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No matter how awesome you make your Noldor and Dunedain, people are still going to want to play dwarves and hobbits. Balance, schmalence.

Stormcrow wrote:No matter how awesome you make your Noldor and Dunedain, people are still going to want to play dwarves and hobbits. Balance, schmalence.

Agreed, I much prefer to play a dwarf over a Noldor.

PipeSmoker wrote:Imagine you read "The Silmarillion" and never played D&D... would you consider a men from ancient Beleriand stronger and smarter than war of the ring men?

Yes. Undoubtedly. Maybe I wouldn't think of it in terms of STR, DEX, INT and a 3-18 range. But otherwise...yes.

Don't you?

Me? No. Can't see why. The "raw power" (? D&Dish!) excuse has fallen short with me since the beginning. Men they were, men they are.

Maybe I wouldn't think of it in terms of STR, DEX, INT and a 3-18 range. But otherwise...yes.

Then in what terms? Tell me, I'm curious.

PipeSmoker wrote:Me? No. Can't see why. The "raw power" (? D&Dish!) excuse has fallen short with me since the beginning. Men they were, men they are.

Maybe I wouldn't think of it in terms of STR, DEX, INT and a 3-18 range. But otherwise...yes.

Then in what terms? Tell me, I'm curious.

Um, Arnold Schwarzenegger is stronger than me. Brad Pitt is more charismatic. My wife is smarter.

Not sure exactly how you measure those things. I definitely don't use a 3-18 scale.

As for 1st Age vs. 3rd Age....Aragorn and Glorfindel are badass, but I don't really see them matching the feats of their 1st Age forbears. (And, heck, Aragorn technically isn't even pure Edain.) Ringwraiths? They are mere servants of a Maia. In the 1st age elves and men went toe to toe with Balrogs. In the 3rd age it apparently takes another Maia.

It's all opinion, of course. I'm not "right". Just how I see it.

EDIT: Do you consider Hercules and Achilles "more powerful" than modern-day men? Do you think people who have never played RPGs might also think so? Or do you have to have an RPG framework in mind to even ask the question?

Check out my Racial Weakness: Fading in my House Rules for a way to limit Elves...

Robin S.

Well, I dunno.

Hercules and Achilles vs. a team of Navy SEALS.

What the SEALS lack in supernatural abilities, they more then compensate for with modern military technology. I'd say the SEALS take it, mostly by sniping their opponents from thousands of yards away. Boom, headshot. Or Heelshot, in Achilles's case.

Angelalex242 wrote:Well, I dunno.

Hercules and Achilles vs. a team of Navy SEALS.

What the SEALS lack in supernatural abilities, they more then compensate for with modern military technology. I'd say the SEALS take it, mostly by sniping their opponents from thousands of yards away. Boom, headshot. Or Heelshot, in Achilles's case.

...

/forums

Ask a silly question, get a silly answer, say I.

Ah, I see. I thought you were being some kind of Navy Seals fan boy. Or trying to have a "Superman vs. Mightymouse" debate. But now I see you were being facetious, probably because you missed the point. Which is odd, considering that we're talking about a role-playing game based on a novel.

In any event, the point in question was simply that you can hold an image in your head of heroes from a bygone age having powers greater than those of the present day without thinking of it in game-like terms. E.g., attribute scores with specific values.

We may know/believe that Hercules and Achilles were not real, but presumably at some point people did believe in them, and those believers must have also noticed that nobody around them displayed herculean strength. Long before Gary Gygax published any games.

Maybe Tolkien imagined Aragorn as mighty as Turin. Or Legolas as Fingolfin. But that's not how I read it. (Unless he cleverly was making First Age stories like Greek myths: considerably grown with the telling over the millennia.)