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First I'd assume that LotR was an E6 world; which means that the Witch-King of Angmar would start as a 6th level character, with an undead template added on and some extra feats. He seems to wear medium or heavy armor and cast spells which implies either divine or occult casting. In backstory Sauron gave him a ring which boosted his powers - perhaps an Occultist with access to a special implement?
I would make him a mythic war priest. I would toss a template on him to represent how he has been twisted into a wraith.
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I'd say Arcane caster. He doesn't draw his power from his implements, his presence is innately powerful. I'd probably GM-push him into a modified Magus, or maybe Bloodrager with the Undead or Destined bloodlines. Maybe a Steelblooded Bloodrager, since he has a sort of supernatural power and aura of fear to him. He could be a Primalist and have the spirit totems. He's a minor caster at best, but I could see him having things like Chill Touch, Ear-Piercing Scream, Frostbite, Protection from Good, and/or Magic Weapon. He's got a template, of course. It would probably be a custom template halfway between a Graveknight and a Ghost. He might also have Craft Magic Weapons and Armor, since he had to get a hold of the Morgul blade somehow.
As for stats, it's probably STR=CHA>INT=DEX>WIS. He's frightening, yet still powerful and charismatic. Since he's LOTR nobility, his charisma and strength can't actually be bad. However, he demonstrated enough weakness to the ring to be controlled entirely. He might not actually have bad wisdom, but the only way we can really measure (will saves, social interactions) are sadly lacking. Actually, Gandalf does send a beam of light his way once, which he retreats from, and he fails to recognize the now-obvious flaw in "no living man may hinder me", so maybe the low wisdom would be justified? He's probably middle-of-the-road in DEX and INT. He never demonstrates either amazing or poor dexterity or regular intelligence.
Steelbound bloodrager. That is interesting.
The LotR universe is vastly different from anything in Paizo, I don't think anyone casts any spell as devastating as a fireball in the entire saga. That said, their magic is powerful, just not so flashy.
Since their world was literally sung into being, maybe use Words of Power spell-casting?
I feel like his casting ability wouldn't be super high (you could even imagine him as a 4/9 caster, like an evil Paladin) but he'd have some pretty impressive magic items. Every Morgul Blade is probably a minor Artifact, and if that's the case the Witch King's weapon would be a Major Artifact. And obviously the rings of power are Major artifacts, they're the most powerful objects in the history of the world (... well, maybe the Silmarils).
Actually thinking about it, Evil Paladin works pretty well: Some spell-casting, Aura abilities, Unbeatable in combat vs certain allignment (mostly), special mount... fits the bill
Really though I think a lot of his power comes from magic items (His ring changed his race from Human to Wraith, for example).
Edit: Lol best answer Sah
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DR 20/Women.
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There are several templates in progress and finished for the Nazgul. The best source of conversion is from the grand old MERP games. The Witch King is the foremost sorcerer in Middle Earth other then Sauron. He also has lived for 6000 years, is from the original human kingdom of Numenor before the gods of Middle Earth sank it, and is pretty much unkillable other then by non-humans and human females. So he can take damage all day, but you can't kill him unless you're a women or an elf, etc. Remember, he was drowned along with all of the other Nazgul by Elrond when they called the river down on them, and had to go back to Sauron to get a new body.
Figure probably a 20th level gestalt fighter/arcanist/mythic 5 archmage/5 whatever the fighter mythic is with a specialization in necromantic, fire, and shadow/darkness magic. You also have the fact that the Nazguul are impervious to most weapons other then those blessed by the First Elves (so we're talking at least DR/good or epic and good/women in the case of the Witch King), inspired massive fear in most who faced them, could eventually cause illness and death via their Black Breath (energy drain or Con drain breath weapon, fear auras, etc), and were in both the spirit realm and the normal realm at the same time. So perhaps a half-corporeal state, where they take no damage from mortal weapons or attacks, and only 75% damage from magic or magical weapons. Plus the usual undead immunities and a fair amount of boosts to physical and mental stats. The amount depends on the template, but probably higher then lich bonuses.
