that means that by D&D rules, Gandalf must have at least 11th-level casting.


I'm in agreement with the others who have suggested that Middle-Earth's Wizards are best modeled using Bards.

One important difference between D&D magic and Tolkien's magic, which can easily confuse arguments about how "powerful" something is, is that most magic in Middle-Earth seems to work by enhancing existing properties, not by creating new ones. Some things that Middle-Earth magic has been used to do:

- Set flammable things on fire
- Make swords cut more deeply, especially against the opponents the swords were created to fight
- Open doors, or hold them closed
- Make people fall asleep next to a lazy river on a hot day
- Make storms fiercer
- Make a volcano erupt, blotting out the sky with a pall of smoke over an entire country

Some of these effects (such as Control Weather) are well beyond the abilities of 6th level D&D characters; just because they're more subtle doesn't mean they're weak.

Some things that Middle-Earth magic cannot be used to do:

- Set fire to snow (Gandalf explicitly says he can't do it; he needs something to burn.)
- Fly (Fortunately, there are eagles.)

As for Aragorn? There isn't much to go on, in terms of direct translation to D&D. I'd personally put him around 10th level, with a low level of optimization; he's not doing anything obviously superhuman, but he's extremely capable in many different fields. Aragorn probably also has some Paladin levels in addition to Ranger (for healing, power against supernatural evil, etc.).

It's worth noting that Aragorn is one of the few people Sauron actually fears, enough so that Sauron was twice lured into launching a hasty preemptive strike against the forces of Gondor when Aragorn challenged him. (Sauron thought Aragorn might have had the Ring, without which he couldn't have done much to Sauron, but it shows that Sauron feared that Aragorn was powerful enough to use the ring against him.)

[Phelix-Mu]

My Inner Grammar Nazi would need some leveling-up before I really cared to note the difference. But, by ear, I did pick up on the "before a vowel" thing, which is maybe where some of my confusion lies. I'm not going to bother with the edit, since I find that some inaccuracy aids my satire, as opposed to detracting from it. *Monty Python voice* Can't take oneself too seriously now, can we?

Having been out of school for some years now, the demand for faculties relating to older versions of the English language has, quite inexplicably, dried up.

EDIT: Oh, and a plug for the MERP mentioned earlier in the thread. Never played it, but I bought a compendium of magic items and materials second hand that was from that system. One of the coolest, most thorough treatments of Tolkien's setting from an items/crafting/lore standpoint. Definitely worth a gander for any of you that are hardcore JRRT fans and like exploring new systems.

[RFLS]

That idiot obviously didn't take into account all the boulder smashing, greater dispel magics, and counter-spelling of Sauron shadow magic that he did in The Hobbit movies. Sheesh.

Also, Ratagast(sp?) the Brown is def a druid, but that prolly didn't even need to be said.

Yeah..... The Hobbit movies deviate pretty hard from the original books, written, as Zman pointed out, 35 years before the movies came out. As much as I like the LotR movies, I have to say that the Hobbit movies thus far have been pretty craptacular in regards to faithfulness to their source.

The spelling is Radagast.

[Shining Wrath]

Two things oft overlooked:

Gandalf soloed a Balor (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/demon.htm#balor), CR 20. Per the encounter calculator that makes his ECL 18 to avoid an "Unbeatable" encounter.

Aragorn defeated Sauron in a contest of will over the Palantir of Isengard. Since Sauron is capable of, e.g., affecting weather over an entire nation, building a Barad-dur by magic alone, and so on, and also scares the aforementioned Gandalf, he's some sort of magic user with a very high ECL. So "Ranger" Aragorn (poor Will save) takes on extremely high level magic user Sauron (good Will save) and still wins. And it's a prolonged contest, so you can't just hand wave it away as "Aragorn rolled 20, Sauron rolled 1".

Conclusion: both Aragorn and Gandalf had class abilities that don't match up well with "Wizard" and "Ranger"; they both tried to stay behind the scenes and avoid drawing too much attention to themselves, and thus didn't normally show all that they were capable of doing; and were probably way above the 5th level abilities that were described in detail in the book.

[Bogardan_Mage]

Two things oft overlooked:

Gandalf soloed a Balor (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/demon.htm#balor), CR 20. Per the encounter calculator that makes his ECL 18 to avoid an "Unbeatable" encounter.
Just as Istari are not statted neither are Balrogs, and just because Arneson said "This is a Balrog" doesn't make him right. Assuming a given monster is CR X is just like assuming a given character is Level X. And if you use one to "prove" the other it's just as baseless as if you said "Gandalf is level 40 because some game designer said so so there".


Aragorn defeated Sauron in a contest of will over the Palantir of Isengard. Since Sauron is capable of, e.g., affecting weather over an entire nation, building a Barad-dur by magic alone, and so on, and also scares the aforementioned Gandalf, he's some sort of magic user with a very high ECL. So "Ranger" Aragorn (poor Will save) takes on extremely high level magic user Sauron (good Will save) and still wins. And it's a prolonged contest, so you can't just hand wave it away as "Aragorn rolled 20, Sauron rolled 1".
There are so many assumptions here. For one thing, it goes to the Alexandrian's point about placing too much stock in class features: Tolkien wouldn't have had any reason to assume rangers had poor will, to the contrary, Aragorn is depicted as having a very strong will. Sauron's abilities are even less clear. Furthermore, I'm not sure it's even clear that this ought to be modelled by opposed Will saves anyway. If it's more like an opposed Wisdom check then it's level agnostic, and if it's based on something completely unrelated then we have no way of determining its implications.

Basically, Aragorn faces level appropriate challenges and overcomes them. But this is totally unsuitable for determining a baseline. Unless the a particular challenge can be determined to work in a particular way using the same method then we cannot determine anything from a character's ability to overcome it. It is not enough to say "Balrogs must be CR 20 because the monster manual says so". That is just as wrong as saying "Aragorn must be level 20 because I say so"

[Larkas]

I'll leave this (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/9470/roleplaying-games/ex-the-many-games-inside-the-worlds-most-popular-roleplaying-game) here, and quote this relevant bit:


The most popular thing I’ve ever written for The Alexandrian is, without a doubt, “D&D: Calibrating Your Expectations“. It was the first article on the site to attract widespread attention. (Looking at the server logs I can see it getting hot at Giant in the Playground, moving over to ENWorld, making the jump to WotC’s boards, and then exploding at StumbleUpon.) In fact, I think it’s fair to say that if I hadn’t written it the Alexandrian wouldn’t exist today. Tossing your words out into the empty void gets frustrating after awhile.

In short, “Calibrating Your Expectations” gave me an audience. And even now, several years later, it consistently remains the most popular page on the site. (Although the Three Clue Rule gives it a run for its money.)

But the interesting thing for me is that the article seems to have become popular for reasons that are almost completely inverted from the reasons that I wrote it.

What I thought people would take away from the article was a fresh appreciation of high-level play in D&D. I felt that people were struggling with a dissonance between what they thought high-level D&D was supposed to be like (Conan or Lord of the Rings) and what high-level D&D was actually delivering (mythological demigods). I thought that if people became conscious of the dissonance then they would be able to enjoy high-level play for what it was. (And this wasn’t even just about people who were unhappy with high-level play. I felt like even people who were having fun with high-level play were frequently underestimating just how awesome their characters were.)

Nor was this meant to be some sort of One-True-Wayism. I wasn’t trying to say, “High-level play is the only way to go!” But when I wrote that “Aragorn is about 5th level”, for example, what I was trying to say is, “And that means 5th level is pretty amazing. Which means that 15th level is really amazing. Let’s embrace the epic quality of our high level characters. Let’s tell stories worthy of Hercules!”

[AMFV]

I'll leave this (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/9470/roleplaying-games/ex-the-many-games-inside-the-worlds-most-popular-roleplaying-game) here, and quote this relevant bit:

Edit: The problem is that that's not the way the Essay reads, and as such it's been misused or misinterpreted by the vast majority of folks who read it. It's a poor essay if that was his goal, since it conveys an entirely different meaning.

[limejuicepowder]

Edit: The problem is that that's not the way the Essay reads, and as such it's been misused or misinterpreted by the vast majority of folks who read it. It's a poor essay if that was his goal, since it conveys an entirely different meaning.

It sounds like you don't like a single thing about this article, down to the font type.

Anyways, I did get out of the article what the writer intended: it made me realize how capable even a low level character can be, and by extension how insane high level characters are.

As far as literal translations go, remember that the article addresses many of the points you are raising. First and foremost, DnD is a game. At the end of the day, it needs to be fun and not too cumbersome. To that end, the rules are streamlined for use, even if it's not exactly like RL (bleeding out, injury, critical hits, etc). Tolkien on the other hand wrote a book. Thus he can make full use of realities, like the possibility of dropping an immense creature with one shot.

Next, you are clearly falling for the "well this character displayed this particular ability, and the only way to get that in DnD is this, there for they're at least level X." As someone else already mentioned, this is spelled out explicitly in the article as something not to do - or at least don't do it without a large grain of salt.

Lastly, virtually all of the abilities you are ascribing to Aragorn and using as evidence of his high levelness can be explained (much more cleanly I might add) with plot. He is the heir to the throne of Gondor, the last of the line of Kings of Men (and in a world where bloodlines and "divine right to rule" mean A LOT). Yes Sauron fears him - because he can unit the forces of men and put up a real defense. Without Aragorn, the forces of men are divided and effectively leaderless. On the other hand, his exploits in battle are completely at odds with what a 18th-odd level character is capable of.

[TypoNinja]

I feel like there are a lot of people who feel personally slighted when we assert that LotR characters are, and have to be low level in D&D.

They've missed the point in my opinion. No one is saying they are weak, we still have them held up as hero's of the realm, in that setting people will tell stories about them for generations to come, they shaped the world they live in.

D&D as a setting is just that high powered, mortal men and women no matter how bad ass are simply where the scale starts. Your average D&D party of adventurers represent the the physical competency of Olympic Champions.

The world record for a long jump is a a hair over 29 feet, Impressive but hardly out of reach for a low level character. Taking a 10 means we need a +19 to our check. +4 for Str, +5 for leap of the heavens, and +4 for the run feat. 4 ranks in jump, and + 2 for a tumble Synergy.

I just hit the world record for long jump on a first level character.

Nobody is saying your favorite heros are that weak, we're saying D&D's power scale is that crazy,

[Eldariel]

Nobody is saying your favorite heros are that weak, we're saying D&D's power scale is that crazy,

It's more that the D&D power level is kinda all over the place; your example is only half the story. Yes, a first level character could do that. But there's nothing that requires the character accomplishing the deed being first level. You could have an athletic 10th level character who could barely do it (only having 13 ranks in Jump, +2 Tumble bonus and +4 Speed from being a Barbarian).

