[Iron Heroes] Magic oddities.

Comparing two level 17 arcanists, just to see how silly it gets...

For check DC of 20 (ie 50% chance of success, since it takes Mastery 10) the Conjurer can summon up an Ancient White dragon (or an Old Gold dragon) that sticks around to obey his every command for over an hour and a half. If he fails, nothing happens. (If he rolls a 1 on his channelling check, yon Dragon comes forth misshapen and tries to eat him.)

Our hapless Evoker, for the same DC, can make a single 30' cone of
cold for 3d6 damage. Alternately, he could do an Unerring
blast of fire damage for 2d6 damage, no save, anywhere in line of
sight. If he fails, he burns his own ass. (On a 1, he gets no save
against the damage, which is admittedly an advantage over the
Conjurer's situation in that unfortunate case.)
--

Now, obviously the magic system isn't the core of IH. But still... that these issues irk me. (Another one is that the only reason to ever use "Normal Attack" in an evocation is if you lack the mastery to use a Ray, since m

So I'm looking at three options.

• Tweak the system a fair bit.
• Replace with something close enough to avoid having to dump the Arcanist in it's entirety in order to make it fit (one of the guys I've been discussing this with is thinking of grabbing the Black Company system for this purpose; does this seem feasible to those of you who have used it?)
• Some combination of the above.

I'm leaning towards tweaking at the moment, but in order to do it right I first need to identify all the warts. So if anyone else has spotted any, feel free to rant here.

Doubling the amount of mana for each die of damage is really stupid IMO. It's especially so when you consider there's a built-in damage cap (your mastery rating) already in place.

At least at low levels, the Black Company magic system is best described as "punitive." As in, the game seems to want to punish you for having the gall to be a spellcaster. The kinds of magical effects that you can call forth are laughably weak and devastatingly draining. I've never played such a character - I just built one at 3rd level for a play by post game that never got off the ground. Correspondingly I also don't know how they fare at higher levels - but more powerful wizards suffer correspondingly more damaging costs.

Haven

What can be conjured is up to the whim of the DM (one of Montes key issues with D&D), I would look at CR as much as HD as the DM. ANd there would be no DRagon conjuring.

All in all I think in Iron heroes the fighters are supposed to do the killing, magic is for accomplishing what fighting can't. There will be no blaster mages, but enchantment, illusion, conjuration and transmutation masters can still do plenty of stuff.

Remember with no magic items there are tons of things that you take for granted in standard D&D that most classes just can't do in Iron heroes.

Like flying, breathing water, surviving poison or strong elemental damage, healing during combat, turning invisible and so on. Magic will often be reserved for situations where it is absolutely needed.

Anyways the Arcanist is a far better combatant than a D&D Wizard or Sorcerer. Better BAB, unlimited supply of a reasonable ranged attack (that bypasses DR or armor), tons of skills and feats.

You can make an archmage whose presence may be enough to scare his enemy away (Overwhelming presence) or a Tumbling Sneak attacking master of Eldritch darts (Tumble+Precise shot).

There are lots of options, try them out before trying to turn everything back into D&D without magic items.

Evocation in Iron Heroes

I read it like this. Uses some of the Errata

Evocation Mastery 10

1 point per 1d6 points of damage

10d6 = 10 points of mana

double mana to determine DC to cast spell

DC = 5 + (10*2) = 25 (int no longer adds to DC)

To cast spell roll 1d20 + 10 (eldritch mastery), so 15 and higher he can cast spell.

I would probably houserule in adding int bonus to cast a spell check.

yipwyg said:

I read it like this. Uses some of the Errata

Evocation Mastery 10

1 point per 1d6 points of damage

10d6 = 10 points of mana

double mana to determine DC to cast spell

DC = 5 + (10*2) = 25 (int no longer adds to DC)

To cast spell roll 1d20 + 10 (eldritch mastery), so 15 and higher he can cast spell.

I would probably houserule in adding int bonus to cast a spell check.

Click to expand...

That's just the base. The area of effect and type of damage will add mana and DC as well.

oops found out what I posted is an error

monboeson said:

What can be conjured is up to the whim of the DM (one of Montes key issues with D&D), I would look at CR as much as HD as the DM. ANd there would be no DRagon conjuring.