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DR 20/Women.Hah. Except that Merry, a male halfling (probably Rogue, Commoner, or Aristocrat) manages to shank his leg with an Angmar-people bane blade. So maybe more like DR 20/Not-humans... or maybe just DR 20/GM Fiat? Or perhaps it's more like +4 AC vs men?
DR ∞/dramatic irony
For all of you LOTR fans out there. How would you build the Witch King with Pathfinder mechanics?
You can't just build the character...the setting also needs to reflect it. The Witch King built even as a level 20 undead ghost necromancer for the chassis. would still be just a threat of the Week in a world like Golarion or the Forgotten Realms.
The thing is in LOTR itself, the Witch King lives and essentially dies as a story character, not really through wargaming rules.
On a basic level, probably a Wight with Dual-Cursed Lunar Oracle and a level of Undead Blood Conduit Bloodrager.
For combat, powerful Favor buffing; Bloodrage with fatigue immunity and auto-shaken on a charge; Prophetic Armor to use Charisma for AC with mithral medium armor.
For spellcasting, Quickened Ill Omen to roll over opposition in melee or break enemy saves; Persistent Aura of Doom; Persistent Instrument of Agony; Touch of the Moon to add Confusion to Inflict spells; Haunted curse for bonus spells.
You might have to build him (it?) as a monster, not an NPC or PC.
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Good Lord, folks, since Pathfinder only really emulates PF/D&D fantasy and doesn't emulate 90+% of published fantasy fiction without modification, can we just assume that when people ask for these kinds of conversions what they mean is "how would you build a character X-inspired character in Pathfinder?"
Trying to match power levels & spells is an auto-fail. EVERY setting has different assumptions. You may be able to get close -- which is the point -- but PF is its own thing.
I would build with Witch King as a high level magus. Heavy armor, full martial proficiency, and significant arcane knowledge.
Depending on desired power level, perhaps add mythic.
In a really high level campaign with mythic, you could even build him as an armored wizard archmage/guardian.
I would go Cavalier 1/Charisma-based Witch 10/Eldritch Knight 10 with bonus hexes granted at the "dead" levels and stacking with witch stuff instead of wizard stuff. Also tack on some undead goodness. Maybe some Mythic Stuff I'm unfamiliar with....
DR 20/Women.Hah. Except that Merry, a male halfling (probably Rogue, Commoner, or Aristocrat) manages to shank his leg with an Angmar-people bane blade. So maybe more like DR 20/Not-humans... or maybe just DR 20/GM Fiat? Or perhaps it's more like +4 AC vs men?
Technically speaking... Merry was not a Man.
That's the thing with literally worded immunities.
In a LOTR setting the Witch King doesn't have to be a mythic mega-monster. He's an incorporeal being who can wear solid armor. His nature means that he simply laughs at mortal weapons... while driving to fear their wielders.
So instead of first thinking about class levels, think about attributes.
1. Incorporeal, and when not wearing armor, effectively naturally invisible, save to Ring Wearers. Ghost with ghost touch weapons and armor.
2. He's clearly martially inclined.
3. He can summon up an infernal mount, either a ghostly horse or a huge drake like thing that can grab men off of parapets and drop them to their doom.
4. And of course untouchable by any mortal Man.
5. can be balked but not slain by elemental forces.
With a package like that you really don't need much in class stat
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I was mainly going for how to get the closest feel as a possible pc.
Divine classes fit the feel of magic in LOTR better than arcane, and they cross the martial/caster divide with spells and powers. I can't imagine a better spell list for a 'Witch King' PC than a Dual Cursed Oracle - heavy combat buffs, brutal curses, fear.
