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As I was reading through the cultures in the 2e pdf, I noticed a few things that were odd and stood out to me. Here are my thoughts; forgive me if this rambles a bit.

Attributes
Every culture's attribute spread adds up to 14, nothing lower than 2 and nothing higher than 7. This is fine, I'm just not sure it had to be presented in the format where you have to pick from a set of pre-determined options. Why limit the range of possible combinations?

Derived stats
The bonuses for each culture add up to 40.
Bardings: End STR +20, Hope HRT +8, Parry WITS +12
Dwarves of Durin: End STR +22, Hope HRT +8, Parry WITS +10
Elves of Lindon: End STR +20, Hope HRT +8, Parry WITS +12
Hobbits: End STR +18, Hope HRT +10, Parry WITS +12
Breelander: get End STR +20, Hope HRT +10, Parry Wits +10
Rangers: End STR +20, Hope HRT +6, Parry WITS +14

Skills:
Bardings get 21 ranks (favored Valor rolls)
Dwarves of Durin get 19 ranks (Half load on armor, restrictions on weapons and armor)
Elves of Lindon get 18 ranks (1 hope for a magical success, harder to get rid of Shadow points)
Hobbits get 18 ranks (favored Wisdom rolls, +1d to resist greed, restrictions on weapons and armor)
Breelander get 21 ranks (Fellowship rating +1)
Rangers get 20 ranks (+1 to attribute, half hope recovery)

Lets take Breelander as standard human. Makes sense since they are not Dunedain, just 'middle-men' as Tolkein would say. That means +20, +10, +10 is the baseline and that 21 ranks plus 1 cultural blessing is base for skills and such.

Bardings trade parry for hope to represent their more martial prowess which is ok. They get 21 ranks and a cultural blessing.

Dwarves trade hope for endurance, which is ok. They lose 2 ranks for a strong blessing and no downside (besides limited weapons and armor).

Rangers trade hope for parry twice which really doesn't make sense at all. The rangers are the last remnants of Arnor, they are literally keeping the flame of hope for the Numenoreans alive in Eriador. They are skilled in battle yes, but they are much more experienced in woodcraft and survival and such like that. They should trade parry for hope. They lose 1 rank for a very strong blessing and a downside.

Elves and hobbits get shafted. Elves trade hope for parry which is a tad weird but probably makes the most sense, but it does leave them with the same spread as Bardings. They trade 3 ranks for a strong blessing and a downside. That's more than anyone and makes the comparison to Bardings even more lopsided.

Hobbits trade endurance for parry for some reason. They should trade parry for hope since hobbits aren't martial at all. They trade 3 ranks in skills for a blessing like Bardings get and nothing else. The blessing isn't strong enough to warrant the decrease in ranks.

Suggestions:
Rangers should have End STR +20, Hope HRT +8, Parry WITS +12, like elves and Bardings. Their +1 to an attribute helps define them more than the derived stats.

Elves should have at least 1 more rank of skills. I could also see giving them a 42 point spread of derived attributes to show their heritage as the first-born of Iluvatar. That would give them End STR +20, Hope HRT +10 and Parry WITS +12. With that and their strong blessing, I could see 19 ranks of skills.

Hobbits should have End STR +20, Hope HRT +12, Parry WITS +8. They should have 2 or 3 more ranks in skills since their blessing is almost exactly the same as the Bardings.

What do you all think?

I'm sure it would work, but it would be a six/half dozen thing for me. I've spent less than twenty hours running a campaign, so I have no idea how important that really is. My campaign is primarily narrative with less, but more poignant, combat. In a world of finite time and energy, I won't worry about this.

However, kudos to you for bringing this up! It is good to see that someone has spent the time and energy to look into this. We can each do what we will with the information.

Absolutely! For some folks it won't matter and that's totally fine. I enjoy the crunch and how the mechanical systems can inform the setting and lore.

Interesting analysis!

A similar point was raised in the Alpha on skills, and at the time I pointed out that the skills were better thought of as "cost to buy total ranks" rather than simply adding the ranks. I think the cost of each culture's skills sums to 29 (I've just checked Bardings and Elves, easy to check the others). Elves have concentrated on higher ranks in fewer skills, Bardings are spread more widely but have lower ranks.

Hope + Endurance + Parry: can see debate around these, especially as many will feel these aren't equivalent in value. Can be looked at as being part of broader overall balance, but also like that TOR is in part about reflecting the setting rather than focusing on balance.

Oh that's an interesting point; I hadn't thought of checking the skills as cost to buy rather than just ranks. I still think that giving elves a buff on the derived stats is worthwhile because they really need something to mark them as different than humans.

