Any advice for running and Iron Heroes Campaign

[Midknightsun]

Pretty much just that. My former campaign is coming to a close in the next month or so and its possible that I might be running Iron Heroes. My players seem somewhat intrigued, and I'm really digging the concept, but I'd like to hear any experiences (good or bad) anyone else may have had running or playing in IH.

 

[wolff96]

It will require a mind-set adjust on the part of you and your players. The classes are powerful -- very powerful -- to make up for the lack of magic. Someone around here has a great sig about not being your magic items... so very true in Iron Heroes.

The combats are (or at least, can be with the right group) very cinematic. Make sure to use lots of action zones and fun options in combat -- they really emphasize the differences between IH and normal D&D. Skill stunts should also be frequently seen -- make sure to use them against your players frequently so they get the idea. If you're more of a friendly DM, you could just have a starter session that uses a lot of them or recommend them early on.

Also, something from behind the screen -- Villain classes. Learn them, live them, love them. They make your life *so* much easier than trying to keep half a dozen token pools straight. If, for some reason, you want to run a villain with a token pool -- a BBEG or an important minion -- then try and lay out his actions ahead of time so you don't have to juggle tokens or look at options during the fight.

Make no mistake -- your preperation time as GM will go up at first. The investment, IMO, is worth it. I ran an Iron Heroes game from 1st through 15th/16th level and had a blast with it.

The only real concerns I can mention:
1) The Arcanist is terrible. Use one of the many variants on the net -- I particularly like using the True Sorcery book version, if you have that book.

2) Be prepared -- especially at higher levels -- for the sheer damage output of the Heroes. They might seem weak without all the magic gagdets, but a high level ANYTHING in IH can put out some amazing damage. Archers are especially nasty, in my experience.

3) There is little to no healing, except out of combat. With a couple of exceptions, these characters have X HP and that's it. So long, brutal, meat-grinder combats are tougher for the IH party than a normal D&D party. On the flip side, give them a half-hour to rest and they're ready to go again -- no worries about 10 spells a day and then rest.

Just a few thoughts. I really enjoyed running IH and hope you do as well.

 

[Particle_Man]

Some of the "save or die" effects of monsters should be turned into "Save or you are out of the combat for an hour, then you get better". For example, petrification.

While this is not merely an IH thing, I have found that grappling so greatly favours the larger monsters that it is not funny, especially when they take the various monster grapple feats. You might want to watch that.

I have also found that the undead in the bestiary tend to be nastier than their CR would indicate.

 

[Woas]

Character wealth is a blast with Iron Heroes. It's like a huge burden lifted off the DM's back when playing IH since you do not have to worry, at all about any sort of wealth levels. Give the characters whatever treasure and wealth you want and seems correct for the situation. That means, no more reason to hide some treasure in some pit that a dire wolf just happends to have with it.
Same thing goes for a lot of the game-world baggage. Because of how magic is presented, religion in an Iron Heroes game is really complete fluff.

 

[Midknightsun]

Nice stuff, folks. Thanks and keep it coming. I am planning on doing an arena style intro just to get the players into the sytem, and then start adding in various IH elements as they become comfortable with it. Kind of a layered learning.

Question:

Is combat generally faster than in 3.5? At least IME, high level combat gets really bogged down because of the high number of options and spells. I had a campaign last night that only got through 5 rounds . . . with 22nd level characters (Arcana Evolved)! I'm really hoping to get away from this nonsense.

 

[ShadowChemosh]

After successfully running an IH campaign from level 1 to 8 I disagree with the statements of IH having over powered characters. They are very balanced against the d20 CR system or at least no less than any D&D party could take encounters outside their EL if its only 1 or 2 encounters a day. One of the reasons that it may appear that IH characters are so powerful is that IH system makes it easy for characters to dish out large amount of damage, but they lack the ability to ever go on the defense. In D&D a party can fall back and be defensive with the cleric healing the big tank. In IH their is no such thing so a party must Overwhelm the enemy before they take down party members. This is different than the way most D&D games run, but why different does not make the characters more powerful.

The Reserve Point system is very nice and allows for healing out side of combat, but does nothing for in combat. It does not give back much more hit points than a well built cleric would for a normal D&D party. So the concept of encounters eating away at a party is just a present as it is in D&D as the resources of the Reserve Point are used up. At later levels it can take half hour or longer for characters to recover Hit Points while in the middle of dungeon leading for plenty of time for monsters to ready themselves against the party. In time sensitive missions this means going on to the next encounter without being fully healed.

The massive damage output of the party give many a DM the idea to throw ogres or other very large creatures at IH characters at low level. This is a mistake, because IH character suffer from the 'Pocket Battleship' problem. They can dish it out, but they can't take it back. A single hit or even a critical from an ogre will kill an IH character just as easily as a low level 3.5 character. With the idea of using 1d4+ for hit points IH characters on average have more HPs than a D&D character, but the max in most cases stays the same. A fighter and Men-at-arms both have a class max of 10HP a level, but on average the Men-at-Arms will have more as his minimum Hit Point per level is 7.

Save and die have been mentioned, but a worse one is the Always Do Damage regardless of saving throw spells. Fireball or even Lighting bolt can wreck havoc on a IH party as no one gets evasion so even if the characters make they take damage. The main problem is you can take down an IH character in this method and their is no way for him to recover while in combat. Which takes the character and player out of the game for awhile.

Thats what I have seen from my game.

 

[monboesen]

Expect characters to be far more skilled. Even the classes that gets the least amount of skill points will have better skills than a standard fighter or cleric.


Almost everybody will be quite good at climbing, jumping, swimming and at the least 2-3 skills more.


Some classes (Hunter, Thief) will have skill points in close to any skill they want.

 

[lior_shapira]

I also recommend to use an alternate spellcaster (if any) and not the Arcanist. We played a campaign with no spellcasters at all and were very happy with it. Surprisingly enough, the lack of spells, magical items and a multitude of sourcebooks kept the game much more dynamic. We had a lot more roleplaying in addition to more cinematic combats. Each player took his fighter variant (well, they are) in a very fresh direction... a very good experience for me as a DM.

It can get very tough, especially if your players are hot headed and dont know when to run. My group got TPK'ed halfway through the adevnture, so we continued the adventure with new characters (rangers from the nearest town who heard about trouble in the woods).

Have fun!!!

 

[Varianor Abroad]

The new spiritualist from the Iron Heroes Companion does the job of filling the role.

As to the campaign, the big piece of advice I have? Use lots of mooks, interesting places, and fun things to do in a fight. Don't go for big, nasty single opponents.

 

[McBard]

Is combat generally faster than in 3.5?

The token system and stunt system slow combat down, but they're both interesting mechanics, so you and your players may not mind.

Regarding stunts, I ended up not liking the fact that in order for the character to perform something potentially "cinematic" it took the player a longer time to manifest the action in terms of game mechanic (so, what was "cinematic" for the character, ended up being fairly tedious for the player--an irony of sorts). Basically, with much of the stunt system, players will be spending time making a certain d20 roll merely in order to see whether they get a bonus...to yet another d20 attack roll.

My point: I prefer the challenge system, where penalties are applied automatically, and the benefit is certain. Just speeds things up a bit.

There is a revised PDF of the core IH rulebook that is out, and I'd recommend getting it. Also, GM's supplement (forgot what it's called) is GREAT (NPC classes, action zones, etc.).