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Sorcerer (Dungeons & Dragons)

2016-04-21T22:31:10Z

2605:E000:7ECF:7F00:98B3:2B0F:C593:7FFC: /* Meanwhile, in 5th Edition... */

Sorcerers are a core playable class in [[Dungeons & Dragons]] since Third Edition. Prior to Fourth, they are really just simpler versions of their [[Wizard]] brothers, able to cast spells on the fly without morning preparation or a spellbook. The drawback is that they can only know a few distinct spells per spell level. In essence, they are "easier to play" wizards for people who have short attention spans and/or don't want to muck around with strategy.

[[File:Dragon_Disciple.jpg|350px|thumb|right|Dragon Disciple. A sub-class of sorcerers that avoid being squishy... <s>or very good</s>. Nah, they are now legit.]]
Critics claim there are several additional problems with the class:
* Fewer [[feats]] than the wizard.
* No class [[skills]] except Bluff use Charisma, the sorcerer's casting stat.
* Inferior [[Prestige Classes]] compared to the wizard (think ''Tome and Blood'').
* Cannot obtain as much benefit from spell scrolls and spellbooks as a wizard can.

Advocates argue that:
* Some of the prestige classes are pretty good (exalted arcanist, archmage) if you have the right [[splatbook]] (''Book of Exalted Deeds'', ''Heroes of Horror'', ''Draconomicon'').
* Sorcerers got a mild buff in 3.5, allowing them to vary some spells between levels to make up for their limited spell selection.
* Not having to prepare their spells ''does'' offer some advantages (casting ''flight'' or ''invisibility'' on the whole party off-the-cuff without prior preparation).

In addition, the self-contained nature of the sorcerer is useful to counteract a [[That Guy|difficult]] [[Dungeon Master|DM]]:
* A sorcerer doesn't depend on an external, potentially destructible object to prepare his spells (i.e. the wizard's spellbook).
** Building on that, a wizard may not have access to the spells he wants to add to his book at a reasonable cost, while a sorcerer can simply come into his new spells at each level-up.
** If the DM disallows many of those spells up front, the sorcerer can leave the session before it starts and avoid the idiocy to come; the wizard is clueless about the plight of his arsenal until it is too late.
* The sorcerer's arguments against the nullification of a spell by DM fiat are stronger when considering the smaller arsenal of the sorcerer.
* If a sorcerer uses spells like ''charm person'' that are enhanced by his Charisma, he has a strong argument against DM fiat nullification in that his skills are feeble, so Charisma and spells are all he has to work with.
* Should a DM nullify a certain spell by fiat, the sorcerer can swap it out once he gains the next even-numbered level, thus tailoring his active spell list to the spells most favorably handled by his DM. The wizard gets what he gets.
* DMs who opt for a severe method of character creation often prevent casters from getting the bonus spells afforded by a high caster stat; in this situation, the sorcerer's extra spells cast per day becomes highly valuable.

== Schools of Thought ==

Sorcerers are really just single-minded versions of their [[Wizard]] brothers, able to cast spells spontaneously (e.g. without preparation in the morning).

Players of sorcerers (not to be mistaken with [[Saucerer]]s) often enjoy the [[Dragonborn|dragon blood]] fluff, and use it in some vague attempt at [[roleplaying]], but we all know that deep down inside they're just playing a sorcerer because they want to throw more fireballs per day than the [[wizard]]. But then again, with the right specialization and [[Prestige classes|PrCs]], a wizard can have more spells per day than the sorcerer, rendering him useless. This is especially true when you realize that the wizard gets things like bonus feats, further pushing his power well past anything the sorcerer can accomplish without a prestige class.

It's a well-known fact that Skip Williams, one of the developers of Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition, absolutely ''despised'' the sorcerer class and is famous for saying in a now-notorious thread on the [[Wizards of the Coast]] forums as saying that sorcerers weren't worthy of being called spellcasting classes. The findings of most of the balance team for 3.5 regarding the sorcerer were steadfastly ignored by WotC, which is why the sorcerer doesn't get bonus feats, skills that actually use his main stat (except for Bluff), or the full benefits of metamagic; you know, all the things wizards get and take for granted. About the only buff they got in 3.5 is that they can now vary some spells up between levels to make up for how limited their spell selection is. All of this is painfully obvious if one cracks open a copy of the ''Tome and Blood,'' which is widely-regarded as being for wizards what the current-edition [[Matt Ward|Space Marine Codex was for Ultramarines]]. All of the sorcerer-specific classes in the book were horrifically underpowered, whereas a number of wizard builds offered via ''T&B'' were incredibly, gob-smackingly powerful.