You can also have a 20th level character with 0 HP who falls unconscious when he takes any strenuous activity without the effects of old age, sickness or such. Basically, the big thing is, level doesn't mean all that. A first level character can easily be stronger than a 20th level character in D&D. That's how much the system rewards system mastery. Pun-Pun can be accomplished on 1st level and Nup Nup on level 20. That is, a 1st level character can be an omnipotent God and a 20th (or 100th for that matter) level character can be a perfectly health person who just so happens to be unable to move without falling unconscious and risking dying. Those are the poles.


As such any of the characters from any novel could be created on basically any level with sufficient work. Yes, minimum level for most of them is probably 1. Maximum level, probably doesn't exist. As such, Aragorn could be level 1 or level 20 depending on the world calibration. Similarly, Gandalf could be, based on his book exploits (ignoring the fact that he's not allowed to use the full extent of his power), level 100 with just a ton of levels in classes that don't advance casting or do anything useful. Maybe he's taken Toughness a billion times but lacks natural healing so all the damage he's taken over the years means his practical HP total is never near the maximum and thus an Orc mook is still perfectly capable of incapacitating him.

D&D 3e is not consistent. Levels don't mean anything. Trying to convert anything into an absolute level doesn't work. You can determine minimum level for when something can be accomplished, but that doesn't mean anything. Minimalism is not optimal nor does it necessarily (or usually, for that matter) present the optimal conversion of any given entity, just the minimal one.

[Neknoh]

One thing about physical characters that was brought up but never truly replied to was how they "taper off" toward the end.

Where a magician will open portals to planes he created himself, commanding armies of whimsical constructs of dream and shadow, throwing mountains at gods, the humble swordsman will, in the words previously used "punch stuff harder."

Which I find to be a misconception of how supernaturally powerful these people would become.

Previously mentioned in this thread was a lvl 10 barbarian dismantling a tank (3 inches of iron every 6 seconds or somesuch) with his bare hands. A level 7 or 8 fighter crushing the skull of a bear with his fist, level 12 monks strangling dragons. A swordfighter at level 20 does not simply "hit harder" than at level 5. A level 5 swordfighter, historically, is the pinnacle of fencer in his generation, in the closest three generations behind and in front of him. A commoner, should he meet this level five fighter, will probably meet the most dangerous man his lineage has or will see for generations. Unless of course this lineage lives in a farmstead on the border of Eviltown with adventurers regularly coming through.

Musashi was a level 5 swordsman, he could not cleave a building, his sword would not cut through steel and heavens, but he was undefeated in a duel form that ends in 3 or 4 moves. The german swordmasters who funded entire schools of fighting (Liechtenauer for example) would likely be only 4th level soldiers, truly powerful soldiers and warriors, living to long age, but did they hone themselves beyond perfection? We don't know, as such, we can't attribute level 5 to these swordmasters.

If Aragorn was above level five, in accordance with the D&D power levels, he would, eventually, be able to walk up to the black gates, wade through the armies of orcs and tear the gate down with a spoon.

A sufficiently powerful level 20 fighter or barbarian, just from stats alone, should be able to tunnel through a city wall or even a mountain. Why does this not happen? People either don't consider it an option, or GM's doesn't allow it because it would take awaya a LOT from the game if you can pretty much ignore any environmental settings.

Aragorn to D&D being a level 5 ranger makes a lot of sense, especially when compared to the ludicrous feats level 20 characters are capable of, things that Aragorn never truly did do.


However.

Aragorn in a Middle Earth setting?
Now we are probably looking at the highest level possible for a mortal in the third age, the only ones trumping him are the beings of divine power such as T.Elves, the Istari, Ents, Dragons, Shapechangers, Balrogs (and other such creatures of darkness and forgotten places, e.g. The Watcher), Eagles and many others.

The Nazgûls are a bit of a tossup of if they can handle the heir of Isildur and Äerendil or not.

Trolls and levels, I just don't know.

But for a mortal man, Aragorn in Middle Earth's third age is probably as close to maximum level as can be.

[Icewraith]

One interesting part of a DnD/tolkien world adaptation is that light is inherently good and shadow, or absence of light, is evil. It's a mark of Sauron's creatures that they fear the light, getting around that limitation is why the Uruk-Hai are a big deal.

Aragorn attacks the ringwraiths on weathertop with torches to bypass their DR/good, under this interpretation. He may not have the two-weapon fighting feats even, instead relying perhaps on favored enemy bonuses or some wraithstrike-like mechanic that lets him target touch AC. Alternatively, Aragorn is templated, and his Numenoran lineage grants any weapon he wields the ghost touch property.

Incidentally, to fall further into the trap of assigning D&D mechanics to Tolkien...

if a lower level melee character is going to spend a large chunk of the campaign in melee with hordes of mooks, Great Cleave is a superb choice. (assuming Warblade levels are unavailable) That would bump his minimum level up to 6 as a straight-classed ranger.

[Eldariel]

Aragorn to D&D being a level 5 ranger makes a lot of sense, especially when compared to the ludicrous feats level 20 characters are capable of, things that Aragorn never truly did do.

20th level mundanes are really nothing special. A Fighter 20 has lots of HP and high attack bonus. If he has Power Attack he might do a lot of damage, to the point where he can sunder things that would be pretty much impossible IRL. However, maybe he just doesn't have Power Attack. Then he's just really good at shooting and taking hits.

If we nuke the HP a bit by assuming his base Con is low and his endurance comes from his training (level) instead, he won't be able to do any of the stuff like jumping from a mountain or dipping in lava and surviving.


In the case of Aragorn for instance, he could be described as a 20th level spell-less Ranger or Fighter/Ranger or Ranger/Aristocrat/Expert fairly easily; just take the right feats and boom, he can only do the feats he did in the book. Maybe take the Swift flaw too, drops his HP and gives him speed.

Just because Aragorn can be described as a 5th level Ranger doesn't mean that's the only way to describe him. He could be level 3 or level 9 or level 16 or level 56 for all we know - it is feasible to create character with ability set on more or less each of those levels that fits his capabilities. The class combination is up in the air too.

Without magic items, levels in Core mundane classes mean very little.

[TypoNinja]

20th level mundanes are really nothing special. A Fighter 20 has lots of HP and high attack bonus. If he has Power Attack he might do a lot of damage, to the point where he can sunder things that would be pretty much impossible IRL. However, maybe he just doesn't have Power Attack. Then he's just really good at shooting and taking hits.

If we nuke the HP a bit by assuming his base Con is low and his endurance comes from his training (level) instead, he won't be able to do any of the stuff like jumping from a mountain or dipping in lava and surviving.


In the case of Aragorn for instance, he could be described as a 20th level spell-less Ranger or Fighter/Ranger or Ranger/Aristocrat/Expert fairly easily; just take the right feats and boom, he can only do the feats he did in the book. Maybe take the Swift flaw too, drops his HP and gives him speed.

Just because Aragorn can be described as a 5th level Ranger doesn't mean that's the only way to describe him. He could be level 3 or level 9 or level 16 or level 56 for all we know - it is feasible to create character with ability set on more or less each of those levels that fits his capabilities. The class combination is up in the air too.

Without magic items, levels in Core mundane classes mean very little.

I'm sorry but, your argument is to assume terrible optimization to justify why the character would be a higher level? That's just silly. By that logic I can say cannon NPC's already existing in 3.5 should be higher level because I can envision a worse build for them that gives them the same powers.

[Neknoh]

The problem also arises when, although Aragorn cannot, a man of lesser skill than him can crush a bears throat. Aragorn was never depicted doing this, or any similar wrastling of big things, and yet still, a lvl 10 melee oriented character is very capable of doing it.

As previously stated, I'd like to bring up the example of Beowulf and contrast it to Aragorn, both are mythical heroes destined to become kings in their respective worlds, one is the heir to an ancient kingdom and the most dangerous man you'll ever meet in his day and age and world.

The other is a man who wrestled seamonsters, stuck his hand through the chest/neck of a dragon and killed a mythological beast buck naked and bare handed.

Are you saying that Aragorn is merely unoptimised when compared to Beowulf? Although Aragorn fell off a cliff and hit negative hitpoints?

[Phelix-Mu]

I think I'm +1 Eldariel's points right now. D&D in 3.5 is an extremely versatile language, and given the extremely narrative focus of LotR, there are a number of ways to simulate something that meets such vague criteria.

Even with Aragorn, how do we know he's a Ranger? Well, that would be easiest to describe a number of his prominent abilities. However, if we take another stance, he's a runaway aristocrat/fighter/expert who has been wandering the world, largely not interested in pursuing his destiny for many years, until he is roped in by the plot/Gandalf. All of the things that make Aragorn a Ranger can less efficiently be represented by feats, ACFs, raw numerical superiority, and so forth.

Previously the idea of a Middle Earth setting was talked about. This is another route. Maybe there are custom affiliations in Middle Earth, keyed to the setting. Maybe some unique Background Feats, Flaws, or Traits. And Regional Feats. Certainly Aragorn is no typical human; if not a custom template to cover all the characteristics of his bloodline, then maybe a package of abilities in exchange for the bonus feat or the +1sk.pt./level (a la silverbrow human).

The system of D&D in 3e is much as Eldariel has said, extremely varied in power level (and often internally inconsistent...great power sits beside great suck and hardly anyone blinks). Thus, we can make whatever we want to make of our favorite characters.

[Phelix-Mu]

I'm sorry but, your argument is to assume terrible optimization to justify why the character would be a higher level? That's just silly. By that logic I can say cannon NPC's already existing in 3.5 should be higher level because I can envision a worse build for them that gives them the same powers.

And by that logic I can say that canon NPCs already in books should be much lower level, because with better op they can do the same with less.

Both your point and mine can be true. The only reason to assume that those NPCs have to be the published level is because it would be a boatload of work to redesign all of them (but might be well worth it to stop silliness like 15th-level party curbstomping Elminster).

Those same npcs are likely not up to visiting npcs of Tippyverse, who will promptly eat them alive. Just so, the stats for gods are rather laughable, but a game with superior op would do well not to have the gods' stats be as per RAW (as any god with sense would have retconned themselves into better form/build via alter reality and other DSAs). Otherwise the gods can't really act like gods (because they are constantly worried about the real possibility of getting bumped off by mortals...I sure don't want my gods worried about that kind of thing).

