Lord of the Rings party - any ideas?

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I was thinking of creating a LOTR based party, customizing all six characters in a multiplayer game with only me, and not including any outside NPC's.

Would anybody have suggestions of which characters to include, and how to chose classes and weapons for them? (Mind you, I would not manipulate them or prop them up by using Shadowkeeper or any other cheating to give them special powers/items or stats, only by the default random character rolls.)

As characters in the party, I was thinking of:
*Aragorn - human ranger, long sword and bow.
*Gimli - dwarven axe fighter, axe and missiles (I would like someone to handle the Light Crossbow of Speed).
*Legolas - elven archer (fighter kit) specialising in bow and a point or two in short or long swords (he wields his long white knives when he runs out of arrows).
*Frodo - hobbit thief, short sword and sling or short bow - and I would love a ring of invisibility on him .
*Gandalf - mage, haven't a clue which school he should specialize in, and besides, he wields a long sword (and sling?) - perhaps I should start him as a fighter and dual him to mage after a few levels? Which weapon skills should I chose? Open to suggestions.

*The sixth person - now that would be nice to hear who people feel should fit in here. Personally I don't want Boromir (human sword fighter), because I don't need another pure fighter, and none of the other hobbits seem to have any abilities I could use. But I think the party would need a healer, and none in the fellowship had that ability (except Aragorn, and he's my ranger) - so the question is who to invite in, that would feel right for the group. (And now I'm still thinking LOTR characters - not game NPC's). I would appreciate your point of view on this.

Personally I was thinking about elven healers, and the elf Arwen or her father Elrond half-elf springs to mind, as druids or clerics, or perhaps multiclassed as cleric/mage or cleric/fighter. What do you think?

Would be very nice to hear if anybody thinks this could be an interesting make of a party.

 

You could always multi- Arwen as ranger/cleric (my view on ranger/clerics is rather negative)
You could always do the same for Aragorn (start as a cleric and become a ranger)
Try not to use Elrond, he wouldn't likely join an adventuring company.
That's all I know, unless you choose to add another of the wizards (Radagast the Brown) and make him a druid (Radagast was deep into nature)

 

Try Golem as a pretty lousy thief?

 

No, no, no, you can't have Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, Frodo and Gandalf together. They always ventured in a group consisting of more people (can't leave them out), or you could try the party when Frodo and Sam had left with the ring. Then there were Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, Gamdalf, Merry and Pippin I think.
Making Legolas an archer might be slightly challenging as there are no kits in Baldur's Gate. Gandalf was more a pure mage than a specialized one. And forget the fighter levels, he was simply a mage who carried around a sword. Too bad AD&D mages can't even hold a sword in their hands. Funny how they can do all sorts of neat things with magic but can't even pick up a mundane item like a sword in their hands
And don't forget to first edit at least ten levels of wizard to Gandalf, the party won't be 'real' otherwise. And boost the others (Gimli, Legolas and Aragorn) too, so they could kill heaps of orcs like in the book. You could let them all start at first level, but what would that become? The characters wandering Faerun in their youth, and later getting shifted through a dimensional portal to Middle Earth? Yuck. Sure, I could do a 'Sauron and friends wander the sword coast as children of Bhaal' party, but what would the point of that be? No, I don't have anything against a LotR party, why do you ask?

p.s. It's Gollum, not Golem.

 

I think just making yourself "Frodo" and let it go from there would be interesting

 

if you tried to make a team like that it doesn't seem very strong...

 

And make sure that GOLLUM is of chaotic neutral alignment(he is after all unpredictable and slightly insane)

 

I would make Aragorn a human paladin, forgive me, i knew he'd better be a ranger.
but i think you need someone to wield two-handed swords.
one last point, Legolas could be a ranger so that you could make him an archer kit in BG2.

 

If I ever make a LotR party (which I won't, but pretending doesn't cost anything), I wouldn't make Elminster, sorry, Gandalf a mage/cleric simply so I can wield Crom Faeyr in BG2 The point is that it's a LotR themed party. There weren't clerics around, so you can't use them. Neither did Aragorn use two handed weapons. Sure, you don't need to limit yourself, but what then would be the point in having a themed party?

 

Here's a screenshot of my LotR BG game. You can see what characters I used by the Portraits.

http://www.liquid2k.com/roguefrog/lotrbg.jpg

Here's the classes I used for each character:

Aragorn = Ranger
Lagolas = Ranger
Gimli = Fighter
Frodo = Fighter/Thief
Merry = Fighter/Cleric
Boromir = Fighter

Lots of Fighters

 

First of all, the party would be made for BG purpose only - I wont give them abilities that isn't right for their character just because that would make things easier in BGII. BGII is not the issue here.

As far as I understand, the whole BG game idea is based on the world and creatures of Tolkien, and that the idea of having a party is based on the original Fellowship. You even have Gandalf...eh Elminster... wandering around in here.