Sorcerers are, to put it simply, underpowered compared to wizards: they make sacrifices in the number of spells they can know at any one time in order to be able to cast two more spells of every level per day than [[wizard]]s, who can still very easily surpass a sorcerer's spells per day with the right builds. If your group is a hack-and-slash, combat-centric group, you're probably going to want to roll a sorcerer. If your group [[/tg/ gets shit done|actually does anything]] besides kick in doors and behead goblinoids/innocent [[dorf|dwarves]]/the [[Tarrasque]] (haha, beheading the [[Tarrasque]], it'd just grow a new head before you could blink), then consider the [[wizard]]'s immense versatility an advantage.

On the other hand, a sorcerer represents the chaotic side of magic, free to face the encounter with all that he knows, ever ready to adapt and prevail. Wizards represent the methodical, logical, and lawful mechanics of magic. So long as they have planned accordingly the night before and morning of, they can face any situation as it comes. But any one unpredictable thing comes along and the sorcerer gets to loot the wizard's corpse. Of course, the sorcerer also has to plan ahead because he prepares his spells once and doesn't get to change them until he gets to the next level, so you can't afford to have shitty spells.

...Which isn't to say it's all bad news. The sorcerer qualifies for a number of [[Prestige classes|prestige classes]] that dramatically improve the power of the class. Exalted arcanist (from ''Book of Exalted Deeds'') gives the class access to a few clerical spells and gives the class a surprising bit of versatility; fiend-blooded (from ''Heroes of Horror'') seems outwardly similar to the dragon disciple class from ''Tome and Blood'' in that you trade levels for what's functionally a template, but unlike the dragon disciple, offers full spell progression, access to spells you can't normally get, familiar boosts, and the ability to load up a spell to be even more destructive a few times a day - just for example; the ''Draconomicon'' also has a bunch of useful sorcerer buffs, including sorcerer-specific feats and [[Prestige classes|PrCs]]. Additionally, the sorcerer can also easily latch onto (and take advantage of) a number of wizard-exclusive prestige classes; seeing what this class can do with archmage is nothing short of hilarious.

But as far as a base class goes? No reason to bother. Prestige out of this class ASAP; all you have to lose is familiar progression. You'll likely find the result far more effective than a sorcerer by its lonesome.

==Pathfinder==

[[Pathfinder]] gave every class a unified system of feat progression, removing one problem with the wizard comparison right there; it also offers traits to let them make the charisma-based skills they should ''always have fucking had in-class'' into class skills, and indirectly helps them out by making prestige classes much rarer and more corner-case. It also added a series of "bloodline powers" to let the player customize them a little and to make them a little less like weaker versions of wizards; it does a good job of that, though they still lack some of the wizard's raw versatility. Those bloodlines show what monster in your ancestry is the source of your powers, making it the class equivalent of half-elf or half-orc or whatever. It's possible to be descended from an undead or an aberration; best not to think about how, though at least ''some'' undead [[vampire|are generally considered quite attractive]] and a number of them derive from exposure to mutating magical forces rather than good ol' fashioned breeding. Either way, said bloodlines dramatically increase the power of the sorcerers: each bloodline gives you a list of bonus feats, bonus spells, and "bloodline powers" which range from mediocre (1d6 blast) to getting even moar bonus spells, +6 str, [[What|having all of your internal organs shifted so that you are immune to critical hits and cannot be backstabbed]], and casting metamagic without increased casting time.

Core bloodlines are pretty standard, being classic themes as Abyssal/Infernal/Celestial/Dragonkin/Fey/etc, with the aberration and undead being kind of oddballs, the destined being hilarious, and the arcane pretty boring but obviously the most powerful, as it is clearly the most viable option in the entire game for metamagic users. Yes, now [[Powergamer|munchkins]] can be sorcerers too. Then Paizo started printing all of its "Ultimate X" stuff and things kept going weird(er), with sorcerers descending from nearly everything that can sport a reproductive system, including (but not limited to) Cthulhu-like abominations and plant monsters. Still, sorcerers are really an interesting, entertaining choice and can be tailored and customized to be whatever the fuck you may desire, with great opportunities for roleplaying. Even the lack of spells is less severe - you get one free spell among your bloodline ones every odd level beyond the first, and a good chunk of races has a favored class bonus that nets you 1 bonus spell each level, even if it has to be one level lower than your highest spell's level.