All in all I think in Iron heroes the fighters are supposed to do the killing, magic is for accomplishing what fighting can't. There will be no blaster mages, but enchantment, illusion, conjuration and transmutation masters can still do plenty of stuff.

Click to expand...

1) I do not like "whim of the DM" as the balancing factor in the baseline rules; too many sessions in environments without the "DM is Absolute God" meme have rendered it less than adequate.

2) Even accounting for "it's magic," it simply does not make sense that it's fundamentally easier to conjure a fully formed 26hd aberration out of thin air, than to call up a lightning bolt for 1d6 damage. (In fact, traditional lightning bolts are BytheBook impossible - there's no 'line' effect. Touch, ranged touch, cone or spread.)

This is not to say I don't appreciate the general idea, or the book itself. Everything else is either (subjectively) excellent or nearly so, IMO. When I do tweak it, I'll be watching the Evocations to make sure any risk of overshadowing the fighers is kept down. But as written, it's not just 'weaker than the fighters' - it's weaker than just using the Eldritch Dart aspect (thereby making it useless.)

vipwyg said:

I read it like this. Uses some of the Errata
Evocation Mastery 10
1 point per 1d6 points of damage
10d6 = 10 points of mana
double mana to determine DC to cast spell
DC = 5 + (10*2) = 25 (int no longer adds to DC)
To cast spell roll 1d20 + 10 (eldritch mastery), so 15 and higher he can cast spell.

Click to expand...

You forgot energy type and "delivery method" (ie targetting.) Minimum of adding 1 for fire and 1 for either a touch attack or a ray, resulting in a DC of 27.
If you want to go to a cone, you can do 15' for 2 extra mana or 30' for 3... pushing the DC up to 29. Cold damage, plus ray attack: +4 for cold, +1 for ray = dc30.

This compares to a DC 20 check to summon anything (barring DM fiat) with up to 30hd, a DC 25 check to cast Temporal Shell (equivelant to timestop) and have it benefit your entire party, or a dc25 check to enthrall 50 hostile creatures for a day.

I certainly wouldn't say that the arcanist lacks power...

Kaos said:

1) I do not like "whim of the DM" as the balancing factor in the baseline rules; too many sessions in environments without the "DM is Absolute God" meme have rendered it less than adequate.

2) Even accounting for "it's magic," it simply does not make sense that it's fundamentally easier to conjure a fully formed 26hd aberration out of thin air, than to call up a lightning bolt for 1d6 damage. (In fact, traditional lightning bolts are BytheBook impossible - there's no 'line' effect. Touch, ranged touch, cone or spread.)

This is not to say I don't appreciate the general idea, or the book itself. Everything else is either (subjectively) excellent or nearly so, IMO. When I do tweak it, I'll be watching the Evocations to make sure any risk of overshadowing the fighers is kept down. But as written, it's not just 'weaker than the fighters' - it's weaker than just using the Eldritch Dart aspect (thereby making it useless.)



You forgot energy type and "delivery method" (ie targetting.) Minimum of adding 1 for fire and 1 for either a touch attack or a ray, resulting in a DC of 27.
If you want to go to a cone, you can do 15' for 2 extra mana or 30' for 3... pushing the DC up to 29. Cold damage, plus ray attack: +4 for cold, +1 for ray = dc30.

This compares to a DC 20 check to summon anything (barring DM fiat) with up to 30hd, a DC 25 check to cast Temporal Shell (equivelant to timestop) and have it benefit your entire party, or a dc25 check to enthrall 50 hostile creatures for a day.

I certainly wouldn't say that the arcanist lacks power...

Click to expand...

So is anybody else think Mearls didn't want the 'mage as mortar' syndrome. Sure they can't fireball anybody but they can still hurt people.

I too think that Mearls are discouraging blasting mages. Looking at the genre there are few instances of mages throwing around fire balls but there are lots of references to the summoning of demons and contact with higher powers.

NOTE: Examples will contain very small spoilers about Conan, Lord of the Rings, Elric and Song of Ice and Fire.

*Conan - Summoning, ritual magics and binding of the will

*Lord of the Rings - Lots of emotion affecting magic. The fear that Morgoth instilled, Saurons ability to make causes seemed lost, the bravery instilled by one of the elf rings.

*Elric - Haven't read so much Elric (three books) but I have never seen a mage throw fireballs. It's mostly about summonings of creatures.

*Song of Ice and Fire - No direct attack spells (except maybe in one place)