Middle-earth a planet in the pathfinder campaign setting?

[Pharier]

Greetings guys.
Being a big pathfinder and tolkien fan I was interested in trying a campaign set in middle-earth. However I want the premise to be the PC's of Golarion travel across the planes and prehaps by mere accident end up in the lusious world of middle-earth.

Now obviously with pathfinder your imagaination is your only limit but being the lore nerd I'am I'd like middle-earth to work well as a possible planet residing within the cosmos. I.e even though its mechanics for magic and divine are quite different, plus the whole creation thing with Illuvatar and the Valar it can still be believeable that middle earth and golarion could coexist within the same universe.

[feytharn]

I am not so keen on middle earth lore, but considering your post, you might be.

- Golarion shares the same universe with earth, as was pointed out on these boards by the developers (especially James Jacobs) - I can't find the original post, but here is a related quote.

- If Middle Earth and Earth share the same universe (I don't know about that), then, by canon, so do Golarion and Middle Earth.

[Deadmanwalking]

Canaonically, isn't Middle Earth, well, Earth? Just a very long time ago?

That would tend to combine with what feytharn notes to make thyem share a universe.

Getting to the right time period is as easy as GM fiat or as hard as you want it to be.

[Shem]

I think if I were going to do this. I would have the PCs find a gate to another planet in the solar system. From there I would have them do planet hopping within the solar system until they find a gate that is totally different from the others and takes them to a nearby solar system (maybe this gate is bigger or something) to Middle Earth.

[Jeff Erwin]

Middle-earth is Earth.

Now, canonically, it has a fundamentally different cosmology than Golarion. It has a single creator (Eru), and Valar and Maiar (archangels/demigods and angels). Its "gods" (the Valar) are far weaker than Golarion's, and do not grant spells, though "natural" divine magic like druids and rangers might be possible, if toned down. Only Maiar and Elves use non-evil magic in the world itself, though dwarves can enchant things. Humans may be able to cast minor dark magics with the aid of Sauron.

Thus any PC spell casters are likely to totally outclass anything available in this world. If this is a fun jaunt, that's probably OK. But, a serious immersion in the setting may be difficult without adjustments to the party's abilities.

[Pharier]

Yeah I'm definately planning on adjusting the overall abilties of the more magical pc's to be fit in with middle-earth's cosmology. Problem however is doing so without making them too weak in comparison to more combat based classes (i.e barbarians, fighters, rouges etc)

[Indagare]

There's going to be some problems, starting with the Elves, who are much more powerful than most D&D elves, being immortal and having quite a lot of intrinsic natural power. It might be doable, but I might recommend making a setting similar to Middle-Earth.

[The 8th Dwarf]

If you go with the MERP/Rolemaster premise for middle earth and set it in the Second age or early Third Age when magic was much stronger. MERP caters for all the standard FRPG classes it's not for purists but it is a lot of fun.

You can also use the MERP adventures if you can find them and convert them to Pathfinder.

[Fake Healer]

Pharier wrote:

Yeah I'm definately planning on adjusting the overall abilties of the more magical pc's to be fit in with middle-earth's cosmology. Problem however is doing so without making them too weak in comparison to more combat based classes (i.e barbarians, fighters, rouges etc)

Do it as an E6 game.....level cap at 6, bonus feats every "level" after.