That's why it struck me as a brilliant idea to allow a version of the Fellowship to travel through this land and doing the BG quests.

To Volar Blackmane: It's impossible to create this party exactly by the book - with the limit of 6 characters you can't have the full Fellowship anyway - you simply got to make a selection. And I wasn't really thinking of creating the party based on a particular place in the story, limiting myself to who should/should not be together - but since the Fellowship only was complete until they met the Balrog, I suppose it would have to be sometime before that.

Thinking about it, the ideal time spot would then be to let them fall through a dimension door right after the council in Rivendell, having to finish the BG quests to be allowed back again.

The trouble with composing this group is that not all the original characters had useful abilities and therefore are difficult to place in a well balanced party. And there wouldn't be any point of using the LOTR characters if they were not to be true to their character. (But you don't need to stretch your imagination too far to assume that Frodo could have learned some thief abilities from Bilbo... but it would be wrong to make one of the hobbits a healer.)

So the problem with my party is actually to get a healer. I won't make Aragorn a healer, as I think the whole ranger class was more or less based on him, so he SHOULD be a ranger. Boromir and Gandalf weren't healers , so they shouldn't be dual classed as fighter/cleric or mage/cleric. That's why I considered dropping Boromir (the party would be too fighter heavy) and inviting in a healer from Rivendell - like Arwen or Elrond. Arwen would be a pure druid, while Elrond, a former warrior, could be multiclassed to be able to wear armour. (If we assume they fell down to BG during the council in Rivendell, that could be possible.)

It would also be right to assume that they lost some of their experience when falling through the dimension door, and would have to start at level 1, because gamewise, it would be a dull game to start with charcters boosted up to umpteenth level, and being superior to anything and anybody - where's the fun in that?

So, gamevise, they should all start at level 1 and go through the game as inteded, and storywise they would be Fellowship/Rivendell characters being true to their character and abilities.

At least this is my view......

 

All right, all right

But a themed party (especially when themed after a movie or book) doesn't always have to be balanced. Make a party based on the Hobbit instead. One halfling thief called Bilbo and the rest of the party are dwarven fighters

About the screenshot: Where'd Elminster, Gandalf (whatever) pilfer that funny blue hat from? And are those faces from the movie? Don't tell me the hobbits actually look like that...

 

The only reason I used the movie portraits was it was hard to find other appropriate ones so I had to go with this alternative.

I admit my party is a bit screwed up with Merry being a fighter-cleric but I was just having a little fun. (Wasn't too serious on the subject)

Gandalf taking the role as Elminster seemed to fit don't you think?

 

IMHO i think that Aragorn was a ranger/cleric because in the return of the king he heals faramir and aeoweyn (not sure bout the spelling). However since the (A)D&D setting doesn't allow clerics to use bladed weapons (aragorns sword) he probably works best as a ranger. Perhaps you could give him some innate abilities. Well just my opinions ignore as you wish

 

Yes, to be true to Aragorns character, he should actually have been a ranger/cleric - he IS a good healer after all. But as you point out, then he couldn't touch a sword, and knowing that part of Aragorns history is very much attached to the broken sword, it would be impossible and out of character to play Aragorn without sword - and he also must use a bow - so I see no other alternative than to make him a pure ranger.

But to give him innate abilities sounds interesting - how do I do that? Is there any way to give him healing abilities without cheating??? I don't have any such programs installed.

 

I don't know of any way to do it without using gatekeeper which you can download here http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/BG/index_editors.php
If you don't want to cheat then i'm not sure if you could do it.

 

Maybe this sounds stupid, but I think you can better base a party on the entire LOTR story, instead of pinning your self on the fellowship. I mean caracters like Arwen, Eowyn, Gollum, Tom B. and many others can form a verry balanced party togheter, still in LOTR style!

[This message has been edited by SleepleSS (edited May 05, 2002).]

 

/begin rant
I have seen this so many times in the various LotR topics. Arwen is in only one of the books for a limited time and is hardly even a character. The romance was played up to make a good film but is barely brushed upon in the books. So arwen is not a good choice for a LotR party, she has less character developement than Tom Bombadil who was left out of the film entirely.
Have a nice day
/end rant mode

 

Tom Bombadil is a very interesting person, but what should he be classified as? A ranger - or a mage - or what? He always seemed like a mystery to me, some kind of superman or something....

Elrond would also be a very interesting character, and he is in more books - Bilbo visited him in The Hobbit - and he is a warrior in the first age (or whatever it's called in English) - I would very much like to have a warrior Elrond ...

Then there is the elf lord Glorfindel, who wasn't in the films at all - and Gil-Galad, the great warrior elf king who Elrond served.....there are many exciting characters to use that has not been discussed here.

 

Tom Bombadil to me is a bard, not sure why.
Elrond i would say is Xan although with a different personality.