BG Fellowship - Best Classes

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I just watched "Fellowship of the Ring" on DVD and it made me want to create a party of characters from the movie to play in BG. However, the classes in the movie are pretty narrow, and I want to incorporate more of them into my party. Here are my thoughts.

Frodo: Halfling thief - like his dear old uncle
Aragorn: Human Ranger
Gandolf: Human Mage
Gimli: Dwarven Berserker
Legolas: Elf Archer

I would like a Cleric, but none really exist in the Lord of the Rings saga. I was think of making Galadriel an elven cleric. Any other thoughts on this? I hope an RGP game of the saga comes out (unless it is out already) cuz the movie is great.

 

About your party: forget about Gandalf, he's just too powerful to fit SoA rules.
Aragorn is a very high level ranger, so I'd leave him out too.

Frodo: halfling fighter/cleric but without spells (but I don't think that class is available to halflings)
Sam: halfling thief
Merry/Pippin: halflings fighter/thief
Gimli: Dwarf fighter (could be made into mage hunter or maybe berserker)
Legolas: no brainer, elven archer
Boromir: human fighter or fallen cavalier

I think there were a few RPGs and other types of games based on LoTR in the past. There was even an attempt at an online-only game a coupla years ago (dunno what came out of it).
There also was for a very long time a PnP game (MERP), but after a long judicial battle, Tolkien's son denied the company its franchise.

 

Maybe you could reintroduce Elrond into adventuring again? I htink he would fill your cleric needs...

Or put Arwen in the party for that matter...

(just an idea from a person only in the middle of "The Fellowship of the Ring")

[ August 12, 2002, 15:30: Message edited by: jack-of-all-trades ]

 

One question, can a theif wear mithril? I thought theives were restricted to leathers. Please correct me if I'm wrong, for I have missed out on a great class if I am.

 

Aft Foreward: since your question was asked in this forum, the answer is "no".
But ask the same question in the ToB forum and you'll get quite a different answer.

 

I'm playing with my own LotR party right now, and after much considering, I chose:

Legolas - elven archer, short swords, long bow (of course)
Aragorn - human ranger, short bow, two handed sword (he IS the prototype for ranger class in D&D)
Gimli - dwarven axe fighter
Frodo - halfling thief (he's to weak to be a fighter, but he can sneak and hide in shadows (invisible))
Gandalf - human, 2 levels fighter with long sword, then wizard specialized in (don't remember the name of the school right now, but it's the one with fire, Gandalf did use fireballs and fire magic, several refs from "The Hobbit" and fireworks in LotR.)

After assigning these 5 characters, I was at a loss about the sixth, I didn't want more hobbits because they were too weak, and didn't have any special abilities, and I didn't want Boromir because he was just a swordman with no special abilities, always longsword and shield, and I had enough fighters already, and besides - he dies early in the quest...

In the end I realized that if I should have a chance to get through the whole game with this party I simply HAD to include a healer/druid/cleric. Didn't want to multiclass Aragorn for this, so I went to Imladris (Rivendell) and asked Elrond very kindly if he would like to get out of his robes and don his armour again like in the old days to do some adventuring, and he was very happy to get a break from his boring, lordly duties...

Besides, he was also an experienced soldier and was Gil-Galads standard bearer in the ring-wars - so my sixth party member became Elrond the half-elven cleric/fighter.

I know he wasn't part of the Fellowship, but after I started thinking about using him, I couldn't get it out of my head how well he fitted in, (like an Anomen-type character), and in the end I just had to try him. And he's proved very useful to the group, and it's good for him to get outdoors to have some fresh air again, so he stays.

If you want to use Arwen instead, she would have to be a pure druid, no fighter abilities. Not in the books anyway... actually in the books she isn't even a druid, she's just sitting on her a$$ waiting for Aragorn to come and get her... although in the next movie I think she's supposed to fight at Helms Deep... )

I completed them with portraits from the movie (found on Internet), and soundclips with their voices (taken from the film) which I put into their voice-files. Of course they don't say what they're supposed to say, but who cares, now I can have Elrond to say "Doom" as often as he likes with his own voice, and Legolas shouting "The ring must be destroyed" whenever he attacks...

 

The school is invocation/evocation. But how the heck did you dual a fighter into a specialist wizard without cheating?

 

Don't worry about that Rastor, it goes with the character.

Sounds like a great party. The only thing is going to be the balance of the party as to the LOTR party. Gandalf, Aragorn, and Elrond should be MUCH more powerful than Frodo, but I'm not sure that it really matters.