[Optimator]

As far as level progression in DnD goes, and what it means in terms of the world, I've always went with the same progression as in the NWN series. That is:

lv1 is a beginner at what they do. A young man who knows a thing or two about swords. A little kid that's good around locks and traps. A girl that has recently become an apprentice to the local wizard.

lv5 is a local big-shot. The local guard captain. The village's priest. The chiftain of a small tribe.

lv10 is a nation-wide big-shot. A major town's elite knight. The arch-chief of the Orc tribes in the general area.

lv15 is the elite of the nation. The arch-mage of a major city. The knight-captain of the biggest fortress in the country.

lv20 trancends the boundaries of regular people. He/she is the person for whose achievements epics will be sung for centuries to come.

lv30 trancends the boundaries of mortals. He/she walks among the gods not as a pawn, but as a fellow player in their schemes and plans.

I like this scale. It's more or less what our group uses by default, although our campaign setting is a pretty heroic place.

If one were to somehow merge LOTR and DND I'd put Aragorn and co at around level 10 and Gandalf is a 18 HD outsider with five levels of Druid. It's hard to do when the default is magic and magic items.

[Legato Endless]

Musashi was a level 5 swordsman, he could not cleave a building, his sword would not cut through steel and heavens, but he was undefeated in a duel form that ends in 3 or 4 moves. The german swordmasters who funded entire schools of fighting (Liechtenauer for example) would likely be only 4th level soldiers, truly powerful soldiers and warriors, living to long age, but did they hone themselves beyond perfection? We don't know, as such, we can't attribute level 5 to these swordmasters.


May I ask for the rational here for the levels? That's a very technical answer and I'm curious how you came to that conclusion.

[Broken Crown]

The problem also arises when, although Aragorn cannot, a man of lesser skill than him can crush a bears throat. Aragorn was never depicted doing this, or any similar wrastling of big things, and yet still, a lvl 10 melee oriented character is very capable of doing it.
As you say, Aragorn was never depicted wrestling a bear or anything similar. Therefore, while it's entirely possible, it's logically invalid to conclude that he can't do it. Aragorn seems to have spent a lot of time wandering around a hostile wilderness armed only with a broken sword (That's how he was armed when he met the Hobbits in Bree, and I find it unlikely that he disarmed himself specifically to meet with them, given that he knew they were being hunted by the Nazgûl.) He obviously survived somehow. Maybe he's highly skilled in unarmed combat; maybe he's friendly with bears.


Are you saying that Aragorn is merely unoptimised when compared to Beowulf? Although Aragorn fell off a cliff and hit negative hitpoints?
I'd personally say Beowulf is considerably higher level than Aragorn, though he could well be more specialized as well; Aragorn at least demonstrates a wider range of skills.

I have no recollection of anything written by Tolkien in which Aragorn fell off a cliff.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Broken Crown
I have no recollection of anything written by Tolkien in which Aragorn fell off a cliff.

Yup, that was 100% Peter Jackson cinema there.

And this is something I'm seeing a lot of in this thread--the conflation of the movies with the original books. One sharp difference for our purposes, which I spotted a few pages ago, is the assumption that Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas ran for three days and nights solid while pursuing the Uruk-Hai. They didn't; more Peter Jackson cinema.

In the book, there's a full page of discussion on the evening of the first day, as to whether or not they should rest for the night, and Aragorn finally decides on resting. His reasoning is sound, it makes him far more human, and it's completely ignored in the movie.


Originally Posted by Broken Crown
Aragorn seems to have spent a lot of time wandering around a hostile wilderness....

I'd have to double-check the chronology, but yes, he spent years and possibly decades wandering the North, and also riding out with the sons of Elrond. Stands to reason he had all manner of scrapes during that time.

[Eldariel]

I'm sorry but, your argument is to assume terrible optimization to justify why the character would be a higher level? That's just silly. By that logic I can say cannon NPC's already existing in 3.5 should be higher level because I can envision a worse build for them that gives them the same powers.

No, my logic is to account for the fact that different optimization levels lead to different levels for the same ability. It's possible to make a level 1 Sorcerer who can cast 3rd level spells. Yet people here argue that Gandalf is a ~6th level Sorcerer. What's the rationale there? Why is low optimization as in sticking to level limits for abilities okay? Why isn't by-the-book multiclassing okay? What makes you think the characters are optimized in the first place? None of the fellowship are two-handed chargers. 8/9 are warrior types. The only spellcaster is a Gish. Obviously they're not very optimized, by 3.X standards. So what then makes you decide where to draw the line?

I posit it is impossible to even broadly define the level of optimization we should follow when converting these characters. Therefore it stands to reason that we can make many sets of stats for them at varying levels of optimization, none more valid than others (though I suppose we can leave TO-level tricks out; that cuts some of the under-level-3 builds out).

[rmnimoc]

Therefore it stands to reason that we can make many sets of stats for them at varying levels of optimization, none more valid than others.
Challenge accepted. Gandalf is an octostalt Commoner / Commoner / Commoner / Commoner / Commoner / Commoner / Commoner / Bard 120 and Frodo is a gestalt Wizard / Paladin 50 who lost his spellbook while kicking orphan puppies. The books make so much more sense now..
On that note I could see Aragorn actually being gestalt.....

[AMFV]

One thing about physical characters that was brought up but never truly replied to was how they "taper off" toward the end.

Where a magician will open portals to planes he created himself, commanding armies of whimsical constructs of dream and shadow, throwing mountains at gods, the humble swordsman will, in the words previously used "punch stuff harder."

Which I find to be a misconception of how supernaturally powerful these people would become.

Previously mentioned in this thread was a lvl 10 barbarian dismantling a tank (3 inches of iron every 6 seconds or somesuch) with his bare hands. A level 7 or 8 fighter crushing the skull of a bear with his fist, level 12 monks strangling dragons. A swordfighter at level 20 does not simply "hit harder" than at level 5. A level 5 swordfighter, historically, is the pinnacle of fencer in his generation, in the closest three generations behind and in front of him. A commoner, should he meet this level five fighter, will probably meet the most dangerous man his lineage has or will see for generations. Unless of course this lineage lives in a farmstead on the border of Eviltown with adventurers regularly coming through.

There are no mechanics for strangling in D&D, certainly none that monks can exploit, so your level 12 Monk can't strangle a Dragon, hell at that level he probably can't even grapple a dragon since a dragon of appropriate CR would likely exceed his size by more than two categories.

There are also no mechanics for crushing skulls, that simply doesn't exist, in unarmed combat in D&D, a fighter at that level, without charging could probably not kill a bear in a single hit with unarmed combat as his focus, you're creating examples that are unlikely to impossible in D&D. Since crushing a skull is impossible, then no level character could do it. So again moot point, Aragorn's inability to do something that is not covered by the mechanics of D&D shouldn't be a problem for his assesment of level, even if assessing his level was a valid concern.

Furthermore, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o9RGnujlkI. That's clearly more than four attacks in six seconds, so by D&D terms they'd have to be quite high level, I believe that's more than even rapid shot would allow. D&D isn't a modelling system in the way you envision, there are people who routinely do things that are impossible in D&D, and people that can't do things that are basic in D&D.



Musashi was a level 5 swordsman, he could not cleave a building, his sword would not cut through steel and heavens, but he was undefeated in a duel form that ends in 3 or 4 moves. The german swordmasters who funded entire schools of fighting (Liechtenauer for example) would likely be only 4th level soldiers, truly powerful soldiers and warriors, living to long age, but did they hone themselves beyond perfection? We don't know, as such, we can't attribute level 5 to these swordmasters.

But I bet you that if you put Musashi in a room with a person and told him to stab the person, he wouldn't miss 5% of the time against an unarmed and unarmored opponent. I'm fairly sure he'd hit significantly more than that. So he clearly exceeds any level that you'd see in D&D, since no D&D character is capable of that feat.



If Aragorn was above level five, in accordance with the D&D power levels, he would, eventually, be able to walk up to the black gates, wade through the armies of orcs and tear the gate down with a spoon.

Making some pretty big assumptions about the construction of the black gates and the level of the Orcs aren't we?



A sufficiently powerful level 20 fighter or barbarian, just from stats alone, should be able to tunnel through a city wall or even a mountain. Why does this not happen? People either don't consider it an option, or GM's doesn't allow it because it would take awaya a LOT from the game if you can pretty much ignore any environmental settings.

With those five attribute bonus points and a strength of 23? That seems unlikely admittedly he could have a strength in the thirties if he raged, but you're including item bonuses in your assertion, not just the benefit of levels.



Aragorn to D&D being a level 5 ranger makes a lot of sense, especially when compared to the ludicrous feats level 20 characters are capable of, things that Aragorn never truly did do.

Level 20 melee characters really aren't that different in their operation. Hell, narratively even Wizards aren't. They say words stuff happens. They say words and transform into a monster for fighting could be Shapechange or Alter Self, either would work. A wizard casts a spell of control to make a friend an enemy, could be Charm Person, or Dominate Monster.

I suspect that this is intentional or at least was in the former editions of D&D.

Lastly as far as the MERP power level goes, we've shown that the build for Beorn has to be at least in the high teens and is probably epic level, so that sets the power curve for that world.

[limejuicepowder]

- stuff -

Now you're just being intentionally ridicules. The characters in the movie are shown attacking more than 4 times in 6 seconds, so clearly they are higher level? I and others have addressed this already: at the end of the day, DnD is a game and thus must be fun. Certain things must be streamlined for actual use, and number of attacks possible in 6 full seconds is one of them.

Also, taking a certain extremely specific action and looking for the rule in DnD that spells out letting you do precisely that is silly: the game, for obvious reasons, isn't going to be an exhaustive list of everything in combat, up to and including "run, grab a shield, thrown it down some stairs, jump on to shield and ride it like a surfboard, and shoot several arrows on the way down." No, this is something you say you'd like to try, and the DM makes an on the fly ruling. Not even slightly is this reason to say "Tolkein characters are extremely high level."

[AMFV]

Now you're just being intentionally ridicules. The characters in the movie are shown attacking more than 4 times in 6 seconds, so clearly they are higher level? I and others have addressed this already: at the end of the day, DnD is a game and thus must be fun. Certain things must be streamlined for actual use, and number of attacks possible in 6 full seconds is one of them.

Also, taking a certain extremely specific action and looking for the rule in DnD that spells out letting you do precisely that is silly: the game, for obvious reasons, isn't going to be an exhaustive list of everything in combat, up to and including "run, grab a shield, thrown it down some stairs, jump on to shield and ride it like a surfboard, and shoot several arrows on the way down." No, this is something you say you'd like to try, and the DM makes an on the fly ruling. Not even slightly is this reason to say "Tolkein characters are extremely high level."

I'm agreeing with you, actually, I'm stating that modeling real life or literary characters as an absolute is ridiculous. If you'll reread the post you'll see that I say as much. I've been arguing against being able to model a character in one particular way, the entire time I've been here in this thread. The reason I presented the real world examples was to point how ridiculous that sort of modeling is.