If you don't mind being a special snowflake, check out the "build your own spells" Words of Power system from "Ultimate Magic." The sky's falling in on our heads, 'cause someone in a 3.X game actually put in an alternate casting system that favors sorcerers over their [[wizard|spoiled rotten cousins]]. Think on how some of the elemental bloodlines boost power for ''any'' spell with the right elemental subtype. Think how easy it is to slip a level zero ''cold snap'' or ''spark'' keyword into a larger spell. Engage trollface, because you just made the best "blaster" mage in 3.X history.

Also in Pathfinder, sorcerers make arguably better mystic theurges than wizards because they can choose to multiclass in [[Oracle]]. The oracle is a divine equivalent of the sorcerer that uses charisma as his casting stat, thus avoiding being [[MAD]], or can take the empyreal bloodline and swap their casting stat with Wisdom, making it a perfect multiclass option for druids or clerics that want to go theurge. Obviously this advantage becomes moot when you notice that Pathfinder theurges suck pretty bad, and one of their (few) features only works for prepared spellcasters. Oops!

== Meanwhile, in 5th Edition... ==

In 5th Edition, sorcerers finally become a useful and viable class, because someone finally realized that sorcerers should get something unique: metamagic, torn from the [[wizard|screaming hands of the most pampered brats of last edition]]. They now have exclusive access to metamagics, of which they can eventually get four, and can alter ''any'' of their spells on the fly using a resource pool called Sorcery Points (which is basically a stupider name for a mana system). They get more as they level up, and can also use them to regain spells. These mechanics are important, because with the reworks to prepared spellcasting, the complaint that sorcerers prepare their spells once and can't easily swap them out is more true than ever.

Sorcerers get to choose their bloodline power at first level: [[Dragon]]s or something vague and chaotic. The dragon bloodline gives them natural armor (which doesn't stack with actual armor, naturally) and one more hit point per level. Eventually they get dragon wings, resistance to, and affinity for, their chosen dragon's element, and the ability to use SP to activate an aura that either scares people or inspires them, depending on which the sorcerer wants it to do.

The second bloodline option is that the sorcerer has "Wild Magic." This means that whenever they cast a spell, the DM can ask them to roll a D20, and on a 1, random magical effects happen. However, given their probable frequency, they are now less devastating (none that instantly kill you, the worst it gets is turning you into a plant for one round or casting ''grease'' on your location). In fact, many are helpful, and later the wild mage actually uses this to their advantage (whenever they have a surge, they can roll twice on the chart). Oh, and they have a D6 hit die now, like in [[Pathfinder]]. I guess WotC got sick of spellcasters whining about not having enough HP to do anything.

Finally, their class skills include lots of Charisma-based choices, like in 4e, which is just one more sweet, sweet improvement.

Their one weakness (and it is, admittedly, a doozy) is that the heavily-reworked magic system took a lot of the punch out of their spontaneous casting, and made the wizard's tremendous versatility even more of an advantage, since now every caster can cast spells without using spell slots if they take their time and has access to all spells memorized for the slot. The metamagic still helps make them unique, but they really could stand to have access to more total spells if you're the sort that likes to homebrew fixes.

Of all the classes, they've benefited the most from the Unearthed Arcana rule suggestions/updates, which've given them a bevvy of new options.

Via an Unearthed Arcana on designing new variant classes, the 5e sorcerer ate the [[Favored Soul]], making a class that actually works. Taking the Favored Soul option instead of Draconic Bloodline or Wild Origin means your sorcerer gets to pick options from one of the [[Cleric]] domains for themselves and adds those domain spells to their list as bonus spells. They get much better combat stuff (automatically proficient with light and medium armor, shields, simple weapons, and gain an Extra Attack at level 6), but they still have d6 hit dice, so it's not always the best idea to go wading into melee. They gain the ability to sprout wings for flying and healing whenever they cast a Domain spell. Take the Life Domain and your Sorcerer can toss around healing and buffing spells like nobody's business (and with metamagic, to boot. Twinned Cure Wounds? Don't mind if I do), or take the War domain to put your newfound ass-kicking skills to the best use.

The Waterborne Adventures Unearthed Arcana added a Storm bloodline, focusing on lightning, swooping around with wind powers, and controlling the weather to make navigating a ship a breeze (No pun intended). At high levels, they can fly and spend an action to let the party swoop around, too. In short, a pretty great "pure caster" bloodline that doesn't go for making you tough like a dragon or have a significant lol-random component like the wild one. This eventually got made official with the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, but with one key nerf: the extra "stormy" spells that they got for free and which didn't count against their allotment of spells? Gone now. Who the fuck knows why.

