If I Had to Write Supplement VII

I've read through several interesting posts over at the Dragonsfoot and ODD74 boards on the subject, just to know what other people before me have thought about the subject. Here's a list:

• Falconer's Middle Earth Campaign
• Falconer's Middle-Earth on Crack
• Geoffrey's an old idea for A/D&D & Middle-earth (or any world you want)
• tkdco2's My ideas on using Middle-earth for AD&D 1e
• Korgoth's Moldvay Middle Earth
• Greg's A TSR Middle-Earth: Some Preparatory Notes
• Finarvyn's Gandalf's Spells in Middle-earth <- this is über-great

I have eliminated all the "what about if I..." and "Do you think using A/O/D&D could work in ME..." kind of treatment and only kept the interesting stuff by people who have something to say. In particular, Finarvyn's post is pretty damn cool! BTW, if I had to write a Middle-Earth Supplement for OD&D this is what I would do.

Premise
Use only the 3LBBs. No gazetteer, just rules.

Men & Magic
Six character types:

• Fighters: fighters in ME are so cool! And all their swords have proper names;
• Rangers: is there anything to say about this? I imagine they should also have some thieves abilities, and they all are "Friends of the Elves".
• Wizards: so far the only human wizard I can think of is Gríma The Wormtongue. By the way, I think that using "vancian" wizards as human apprentices of the Istari wouldn't be that difficult. Gandalf can recall any spell from his mind and never use a spellbook, but he is not human, afterall;
• Dwarfs not Dwarves: are a race/class. Moldvay ones are pretty much perfect;
• Elves: are race/class. Moldvay ones are perfect, but they use the Cleric spell list instead of the Wizard one (ya know, Cure Light Wounds, Remove Curse, Part/Command Water). Elves are immortal.
• Half-Elves: can choose to be Elves or Humans, and are treated that way.
• Hobbits: are race/class. OD&D ones are perfect (i.e. only fighters, very low level) but they should also have thieves abilities.

Alignment, inspired by Carcosa, should work like this:

• Lawful: those who are against Morgoth;
• Neutral: those who don't give a fuck;
• Chaotic: those who are with Morgoth.

Fighters and Wizards can be of any alignment, Rangers can only be Lawful, Elves, Dwarfs and Hobbits can be either Lawful or Neutral. Neutral Elves should be veeeeery rare. Characters of the ME are more epic than normal characters, therefore they roll 4d6 (discard lower) for abilities. Ability Modifiers and Hit Dice as per Supplement I. Attack table as per AD&D, with rules for Cleave Attack, Critical Hits and Fumbles.

Monsters & Treasure
Usual ME monsters (orcs, huruk, trolls, goblins, ent, balrog, ring wraiths, wraiths, shadows, dragons etc.), with the possibility of using other D&D monsters (Tolkien says many times that thousands of strange creatures infest the Middle-Earth). Wizards cannot create magic items: only Elves and Dwarves (NPCs) can. Classic magic-items (Mithril, Palantir, Elven Cloak and so on).

Underground & Wilderness Adventures
Rules to handle corruption and Sauron (basically every time a Wizard casts a spell there is a certain probability that the Eye sees him). Guidelines to run Epic adventures (where the PCs start from 5th level). Notable NPCs of the Middle-Earth (Sauron, Gandalf, Saruman, Glorfindel, Aragorn and so on). A simple yet complete Elven dictionary.