Questions concerning 1e

[manikus]

You could always look on eBay...

Hopefully, you can find some that do not require begging.

[Shadow Stranger]

Back to page one of this thread:
Cavaliers are heavy powered but I read a letter in Dragon Magazine that said their liabilities balanced their assets. They can't retreat from combat, they must aid anyone without thought of reward&& (I forget which issue this letter was in.)

As for Middle Earth, Iron Crown Enterprises issued the Middle Earth Role Playing campaign. The only way to make it authentic is to have PCs who are one of the magic - wielding few. Opinion seems to be that it is fun even if it is not strictly authentic.

[manikus]

More for the sake of argument than anything else, do you recall who the letter was by? I mean if Gygax or Greenwood were writing it has a bit more weight than a fanboy. I only was in an adventure or two with them and they seemed overpowered. Also, remember that the AD&D folks thought that gnomes and halflings were balanced with the other races... I think that often players have a quite different perspective fromt he creators.

I've never played any of the LotR RPGs. I do have some of the cards for the collectible card game. We've talked in the forums here about doing a Middle Earth Worldhack, and each time we talk about it I always think about whether players can play the main characters from the stories or whether they (the main characters) will be NPCs or just mentioned in stories. This goes hand in hand with the magic level and who has access to it. But, even if the we allow Gandalf as a PC, how do we handle the magic? I'm a bit of a purist, so I would go for the low magic option with much of it being handled in events outside of combat or given to items to be used by PCs.

[SilentThief]

The 2nd editions optional rules/kit rules allowed for wizards that could use swords like Gandalf does in the mine of Moria.

ST

[manikus]

I personally never used the kits, or played with anyone who did.

I think it was a bit to far from 1e for me - you know - right towards Planescape. (J/K)

[Shadow Stranger]

Letter I don't recall the details of. But check Unearthed Arcana and see what the restrictions affecting Cavaleirs are: what must they do and what they cannot do.

You do have the option in MERP to restrict magic with corruption points. CPs are accumulated when you use magic too much, they could lead you into the path of Sauron.

[manikus]

I would want to restrict magic on the front end and not the back end in a Middle Earth setting. I mean, how many times in the books is a fireball cast?

[Uatu]

Kits were a mixed bunch - some were rather stupid (peasant wizard, etc.) that had little or no benefit (+1 reaction or something stupid like that).

A few were more fun, like sub-classes (dwarven battlerager, halfling whistler, red wizard of Thay, etc.); of course, they might as well have been new classes (2e had a few, like the Viking berserker, runecaster, etc.).

[SilentThief]

I'm more inclined to use my own created kits/classes than the collective masses of characters they made in the 2nd edition

ST

[manikus]

I've always kind of felt like the specialized kits were either a tool to enforce role playing or a crutch for people who didn't like role playing part as much as they like the dice rolling and loot gathering. It is up to the DM to set which tone will be used. I mean, I totally see the benefit in using a "Red Wizard of Thay" kit in an adventure that is responsive to that, i.e. it's either about Thay, the mechanisms of Thay, or gives the PC a positive or negative reaction etc for being a Red Wizard. But, what I would hate to see is a player take it and instead of role playing, be all "Red Wizard, Red Wizard". Like I said, I never played with kits, so I can't say for certain, but it seems like a bunch of extra crap.