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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ShadowChemosh" data-source="post: 3634680" data-attributes="member: 28440">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.</blockquote>

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