 

This topic was also thoroughly discussed in the BG group on this link:
http://www.sorcerers.net/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=000672

After this discussion, I made my first LotR party in BG. This was in April I think. Not long after that, I decided to do the same in BG2, so instead of playing through BG and then take them to BG2, I created a new LotR party for BG2, and played them parallelly (sp?), using the same people, images and soundfiles, but with the classes adjusted for BG2.

My BG2 party has come to chapter 3. However, I lent my BG2 game cd's to my sister a couple of months ago, and she's still playing it, so I can't get into my savegames now to check exactly how my characters were created. (She lives in another part of the country.) In BG, I created Gandalf as 2 level fighter and then plain wizard. Creating Gandalf in BG2 at about the same time, means I may have done exactly the same. I know I was thinking a lot about specialization, and rereading the Hobbit to find out he used mostly fire magic and should probably be an invoker, but I might have done that AFTER I already created him - don't quite remember now. But if it's impossible to specialize the wizard after dualling from fighter, I probably didn't do it, so then I suppose I came to this conclusion after I already started the game with him.

I returned to playing with my LotR party in BG1 after my sister borrowed BG2, so I have more experience with how the LotR characters and classes worked in that game.

A little confusing, yes?

I also did some thinking about Legolas, because in the books he uses two long knives in melee, so I concluded he ought to be dual vielding two short swords. (His long knives seem more like short swords than daggers to me.) I also wondered what swords would be best for him, perhaps scimitars are more like long knives? I can't remember now if I actually made him dual vield or not. He can't do that in BG1. Do you think he should use two swords? Legolas also used a short bow until Lothlorien, when Galadriel gave him a long bow, but I chose to give him long bow from the beginning. That depends on which grade of accuracy you want.

I'm not completely sure about Aragorn and two-handed sword either - I thought Anduril (sp?) was two-handed, and it looked that way in the movie, but I'm not sure that's right, so correct me if I'm wrong. I thought Lillarcor (the talking sword) would suit him...

About Elrond, in the ring-wars I think he used sword or spear, at least Gil-Galad used spear, but as a cleric he can't, so it's not possible to be accurate with him. I have decided to give him either the flail of ages or the hammer (whats its name cor flayr or something?) when I get either of them.

About Gandalf's sword, Glamdrung (I think), is a magical elven sword and I think it was first mentioned in Silmarillion. I have assumed it was a single-handed longsword, but it should be very powerful and magic...

By the way, about the difference in experience levels - it would be a dull game to start with characters boosted up to umpteenth level, and being superior to anything and anybody - where's the fun in that?

The game should be fun playing, and challenging from the start, not just sleepwalking through, so gamevise, they should all start at the same low level and go through the game as intended, and storywise they would be Fellowship/Rivendell characters being true to their character and abilities.

 

Glamdring is a Long Sword, Andùril is a Bastard Sword.

 

For those of you out there who play AD&D at home like my self i am makeing a lotr party for AD&D and if anyone wants them just e-mail me and i can send you them... ps i am working on makeing a campagin that had the same story line and everything with the movieso im almost sorta done with part one of it

 

I might be mistaken but I thought Aragorn was Half Elven. Human father Elven mother. I'm not exactlly sure since it's been a couple of years since I read LoTR.

Aranim

 

No, both Aragorn's parents were human. Though that's not strictly true, because the Royal House of the Dúnedain is descended from Elros (six thousand years before Aragorn) who was called half-elven but actually had a mixture of human, elven and divine blood. Aragorn married Arwen, who is Elrond's daughter; Elrond was Elros' brother, but chose to have the lifespan of the elves rather than a (prolonged) human lifespan.

 

Hmm...I think Aragorn should be a Ranger/Cleric, and in that case a Stalker/Cleric. Remember he DID heal Frodo.
And Sam should be a fighter Halfling if you DO include him. I'm well aware that Ranger/Cleric's can't use bows and swords though.

I'd play it such as this:
Frodo: Halfling Thief, short sword.
Aragorn: Ranger, (they do get some healing spells - and there's always temples), Longbows + Bastard/Long swords.
Legolas: duh...!
Gandalf (we DO need a spellcaster, but remember the fellowship often didn't have any magic...)
Gimli, obvious.

Boromir, or either hobbits (as fighters).

 

Elrond and his brother Elros were:
9/16 elf, 6/16 human and 1/16 Maia (divine).
Elrond chose to be elven, Elros chose to be human.

Aragorn, descending from Elros, has both elven and divine blood in him, but it has been thinned out due to all the generations of human spouses for thousands of years.

Arwen, daughter of Elrond and Celebrian (who was the daughter of Galadriel and Celeborn), is then:
25/32 elf, 6/32 human and 1/32 divine.

Through her children with Aragorn, elven and divine blood were reintroduced into the line of men.