Playing an Istari

[phaide]

Hi. Perhaps this is a topic that has been beaten to death but I'm wondering, in light of having two more powerful cultures enter the game, could playing an Istari possible and might we see rules for them some day?

[Rocmistro]

Be nice, everybody.

Phaide: I think it's doubtful we'll ever see Istari as an officially playable culture.

[Glorelendil]

How about rules for converting D&D characters? I've got a 20/20 Wizard/Paladin that I'd like to use.

[phaide]

Ok, so this has come up before. Please disregard this post for the sake of your own sanity.

[Glorelendil]

What?!?! That was nice....

[Rocmistro]

Phaide: I think one of the key tone-setting lines in this game is from the main rulebook:

"The aim of The One Ring is to let players feel what it means to go adventuring in a wild and perilous land, out of a forgotten past.... Players are invited to leave the age of information and fast travel behind, and adopt the point of view of individuals whose horizons often didn’t extend further than a few miles from their birthplace."

The Rivendell cultures are an interesting and welcome addition, but I seriously doubt that we'll see anything more powerful than that.

[Murcushio]

A full-fledged Istari is probably out of line.

It's possible to construct a Middle-earth game where player access to what we would recognize as more formal wizardly powers is possible; both ICE and Decipher managed it with varying degrees of success. (I thought Decipher did a better job than ICE, but that's just me.) It isn't 100% in keeping with the feel of the books, but it is doable.

The problem with doing it in TOR specifically is that the system isn't really built for that sort of thing. It can't even really handle the implementation of Radagast and Saruman as robustly statted NPCs, to say nothing of an entire PC class with wizardly powers. It would require some really heavy lifting on the part of of Francesco and probably an entire expansion devoted just to that in order to get PCs whose entire raison d'etre is doing weird magic stuff, as opposed to having one or two useful spell-like powers.

[phaide]

I guess to me personally Gandalf, while old, never struck me as overly powerful. Radagast falls in to that same category for me as well. Given that you can now play an ancient elf I guess it didn't really feel like that big of a deal breaker. But I am by no means any kind of Tolkien expert.

[Glorelendil]

Well, in game terms that would be because of Eye of Mordor & Hunt score. It would suggest that revealing their full power would immediately attract unwanted attention. (As is hinted when Gandalf uses magic to light a fire high in the pass above Caradhras.)

Remember that Gandalf single-handedly fought several of the Nine on Weathertop, and he killed a Balrog. He's no pushover, but he wouldn't like using that much power because it would tend to alert Sauron to his activities. (Which is kind of moot if you're being attacked by the Nine.)

[Hermes Serpent]

As a BLMFH (Bas***** LM From Heck) I'd love to see Istari with the new rules for the Eye of Mordor. Anyone starting one of them as a character I'd tell them 'Generate another character' that one won't last the session, Ohh look it's a Nazgul posse.