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DavetheLost wrote:
Is that the kind of thing you don't want on RPGnet, Jon?

That pretty much covers it, yes.

Then I won't post it there. Just here where people will get the joke. I don't just play a raving C7 fanboy on the Internet, I am one in real life.

DavetheLost wrote:D&D is a terrible game for emulating Tolkien. Even Gandalf is only a first level wizard. Gary Gygax said so in a very early article called "Tolkien and D&D".

Gandalf's 5th level, not 1st. He uses at least one 3rd level spell - Lightning Bolt - and several second level spells. 3rd level spells require being 5th level.
See Dragon, Issue 5, Page 27. (That's Bill Seligman's excellent "Gandalf was only a Fifth-Level Magic-User?" essay, in the March 1977 edition. I'll note that the truth is, the article's just as valid for OE (for which it was written), AD&D 1E, AD&D 2E, BX/BECMI, 3E, 3.5E, and 5E. Tho', in 3.X, he's more likely a Sorcerer rather than a Wizard.)

That all said, Seligman contends that Saruman is only about 8th level.

So - if you're going to snark about the big target, at least get the basic math correct.

And note that D&D Next (5E) does Tolkien better than any prior edition...

... but that's still, "Not very well..."

Actually I was thinking of Rob Kuntz's "From the Sorcerer's Scroll" column in The Dragon Vol 2, No. 7 "Tolkein(sic) in Dungeons & Dragons.

When does Gandalf cast "Lightning Bolt"? I don't recall that one.

But, my purpose was not to take shots at D&D. That was just a lead in. To rate D&D as an emulation of any pre-existing fiction is to miss the point of both D&D and fiction. D&D is inspired by fiction, but it was not designed to emulate any specific fiction exactly. Nor of course were any of the fictions in the famous Appendix N written to emulate D&D.

Jon Hodgson wrote:

Jon Hodgson wrote:You know what rpgnet is missing? That's right! A thread about Rivendell.

Well that's service. Thanks ZT!

That was more dumb luck than anything else, but the timing did work out...

You know what's missing from RPGNow? Some reviews of Rivendell...

EDIT: oh, and The One Ring revised edition...

DavetheLost wrote:
When does Gandalf cast "Lightning Bolt"? I don't recall that one.

“But not Gandalf. Bilbo’s yell had done that much good. It had wakened him up wide in a splintered second, and when goblins came to grab him, there was a terrific flash like lightning in the cave, a smell like gunpowder, and several of them fell dead.”

Sounds more like a stun grenade. I was pretty close to a thunderflash in my school combined cadet force days and that was nasty enough.

Nonsense. That's clearly Bilbo's reportage of Gandalf using his service revolver.

I think Gandalf put his still warm pipe into his pocket where it accidentally lit a firework.

He made the Nazgûl retreat before the gates of Minas Tirith by trying to put his glasses on and the sunlight reflected from them.