just thought i'd get things started. i think some groups of spells will probably have to go. the spells dealing with other planes like gate or planar ally ect. just won't make sense in middle earth. the plane of shadow might, MIGHT, still be usefull because tolkien does say elves have power over the unseen and that the nazgul are of the shadow so maybe that will still work. i think there's plenty of other magic availible to make up for what will be lost. clerics will have to get there spells from the powers as in tolkiens world there's only one god, eru illuvatar. well i hope that is enough for someone to chew on and get the discussion started.

Indeed. In the Magic in Middle-earth latest draft (sorry for the delay in getting it online), it has now a chart listing which spells are recommended to NOT be allowed, which are borderline, and which appear to fine. It also lists any modifcations that are suggested for a "better fit". I'll see if I can get the latest revision online this week, so that others can help contribute to the list and get the ball rolling faster. Thanks for your post!

Hawke,

When I was tinkering a lite version of Tolkien-esque Dungeons and Dragons, I became readily apparent that Sorcerers and Wizards would have to be Prestige classes.  This would limit the spells inherently, however, there were still a number of spells that would have to be removed/modified.  Thoughts?

This is reposted from the Classes post, but I think its more appropriate here: 

Hawke, what things have a 'Tolkien feel' to you, and which do not?  Which part of the tolkien books feel 'especially Tolkien' and which parts of the books feel 'not so Tolkien?'.  Which parts of the Peter Jackson movies did you Love, only like, dislike and detest?

Does anything in the D&D 3.X as it stands today, currently feel tolkien?

Greetings, sorry for the long delay in responses.

Those are a lot of questions all at once. I'll do the best I can to answer them.

Certainly Tolkien's works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings fit, but I also very much enjoy (despite the flaws C.T. points out) The Silmarillion, and the entire History of Middle-earth series and The Children of Hurin. Some pieces, such as the early Atlantis Mythos and time travel Lost Road works are a bit off. Maybe I'm misunderstanding your question though?

The PJ discussion I have had ad naseum on the merp@merp.com email list. Basically, where PJ stuck to the story line reasonably well, and didn't alter the characters, I was fine with it. Some scenes that most annoyed me were:

• Arwen's lame verbiage and confrontation of the Nazgul at the river
• The over wimpification of Frodo
• Aragorn's being dragged off the cliff in TT (nevermind that entire battle never happened), and nearly killed Viggo for a completely unneeded scene.
• The Elves at Helms Deep and their deaths.
• Faramir dragging Frodo to Osgiliath
• Frodo offering the ring to the Nazgul
• The Ents not deciding to help during the entmoot, but instead "hastily" get roused upon seeing the destruction of the forest.
• The list could go on for quite some time.
  

As far as some of the parts I thought were well done:

• The assault of the Ents on Isengard (for not having much detail to go on, it was reasonably filled-in I thought).
• Gollum, especially the duality scene (well done Andy!)
• Reasonably filled in what was alluded to in the Appendices on the relationship between Arwen and Aragorn, added some humanity and depth to their relationship.
• The temptation and death of Boromir (this leads to a great example for "corruption points" btw.
• Many others, but I'm tight on time today unfortunately.

No, the D&D 3.x has veered far from the original D&D that was actually a blatant Tolkienian rip-off (see the guest speaker John D. Rateliff, author of the The History of the Hobbit, speech at MerpCon IV he goes into great detail on this http://www.merpcon.org ), though still many things not subtle enough.
I think some examples can be taken from Iron Heroes, Wheel of Time, and other existing d20 adaptations as an example of how the core parts of d20 3.5 can be kept, but just need to be "subdued" and "tweaked"considerably. However, I still think a system dedicated solely to Tolkien will work best, rather than a "one size fits all approach". But for now, d20 is the "lingua franca", so we need working versions of it adapted to Middle-earth.

As my discussion is devolving from Magic systems into a discussion of changes in the 3.5 system to reflect the Tolkien universe, I will move my reply over to a more appropriate forum.  Hehe, try to find it in the myriad of posts here! JK