Meanwhile, taking a leaf out of the Dread [[Necromancer]]'s book, the Underdark Characters UA adds the Shadow bloodline, which gives no new spells, but does get a bunch of "umbramancer" class features, like burning sorcery points for Darkness, summoning a "Hound of Ill Omen" (ghostly dire wolf), teleporting between shadows and assuming a shadow form. It comes with a list of weird undead-themed optional quirks, like slow bleeding or a tendency to stare without blinking.

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The Lord of the Rings

2016-04-21T22:20:32Z

2605:E000:7ECF:7F00:98B3:2B0F:C593:7FFC: /* The Story */

''The Lord of the Rings'', sometimes shortened to LOTR, is the sequel to [[J. R. R. Tolkien]]'s ''[[The Hobbit]]''. He found that the setting he had built was far too interesting to abandon after a simplistic quest storyline, an experience common to modern [[GM]]s, and his publisher thought a new story in Middle-earth would be just as popular as ''The Hobbit''.

Because of its original publication scheme (the whole thing was too big for 50's era bookbinding techniques), LOTR is commonly, though erroneously, called a trilogy. Its three volumes are:

*The Fellowship of the Ring
*The Two Towers
*The Return of the King

You have, of course, read them. If you haven't, gtfo and read them. And don't you even dare ''just'' watch the movies. Although amazing films, they aren't the same experience.

==The Story==
If you have read them (which you have) but it's been so long that you've forgotten the details, here's a brief refresher:

Bilbo Baggins, the protagonist of ''The Hobbit'', decides to leave home and entrusts his magic ring to his nephew Frodo. Problem is, Gandalf the Grey, Bilbo's wizard friend, has figured out that the magic ring is the One Ring, an artifact created by Sauron, Lord of Mordor, and contains a vast amount of his power. Its continued existence is a threat to the free peoples of Middle-earth and Gandalf exhorts Frodo to come to a meeting in Rivendell where a council will determine what to do with it. Joined by his gardener Samwise and two fellow hobbits, Merry and Pippin, Frodo makes his way to Rivendell but not before running afoul of barrow-wights and Sauron's chief minions, the Nazgul.

At the meeting, it is revealed that no mortal artifice can destroy the One Ring (demonstrated in the movie when Gimli shatters a weapon on the unassuming golden band). The only way to unmake it is to return it to the fires of Mount Doom where Sauron originally forged it. Unfortunately, Mount Doom is smack dab in the middle of Mordor and Gandalf can't ask his great eagle buddies to risk death by arrows or volcanic gases to fly the ring to Mount Doom for him. Frodo agrees to bear the One Ring on its journey and a group is formed to escort him there. The party for this quest is called the Fellowship of the Ring and consists of:

*Frodo Baggins, the Ringbearer, hobbit;
*Samwise Gamgee, Paladin/gardener/Frodo's [[Gay|"best friend"]], hobbit;
*Meriadoc "Merry" Brandybuck, rogue, hobbit;
*Peregrin "Pippin" Took, bard, hobbit;
*Gandalf the Grey, wizard (one of the Istari, essentially a demigod in human guise);
*Aragorn, son of Arathorn, ranger, human of Numenorian descent and heir to the throne of Gondor;
*Boromir, son of Denethor, fighter, human;
*Legolas Greenleaf, son of Thranduril, archer, elf;
*Gimli, son of Glóin, fighter, dwarf;

So, off they go. After a few detours and sidetracks, the Fellowship is split into three (even though you should never split the party): Frodo and Sam go off directly to Mordor, as Frodo's the only one who really needs to go and Sam is too much of a bro to abandon him; Pippin and Merry are kidnapped by orcs but escape and wind up in Gondor, a formerly prosperous kingdom, and Rohan, a nation of Vikings on horseback, respectively, after having adventures with Ents; Boromir dies in an ambush but has a pile of corpses to show for his troubles and gets a river funeral; Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli form a Human-Elf-Dwarf triple threat team, ostensibly to find and rescue Merry and Pippin, but end up travelling fucking evil's shit up for the rest of the story, with Gimli as Dennis Rodman.

Despite having their own problems to content with, somehow the members of the divided Fellowship seem to get involved with everyone else's mess and need to sort shit out. Their list of game achievements include, but are not limited to: surviving a ruined [[Dwarf Fortress|dwarf city]] filled with an insane number of goblins and a big motherfucking demon lord with weapons made of fire (the backstory behind this inspired the aforementioned game); foiling the plans of Gandalf's wicked wizard counterpart and his orc army; saving not one but two human nations (and the entire world for that matter); winning a whole campaign's worth of scenarios and battles; and defeating the big bad evil guy of the setting with enough time to go home for tea and crumpets.