Edit: The reason (IMHO) that D&D is a terrible system for modelling is that one thing is tied to everything else. For example the archer that I posted a video of, would have to be an epic level character, who could survive a fall of any distance, or the whole lava thing without any damage in order for her to be able to shoot a bow that rapidly and accurately. You can use it to create many concepts, easily, but not to model things well.

[Shining Wrath]

Just as Istari are not statted neither are Balrogs, and just because Arneson said "This is a Balrog" doesn't make him right. Assuming a given monster is CR X is just like assuming a given character is Level X. And if you use one to "prove" the other it's just as baseless as if you said "Gandalf is level 40 because some game designer said so so there".


There are so many assumptions here. For one thing, it goes to the Alexandrian's point about placing too much stock in class features: Tolkien wouldn't have had any reason to assume rangers had poor will, to the contrary, Aragorn is depicted as having a very strong will. Sauron's abilities are even less clear. Furthermore, I'm not sure it's even clear that this ought to be modelled by opposed Will saves anyway. If it's more like an opposed Wisdom check then it's level agnostic, and if it's based on something completely unrelated then we have no way of determining its implications.

Basically, Aragorn faces level appropriate challenges and overcomes them. But this is totally unsuitable for determining a baseline. Unless the a particular challenge can be determined to work in a particular way using the same method then we cannot determine anything from a character's ability to overcome it. It is not enough to say "Balrogs must be CR 20 because the monster manual says so". That is just as wrong as saying "Aragorn must be level 20 because I say so"

This creature, by itself, defeated the most powerful kingdom of Dwarves. Moria was a thriving, wealthy kingdom, until they awoke Durin's Bane. Even if you say all those Dwarves were ECL 1 or 2, there were a lot of them, experienced warriors with the finest mithril weapons and armor, and one creature destroyed that kingdom.

Even a mundane kingdom takes a lot of destroying. There's no way to read a Balrog and not wind up with something much too powerful for a 5 ECL to solo. Show me the ECL 5 character who can destroy a kingdom.

Therefore, any argument that winds up with Gandalf not being able to take on an entire nation of dwarves by himself ignores the plain text that the Balrog did exactly that, and Gandalf defeated the Balrog.

I agree that wresting the Palantir from the control of Sauron could be worked into the rules in different ways, and I actually said that Aragorn is no D&D Ranger. The point regarding Aragorn's estimated ECL stands, though; Sauron is capable of altering the weather of a nation, driving entire armies into frenzy by the force of his personality, and other epic-level effects - and Aragorn beat him head to head in some sort of confrontation, and Sauron feared the power Aragorn might have from the ring. And Sauron is clearly intended to have enormous force of personality and will power. Aragorn is no D&D ranger, but whatever multiclass gestalt / template / LA mix you wind up with to represent him had better wind up capable of taking on the most powerful personality in Middle Earth in a contest of wills and winning.

Again, I think both Gandalf and Aragorn hid their true capabilities most of the time. Therefore, an analysis that says "most of the time they don't show anything above ECL 5" but discounts the examples when they challenged enemies capable of destroying whole nations and triumphed is an incorrect analysis.

[Talakeal]

This creature, by itself, defeated the most powerful kingdom of Dwarves. Moria was a thriving, wealthy kingdom, until they awoke Durin's Bane. Even if you say all those Dwarves were ECL 1 or 2, there were a lot of them, experienced warriors with the finest mithril weapons and armor, and one creature destroyed that kingdom.

Even a mundane kingdom takes a lot of destroying. There's no way to read a Balrog and not wind up with something much too powerful for a 5 ECL to solo. Show me the ECL 5 character who can destroy a kingdom.

Therefore, any argument that winds up with Gandalf not being able to take on an entire nation of dwarves by himself ignores the plain text that the Balrog did exactly that, and Gandalf defeated the Balrog.

I agree that wresting the Palantir from the control of Sauron could be worked into the rules in different ways, and I actually said that Aragorn is no D&D Ranger. The point regarding Aragorn's estimated ECL stands, though; Sauron is capable of altering the weather of a nation, driving entire armies into frenzy by the force of his personality, and other epic-level effects - and Aragorn beat him head to head in some sort of confrontation, and Sauron feared the power Aragorn might have from the ring. And Sauron is clearly intended to have enormous force of personality and will power. Aragorn is no D&D ranger, but whatever multiclass gestalt / template / LA mix you wind up with to represent him had better wind up capable of taking on the most powerful personality in Middle Earth in a contest of wills and winning.

Again, I think both Gandalf and Aragorn hid their true capabilities most of the time. Therefore, an analysis that says "most of the time they don't show anything above ECL 5" but discounts the examples when they challenged enemies capable of destroying whole nations and triumphed is an incorrect analysis.

There are a lot of abilities that can take out a lot of people easily. If the balrog has, say, DR 10/magic, Incorporeality, the ability to shoot fireballs, and an aura that does a small amount of fire damage to anything that comes close, it could take on 1,000s of dwarves easily but still fall to a single hero.

[johnbragg]

There are a lot of abilities that can take out a lot of people easily. If the balrog has, say, DR 10/magic, Incorporeality, the ability to shoot fireballs, and an aura that does a small amount of fire damage to anything that comes close, it could take on 1,000s of dwarves easily but still fall to a single hero.

I'm pretty sure what you described there is not a level-appropriate challenge for any but a wildly optimized 5th level character.

[Talakeal]

I'm pretty sure what you described there is not a level-appropriate challenge for any but a wildly optimized 5th level character.

No one said it was level appropriate. It took everything Gandalf had, and it still killed him to slay the Balrog.

But my point is that a monster with a high DR to magic and an AOE energy attack will devastate an entire army of mundane low level characters, but a wizard with access to a magic sword and a ring of fire protection like Gandalf will ignore those abilities.

[LordBiscuit]

There is a lot of assumptions that are drifiting around. Allow me to add some of my own assumptions (drops a wall of text)

The article is questioning the logicstics of the assumption that "the best character within a given universe is level 20". It is fairly clear that if he was imported into DnD to best replicate his abilities, he would be nowhere near level 20 unless you decided to change his capabilities.

He may lose/gain abilities with the transfer as few transfers are perfect, but as long as they embody his general abilities, that of his broad range of skills, ability to fight and generally stand shoulders above most conventional threats, but most importently preserve his general idenity, not all of that is a number on his stat sheet (Indeed, some things can only be repersented by homebrew/templates/priestage classes that will need to be altered, such as the bear-shaper). This makes a few key assumptions.


Are you trying to import Aragorn into a 3.5 world, or turn 3.5 into simulating the world of LOTR? Since importing him will mean that he would be changed to match the laws of a given univerce, while making the LOTR a setting would require an entire world being constructed from the ground up, with Aragorn repersenting what is considered a powerful person, with ample room for creatures of myth existing on a level above him.

Does the pressence of creatures not native to LOTR make any difference? If so, does Aragorn need to be adjusted to maintain the status quo? Remember that Aragorn/Legendary Character doesn't have to be capable of overpowering everything, just the common things such as orcs, goblins. Essencally if Aragorn is one of the best, everything else needs to be adjusted to be around that general level. Where does Sam stand in this? Where does the mainstrays of the fiction sit within this established cycle?

Is his key traits being repersented correctly? It doesn't matter too much what extra abiltiies are being presented as they can be refluffed, but he must be immediately identifiable as him, in the same way that Legolas was the best archer. Gandolf is the mysterious "Wizard", Sam the heartstrong Hobbit.

"But Gandolf must be the strongest, he slain a demon, so he is a level 20 X" indeed he did, but is that ability relivent to the campiagn being ran? After all, it's impossible to repersent a combat that lasted for 10 days by an old man and a gigantic beast of shadow and fire. Personally Gandolf is the defination of a DMPC or a Macguffin, he is as strong as he needs to be and is there to advance the plot and provide wisdom. As a devine angel he exists outside what the mortals can precive and is best treated as such, firmly out of reach of PC's.

If there is anything that cannot be repersented within the setting using existing rules, then new templates, abilties and plot events may be added. After all the legion of the damned was not Aragorns power, but rather a plot device and another example of his birthright. Driving off the Wraiths was a sign that a confrontion with him would have disasterious consquences for the incorpral creatures, though we will never know exactly what those consquences entailed and thus is an intentional oversight.


My impression of Aragorn is a level 5/8 character, with 10 being the utter cap of his abilties in a setting where people cannot directly use powerful magic in the direct manner that would be expected out of your typical, high magic DnD classes. Thus should be the highest possible level that a PC should achieve in a 3.5 campiagn.

However it is importent to remember that J. R. R. Tolkien had no mind to design his story for a game, but rather present the facts when convient to pushing forward the plot of his creation so as long as the basic essence of the setting is preserved of a low magic, high fantasy setting then I there is room for a lot of creative liberties. Just I don't see Aragorn as a level 20 character, even within his own setting.

[limejuicepowder]

This creature, by itself, defeated the most powerful kingdom of Dwarves. Moria was a thriving, wealthy kingdom, until they awoke Durin's Bane. Even if you say all those Dwarves were ECL 1 or 2, there were a lot of them, experienced warriors with the finest mithril weapons and armor, and one creature destroyed that kingdom.

Even a mundane kingdom takes a lot of destroying. There's no way to read a Balrog and not wind up with something much too powerful for a 5 ECL to solo. Show me the ECL 5 character who can destroy a kingdom.

Therefore, any argument that winds up with Gandalf not being able to take on an entire nation of dwarves by himself ignores the plain text that the Balrog did exactly that, and Gandalf defeated the Balrog.



Think of the logic you're using: "Y beat X, and Z beat Y, there for Z will beat X." This is flawed, immensely...and now for a real life example: Frazier beat Ali! And Foreman destroyed Frazier! There for Foreman will wreck....ah crap guess not.

Like Talakeal noted, it's entirely possible for the balrog to have a set of skills that makes him extremely dangerous to masses of mooks, but less so to a single powerful foe. Combat is not just statically comparing a number and seeing which one is bigger - there's more variables than I can easily list that go in to the equation of "who will win."

[Shining Wrath]

Think of the logic you're using: "Y beat X, and Z beat Y, there for Z will beat X." This is flawed, immensely...and now for a real life example: Frazier beat Ali! And Foreman destroyed Frazier! There for Foreman will wreck....ah crap guess not.

Like Talakeal noted, it's entirely possible for the balrog to have a set of skills that makes him extremely dangerous to masses of mooks, but less so to a single powerful foe. Combat is not just statically comparing a number and seeing which one is bigger - there's more variables than I can easily list that go in to the equation of "who will win."

Frazier - Ali - Foreman noted, although I think Ali would not have wanted a rematch with Foreman. If Foreman had fought smarter against Ali he'd have won. That right hand of his is still unmatched ...

