Iron Heroes Player's Companion Previews (Preview 4 added 06/04/07)

Trait Talking

The traditional races of fantasy RPGs were replaced in Iron Heroes by traits: each character gained two of these special abilities in place of the racial abilities gained in other OGL fantasy games.

Iron Heroes provided 36 traits: twelve each from the three categories of Physical, Mental and Background traits. These three dozen traits provided a good breadth of abilities and suited a wide variety of character concepts. However, if you had four to six player characters in your game, then it would only take two or three characters each before some traits would inevitably be re-used.

The Iron Heroes Player's Companion adds 21 new traits; seven for each of the three categories. These traits provide you with more options for your characters both by supporting entirely new character concepts, and by offering new ways to represent an existing idea. For example, if part of your character concept is her dogged tenacity and durability, you might previously have represented this through the "Tough as Iron" or "Resilient Toughness" traits. Now you can choose the "Robust" or "Vitality" traits instead, which offer benefits that also fit this concept, though with very different mechanical effects.

In addition to simply offering more traits, the Player's Companion sets out to integrate these new traits more fully with other parts of the Iron Heroes system. The original 36 traits generally provided stand-alone benefits, or skill-based benefits such as free ranks or a bonus on certain checks. The traits in the Player's Companion provide these sorts of benefits, but they also interact with other system concepts. For instance, the "Child of Omen" trait is the first trait to provide access to a new token pool. Whenever a Child of Omen rolls a '1' on an attack roll or saving throw, she gains an Omen Token which she can use on other rolls at a later time.

Another new way interaction between traits and the wider Iron Heroes system is that some traits now provide bonuses to a character's mastery rating in respect of specific feats. This mechanism adds a new dimension to character creation by allowing a character to focus very strongly on a specific 'key feat' (for instance, it's very useful for a berserker who wants to get access to the best Power Attack or Cleave feats as early as possible), or to shore up an area which fits your character concept but in which your character's class is not as capable as you would like (for instance, a dagger-wielding thief might use it to gain earlier access to Razor Fiend feats).

As the final part of this preview, here's the complete text of the "Reaver" trait, as presented in the Iron Heroes Player's Companion:


REAVER (BACKGROUND)
Raiding and pillaging other communities is a key element of your homeland's culture. You might engage in cattle-raiding expeditions with neighboring clans, for instance, or send out hosts of warriors to prove themselves in months-long sea voyages against other nations. Such raids are not seen as crimes in your homeland, but as a test of strength and ability.

Mechanics: Your people's focus on martial prowess makes them skilled warriors. Choose one weapon. If you would normally have proficiency with this weapon at 1st level, you gain a +1 bonus to attack rolls with this weapon. Otherwise, you gain proficiency with the weapon as a bonus feat. You gain this proficiency even if you do not meet the prerequisites for this feat.

In addition, select one of the following trait abilities.

Golden Horde: Your people are fast-riding horse archers who sweep down on unprepared enemies to carry off their supplies and riches. You gain a +2 bonus to Ride checks. When calculating your eligibility to take Mounted Archery feats, treat your Projectile feat mastery as one higher than it actually is. If you would normally have no access to Projectile feats, you are considered to have a mastery of 1 for the purposes of taking Mounted Archery.

Herd Raider: The warriors of different villages or tribes in your homeland raid each other’s herds of livestock in order to win glory and renown. You gain a +2 bonus to Handle Animal checks and a +2 bonus on Survival checks made to follow tracks.

Sea Wolf: Your people are expert naval raiders, ranging far and wide in search of booty and fame. You gain 4 ranks in Profession (sailor) at 1st level and 1 bonus rank in it at each subsequent character level.

Next Preview: Feats

A question: will this see the light of day as a bound supplement?

Only planned for PDF at this time.

Too good.

Update: A preview of the IHPC cover has been posted at Fiery Dragon's website.

Intriguing!

Featuring Feats

One of the most innovative new concepts in Iron Heroes was the feat mastery system. Feats were separated into eight categories, and each class gained access to those categories at different rates. Rather than each being individual abilities, the feats were also organized into mastery chains: to gain access to a feat, you simply needed to have a high enough mastery rating, and the base feat in the chain. This simplified the calculation of pre-requisites for feats, and also encouraged players to focus their character's abilities on specific signature abilities.