Finally, after going around the most fuck-me way possible to get into Mordor (partially due to bad directions from Gollum), Frodo reaches Mount Doom and is about to drop the ring into the lava when he can no longer resist the ring's allure. Just as it had done at the end of the Second Age when it stopped Isildur from destroying it, the ring saved its existence from certain doom. Unfortunately, its twisted former owner Gollum attacks Frodo for it and bites it off of his finger, dances about happily, and accidentally falls into the lava. With the ring destroyed, Sauron's power is all but gone forevermore and his armies scatter. The eagles can swoop in for MEDEVAC, getting Frodo and Sam back to civilization to rest and recover before the hobbits return to the Shire.

But wait! The Shire's under new management, Chief Sharkey. Frodo and company help the hobbits rise up against Sharkey, who turns out to be Saruman, who has committed his greatest evil yet by trying to industrialize The Shire. Frodo allows Saruman to leave the Shire, but his put-upon minion Gríma Wormtongue slits his throat (and is then riddled with arrows, nicely tying up that loose end). After compiling his memoirs and still feeling pain from the Nazgul attack all the way at the beginning of his journey, Frodo travels to the Grey Havens and is allowed to sail into the West, where he may find relief from his pain.

==The Movies==
Ralph Bakshi made an animated film based off the Fellowship of The Ring and the first half of The Two Towers, which were released in 1978. The resulting film was trippy, to say the least. It has a lot of weird animation with massive amounts of [[wikipedia:Rotoscoping|rotoscoping]], although it does work from time to time. It also decided to make adjustments and stay faithful to the text in the oddest ways. Many lines of dialogue were taken from the books word for word, with enough cut out so that you don't know what they are talking about; for example, Saruman declares himself Saruman of Many Colors without explaining the name change, but they decide to make a prince of Gondor (the largest and greatest civilization in Middle-earth at the time) dress like a Wagner opera viking. The end result both leaves you both weirded out and bored. Rankin Bass produced a Return of the King animated film in 1980, which traded in some of the trippiness for being more mundanely bad and getting pushed into the animation age ghetto.

But those two movies are footnotes compared to the ones that you have most likely seen, those being Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. By far the most financially successful and critically acclaimed fantasy films of all time, including winning Best Picture at the Academy Awards, which generally go for historical pieces and similar, not fantasy or sci-fi. It helped bring fantasy to mainstream audiences and probably why many of you are you are here now. It has massive battles made possible by groundbreaking special effects technology. The films also have incredible amounts of attention to detail to bring the world of Middle-earth to life. While some changes were made, many of them were for the better such as developing Aragorn as a character rather than just a mythic archetype.

Alas, however, it seems greed got to New Line: apparently a few billion dollars in debt, they needed the profit that a new series of Middle-Earth movies would make and tapped Jackson to direct a trilogy of Hobbit movies. Since The Hobbit is a single book with less than 400 pages, the company bloated the story by making the movies a strange mix of The Hobbit, the Silmarillion and various new materials. Neckbeards were in uproar of the changes both big and small: examples include Legolas having a significant part in the second and third movie despite not appearing in the book of The Hobbit, the inclusion of new character Tauriel who enters a fanfic-esque love triangle with Legolas and Kili, the recycling of an Orc warlord who canonically died in a battle before the book even though the story had the role filled by his son who's also in the movies, the Major of Laketown having an aide who seems to be <s>a long-lost scion of the Blackadder lineage</s> a two-dimensional discount Grima Wormtongue (Admittedly, it would be a nice little Blackadder homage, as the Mayor of Laketown is acted by Stephen Fry), dumbing down the fiendishly intelligent antagonist Smaug with Bond Villain-style stupidity and a few other things big and small. Jackson really went overboard with the special effects here: instead of using sets, costumes and clever camera tricks a lot of things were CGI. This meant that a lot of actors did not need to be on the set at the same time, which reached its lowest point with Sir Ian McKellen breaking down into tears after having to act against an empty room.

Unhappy with the trilogy, fans created the TolkienEdit, which is basically a four-hour film covering the entire trilogy. That means that there's been removed five hours of content. The casualties include Radagast, the Necromancer subplot, the elf/dwarf love triangle, a lot of running scenes, some battle scenes and a lot of white orc scenes.

==Of course GW couldn't let such a profitable venture pass them by...==
Back in the early 2000s, GW made a tabletop game based around this premise and called it [[The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game]]. Because they ran out of short titles.