I think the point about Gandalf still holds, though. What is the weakest Balrog, in terms of one-on-one combat, that can still destroy a dwarven kingdom? How high a level would Gandalf need to be to take it? I believe you are still going to wind up in double digits ECL wise. The Dwarves of Moria were not pushovers and did include some spell casters.

[AMFV]

There is a lot of assumptions that are drifiting around. Allow me to add some of my own assumptions (drops a wall of text)

The article is questioning the logicstics of the assumption that "the best character within a given universe is level 20". It is fairly clear that if he was imported into DnD to best replicate his abilities, he would be nowhere near level 20 unless you decided to change his capabilities.


The problem is that you need him to be high level since there are characters who are 20th level (Beorn and probably Bard), and he's described as being powerful in that setting, since Beorn can't be modeled below the teens, then he has to start there.



He may lose/gain abilities with the transfer as few transfers are perfect, but as long as they embody his general abilities, that of his broad range of skills, ability to fight and generally stand shoulders above most conventional threats, but most importently preserve his general idenity, not all of that is a number on his stat sheet (Indeed, some things can only be repersented by homebrew/templates/priestage classes that will need to be altered, such as the bear-shaper). This makes a few key assumptions.

The transfer is inherently borked for the same reason that you can't model the archer who can shoot more than 6 arrows in a 6-second period, because D&D is not a modeling system. You could create a character who is "Aragorn-like" at any level virtually, but you can't define Aragorn's level since we don't know the level of his opponents. A 20th level spell-less ranger will look about the same as a 5th level spell less ranger.



Are you trying to import Aragorn into a 3.5 world, or turn 3.5 into simulating the world of LOTR? Since importing him will mean that he would be changed to match the laws of a given univerce, while making the LOTR a setting would require an entire world being constructed from the ground up, with Aragorn repersenting what is considered a powerful person, with ample room for creatures of myth existing on a level above him.

Does the pressence of creatures not native to LOTR make any difference? If so, does Aragorn need to be adjusted to maintain the status quo? Remember that Aragorn/Legendary Character doesn't have to be capable of overpowering everything, just the common things such as orcs, goblins. Essencally if Aragorn is one of the best, everything else needs to be adjusted to be around that general level. Where does Sam stand in this? Where does the mainstrays of the fiction sit within this established cycle?


Orcs advance by character level, the Orcs could all be ECL 30 certainly.



Is his key traits being repersented correctly? It doesn't matter too much what extra abiltiies are being presented as they can be refluffed, but he must be immediately identifiable as him, in the same way that Legolas was the best archer. Gandolf is the mysterious "Wizard", Sam the heartstrong Hobbit.

"But Gandolf must be the strongest, he slain a demon, so he is a level 20 X" indeed he did, but is that ability relivent to the campiagn being ran? After all, it's impossible to repersent a combat that lasted for 10 days by an old man and a gigantic beast of shadow and fire. Personally Gandolf is the defination of a DMPC or a Macguffin, he is as strong as he needs to be and is there to advance the plot and provide wisdom. As a devine angel he exists outside what the mortals can precive and is best treated as such, firmly out of reach of PC's.

It's true that it's impossible to model well, since he's pulling punches and is restricted in power, but firmly out of the reach of PCs is level much higher than 5.



If there is anything that cannot be repersented within the setting using existing rules, then new templates, abilties and plot events may be added. After all the legion of the damned was not Aragorns power, but rather a plot device and another example of his birthright. Driving off the Wraiths was a sign that a confrontion with him would have disasterious consquences for the incorpral creatures, though we will never know exactly what those consquences entailed and thus is an intentional oversight.


D&D is not a modelling system, not in the same sense as GURPS or Mutants and Masterminds, you can't model abilities because all of the abilities are tied together in such a way that advancing one advances all of them. Also we don't know the ECL of the Orcs, or their CR. They very likely have class levels. The only one that we know for sure is Beorn, since you have to be able to transform into a huge bear, which takes MoMF or Weredirebear with at least 17 Animal HD.

In any case, if you're making that sort of argument he would set the power level for the world, since Aragorn can be modeled at many different levels. Gandalf is deliberately pulling punches, as such neither of them are good to use as a power level model point for the world, but Beorn is... he fought to his full ability and needs to be a certain level, so that means that being powerful in Arda would require at least level 21...



My impression of Aragorn is a level 5/8 character, with 10 being the utter cap of his abilties in a setting where people cannot directly use powerful magic in the direct manner that would be expected out of your typical, high magic DnD classes. Thus should be the highest possible level that a PC should achieve in a 3.5 campiagn.

However it is importent to remember that J. R. R. Tolkien had no mind to design his story for a game, but rather present the facts when convient to pushing forward the plot of his creation so as long as the basic essence of the setting is preserved of a low magic, high fantasy setting then I there is room for a lot of creative liberties. Just I don't see Aragorn as a level 20 character, even within his own setting.

[Icewraith]

I've always thought Aragorn would be modeled fairly well as a DMM persist cleric if you drop any size changes from spell effects and use invisible spell.

Mainly because you can stilll get the knowledges, still get impressive melee combat ability (and isn't there a domain that grants favored enemy?), the Athelas leaves aren't there for +2 circumstance to heal checks they're the rare material component for remove curse type spells (which is why nobody else can do that trick to that extent except Elrond), and you can, with sufficient feats and level, rebuke an entire army of undead that have been lying around since one of your ancestors (also a cleric) cursed a nation of people who betrayed him to hang around as undead until he could be bothered to find a use for them.

If for some reason only people in your bloodline can be clerics, then it would make sense that only people in your line would be able to jerk the chain of an entire city of undead when needed. It would also explain why you spend large portions of your extended lifespan riding around the countryside grinding XP, and how your people don't mind living out well away from civilization in the vicinity of an evil forest with predatory trees and tombs packed with the sentient evil undead remains of your distant ancestors.

You've also got Wis and Cha as primary stats, which is wonderful if you're going to be making opposed mental checks (probably either Wis or Cha) against an ancient evil entity in order to wrest a scrying artifact from its mental control, or if you need to resist the lure of the mind-twisting ring of power during a long journey where it successfully corrupts another party member and strongly tempts the local artifact-wielding elf sorceress queen.

Regarding the Balrog, this specific Balrog is none other than Durin's Bane. It is therefore sufficiently lethal to overcome a dwarf that is either the direct reincarnation of or so powerful that the other dwarves call him by the name of the eldest of the Seven Fathers of the Dwarves. Said dwarf would have also been kitted out with the best (essentially magical) weapons and armor available and backed up by similarly equipped, battle hardened dwarves and dwarven magic (which may be of use in battle or only may be useful for crafting things and making large impressive fortifications).

If you were going to model the magic in Tolkien's world, you might toss out most of the 4th-9th level spells but include epic spellcasting and artifact crafting rules. The gates of Minas Tirith, for instance, aren't just broken by the gigantic siege machine, they're broken by the Witch-King casting crazy ritual magic at the same time.

[cerin616]

Tolkien characters are not optimized.m

Gandalf is wizard 5/druid 5/duskblade 3

covers his numerous arcane abilities, his animal companion (shadowfax) his "summon natures ally III" (giant eagles, twice) and his ability to channel spells through his weapon. He may have taken some levels in a classes with high hit die to fight that balrog.

Aragorn holy warrior, stand fast, avenging paladin 5/ distracting attack,champion of the wild, rival organization (sauron) ranger5 possibly with a homebrew combat style focused on 2 hand weapons (approved by his DM)

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by cerin616
...his "summon nature[']s ally III" (giant eagles, twice)....

It's worth noting that Gandalf didn't "summon" the eagles in any way that corresponds to Summon Nature's Ally. The eagles didn't wink out once the combat was over. They're free-willed allies who made their own choice who to fight for and when.

.

[Starbuck_II]

No one said it was level appropriate. It took everything Gandalf had, and it still killed him to slay the Balrog.

But my point is that a monster with a high DR to magic and an AOE energy attack will devastate an entire army of mundane low level characters, but a wizard with access to a magic sword and a ring of fire protection like Gandalf will ignore those abilities.

Actually, I say it is level appropriate. If you are Level 5 and you fight a CR 5 (by yourself), that is a 50% chance of death. Which is exactly what happened.

Although Gandalf is over his WBL, his a Maiar, and the balrog was wounded previously likely as it killed the king and later the son with his army (it was in many battles before Melkor was defeated as well).
It also slept and was awoken two ages later so we can apply aging on it (old maybe?)
So More like CR 7 vs CR 7.

Gandalf sundered the Balrog's sword. Then he broke the bridge

[AMFV]

Tolkien characters are not optimized.m


Citation needed.

They survived in one of the most hostile environments in their world, it's probable that they were pretty optimized.

[Flickerdart]

You can't say that Tolkien's characters aren't optimized, because they're not in a system. When rendering his characters in D&D 3.5 it doesn't make sense to needlessly inflate their levels when one can replicate their abilities at a low level without needing any cheese.

[Legato Endless]

You can't say that Tolkien's characters aren't optimized, because they're not in a system. When rendering his characters in D&D 3.5 it doesn't make sense to needlessly inflate their levels when one can replicate their abilities at a low level without needing any cheese.

Even if they were in a system we knew, what constitutes optimized varies pretty starkly depending on the setting your DM gives you. You won't make the same decisions for a character who lives in a world deprived of magic items than you would where you are guaranteed level appropriate gear.

[Yukitsu]

Actually, I say it is level appropriate. If you are Level 5 and you fight a CR 5 (by yourself), that is a 50% chance of death. Which is exactly what happened.

Although Gandalf is over his WBL, his a Maiar, and the balrog was wounded previously likely as it killed the king and later the son with his army (it was in many battles before Melkor was defeated as well).
It also slept and was awoken two ages later so we can apply aging on it (old maybe?)
So More like CR 7 vs CR 7.

Gandalf sundered the Balrog's sword. Then he broke the bridge

To be fair, in D&D you're not really supposed to lose 50% of the time against something exactly your own ECL. PCs have several advantages that NPCs and random encounters don't, it's perfectly reasonable to expect that a character can come close to beating something a few CR above their level solo half the time or more. The exception being of course level 1-2 where NPCs have more wealth to counter the average higher stats.

[Eldariel]

You can't say that Tolkien's characters aren't optimized, because they're not in a system. When rendering his characters in D&D 3.5 it doesn't make sense to needlessly inflate their levels when one can replicate their abilities at a low level without needing any cheese.

Then again, there's no benefit to minimizing their level through optimization. Inflation is no less viable than minimization in anything but an aesthetic sense, which is no criterion by which to judge builds. It's plain easier to slam a bunch of classes after each other to get the abilities you want and call it a day than it is to condense it all into 5 levels.

