Thoughts on The Beorning

Beorn, the Skinchanger from The Hobbit is an iconic character. His descendants are known as stout men who hold the passes against the forces of darkness in the years between the death of Smaug and the beginning of The Lord of the Rings.

I have to say that Turbine got this one right the first time with only minor 'tweaking' needed. The character is interesting to play has a different beginning. Although I feel that beginning is definitely a bit too short and doesn't explore the region or the history of the Beornings enough. In addition the character has a unique niche that no other character quite fills.

The character has been slightly nerfed since its introduction. New Beornings definitely have a slightly harder time of it than my first Beorning that made it past level sixty before being defeated. However it is still a viable alternative for group or solo play. It is well worth the Turbine points to purchase the character.

The look of the character matches the story well. The only down side is that he has no ranged weapon. Since Beorn provided the dwarves with bows and arrows and he was unlikely to make them for their pretty decoration nor would he have give orcish weapons he captured as a gift it is safe to assume that he used them at least on occasion. It would have been a nice character to introduce the idea of being able to use javelins or bows. There is no mechanical reason for a character to be unable to use either it is purely a game 'balance' issue.

All in all the character is one of the better things to come out of Turbine in a long time. It is a shame that it is coming so late in the game's history. It fits the setting far better than the Rune Keeper (which even the developer admitted had no place). It also has a better background story than the Warden (which is an excellent character role by the way). The story he is inspired by Haldir is risible on its face. That is truly sad because an 'Elven Spearman' is an excellent fit for the character and setting. Instead of trying to fit it into the setting organically they threw the first backstory they could come up with to hide the fact that the Warden was a direct response to The 300.

Coming Next: A look at the best Tolkien Fan Fiction you never realized was fan fiction and we'll talk about some actual pencil and dice roll playing over Roll 20.