While it let you play out your favourite scenes from the movies (in the way YOU imagined them going), it failed to light the world on fire.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Height.jpg| How the heck did a little hobbit beat this?
File:Talion_and_orcs.jpg| Actually not a scene from the books. To be fair, though, [[/v/|Shadow of Mordor]] did have a relevant interpretation of Tolkien, and showed us what Mordor looks like in the daytime.
</gallery>

==See also==
*[[The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game]] for the tabletop skirmish game.
*[[Mordor]]
*[[J. R. R. Tolkien]]
*[[The Last Ringbearer]]
*[[The Silmarillion]]

[[Category: Literature]][[Category:The Lord of the Rings]]

The Lord of the Rings

2016-04-21T22:17:14Z

2605:E000:7ECF:7F00:98B3:2B0F:C593:7FFC: /* The Story */

''The Lord of the Rings'', sometimes shortened to LOTR, is the sequel to [[J. R. R. Tolkien]]'s ''[[The Hobbit]]''. He found that the setting he had built was far too interesting to abandon after a simplistic quest storyline, an experience common to modern [[GM]]s, and his publisher thought a new story in Middle-earth would be just as popular as ''The Hobbit''.

Because of its original publication scheme (the whole thing was too big for 50's era bookbinding techniques), LOTR is commonly, though erroneously, called a trilogy. Its three volumes are:

*The Fellowship of the Ring
*The Two Towers
*The Return of the King

You have, of course, read them. If you haven't, gtfo and read them. And don't you even dare ''just'' watch the movies. Although amazing films, they aren't the same experience.

==The Story==
If you have read them (which you have) but it's been so long that you've forgotten the details, here's a brief refresher:

Bilbo Baggins, the protagonist of ''The Hobbit'', decides to leave home and entrusts his magic ring to his nephew Frodo. Problem is, Gandalf the Grey, Bilbo's wizard friend, has figured out that the magic ring is the One Ring, an artifact created by Sauron, Lord of Mordor, and contains a vast amount of his power. Its continued existence is a threat to the free peoples of Middle-earth and Gandalf exhorts Frodo to come to a meeting in Rivendell where a council will determine what to do with it. Joined by his gardener Samwise and two fellow hobbits, Merry and Pippin, Frodo makes his way to Rivendell but not before running afoul of barrow-wights and Sauron's chief minions, the Nazgul.

At the meeting, it is revealed that no mortal artifice can destroy the One Ring (demonstrated in the movie when Gimli shatters a weapon on the unassuming golden band). The only way to unmake it is to return it to the fires of Mount Doom where Sauron originally forged it. Unfortunately, Mount Doom is smack dab in the middle of Mordor and Gandalf can't ask his great eagle buddies to risk death by arrows or volcanic gases to fly the ring to Mount Doom for him. Frodo agrees to bear the One Ring on its journey and a group is formed to escort him there. The party for this quest is called the Fellowship of the Ring and consists of:

*Frodo Baggins, the Ringbearer, hobbit;
*Samwise Gamgee, Paladin/gardener/Frodo's boyfriend, hobbit;
*Meriadoc "Merry" Brandybuck, rogue, hobbit;
*Peregrin "Pippin" Took, bard, hobbit;
*Gandalf the Grey, wizard (one of the Istari, essentially a demigod in human guise);
*Aragorn, son of Arathorn, ranger, human of Numenorian descent and heir to the throne of Gondor;
*Boromir, son of Denethor, fighter, human;
*Legolas Greenleaf, son of Thranduril, archer, elf;
*Gimli, son of Glóin, fighter, dwarf;

So, off they go. After a few detours and sidetracks, the Fellowship is split into three (even though you should never split the party): Frodo and Sam go off directly to Mordor, as Frodo's the only one who really needs to go and Sam is too much of a bro to abandon him; Pippin and Merry are kidnapped by orcs but escape and wind up in Gondor, a formerly prosperous kingdom, and Rohan, a nation of Vikings on horseback, respectively, after having adventures with Ents; Boromir dies in an ambush but has a pile of corpses to show for his troubles and gets a river funeral; Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli form a Human-Elf-Dwarf triple threat team, ostensibly to find and rescue Merry and Pippin, but end up travelling fucking evil's shit up for the rest of the story, with Gimli as Dennis Rodman.