In D&D, level 5 doesn't mean anything. Level 10 doesn't mean anything. Level 20 doesn't mean anything. It's the specific build that matters - a stock level 20 character (say, Fighter 20, Barbarian 20 or Warblade 20) can be weaker than a stock level 13 character (say, Wizard 13) particularly judging purely by class abilities (that is, ignoring WBL). Level-scaling abilities are far less important than specific class features, to the point of level-scaling being irrelevant comparatively.

[AMFV]

Actually, I say it is level appropriate. If you are Level 5 and you fight a CR 5 (by yourself), that is a 50% chance of death. Which is exactly what happened.

Although Gandalf is over his WBL, his a Maiar, and the balrog was wounded previously likely as it killed the king and later the son with his army (it was in many battles before Melkor was defeated as well).
It also slept and was awoken two ages later so we can apply aging on it (old maybe?)
So More like CR 7 vs CR 7.

Gandalf sundered the Balrog's sword. Then he broke the bridge

Neither outsiders nor Maiar age. Not in D&D or Tolkien. I think CR 7 is probably significantly low for that particular challenge. Also Gandalf is pretty impossible to model due to the fact that he restricted his own power, and wasn't able to use his full power, even later he still rarely used the full strength that he had, at least I don't believe so.

Gandalf may not be over WBL at all, in fact at whatever ECL he's at he may be significantly under WBL.


You can't say that Tolkien's characters aren't optimized, because they're not in a system. When rendering his characters in D&D 3.5 it doesn't make sense to needlessly inflate their levels when one can replicate their abilities at a low level without needing any cheese.

However that only matters if your goal is to replicate them at the lowest level possible, which seems to not be the goal, or at least to be counterproductive in a modeling sense.

I would argue that one of the strengths of D&D is the ability to model things at various levels, meaning that you can adjust things, but it's not a quality that you can use to determine things, it's just a feature.

[Flickerdart]

Then again, there's no benefit to minimizing their level through optimization. Inflation is no less viable than minimization in anything but an aesthetic sense, which is no criterion by which to judge builds. It's plain easier to slam a bunch of classes after each other to get the abilities you want and call it a day than it is to condense it all into 5 levels.
There's certainly a benefit - when the main antagonists are orcs and the party is level 5, you can go "ok so they fight orcs from the book." When the main antagonists are orcs and the party is 15+, you have to contrive some sort of Epic super-orc and why there would be an entire army of them. Oh and then all the human soldiers have to be high level too because they fight these orcs as well, and now you have babies born at level 5 to keep up with the power inflation.

[Jokunen]

To be fair, in D&D you're not really supposed to lose 50% of the time against something exactly your own ECL. PCs have several advantages that NPCs and random encounters don't, it's perfectly reasonable to expect that a character can come close to beating something a few CR above their level solo half the time or more. The exception being of course level 1-2 where NPCs have more wealth to counter the average higher stats.

Not to mention character optimization.


D&D as a setting is just that high powered, mortal men and women no matter how bad ass are simply where the scale starts. Your average D&D party of adventurers represent the the physical competency of Olympic Champions.

The world record for a long jump is a a hair over 29 feet, Impressive but hardly out of reach for a low level character. Taking a 10 means we need a +19 to our check. +4 for Str, +5 for leap of the heavens, and +4 for the run feat. 4 ranks in jump, and + 2 for a tumble Synergy.

I just hit the world record for long jump on a first level character.

Nobody is saying your favorite heros are that weak, we're saying D&D's power scale is that crazy,

Yeah, especially with stats being made with point buy or 4D6, drop the lowest. Especially the latter tends to produce above average stats, even though 18s are less common.

Old-school 3D6 for stats produces less badass characters, but more often results in literally retarded characters.

[Saphir]

As far as I understand, the reasoning is roughly as follows:

Aragorn, in the LOTR story, seems to be roughly as powerful compared to average people as one would expect a level 5 ranger to be compared to level 1 commoners: He can take on challenges that would be impossible for most people, and very hard for small squads of trained soldiers, but he cannot beat a large army of orcs by himself. For example, he did not expect to be able to solo every orc in Moria. Keep in mind that even the some of the hobbits - untrained combatants - were able to take orcs 1v1 during this same encounter.

By this logic, then, if you're designing a campaign / setting, it's not at all a bad idea to have the most powerful characters around level 5-6. Rather, one argues that something akin to E6 is a better representation of most (but not all) fantasy stories than the "default" setting in which we have scores of characters above level 10. The argument that "this character must be high level because he/she is supposed to be powerful" is fine, but the notion that 5 isn't a high level is based around the typical DnD level spread rather than typical fiction.

At any rate, even on Arda, Aragorn is hardly a high-level character. I would reserve that position mostly for people in Silmarillion. Aragorn may be powerful at the time of LOTR but he does in no way compare to ancient warriors like Fingolfin / Eärendil / Húrin - the first two, at least, were previously mentioned in this thread. Fëanor might be legendary level, but Aragorn is not.

[AMFV]

There's certainly a benefit - when the main antagonists are orcs and the party is level 5, you can go "ok so they fight orcs from the book." When the main antagonists are orcs and the party is 15+, you have to contrive some sort of Epic super-orc and why there would be an entire army of them. Oh and then all the human soldiers have to be high level too because they fight these orcs as well, and now you have babies born at level 5 to keep up with the power inflation.

I don't think there's necessarily that much power inflation, the system doesn't handle that well, furthermore there is no XP in LoTR so we don't know if the challenges were level appropriate. So far as we can tell in very few situations barring extreme separation of the party did any members die, so we can't suspect if they were actually in danger.

Also as we've pointed out, Beorn would have to be very high level, Bard would have to be very high level, the power creep has already happened, for Gandalf and Aragorn to be considered some of the most powerful characters they would have to exceed them.


As far as I understand, the reasoning is roughly as follows:

Aragorn, in the LOTR story, seems to be roughly as powerful compared to average people as one would expect a level 5 ranger to be compared to level 1 commoners: He can take on challenges that would be impossible for most people, and very hard for small squads of trained soldiers, but he cannot beat a large army of orcs by himself. For example, he did not expect to be able to solo every orc in Moria. Keep in mind that even the some of the hobbits - untrained combatants - were able to take orcs 1v1 during this same encounter.

By this logic, then, if you're designing a campaign / setting, it's not at all a bad idea to have the most powerful characters around level 5-6. Rather, one argues that something akin to E6 is a better representation of most (but not all) fantasy stories than the "default" setting in which we have scores of characters above level 10. The argument that "this character must be high level because he/she is supposed to be powerful" is fine, but the notion that 5 isn't a high level is based around the typical DnD level spread rather than typical fiction.

At any rate, even on Arda, Aragorn is hardly a high-level character. I would reserve that position mostly for people in Silmarillion. Aragorn may be powerful at the time of LOTR but he does in no way compare to ancient warriors like Fingolfin / Eärendil / Húrin - the first two, at least, were previously mentioned in this thread. Fëanor might be legendary level, but Aragorn is not.

As we've pointed out Beorn has to be at the very lowest low teens (for an unlikely build) and more than likely is epic level.

To be fair, E6 isn't a good representation of Arda, either, it's much too magic rich, the settings certainly aren't comparable in any real sense, that's part of the problem.

[Flickerdart]

Also as we've pointed out, Beorn would have to be very high level, Bard would have to be very high level, the power creep has already happened, for Gandalf and Aragorn to be considered some of the most powerful characters they would have to exceed them.
Bard shot an Arrow of Death and Smaug failed his save. Nothing about Beorn suggests he couldn't be modelled by a werebear, putting him at ECL6.

[cerin616]

There's certainly a benefit - when the main antagonists are orcs and the party is level 5, you can go "ok so they fight orcs from the book." When the main antagonists are orcs and the party is 15+, you have to contrive some sort of Epic super-orc and why there would be an entire army of them. Oh and then all the human soldiers have to be high level too because they fight these orcs as well, and now you have babies born at level 5 to keep up with the power inflation.

Yea but, by putting them into a system, you claim that there needs to be some sort of normal correlation. they could be level 5 optimized characters, or they could be level 15 and made by people who don't really know how to make a character. Because somehow I doubt that at level 2 aragorn said "I should take this feat now, and in 4 levels in will synergy with this one.

Instead I bet they did it the same way most people did and decided "this is the general way I want to handle my life" and picked up different skills that were relevant to the situation they were in.

[Flickerdart]

Yea but, by putting them into a system, you claim that there needs to be some sort of normal correlation. they could be level 5 optimized characters, or they could be level 15 and made by people who don't really know how to make a character. Because somehow I doubt that at level 2 aragorn said "I should take this feat now, and in 4 levels in will synergy with this one.

Instead I bet they did it the same way most people did and decided "this is the general way I want to handle my life" and picked up different skills that were relevant to the situation they were in.
Pro tip: Picking abilities that effectively meet the challenges you face is optimization.

What about level 5 Aragorn requires him to make decisions that don't immediately have benefits for him? A straight-up 5th level ranger could murder normal orcs with the same sort of success rate Aragorn has, without needing any fancy combos.

[AMFV]

Bard shot an Arrow of Death and Smaug failed his save. Nothing about Beorn suggests he couldn't be modelled by a werebear, putting him at ECL6.

Gandalf explicitly says that Beorn turned into a large bear, Bears are normally large, so a large bear would be at least huge size. To be a huge sized bear you need to be a dire bear with at least 17 Racial Hit Dice.

Arrow of Death isn't actually an item it's an Arcane Archer ability, which I doubt Bard would have. Now there are ways to model the Black Arrow but not within the WBL requirements.


Pro tip: Picking abilities that effectively meet the challenges you face is optimization.

What about level 5 Aragorn requires him to make decisions that don't immediately have benefits for him? A straight-up 5th level ranger could murder normal orcs with the same sort of success rate Aragorn has, without needing any fancy combos.


Well you still can't provide me with a substantive difference between a level 20 spelless ranger and a level 5 one, they're both appropriate abstractions, without knowing the level of the Orcs, and they certainly have some class levels, we have no idea.

[Saphir]

Beorn might have to be whatever level in 3.5 to gain the abilities needed in a simple way, but that does not relate to the point I was trying to make. I'm sure one could come up with a very weak fictional character that would have to be quite high level to be properly represented, but all that means is that the classes and/or options available in 3.5 don't directly correspond to those used in whatever work of fiction we are considering. The point I was trying to make had little to do with specific abilities; I am more concerned with power levels.

