Quote from: estar;1024975No, as far as Lore goes, AiME is replicating what they released for TOR. Just organized a bit differently for example Lake-Town not the Marsh Bell is in the Loremaster Book.

Ah, that's good to hear.  I'll hang on to my TOR stuff but likely (as AiME catches up) start buying the AiME versions in favor of TOR.  I won't rush to replace what I have yet, though.

I think you need the player's book and some kind of record of stats for common monsters, but then you can use TOR setting and adventure books pretty freely with AiME

To take it in another direction for a moment, how amenable is AiME to having the serial numbers filed off and being used as a lower-calorie, lower-magic alternative to the standard 5e smorgasbord?

Quote from: Gorilla_Zod;1025018To take it in another direction for a moment, how amenable is AiME to having the serial numbers filed off and being used as a lower-calorie, lower-magic alternative to the standard 5e smorgasbord?

As someone who's only read, not played AiME, I think the classes and legendary items would cater to this gritty, low-magic mindset quite well. Using the Cultures (races) from AiME is more problematic, since the fluff behind them is very baked-in to the setting.

Quote from: Larsdangly;1025015I think you need the player's book and some kind of record of stats for common monsters, but then you can use TOR setting and adventure books pretty freely with AiME

Yeah I thought that and bought most of the TOR books. But as it turns out monsters (and NPCs) are the one thing that been scattered throughout the supplement. While I don't particularly care for that type of organization, I am impressed with the write up for the more iconic monsters like the Nazgul. They are not killable in the traditional sense although you can (temporarily) defeat them.

Quote from: Gorilla_Zod;1025018To take it in another direction for a moment, how amenable is AiME to having the serial numbers filed off and being used as a lower-calorie, lower-magic alternative to the standard 5e smorgasbord?

Quite good just keep in mind that the Shadow mechanic pops enough that you will have to think about how to handle it. Very similar to how insanity works in Call of Cthulu. It possible to run a CoC campaign for a lot of sessions without encountering anything that involves insanity but obviously the cool stuff that everybody plays the game for goes hand in hand with the insanity mechanics.

For just low fantasy roleplaying, The AiME book alone  suffices although the Loremaster books as value especially for the stripped down Journey rules, the NPCs, and the Monsters. What makes AiME monsters interesting is that they seem slightly overpowered compared to their 5e counterpart.

Above if you ever play, the bow is your friend make sure every member of the party has one.

Quote from: estar;1025059Quite good just keep in mind that the Shadow mechanic pops enough that you will have to think about how to handle it. Very similar to how insanity works in Call of Cthulu. It possible to run a CoC campaign for a lot of sessions without encountering anything that involves insanity but obviously the cool stuff that everybody plays the game for goes hand in hand with the insanity mechanics.

For just low fantasy roleplaying, The AiME book alone  suffices although the Loremaster books as value especially for the stripped down Journey rules, the NPCs, and the Monsters. What makes AiME monsters interesting is that they seem slightly overpowered compared to their 5e counterpart.

Above if you ever play, the bow is your friend make sure every member of the party has one.

Cheers man, you've sold me on the idea. My campaign world has something that I think I can kitbash into the Shadow role. Thanks again.

Quote from: estar;1025059What makes AiME monsters interesting is that they seem slightly overpowered compared to their 5e counterpart.

Great point. I'm gearing up to start a 5e game and I think I'll be subbing-in some of the AiME monsters for variety and challenge. There's also some excellent monster building rules and new abilities listed in the LMG.

I also really like the idea of PC's and monsters being closely matched, but I worry a bit about how its accomplished in AiME: PC's will often find themselves going toe to toe with orcs 'n such having ~20 hp, where most people hit a foe ~30-40 % of the time, and on average do ~7-8 points of damage, meaning you are typically going to spend 8-9 rounds cutting one down to size. I feel like combat could drag. The systems I've had a lot of fun with for Middle Earth campaigns have combat systems that are pretty lethal and fast playing: The Fantasy Trip, low-level 1E AD&D, or low-point-total GURPS.

I keep seeing "TOR" and thinking y'all are talking about science fiction novels.