If there was any weakness in the feat mastery system, it was that certain categories had fewer feats to choose from. This didn't make those categories weaker, since the individual feats were just as good as those in other categories, but it did mean that characters who had their principal mastery in those categories tended to be less varied than their counterparts. After all, if there are only three feats chains in a category, there's only so many different combinations you can try.

One of the principal objectives with the Iron Heroes Player's Companion was to expand all the feat categories so that player characters would have more options available to them. The Player's Companion adds twelve new feats, as well as providing a revised and updated version of the Unarmed Combat feat mastery previously available as a web enhancement. Some of these feats are available in two or more categories, which means that with the exception of the Projectile category (which gets only one new feat) all feat categories gain two new feat chains from this supplement.

In addition to simply providing more options within each category, particular effort was placed on developing the feat categories in new directions. For instance, the three Armor feats in the Iron Heroes book on enhancing the basic functions of armor and shields: they give you improved DR from your armor, more Defense from your shield, or allow you to shield bash more effectively. In contrast, the two feats in the Player's Companion let you use your armor and shield in new ways. You can use your armored weight to smash your way into battle with the "Juggernaut" feat, or become an unassailable redoubt with the "Wall of Steel" feat.

As another example of this effort, the Iron Heroes Player's Companion introduces two new Tactics feats, both of which grant access and new abilities for use with the Strategy Pool provided by the "War Leader" and "Tactics of the Mind" feats in the original rule book. Tactics-focused characters now have a wealth of new options with which to surprise their opponents. Players will also find lots of new options for the remaining six feat categories.

The final component of this preview is the full text of the revised Unarmed Combat mastery, which is provided below:

UNARMED COMBAT [FINESSE, POWER]
You have trained to fight with punches, kicks, elbows, and the like, so you can engage an armed opponent on equal terms.

Base Mastery: 1
Benefit: You are considered armed even when you do not have a weapon in hand. You do not provoke attacks of opportunity from armed opponents when you attack them while unarmed. However, you still get an attack of opportunity against any opponent who makes an unarmed attack on you unless they also have this feat.

You gain a +2 bonus to your unarmed damage rolls. Your unarmed strikes can deal lethal or nonlethal damage, at your option. Additionally, your unarmed strike becomes either a Power weapon (if you took this feat as a Power feat) or a Finesse weapon (if you took this feat as a Finesse feat). When you wield a weapon with the unarmed descriptor, it gains the same benefits as your unarmed strike.

Normal: Without this feat, you are considered unarmed when attacking with an unarmed strike, and you can deal only nonlethal damage with such an attack.

Special: Note that the benefits for expanded masteries 2, 5, and 8 are identical. They are listed as separate mastery abilities because you can't take the same ability more than once. However, their effects stack with each other, with the base mastery of this feat, and with damage bonuses from Weapon Focus (unarmed strike).

Expanded Mastery: 2. You learn more advanced unarmed combat techniques that allow you to inflict more damage with your unarmed strikes. You gain a +2 bonus on your unarmed strike damage rolls.

You also gain this damage bonus when fighting with weapons that have the unarmed descriptor.

Expanded Mastery: 3. You learn advanced unarmed holds and grapples and are an expert wrestler. You do not provoke an attack of opportunity when you make a touch attack to start a grapple. You also gain a +4 bonus on all grapple checks, regardless of whether you started the grapple.

Expanded Mastery: 4. Your training in unarmed combat techniques gives you excellent poise and coordination, and gives you an advantage when opponents try to knock you off balance. You gain a +4 bonus to all Strength or Dexterity checks made to resist any bull rush, overrun, or trip attack against you.

Expanded Mastery: 5. You learn more advanced unarmed combat techniques that allow you to inflict more damage with your unarmed strikes. You gain a +2 bonus on your unarmed strike damage rolls.

You also gain this damage bonus when fighting with weapons that have the unarmed descriptor.

Expanded Mastery: 6. You can make extremely rapid unarmed strikes. When you use the full attack action with unarmed strikes, you may choose to make one extra attack at your highest attack bonus. However, if you choose to make this extra attack, then each attack you make that round (the extra one and the normal ones) suffers a –2 penalty to the attack roll. The extra attack and penalties stack with those from Two-Weapon Fighting.