A common problem in Middle-earth games is how to make elves feel true to the setting without breaking the game. As written, Tolkien's elves are pretty awesome. They recover from disease and injury faster than humans, they age slower and are functionally immortal, they don't need to sleep, they see farther and hear better, they are more skilled and talented, they have quasi-magical abilities, etc... So it's difficult to make elves that feel like that but aren't totally unbalanced.

In this case, I think giving them 42 point base on derived stats instead of the 40 is a nice way to do that.

Can sympathise there, and glad the different way of looking at things helped.

Have you checked out the High Elves of Rivendell? Their extra attribute point might be what you're after, and has a knock on small effect on Endurance/Parry/Hope.

The Elven Cultural blessing helps with a lot of the magic/great feats you're after, as do the Elven (and High Elven) virtues. They're largely mechanically strong and very flavourful.

Can sympathise there, and glad the different way of looking at things helped.

Have you checked out the High Elves of Rivendell? Their extra attribute point might be what you're after, and has a knock on small effect on Endurance/Parry/Hope.

The Elven Cultural blessing helps with a lot of the magic/great feats you're after, as do the Elven (and High Elven) virtues. They're largely mechanically strong and very flavourful.

The extra attribute point is good, but it's what the Rangers get and I was trying to find a different lever to tweak. Also, the elves of Lindon are a mix of Noldor and Sindarin elves, so they should also have the same benefits as the elves of Rivendell.

The main difference between kinds of elves in Middle-Earth is whether or not they have been to Aman, the Blessed Lands. Many of the elves of Lindon have, and those that haven't at least travelled with the Maiar for a time on the great journey. So there really shouldn't be a difference between the elves of Lindon and Rivendell; they are both 'high elves' in that sense. I can see the elves of Rivendell having access to different virtues and things like that to represent their different cultural focus, but at the level of base attributes they should be more alike than different to the Lindon elves.

In 1e the primary elf culture were Mirkwood elves which were primarily Silvan and Sindarin elves. These elves had never been to Aman and only some of them had travelled with Orome, so it made sense that they would be closer to humans in natural gifts. But the Lindon elves are the remnant of the Noldorin nation of Beleriand. The beauty of the Blessed Lands is part of their heritage. I don't see that reflected in their game mechanics.

In 1e the primary elf culture were Mirkwood elves which were primarily Silvan and Sindarin elves. These elves had never been to Aman and only some of them had travelled with Orome, so it made sense that they would be closer to humans in natural gifts. But the Lindon elves are the remnant of the Noldorin nation of Beleriand. The beauty of the Blessed Lands is part of their heritage. I don't see that reflected in their game mechanics.

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Perhaps the Elves of Lindon are predominantly Sindarin who have never seen the Undying Lands. Noldorin Elves might be a minority as many (if not most) of them have already sailed back into the West.

I’m not really convinced that the Lindon elves are mainly Sindarin. They are the remnants of Beleriand and without further information about the land itself from within the game, I think that they are probably more of a mix between Noldor and Sindar. But that’s definitely open for debate.

Even Sindarin elves are endowed with a certain level of grace, more so that Silvan elves. Sindarin elves saw and traveled with Orome and were at least taught by the Noldor so they know the beauty of Aman in that way. I think that needs to be given space in the rules for them.

I read the Elves of Lindon as Sindar in the Core Rulebook, given the section on the languages relative to the High Elf characters. And indeed the broader description of the culture relative to the High Elves of Rivendell and things like referring to some ancestors using Axes. Plus the "High" distinction. Noldor from Lindon = use High Elf of Rivendell rules? I quite like the distinction and find it fun/useful as it gives us mechanics for Elves closer to the mighty Noldor of Legend (due to their strong Cultural Blessing, offsetting drawback and their special Cultural Virtues).

Every culture's attribute spread adds up to 14, nothing lower than 2 and nothing higher than 7. This is fine, I'm just not sure it had to be presented in the format where you have to pick from a set of pre-determined options. Why limit the range of possible combinations?

I didn't touch on this in my first post, sorry!

I think this helps reinforce the setting: A Ranger or Elf can have a very high Body score (especially if they add their Cultural blessing to it), as can a Dwarf. But a Hobbit caps out at Body 4. But you've still got some flexibility to "play against type" and make a Hobbit warrior: maybe you take Prowess (Body) to lower the TN on your attacks, then Keen + Fell on your Bow plus Sure at the Mark (Favoured ranged attack rolls) and try to generate as many Piercing Blows as possible.

By fixing these ranges, the designers also know the range for Wits/Parry/Hope for each culture. The ranges would be wider if Attribute points were freely allocated.