Angmarim Witch-Warrior
Undead Bloodline Bloodrager 1/ Dual-Cursed Lunar Oracle 10
Dual-Talent Human: 16/18STR+, 7DEX, 14CON, 10INT, 12WIS, 15/17+CHA
Traits/Drawback: Fate's Favored, Magical Knack, Wayang Spellhunter: Ill Omen / Power-Hungry
1B. *Bloodrage: Undead* / *Fast Movement* / Noble Scion: of War
2O. *Curses: +Lame/-Haunted* / *Revelation: Prophetic Armor*
3O. Power Attack
4O. *Revelation: Eye of the Moon*
5O. Extra Rage
6O. *Fatigue Immunity*
7O. Weapon Focus: Greatsword
8O. *Revelation: Primal Companion*
9O. Quicken Spell
10O.
11O. *Revelation: Mantle of Moonlight* / Extra Revelation: Touch of the Moon
Equipment: Furious, Cruel Greatsword; Mithral Breastplate; Belt of Strength; Headband of Charisma.
Melee: In melee combat, Divine Favor, Fate's Favored, Rage and a Furious greatsword to deal brutal Power Attack damage with good accuracy; fatigue immunity means Rage can be turned on and off at will. Charging inflicts the shaken condition with the Undead Bloodline. Prophetic Armor and mithral medium armor combines for a very strong base AC. Misfortune, Quickened Ill Omen, Aura of Doom and a Cruel weapon badly cripple enemy attacks. Assorted potential defensive buffs like Ironskin can also contribute.
Magic: Misfortune, Quickened Ill Omen and Aura of Doom badly cripple saving throws. Touch of the Moon causes Mass Inflict Light Wounds to apply 5 rounds of Confusion against all targets with a DC of 1/2level+CHA. Pre-cast Instrument of Agony can inflict nausea. Mantle of Moonlight throws casters into Rage without any hope of a save.
Other features include Primal Companion granting a beastial mount that can be trained to use Air Walk, Eye of the Moon granting 60ft Darkvision, and Noble Scion of War basing initiative rolls off of charisma.
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It's easy to go nuts and throw 20 class levels at anything that moves. That's also a good way to model a being that would destroy all of Middle-Earth during the next commercial break. You need to remember that low-level hobbits need to be able to last a few rounds' worth of its attacks.
The approach I take is to look at what he can actually do, then aim for the minimum CR that allows you to do those things. If the being/character in question had more powerful abilities, one would expect those to have been used, after all.
So, the witch-king is incorporeal, has heavy armor, has a morghul blade, rides a monster, and can't be easily hurt except by hobbits and chicks. Take a shadow or wraith straight out of the Bestiary, give it ghost touch weapons and armor (and maybe poison for the weapon, to simulate the lingering effects), and buy it a wyvern, which it'll be able to ride if we swap out some skill points for Ride and/or Handle Animal. He already has an unnatural aura, and if that's not enough, we can give him ranks in Intimidate. And you can't affect him except with magic weapons, and even then he takes half damage -- that's essentially immunity from being killed, except it can be bypassed a lot more easily than in Pathfinder. The Witch-King need not be much higher than CR 6 (a wraith's CR 5 + 1 for PC gear).
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I was mainly going for how to get the closest feel as a possible pc.Divine classes fit the feel of magic in LOTR better than arcane, and they cross the martial/caster divide with spells and powers. I can't imagine a better spell list for a 'Witch King' PC than a Dual Cursed Oracle - heavy combat buffs, brutal curses, fear.
Angmarim Witch-Warrior
Undead Bloodline Bloodrager 1/ Dual-Cursed Lunar Oracle 10
Dual-Talent Human: 16/18STR+, 7DEX, 14CON, 10INT, 12WIS, 15/17+CHA
Traits/Drawback: Fate's Favored, Magical Knack, Wayang Spellhunter: Ill Omen / Power-Hungry1B. *Bloodrage: Undead* / *Fast Movement* / Noble Scion: of War
2O. *Curses: +Lame/-Haunted* / *Revelation: Prophetic Armor*
3O. Power Attack
4O. *Revelation: Eye of the Moon*
5O. Extra Rage
6O. *Fatigue Immunity*
7O. Weapon Focus: Greatsword
8O. *Revelation: Primal Companion*
9O. Quicken Spell
10O.