Expanded Mastery: 7. Your training in unarmed combat gives you a significant edge when fighting an opponent who does not understand unarmed fighting techniques. If you are fighting an opponent who has no natural weapons and whose unarmed strikes provoke attacks of opportunity, you gain a +1 bonus to Defense and to all attack and damage rolls for your own unarmed strikes. You gain this bonus regardless of whether or not your opponent is fighting unarmed or with a weapon.

Expanded Mastery: 8. You learn more advanced unarmed combat techniques that allow you to inflict more damage with your unarmed strikes. You gain a +2 bonus on your unarmed strike damage rolls.

You also gain this damage bonus when fighting with weapons that have the unarmed descriptor.

Expanded Mastery: 9. You have learned to make a debilitating nerve strike with your unarmed attacks. Whenever you make an unarmed attack, you can choose to attempt such a strike. If you are making more than one attack in a round, you can choose whether or not to make a nerve strike with each attack. When you attempt a nerve strike, you suffer a –4 penalty to your attack roll, but if the attack inflicts damage, your target must make a Fortitude save (DC 10 + half the damage dealt after DR) or become nauseated until the end of its next turn. If you make multiple nerve strikes on a single creature in a given round, it must make a separate saving throw against each nerve strike.

A creature immune to sneak attacks or critical hits is not vulnerable to nerve strikes. You cannot use a nerve strike while striking a creature with concealment or while hitting the limbs of a creature whose vitals are beyond reach.

Expanded Mastery: 10. You can make blindingly fast unarmed strikes. When you use the full attack action with unarmed strikes, you may decide to make two extra attacks at your highest attack bonus. However, if you choose to make these extra attacks, then each attack you make that round (the two extra ones and the normal ones) suffers a –6 penalty to the attack roll.

You cannot use this ability and Unarmed Combat's expanded mastery 6 ability to gain three extra unarmed strikes per round. You either gain one extra attack (and a –2 penalty) or two extra attacks (and a –6 penalty).


Next Preview: New Classes

Class Action

One feature of the Player's Companion that I haven't previously mentioned are Design Companion sidebars. These sidebars are dotted through the text and provide an insight into certain design decisions, suggestions for alternative rules, and commentaries on how implementation of some elements may affect your game. I mention these Design Companions now because I'm about to quote one that appears at the beginning of the Classes chapter:

Design Companion: Token-Based Classes
All three of the classes in this chapter have been designed to make token-based abilities a core element of that class. Tokens are a new mechanic that were introduced in Iron Heroes, and they contribute greatly both to making each class feel unique as well as to making Iron Heroes feel different than other fantasy roleplaying games. A deliberate effort has been made to weight each class's abilities toward such token-based abilities, rather than inherent “x times per day” feats and skills.

Click to expand...

In this preview, I'm going to talk about two of the three new classes mentioned above. I'm leaving the last for next time, because it's the class that makes use of the book's new magic system.

The first new class is the Dedicate. While all warriors understand the need for focus and commitment in combat, these highly skilled combatants hone their mental discipline to an incredible degree. Their defining trait is their combination of both physical training and mental discipline. Followers of real-world tenets such as the Japanese code of bushido, with its emphasis on discipline, honor, and virtue, could readily become dedicates. Dervishes, zealots, and other holy warriors (including that fantasy role-playing staple, the paladin) are also a good fit for the dedicate's focus and abilities.

In game terms, a dedicate's intense mental discipline grants them access to a dedication pool. They can use the tokens from this pool to activate special abilities and maneuvers that represent their exceptional focus, such as making a particularly accurate attack or seeing through an enemy's attempt to throw them off balance. They begin each encounter with a small number of dedication tokens and can gain more by spending actions to mentally focus themselves by use of a Concentration skill check.

Almost a polar opposite to the dedicate is the Myrmidon. Whereas a dedicate hones their mental discipline and focus to achieve a level of battlefield clarity that other warriors lack, the myrmidon thrives on the chaos and confusion of combat. A myrmidon has never met a dirty trick they didn't like. Any of the pragmatic, ruthlessly efficient fighting forces of history could be represented by this class.

Myrmidons gain access to an opportunism pool. Unlike the dedicate, they don't automatically gain tokens at the start of an encounter. Instead, they gain their tokens by threatening enemies who are distracted, thereby giving themselves the opportunity to sink in a blow where it is least expected. A myrmidon's token abilities represent their repertoire of dirty tricks, unorthodox combat techniques, and opportunism. They are adept at tricking opponents into over-committing themselves, or at using a weapon in an unexpected manner.