In short: a world in DnD where the highest level characters are around level 5 should (very) roughly correspond to the kind of world that Middle-Earth is. Aragorn can easily defeat a decent-sized group of normal soldiers, but cannot steamroll complete armies. In contrast, using the default level distribution, the average "master swordsman" in a large city in DnD is all but unstoppable for normal armies. The argument is, then, that you can very well make a setting where a metropolis doesn't have anyone over level 10, because settings like that exist in many fantasy novels.

So ignoring LOTR for a short while, look at this piece of dialogue.
A: I'm making a campaign world. Do you think it's reasonable if the weak old king is level 15? Or should he be higher?
B: Eh. Just make him level 3.
A: No way he's level 3. He's the king! The king can't be low level.
B: Sure he can. He's still a lot more powerful than most people. Do you really want a story in which the king can take on a hundred people at once and emerge with hardly a scratch?
A: What kind of story would have a low level king?
B: In nearly any story, 3 isn't low level. I'd say that in most stories everyone involved would be at most level 5.
A: No way. Of course the strongest people must be level 20.

And here's where B brings in LOTR as an example. The point is that "you can't be powerful unless you're epic" is something people have learned through playing DnD, but most fantasy heroes simply aren't that powerful. In LOTR, if Aragorn had to face two thousand orcs and three Mûmakil on his own, you wouldn't expect him to smile and go "hey, free loot". Thus, there's no reason for you to make your old and not-very-warlike king level 15 "just because he's king".

[Flickerdart]

Gandalf explicitly says that Beorn turned into a large bear, Bears are normally large, so a large bear would be at least huge size. To be a huge sized bear you need to be a dire bear with at least 17 Racial Hit Dice.
That's not really how logic works. First of all, Beorn turns into a black bear, which are medium-sized. Second, being larger than a regular bear doesn't mean that he jumps a size category. You're just making assumptions that support your pet theory.



Arrow of Death isn't actually an item it's an Arcane Archer ability, which I doubt Bard would have. Now there are ways to model the Black Arrow but not within the WBL requirements.
Single +1 arrow of Dread. Don't need to be very high level to get a single one, if the DM is cooperative. Alternatively, massive damage (getting 50 damage on a critical hit (x3) with a longbow is trivial).


Well you still can't provide me with a substantive difference between a level 20 spelless ranger and a level 5 one, they're both appropriate abstractions, without knowing the level of the Orcs, and they certainly have some class levels, we have no idea.
A level 20 ranger could walk straight through the blizzards and avalanches and stuff that the Fellowship had to deal with, tanking it with his massive HP total.

[cerin616]

Pro tip: Picking abilities that effectively meet the challenges you face is optimization.

Yea, but that isn't what living people do, they take abilities that meet the challenges they are currently facing

The problem is that class levels dictate your abilities when in reality and in well written fiction your experience dictates your skills.

And optimizing fighter may be forced to fight with a longsword for a long period of time because it broke/was stolen/plot hook, but if he is aiming for optimization, any level he gains is going to pile into making him better at a great sword because that's what he knows is better.

[AMFV]

Beorn might have to be whatever level in 3.5 to gain the abilities needed in a simple way, but that does not relate to the point I was trying to make. I'm sure one could come up with a very weak fictional character that would have to be quite high level to be properly represented, but all that means is that the classes and/or options available in 3.5 don't directly correspond to those used in whatever work of fiction we are considering. The point I was trying to make had little to do with specific abilities; I am more concerned with power levels.

In short: a world in DnD where the highest level characters are around level 5 should (very) roughly correspond to the kind of world that Middle-Earth is. Aragorn can easily defeat a decent-sized group of normal soldiers, but cannot steamroll complete armies. In contrast, using the default level distribution, the average "master swordsman" in a large city in DnD is all but unstoppable for normal armies. The argument is, then, that you can very well make a setting where a metropolis doesn't have anyone over level 10, because settings like that exist in many fantasy novels.

So ignoring LOTR for a short while, look at this piece of dialogue.
A: I'm making a campaign world. Do you think it's reasonable if the weak old king is level 15? Or should he be higher?
B: Eh. Just make him level 3.
A: No way he's level 3. He's the king! The king can't be low level.
B: Sure he can. He's still a lot more powerful than most people. Do you really want a story in which the king can take on a hundred people at once and emerge with hardly a scratch?
A: What kind of story would have a low level king?
B: In nearly any story, 3 isn't low level. I'd say that in most stories everyone involved would be at most level 5.
A: No way. Of course the strongest people must be level 20.

And here's where B brings in LOTR as an example. The point is that "you can't be powerful unless you're epic" is something people have learned through playing DnD, but most fantasy heroes simply aren't that powerful. In LOTR, if Aragorn had to face two thousand orcs and three Mûmakil on his own, you wouldn't expect him to smile and go "hey, free loot". Thus, there's no reason for you to make your old and not-very-warlike king level 15 "just because he's king".

He's explicitly stated to be powerful, not just because he's king, because it's actively stated, so that's a different thing entirely.

Furthermore you can't even model a real-life character in D&D as I've pointed out with my archer example, it's a terrible system for modelling.

[cerin616]

In addition, need to recognize that they are also fighting not just orcs, but Uruk-Hai which don't quite have a dnd equivalent that is easy to tack down. They are mentioned to be significantly more powerful than middle earth orcs.

[AMFV]

That's not really how logic works. First of all, Beorn turns into a black bear, which are medium-sized. Second, being larger than a regular bear doesn't mean that he jumps a size category. You're just making assumptions that support your pet theory.

He is described as being very large, which is significant. The problem is that this is all academic and pretty much worthless, yes you could model Aragorn with a level 5 character, but it's not a good modelling system and the character will be very different than Aragorn, D&D is not a good modeling system, and the assumptions of the world are fundamentally different D&D is a high magic world, Arda is not, so the paraphrase could be very different, the whole scenario is not exactly that well supported either way.

It's the same as trying to model the human archer I displayed pre-epic level, she fired far more than 6 shots in a six second period, accurately, in real life that's fairly trivial with many weapons. I could shoot more than 6 rounds in 6 seconds with a pistol accurately, not even missing once I might add, so am I epic level? Or is D&D a borked model? I can tell you which seems more likely to me.



A level 20 ranger could walk straight through the blizzards and avalanches and stuff that the Fellowship had to deal with, tanking it with his massive HP total.

The Blizzard was magical, furthermore Aragorn could have kept going, they had to turn around because the Hobbits couldn't.

[Flickerdart]

Yea, but that isn't what living people do, they take abilities that meet the challenges they are currently facing

The problem is that class levels dictate your abilities when in reality and in well written fiction your experience dictates your skills.

And optimizing fighter may be forced to fight with a longsword for a long period of time because it broke/was stolen/plot hook, but if he is aiming for optimization, any level he gains is going to pile into making him better at a great sword because that's what he knows is better.
That's great. What does that have to do with Aragorn's level? Saying "oh real life characters are unoptimized so Aragorn would have to be level 10 to handle all those orcs" doesn't hold water when a level 5 ranger could do it just as easily, with pretty subpar choices.

[hamishspence]

That's not really how logic works. First of all, Beorn turns into a black bear, which are medium-sized.

Black bears are also not found in Europe. Since Tolkien's Middle Earth seems heavily European in flavour- I think it likely that the bears of Tolkien are brown bears rather than black (bear fur color varies a lot- and Beorn's alternate form could be a particularly dark-furred brown bear.

Standard 3.5 D&D werebears use the Brown Bear as their alternate form.

The 3.5 MM animal section says that Brown bear stats can be used for "almost any big bear".

[Saphir]

He's explicitly stated to be powerful, not just because he's king, because it's actively stated, so that's a different thing entirely.

Furthermore you can't even model a real-life character in D&D as I've pointed out with my archer example, it's a terrible system for modelling.
I didn't mean the king to represent Aragorn, I meant that the whole "Aragorn is level 5" thing is brought up to point out that a setting in which many people are over level 10 does not correspond to the settings you read about in fantasy novels. In short, the notion "this character is powerful => this character is level 20" should not always be used as a baseline assumption. I will agree that Aragorn is powerful.

And as I previously stated, the specific abilities are not important to what I'm trying to say. I'm not arguing that E6 DnD is good at modelling other settings - anything but. I'm arguing that a setting in which the most powerful characters are level 5 means that said "most powerful characters" will be roughly as powerful compared to the average level 1 commoner as Aragorn is to the innkeeper in Bree.

[Tvtyrant]

Hurin kills 70 trolls in a single day during the Battle of Unnumbered Tears (p.195 silmarillion, he is explicitly alone fighting the troll-guards of Gothmog lord of the Balrogs), so even if we make LotR trolls into Ogres (weakest large creatures) that makes a successful defeat of at least an ECL 15 encounter. He is also explicitly the strongest human ever, so that caps out our level around 15-16 for humans.

[Talakeal]

Or Beorn just turns into a huge bear, because he is larger than the average bear.

There are a number of real life humans who would fit comfortably in the "large" size category, no reason to assume a similarly enormous werebear might not be pushing huge.


Also, there is no reason to assume he can't be a gigantic bear and still large.

The average male grizzly weighs 800 pounds, the largest polar bears weight about 1,500 pounds.


A 6,000 pound rhino is still a large beast in D&D. So Beorn could be 7.5 times the size of the largest brown bear or 4 times the size of the largest bear period and still be large.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/rhinoceros.htm

[cerin616]

That's great. What does that have to do with Aragorn's level? Saying "oh real life characters are unoptimized so Aragorn would have to be level 10 to handle all those orcs" doesn't hold water when a level 5 ranger could do it just as easily, with pretty subpar choices.

That was primarly at the fact that you say they arn't in a system, yet we are trying to apply them to a system.

In addition, they primarily fight Uruk-hai (which are generally considered significantly stronger than an orc, which is shown by how terrified of uruk hai orcs usually are) In addition, the enemies they fight may or may not have class levels.

And since orc advancement is done by adding character classes, who is to say that the average orc isnt a higher level than you assume? A group of level 5 orcs would be quite a challenge to take down alone as another level 5 ranger whos primary skill selection was based on doing things that are situational.

[Flickerdart]

And since orc advancement is done by adding character classes, who is to say that the average orc isnt a higher level than you assume? A group of level 5 orcs would be quite a challenge to take down alone as another level 5 ranger whos primary skill selection was based on doing things that are situational.
What's easier to believe - that the entirety of Sauron's army is made up of elite orc commandos, or that Aragorn is low level? Also, I'm still not sure what situations Aragorn could have faced in his adventuring life that weren't "kill these dudes" and what he could have done with his skill set to make this more difficult than normal.

Occam's razor suggests that the majority of an orc army will be made up of standard orcs. We have stats for a standard orc. Trying to argue that all the orcs around aren't standard orcs doesn't really make sense because that's what standard means. Uruk-hai don't even show up until later on in the story, and aren't that much more powerful than their cousins from what we see.