11O. *Revelation: Mantle of Moonlight* / Extra Revelation: Touch of the MoonEquipment: Furious, Cruel Greatsword; Mithral Breastplate; Belt of Strength; Headband of Charisma.
Melee: In melee combat, Divine Favor, Fate's Favored, Rage and a Furious greatsword to deal brutal Power Attack damage with good accuracy; fatigue immunity means Rage can be turned on and off at will. Charging inflicts the shaken condition with the Undead Bloodline. Prophetic Armor and mithral medium armor combines for a very strong base AC. Misfortune, Quickened Ill Omen, Aura of Doom and a Cruel weapon badly cripple enemy attacks. Assorted potential defensive buffs like Ironskin can also contribute.
Magic: Misfortune, Quickened Ill Omen and Aura of Doom badly cripple saving throws. Touch of the Moon causes Mass Inflict Light Wounds to apply 5 rounds of Confusion against all targets with a DC of 1/2level+CHA. Pre-cast Instrument of Agony can inflict nausea. Mantle of Moonlight throws casters into Rage without any hope of a save.
Other features include Primal Companion granting a beastial mount that can be...
Interesting. I wonder how metal oracle or warpriest could work as well. Is there a way t get a mount via those paths?
You can always just get a mount through Animal Ally, though it's less efficient.
Metal Oracle could work, though it can't really compare with Lunar revelations like Prophetic Armor, Touch of the Moon and Primal Companion. Lunar is both absurdly powerful and very thematic.
Warpriest can do plenty of powerful things in combat, but it's got nothing that comes close to the spellcasting power of a Dual-Cursed Oracle. Quickened Ill Omen and Misfortune let you brutally curse a target's d20 rolls with swift or immediate actions, and neither allows a save. Enemy makes a good roll to save? Misfortune. Advancing on a dangerous target with your Aura of Doom running? Quickened Ill Omen to cripple their save vs the Aura and also their next attack(s) against you. Or maybe instead your ally throws a Spell against their crippled save. Dual-Cursed raises cursing to an art.
If your sticking-point is heavy armor, you can just take the proficiency on a lame curse Bloodrager/Oracle and wear mithral plate to maximize the Prophetic Armor AC bonus; by 11 you no longer have any movement penalty. The only reason I didn't put heavy armor into that build is that with Prophetic Armor, medium mithral is better than what most normal plate wearers get and heavy mithral only ends up being one point more AC.
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Graveknight seems to fit reasonably well in an E6 world. Maybe a level 5-6 antipaladin.
Gives 4 bonus feats. Racial +8 intimidate/perception/ride.
It even gets
One day after a graveknight is destroyed, its armor begins to rebuild the undead horror's body. This process takes 1d10 days—if the body is destroyed before that time passes, the armor merely starts the process anew. After this time has elapsed, the graveknight wakens fully healed.
which seems to fit. Maybe say that Sauron has a piece of his armor for him to regen with.
Also -
Once per hour, a graveknight can summon a skeletal horse similar to a phantom steed. This mount is more real than a typical phantom steed, and can carry one additional rider. The mount's powers are based on the graveknight's total Hit Dice rather than caster level. A graveknight's mount looks distinctive and always appears the same each time it is summoned. If the mount is destroyed, it can be summoned again with full hit points 1 hour later.
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If your sticking-point is heavy armor, you can just take the proficiency on a lame curse Bloodrager/Oracle and wear mithral plate to maximize the Prophetic Armor AC bonus; by 11 you no longer have any movement penalty. The only reason I didn't put heavy armor into that build is that with Prophetic Armor, medium mithral is better than what most normal plate wearers get and heavy mithral only ends up being one point more AC.
Makes sense. I was kind of wanting lead blades or something else to replicate a giant flail, but that build looks awesome.
Doing TWF with an Effortless Lace heavy flail and a longsword would be pretty awesome flavor, but mechanically it's... challenging. With a good set of rolled stats or some really stretched point-buy a Dual-Cursed Warsighted Oracle with a level of Unchained Barbarian could pull it off using their bonus versatile combat feats, but it would be kind of messy and probably not as good as just swinging a greatsword.
