But what main character in LOTR was a Loremaster?? I never saw any of the Fellowship summoning ravens. That’s the problem.
I’m not sure there’s a very interesting “class” breakdown in the Fellowship anyway. Wizard, dwarf warrior, elf ranger, human ranger, human warrior, hobbit amateur, hobbit amateur, hobbit amateur, hobbit amateur (not even a burglar, as Bilbo stayed home). If you allow that Gandalf is basically a god and lorewise you don’t want a lot of Gandalfs running around, it gets even more limited. Which is OK from Tolkien’s point of view as he was writing a book not an RPG ruleset.
I don’t mind that the classes in LOTRO don’t directly correspond to the books, but they still feel pretty bland in terms of game mechanics, at least insofar as I have experienced them. “Game mechanics” are a subtle thing too – a combination of graphical razzle-dazzle, variety from one spell to the next, even a sense of solidity in the clicking/UI feedback. Just as a contrast, my minstrel in LOTRO walks up and casts one tune, then casts some other barely-distinguishable tune, then casts another tune, then maybe he does a Scream or a heroic strike… I dunno, feels a bit bland compared to my WoW druid (roughly same level) who will slap on a Rejuv, nuke with moonfire, root an add, turn into a bear, bash maul maul…
12 levels in and I still haven’t a clue what the actual effect of each minstrel song (apart from the healing one) is. Some debuff/buff combo. I keep having to lean in to read the tooltip text, and then I decide not to bother because the monsters seem to die anyway. You might say, “well, you should pay more attention,” but the point is, in WoW I didn’t have to – I learned the nuances of the spells without any apparent effort. Because they felt different, even starting with the difference between Moonfire vs. Wrath, or Frostbolt vs. Fireball, or Heroic Strike vs. Rend – very very early spells.
Y’know, I fell in love with the WoW warrior class pretty much because they get Charge at like level 4. That is still one of the coolest “spells” I have ever seen in an MMO. Maybe it’s the little things that hook you.