Despite having their own problems to content with, somehow the members of the divided Fellowship seem to get involved with everyone else's mess and need to sort shit out. Their list of game achievements include, but are not limited to: surviving a ruined [[Dwarf Fortress|dwarf city]] filled with an insane number of goblins and a big motherfucking demon lord with weapons made of fire (the backstory behind this inspired the aforementioned game); foiling the plans of Gandalf's wicked wizard counterpart and his orc army; saving not one but two human nations (and the entire world for that matter); winning a whole campaign's worth of scenarios and battles; and defeating the big bad evil guy of the setting with enough time to go home for tea and crumpets.

Finally, after going around the most fuck-me way possible to get into Mordor (partially due to bad directions from Gollum), Frodo reaches Mount Doom and is about to drop the ring into the lava when he can no longer resist the ring's allure. Just as it had done at the end of the Second Age when it stopped Isildur from destroying it, the ring saved its existence from certain doom. Unfortunately, its twisted former owner Gollum attacks Frodo for it and bites it off of his finger, dances about happily, and accidentally falls into the lava. With the ring destroyed, Sauron's power is all but gone forevermore and his armies scatter. The eagles can swoop in for MEDEVAC, getting Frodo and Sam back to civilization to rest and recover before the hobbits return to the Shire.

But wait! The Shire's under new management, Chief Sharkey. Frodo and company help the hobbits rise up against Sharkey, who turns out to be Saruman, who has committed his greatest evil yet by trying to industrialize The Shire. Frodo allows Saruman to leave the Shire, but his put-upon minion Gríma Wormtongue slits his throat (and is then riddled with arrows, nicely tying up that loose end). After compiling his memoirs and still feeling pain from the Nazgul attack all the way at the beginning of his journey, Frodo travels to the Grey Havens and is allowed to sail into the West, where he may find relief from his pain.

==The Movies==
Ralph Bakshi made an animated film based off the Fellowship of The Ring and the first half of The Two Towers, which were released in 1978. The resulting film was trippy, to say the least. It has a lot of weird animation with massive amounts of [[wikipedia:Rotoscoping|rotoscoping]], although it does work from time to time. It also decided to make adjustments and stay faithful to the text in the oddest ways. Many lines of dialogue were taken from the books word for word, with enough cut out so that you don't know what they are talking about; for example, Saruman declares himself Saruman of Many Colors without explaining the name change, but they decide to make a prince of Gondor (the largest and greatest civilization in Middle-earth at the time) dress like a Wagner opera viking. The end result both leaves you both weirded out and bored. Rankin Bass produced a Return of the King animated film in 1980, which traded in some of the trippiness for being more mundanely bad and getting pushed into the animation age ghetto.

But those two movies are footnotes compared to the ones that you have most likely seen, those being Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. By far the most financially successful and critically acclaimed fantasy films of all time, including winning Best Picture at the Academy Awards, which generally go for historical pieces and similar, not fantasy or sci-fi. It helped bring fantasy to mainstream audiences and probably why many of you are you are here now. It has massive battles made possible by groundbreaking special effects technology. The films also have incredible amounts of attention to detail to bring the world of Middle-earth to life. While some changes were made, many of them were for the better such as developing Aragorn as a character rather than just a mythic archetype.

Alas, however, it seems greed got to New Line: apparently a few billion dollars in debt, they needed the profit that a new series of Middle-Earth movies would make and tapped Jackson to direct a trilogy of Hobbit movies. Since The Hobbit is a single book with less than 400 pages, the company bloated the story by making the movies a strange mix of The Hobbit, the Silmarillion and various new materials. Neckbeards were in uproar of the changes both big and small: examples include Legolas having a significant part in the second and third movie despite not appearing in the book of The Hobbit, the inclusion of new character Tauriel who enters a fanfic-esque love triangle with Legolas and Kili, the recycling of an Orc warlord who canonically died in a battle before the book even though the story had the role filled by his son who's also in the movies, the Major of Laketown having an aide who seems to be <s>a long-lost scion of the Blackadder lineage</s> a two-dimensional discount Grima Wormtongue (Admittedly, it would be a nice little Blackadder homage, as the Mayor of Laketown is acted by Stephen Fry), dumbing down the fiendishly intelligent antagonist Smaug with Bond Villain-style stupidity and a few other things big and small. Jackson really went overboard with the special effects here: instead of using sets, costumes and clever camera tricks a lot of things were CGI. This meant that a lot of actors did not need to be on the set at the same time, which reached its lowest point with Sir Ian McKellen breaking down into tears after having to act against an empty room.

Unhappy with the trilogy, fans created the TolkienEdit, which is basically a four-hour film covering the entire trilogy. That means that there's been removed five hours of content. The casualties include Radagast, the Necromancer subplot, the elf/dwarf love triangle, a lot of running scenes, some battle scenes and a lot of white orc scenes.