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Doing TWF with an Effortless Lace heavy flail and a longsword would be pretty awesome flavor, but mechanically it's... challenging. With a good set of rolled stats or some really stretched point-buy a Dual-Cursed Warsighted Oracle with a level of Unchained Barbarian could pull it off using their bonus versatile combat feats, but it would be kind of messy and probably not as good as just swinging a greatsword.
I get that. I was thinking of skipping the twf and just go with a heavy flail.
DR 20/Women.Hah. Except that Merry, a male halfling (probably Rogue, Commoner, or Aristocrat) manages to shank his leg with an Angmar-people bane blade. So maybe more like DR 20/Not-humans... or maybe just DR 20/GM Fiat? Or perhaps it's more like +4 AC vs men?Technically speaking... Merry was not a Man.
That's the thing with literally worded immunities.
Also, Merry was a Herald Squire Cavalier of the Shield! (Probably with one Mythic tier too, since he drank the Ents' water!)
For the Witch King, I'd go with Antipaladin/Necromancer/Eldritch Knight, without forgetting his fiendish pteranodon bonded servant.
Now I need to find out what animal companion to use. I would like something similar to a flying fell beast, but the lunar companion options are so limited
I wouldn't bother making it a bonded mount. Just stat up a suitable critter and simply put them together. Technically the mounts are granted by Sauron, not by any class feature.
The key thing is you're not creating a character to level, but a boss to encounter. Essentially the best way to do this is to create a creature and call it Ringwraith Lord.
Now I need to find out what animal companion to use. I would like something similar to a flying fell beast, but the lunar companion options are so limited
Yeah, they are unfortunately. Training a companion to Air Walk is a very simple solution to the 'flying' problem at least; an airwalking wolf or tiger is pretty sweet, but not really a flying lizard-thing.
I wouldn't bother making it a bonded mount. Just stat up a suitable critter and simply put them together. Technically the mounts are granted by Sauron, not by any class feature.
Yup. Mordor had a near limitless supply of Fell Beasts (winged things) and Dread Horses for the nazgul to use as needed.
As a side note I am surprised no one mentions their weakness to the King of Gondor in particular? Aragorn fought off all 9 ringwraiths on Weathertop basically by himself with nothing more than a normal blade and a torch and the Nazgul were scared of HIM.
While it was SAID that no man could slay them I think that was more a remark about their immense durability to mortal weaponry as opposed to a literal power.
They were weak to flowing water, regular fire, the hereditary king of Gondor and certain magic blades being stabbed into their 'face'.
I am certain that the Witch King would have reformed after Eowin's blow, in time, were it not for the destruction of the One Ring unmaking all that had been bound to it.
The witch king had weaknesses but the only way to permanently destroy the Nazgul were to destroy the one ring.
As a side note I am surprised no one mentions their weakness to the King of Gondor in particular? Aragorn fought off all 9 ringwraiths on Weathertop basically by himself with nothing more than a normal blade and a torch and the Nazgul were scared of HIM.
Aragorn was basically able to do a hold a cross/mirror to the vampire trick to them because of their abhorrance to natural forces. However he wasn't able to damage them at all. While an inconvenience when alone, this would not stop them from commanding armies.
Aragorn was basically able to do a hold a cross/mirror to the vampire trick to them because of their abhorrance to natural forces. However he wasn't able to damage them at all. While an inconvenience when alone, this would not stop them from commanding armies.
As a side note I am surprised no one mentions their weakness to the King of Gondor in particular? Aragorn fought off all 9 ringwraiths on Weathertop basically by himself with nothing more than a normal blade and a torch and the Nazgul were scared of HIM.
Yeah if I remember correctly (it has been a while folks) it was way different in the books. The wraiths were more like shadows on Weathertop, and couldn't enter the light. It was the fire, rather than Aragorn that held them off.
Aragorn obviously had a high Knowledge:Religion.