The final component of this preview is the Dedicate's Class Features and Mastery table:



Next Preview: Magic.

It's a Kind of Magic

The final new class in the Iron Heroes Player's Companion is the Spiritualist. Unlike arcanists, who personally shape magical energy into spells, Spiritualists petition otherworldly powers (demons, angels, ancestral spirits – the exact nature of these powers varies from spiritualist to spiritualist) to provide their magical powers.

Conceptually, this can be seen as similar to the divide between arcane and divine casters in other fantasy roleplaying games. However in those games there are few significant differences in the way arcane spells and divine spells are cast. This is definitely not true of spiritualists.

Creating a magical effect is a two step process for a spiritualist. First they must petition the powers for the raw magical energy they need. This is by no means a certain process. The spirits are often fickle, or have whims and needs unknown to their mortal clients. Sometimes a spiritualist will ask them for aid and receive far less power than she needs. Sometimes she will receive far more than she can use ... and sometimes, her requests will anger those she has called upon.

To gather magical energy, the spiritualist projects her consciousness into another plane of existence where she bargains with the spirits. This bargaining may take many hours of time on the spiritual plane, but in the physical realm, mere seconds have passed – unfortunately, during those few seconds the spiritualist can find herself very vulnerable to her enemies.

Mechanically, this process is represented by a Pact Check. This is a level and Charisma-based check that establishes how much magical energy the spirits are willing to confer. The more the Spiritualists exceeds the DC of the check, the more energy – represented by Pact Tokens – she receives. A spiritualist who does not gain as many tokens as she needs can try to gather more in the following round (just like any other token pool), but maintaining all that spiritual energy is stressful: she suffers penalties on many checks whenever she has tokens in her Pact Pool.

If a spiritualist fails a Pact Check, the spirits will strip her of power they have already granted her (costing her tokens), or even steal some of her life force if she does not have the tokens to lose. Dealing with spirits is a dangerous task.

The Pact Check DC is determined by the power of the entity the spiritualist contacts. More powerful spirits have a higher DC for the Pact Check, making it more difficult to gain tokens, and increasing the risk that they will be angered by a petition. However, they also have a higher maximum number of tokens they can confer, as well as being able to generate more powerful magical effects. Thus a spiritualist must always balance risk and reward. It is much safer to contact weaker spirits, but such entities are much more limited in the powers they can grant.

Once a spiritualist has gathered enough tokens for her needs (or has declined to risk any further Pact Checks), she can design the magical effect she wants. Unlike arcanists, who think in terms of 'schools' of magic, Spiritualists learn a number of different rituals. Each ritual allows them to create effects of a certain type. When the spiritualist makes her Pact Check, she must nominate for which ritual she is gathering tokens. This is considered to be the 'target' of her token pool. As with other targeted pools, if the spiritualist later decides to gather tokens for another ritual (thus changing her target) she loses all accumulated tokens she already possesses.

Each magical effect a spiritualist creates is comprised of five components:
* Type of effect
* Severity of effect
* Range
* Area of Effect
* Duration

The more tokens spent on each of these components, the more potent that component becomes. However, there is a limit to how many tokens can be spent on each, based on the power of the spirits with whom the spiritualist made her pact.

Introducing a token-based magic system has a couple of interesting game implications. Firstly, it all but eliminates a 'daily limit' on spells. Over a whole day, the spiritualist has a great deal of durability as a spellcaster. However, this long term durability is balanced by short term strain: contacting the spirits is a taxing process, and these entities do not like to be bothered too often. A spiritualist who makes a lot of Pact Checks in a short period will quickly find her rewards diminishing and her risks increasing.

A second implication of the token-based system is that spiritualists must be willing to risk the quirks of fate. Sometimes they'll be blessed with large amounts of spiritual energy; perhaps even enough to cast two or more spells without making another check. Other times, they'll make bargain after bargain and gain only a trickle of power. There are ways a spiritualist can improve her odds in the Pact Check ... but they almost all come with a cost.

The final portion of this preview is a listing of all eighteen spiritualist rituals:

Not to simply repeat the query re: a print format, but yeah, would PoD be an option at any foreseeable stage?

I hope so, but even if not, I'll be picking this one up. It looks very cool.