[johnbragg]

He's explicitly stated to be powerful, not just because he's king, because it's actively stated, so that's a different thing entirely.

Furthermore you can't even model a real-life character in D&D as I've pointed out with my archer example, it's a terrible system for modelling.

One of the things that makes it a terrible system for modeling is the way the power curve works as you go past low levels.

The outgrowth of "Gandalf Was a Fifth Level Magic User" is that high-level D&D is very much an outlier among fantasy worlds, closer to superhero comics (fiction) than to fantasy literature.

Or at least it was--D&D has been massively successful, and has shaped a lot of the fantasy literature written since then.

Someone upthread said that LOTR is better modeled with something like third level spells and below, plus epic magic. In other words, E6 or something like it.

[TypoNinja]

That's not really how logic works. First of all, Beorn turns into a black bear, which are medium-sized. Second, being larger than a regular bear doesn't mean that he jumps a size category. You're just making assumptions that support your pet theory.


We already know hes not human, clearly hes some race more related to giants or Goliaths. Either way a simple Powerful Build racial trait takes care of his stupendous size without adding significantly to his ECL. Hell he might just even be Jotunbrud, as a race. A character creation feat explains his size.

[hamishspence]

Also, there is no reason to assume he can't be a gigantic bear and still large.

The average male grizzly weighs 800 pounds, the largest polar bears weight about 1,500 pounds.


A 6,000 pound rhino is still a large beast in D&D. So Beorn could be 7.5 times the size of the largest brown bear or 4 times the size of the largest bear period and still be large.

While Table 7-1 in the MM (p314) says the default is for Huge Size to start at 4000 lb (and 16 ft from nose tip to base of tail) - size categories are somewhat flexible.

Some creatures weigh less than the minimum for their size category- or are shorter than the minimum for their size category.

Rhinos are probably Large rather than Huge because they are on the short side for their length- only about 14 ft long (might be less if that's nose to tail tip rather than nose to tail base).


Either way a simple Powerful Build racial trait takes care of his stupendous size without adding significantly to his ECL. Hell he might just even be Jotunbrud, as a race. A character creation feat explains his size.

Would it "carry over" into animal form?

[Eldariel]

There's certainly a benefit - when the main antagonists are orcs and the party is level 5, you can go "ok so they fight orcs from the book." When the main antagonists are orcs and the party is 15+, you have to contrive some sort of Epic super-orc and why there would be an entire army of them. Oh and then all the human soldiers have to be high level too because they fight these orcs as well, and now you have babies born at level 5 to keep up with the power inflation.

Honestly, 1 HD or 3 HD Orcs are just as much a threat to level 15 party as to a level 5 party. Level 15 party just has more HP but given the number of Orcs they faced that doesn't matter overtly much. They don't have the equipment to pump their AC to a relevant degree and class doesn't do it. And it's not "power inflation", it's just the calibration.

You can assume ECL 1s to have barely learned how to hold a sword right, ECL 3s or 5s or 7s or whatever to be normal run-of-the-mill Orcs and Humans and ECL 15s to be epic heroes instead of ECL 5 being epic hero, ECL 1 being the average warrior and anything worse than average warrior not having class levels. I argue that's a much more expressive system than minimalistic level system, and no less valid. Because we're not talking casters, class power is pretty static across the levels.

[AMFV]

I didn't mean the king to represent Aragorn, I meant that the whole "Aragorn is level 5" thing is brought up to point out that a setting in which many people are over level 10 does not correspond to the settings you read about in fantasy novels. In short, the notion "this character is powerful => this character is level 20" should not always be used as a baseline assumption. I will agree that Aragorn is powerful.

And as I previously stated, the specific abilities are not important to what I'm trying to say. I'm not arguing that E6 DnD is good at modelling other settings - anything but. I'm arguing that a setting in which the most powerful characters are level 5 means that said "most powerful characters" will be roughly as powerful compared to the average level 1 commoner as Aragorn is to the innkeeper in Bree.

Well Aragorn has no stated level, we're assuming based on a provably poor model that his level is low.


What's easier to believe - that the entirety of Sauron's army is made up of elite orc commandos, or that Aragorn is low level? Also, I'm still not sure what situations Aragorn could have faced in his adventuring life that weren't "kill these dudes" and what he could have done with his skill set to make this more difficult than normal.

Occam's razor suggests that the majority of an orc army will be made up of standard orcs. We have stats for a standard orc. Trying to argue that all the orcs around aren't standard orcs doesn't really make sense because that's what standard means. Uruk-hai don't even show up until later on in the story, and aren't that much more powerful than their cousins from what we see.

Occam's Razor doesn't actually apply here because we're not explaining a system, we're hobnobbing our inappropriate system on top of a different type of system entirely. It's not science where a simple explanation is often true, no Orcs have any D&D class levels, Uruk Hai don't exist in D&D and Aragon has no levels. The simplest explanation is that he has no level.


One of the things that makes it a terrible system for modeling is the way the power curve works as you go past low levels.

The outgrowth of "Gandalf Was a Fifth Level Magic User" is that high-level D&D is very much an outlier among fantasy worlds, closer to superhero comics (fiction) than to fantasy literature.

Or at least it was--D&D has been massively successful, and has shaped a lot of the fantasy literature written since then.

Someone upthread said that LOTR is better modeled with something like third level spells and below, plus epic magic. In other words, E6 or something like it.

Actually it works the other way, as I've pointed out many regular humans are capable of feats that cannot be replicated in real D&D, the Archer or my pistol for example.

LOTR isn't well modeled with Vancian casting, and magic items are rare, E6, is a terrible fit for it, E6 is like D&D Jr, it is good for modeling D&D at a certain point, but not LoTR.


We already know hes not human, clearly hes some race more related to giants or Goliaths. Either way a simple Powerful Build racial trait takes care of his stupendous size without adding significantly to his ECL. Hell he might just even be Jotunbrud, as a race. A character creation feat explains his size.

Doesn't help with Polymorph.

[Flickerdart]

You can assume ECL 1s to have barely learned how to hold a sword right, ECL 3s or 5s or 7s or whatever to be normal run-of-the-mill Orcs and Humans and ECL 15s to be epic heroes instead of ECL 5 being epic hero, ECL 1 being the average warrior and anything worse than average warrior not having class levels.
You can, but that's not the standard assumption in D&D 3.5, where run of the mill orcs are CR 1/2. Since this is a known quantity, it's more logical to calibrate things around it than start creating new power levels for every creature.


Occam's Razor doesn't actually apply here because we're not explaining a system, we're hobnobbing our inappropriate system on top of a different type of system entirely. It's not science where a simple explanation is often true, no Orcs have any D&D class levels, Uruk Hai don't exist in D&D and Aragon has no levels. The simplest explanation is that he has no level.

Uh, what. No. The entire premise of the thread requires that Aragorn have a level. "He doesn't" ignores that premise, and is an inadmissible answer.




Doesn't help with Polymorph.
Skinchangers aren't spellcasters.

[AMFV]

You can, but that's not the standard assumption in D&D 3.5, where run of the mill orcs are CR 1/2. Since this is a known quantity, it's more logical to calibrate things around it than start creating new power levels for every creature.

But you can't assume all orcs are run of the mill orcs, or furthermore that the Orcs that are present are D&D orcs. Since we can't use the Balor, you can't use the standard orcs. Or else Gandalf has to be able to defeat a CR 20 encounter and the whole model collapses.

We can't simply use equivalent monsters because they have the same name and assume they're the same.




Uh, what. No. The entire premise of the thread requires that Aragorn have a level. "He doesn't" ignores that premise, and is an inadmissible answer.


Skinchangers aren't spellcasters.

[/QUOTE]


The entire premise of the thread was to ask where that assumption came from, and to point out the flaws in that essay is entirely pertinent to the thread.

Wild shape would cover it, or being a were creature, but you'd still need a huge animal form to become huge.

[Talakeal]

While Table 7-1 in the MM (p314) says the default is for Huge Size to start at 4000 lb (and 16 ft from nose tip to base of tail) - size categories are somewhat flexible.

Some creatures weigh less than the minimum for their size category- or are shorter than the minimum for their size category.

Rhinos are probably Large rather than Huge because they are on the short side for their length- only about 14 ft long (might be less if that's nose to tail tip rather than nose to tail base).



Would it "carry over" into animal form?

Even so, the heaviest bear ever recorded was only 2,500 pounds. That gives Beorn an additional 1,500 pounds to play with beyond that to still be within the large size category.

[Flickerdart]

Since we can't use the Balor, you can't use the standard orcs.
There is no Balor in LotR. There's a Balrog. They are not the same, because one falls into a pit and dies and the other can fly. It's not difficult.

Wild shape would cover it, or being a were creature, but you'd still need a huge animal form to become huge.
You're the only one still labouring under the misapprehension that "large bear" means "huge bear."

[AMFV]

Even so, the heaviest bear ever recorded was only 2,500 pounds. That gives Beorn an additional 1,500 pounds to play with beyond that to still be within the large size category.

He was described as a "giant sized bear" which is likely larger than any on Earth, which also doesn't matter because just as Arda isn't D&D, it also not Earth.


There is no Balor in LotR. There's a Balrog. They are not the same, because one falls into a pit and dies and the other can fly. It's not difficult.

And Orcs in 3.5 aren't corrupted Elves, not the same creature, with different stated abilities, particularly if you count their cleverness (ascribed in the misty mountains), so clearly they are not the same creature.




You're the only one still labouring under the misapprehension that "large bear" means "huge bear."

It's quoted as "giant-sized" the only giants described in the books are big enough to move mountans, so I'd put giant sized at at least huge size if not bigger.

[TypoNinja]

Would it "carry over" into animal form?

Don't see why it wouldn't. It modifies your base height and weight, changes your size modifier bonus for anything looking for size modifers, and doesn't require humanoid. A Jotunbrud lycanthrope should turn into an exceptionally large version of whatever animal type they are, Alternate Form even explicitly states you keep your feats.

Edit: should do the same for a druid, now that I think of it.

[AMFV]

Don't see why it wouldn't. It modifies your base height and weight, changes your size modifier bonus for anything looking for size modifers, and doesn't require humanoid. A Jotunbrud lycanthrope should turn into an exceptionally large version of whatever animal type they are, Alternate Form even explicitly states you keep your fears.

Nope it doesn't work, because you lose the feat prerequisites.

[Flickerdart]

And Orcs in 3.5 aren't corrupted Elves, not the same creature, with different stated abilities, particularly if you count their cleverness (ascribed in the misty mountains), so clearly they are not the same creature.

Fluff is irrelevant. Various settings describe orcs as having various origins. In Middle-Earth, this was their origin, but it doesn't change their mechanics.