Fellowship of the Ring: The Building

[Gwendol]

Ok, so how would to build the Fellowship using 5e rules? Go!

Here are my initial thoughts:

Legolas: Wood elf Ranger 5 (Hunter, Horde breaker), archery fighting style
Gimli: Mountain Dwarf Fighter 5 (Champion), GWF
Boromir: Human Fighter 5 (BM), Protection
Aragorn: Human Ranger 10, Paladin 1 ?
Pippin, Merry: Halfling Rogue 1
Sam, Frodo: Halfling rogue 1, possibly multiclassing with fighter and/or ranger eventually
Gandalf: as usual impossible to peg. Eldritch Knight or a Sorcerer maybe? Blade Pact Warlock

Class levels are for the council of Elrond encounter. The hobbits have varying skills from background.

[danweasel]

Ok, so how would to build the Fellowship using 5e rules? Go!

Here are my initial thoughts:

Legolas: Wood elf Ranger 5 (Hunter, Horde breaker), archery fighting style
Gimli: Mountain Dwarf Fighter 5 (Champion), GWF
Boromir: Human Fighter 5 (BM), Protection
Aragorn: Human (?) Paladin 1, Fighter 5 (dueling)
Pippin, Merry: Halfling Fighter 1
Sam, Frodo: Halfling rogue 1, possibly multiclassing with fighter and/or ranger eventually
Gandalf: as usual impossible to peg. Eldritch Knight or a Sorcerer maybe?

Class levels are for the council of Elrond encounter. The hobbits have varying skills from background.

Surely Aragorn, literally the original ranger, must be a Ranger? He certainly never wears much more than medium armor anyway, at least until much later in the book. He might be a pure Ranger in Rivendell, later multiclassing to either Fighter or Paladin.

Legolas can work as a Ranger as well, but could equally easily be a pure Dex fighter in light armor, regularly action surging to get insane numbers of shots per round.

Gimli/Boromir are fine.

I'd be tempted to start all the halflings as Rogues. None of them have any particular front-line fighting ability until much much later in the story. They mostly run away, hide, and attack things from behind. Sam needs to pick up Tavern Brawler for proficiency with improvised weapons as soon as possible though. Pippin/Merry will later multiclass to Fighter. Does Frodo really gain any levels over the course of the story? Maybe Sam, who might indeed take a level of Ranger.

Gandalf is best tagged as a Pact of the Blade Warlock, since his power is directly tied to the Valar who sent him to Middle Earth. It also works crunch-wise, he's pretty good with a sword and doesn't have a particularly varied spell list.

Level-wise...the hobbits are 1, Aragorn feels like at least level 10, and Gandalf is 20 at the outset of the story. The others, somewhere between 5-10 is about right. Aragorn might be level 11, for the Ranger's Whirlwind Attack: see his fending off 5 Nazgul by himself at Weathertop.

[Gwendol]

Good points! My reason for pegging Legolas as ranger comes from his ability to move through natural obstacles with no trouble, and his tracking abilities. You're right though that Aragorn shows that kind of skill as well, and that it can't really simply be from the Outlander background. Paladin 1 is for Lay on Hands.

I'm changing the starting class of Merry and Pippin to rogues, both multiclassing as fighters, with Merry gaining mounted combat. Pippin... duelist and champion?. They eventually grow to Medium size (effectively, the entdraught giving them a Powerful Build type ability).

[danweasel]

Good points! My reason for pegging Legolas as ranger comes from his ability to move through natural obstacles with no trouble, and his tracking abilities. You're right though that Aragorn shows that kind of skill as well, and that it can't really simply be from the Outlander background. Paladin 1 is for Lay on Hands.

I'm changing the starting class of Merry and Pippin to rogues, both multiclassing as fighters, with Merry gaining mounted combat. Pippin... duelist and champion?. They eventually grow to Medium size (effectively, the entdraught giving them a Powerful Build type ability).

Yep, Aragorn's not really explained semi-mystical powers work with Ranger, by 11 he has access to Cure Wounds and Lesser Restoration. He might be best modeled with a new subclass of Ranger. I agree Legolas works either way.

Good call on Merry/Pippin growing to medium size.

[Gwendol]

Yeah, I thought they gain the benefits of medium size (wrt weapons) without really getting there. All hobbits are Lightfoot, btw.

Looking over the class, I have to say that the Warlock does emulate LotR wizardry reasonable well. Nice!

[mister__joshua]

I think in D&D terms Gandalf would be best portrayed as a Land Druid, though I think historically he's likely a Bard like character.

[Eldan]

I still argue that Gandalf is actually a high-level angel shapechanged to look human.

[Logosloki]

I don't think the Hobbits have a class at that stage, they are more like halfling commoners with backgrounds. You could make Frodo a Rogue 1 and then given him a custom background with the Noble variant as the feature, with the three "retainers" (friends) being a cook/gardener named Sam and two childhood friends Merry and Pippin.

I also opine that the halflings are more stout than lightfoot, given that they show off remarkable endurance and seem to resist poisons quite well (at least frodo is, you would have to be resistant to survive shelob).

[Gwendol]

I disagree: all hobbits except Sam are essentially nobles. They all fight at some point (except possibly Sam) already in the first book, and go on to become true heroes by the end. Frodo doesn't resist the poison unless I'm mistaken; he becomes paralyzed like everyone else.

Their endurance is mostly manifested as saves vs fear, and possibly covered by Lucky. They don't endure physically better than the other members of the fellowship, although their resistance to the lure of the ring speaks of a very strong mind. Their ability to hide is covered by the current rules.