==Of course GW couldn't let such a profitable venture pass them by...==
Back in the early 2000s, GW made a tabletop game based around this premise and called it [[The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game]]. Because they ran out of short titles.

While it let you play out your favourite scenes from the movies (in the way YOU imagined them going), it failed to light the world on fire.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Height.jpg| How the heck did a little hobbit beat this?
File:Talion_and_orcs.jpg| Actually not a scene from the books. To be fair, though, [[/v/|Shadow of Mordor]] did have a relevant interpretation of Tolkien, and showed us what Mordor looks like in the daytime.
</gallery>

==See also==
*[[The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game]] for the tabletop skirmish game.
*[[Mordor]]
*[[J. R. R. Tolkien]]
*[[The Last Ringbearer]]
*[[The Silmarillion]]

[[Category: Literature]][[Category:The Lord of the Rings]]

Half-Elf

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'''Half-Elves''' are, (duh) the children of [[humans]] and [[elves]]. They maintain many of the characteristics their elvish and human parents, only watered down: For example, they live a wee bit longer than humans (they don't hit venerable until they're over 100 years old) but remain vigorous to the end like the elves.

Typically the combination is human father/elven mother (for reasons outlined on the elf page). Also, the elven parent is almost always a high or wood elf; half-drow, merrows, gray elves, and [[Elf subraces|what-not]] are incredibly rare unless there's either a [[Drizzt]] clone on the prowl, using his/her [[Mary Sue|inexplicably potent sexual charisma]] to pour forth their tainted seed upon the land to trouble the weary world, or were talking about a Drow male (Females would lack the fertility to make it as likely) "Playing" with his slaves, so we could expect a lot more Drow Half Elves then other kinds.

Like [[half-orc]]s, enjoy a lot of the versatility of [[human]]s in [[Pathfinder]], with a floating +2 bonus to any stat they like, free skill focus in any one skill, and the ability to select multiple classes as "favored" for the purposes of [[multiclassing]], while getting elven bonuses to their Will saves and low-light vision. One particularly cool alternate ability lets them trade in skill focus to gain training in any one [[exotic weapon]] they like, just in case you always wanted to ''try'' an urumi or falcata but didn't wanna spring the feat for it.

In [[4e]], they have a +2 Constitution (from their human parentage), and a choice of +2 Wis or +2 Cha (presumably from Elven parentage). They make shitty rangers, which is also bizarre considering they're descended from the one race that can do it right. They do make pretty amazing [[bard]]s, and half-elf bards have a specific paragon path dedicated to them. On the other hand, they can warlord like a boss and they get a free encounter power from any class other than their own. If you like trawling through setting guides and back issues of magazines (or have CBLoader), half-elves are the class for you. The only downside is, you're playing a race with "elf" in the name, and nobody wants that.

In 5e, they get a +2 to Charisma, and two +1s in any two other stats, making them good at being Sorcerers and Bards, as they are the only race other than Tieflings who get Charisma. They also retain many elven traits. Also, they can grow beards, which is explicitly mentioned in the PH. This makes half-elves twice as manly as regular elves (two times zero is still zero). The Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide lets you switch out the free pair of skill proficiencies for increased Elfy traits - do ''not'' take the Keen Senses option, as it's a load of bullshit (Darkvision + Perception proficiency, when you already got Darkvision + 2 free skill proficiencies before). You can, however, take a bunch of more interesting elf traits; the Elf Weapon Proficiency (which is free proficiency with some extra weapons), a 35ft base movement speed, a free cantrip from the [[Wizard]] spell list, the [[Drow]] Magic trait or, weirdly, a Swim speed of 30 feet to reflect Aquatic Elf ancestry. Despite no Aquatic Elf racial stats showing up in the game so far.

An interesting example of half-elven people are the race of Numenor in the Silmarilion, whose king was Elros Tar-Minyatur son of Eärendil and Elwing, both half elves. The Numenorians were characterized by their tall height, having extremely long lives and a judgment-impairing fear of death, being tricked by Sauron into warring with the gods for immortality (which got their home destroyed Atlantis-style), and are the race from whom Aragorn and the people of Gondor descended.

Get your DM to let you be [[Mul|half]]-[[dorf]] instead. Makes more sense, [[crunch]]-to-fluff-wise, and lets you be a race that's actually got a little man in it. See also [[Half-dwarf]].

Also, if you ask to play a mixture of an elf and a dorf, your DM reserves the right to punt your nuts to Mars.

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[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons Races]]