Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="JohnSnow" data-source="post: 2700427" data-attributes="member: 32164">Ryan, thanks for the quick response. I wanted to get back to you as soon as possible. So, let's get to it: I can help a little. The theory (theory, mind you) is that IH is about combat with magic being a secondary consideration. Essentially, characters in IH are supposed to be equivalently powerful to their D&D counterparts without needing any magic items. Basically, the IH classes have special abilities so that they can take on CR-appropriate challenges without owning any magic gear ("It is not the sword, but the arm that wields it...") So magic shouldn't be as capable as it is in the core rules. That said, the general consensus of most of us (the fans on the IH boards) is that the magic system in the book doesn't capture the magic flavor we want. I bought into IH so I could ditch magic items (most specifically the "christmas tree effect" so common in D&D) - not make it so that nobody wants to play a spellcaster. And a balance that would work for d20 Modern sounds about right to me. Iron Heroes author Mike Mearls wasn't totally satisfied with the system in the book. He suggested that one option for replacing the Arcanist was to just import the Magister from Arcana Evolved, complete with his spells, so I imagine anything about comparable to a core rules caster is fine. That said, the Magister doesn't quite "do it" for me, so I ditched that idea.Quick primer: Iron Heroes uses a combination of more skill points all around and skill groups that reduce the cost of acquiring your "core" skills. So for example, for classes with the "Perception" skill group, one rank in Perception buys a rank each in Spot and Listen. There are no cross-class skills any more. The skill groups make it so that characters have an incentive to get their key skills but still have room for some variety. The default Arcanist gets 8 skill points, and most arcanists would burn 4 to acquire the Academia, Mysticism, Social and Theatrics skill groups (the only ones they get). One with a 16 Int would have 7 other skills to pick from...Considering that, I guess it's fine, but part of the idea is to have characters who are useful without their magic (and can have some "out of character" skills). Although a dedicated caster could easily forego a skill group or two. I dunno, it's worth thinking about. A reasonable point, and my thought would be to leave them as separate skills for most classes (who probably wouldn't take the feats anyway), but potentially to allow the arcanist to take two of them as a "skill group" effectively cutting the cost in half.It's a design choice I like, and one that will keep the focus on the fighting classes in Iron Heroes. Spellcasters should be useful as defense, support, and utility, but less likely to make the other classes obsolete. As an aside, I like the notion of wizards carrying firearms for backup - very Harry Dresden.*nod*IH is about the same power level as D&D. To make up for the lack of items, the classes get more feats (2 at first level, like all humans, plus one every even level.) Several of the classes grant bonus feats, but in only one case (the Man-at-arms) are those not so restricted as to be extremely costly. Very few classes could afford to take more than one or two tradition feats. Combat characters want to spend their feats on combat. A few men-at-arms might opt for a tradition feat, and they've got the skill points to make use of it, but they'd be sacrificing their non-magical flexibility. For Hunters, the sacrifice would make them less Hunter and more "D&D Ranger." So I'd guess the classes most likely to use magic are Arcanists, Men-at-Arms (IH's JoaT class), and maybe Executioners, Hunters & Thieves. Although those classes would become much more "ninja, ranger and bard" if they did that.No, I don't want the magic to overshadow the combat system. However, I agree with you that I think its greater power is largely balanced by the chance of spell failure and the limited number of times you could easily use magic. I might make it a little more draining by stealing the drain mechanic from Green Ronin's Thieves' World or Sword & Sorcery's Advanced Player's Guide - basically all spells deal subdual damage (either on a marginal failure or all the time). In this system, I'd divide the spell level by 2 and round up...so 1st and 2nd do 1 point, and so on.That also provides an easy carrot to hand to those rolling a natural 20 - it does no drain. Just one idea.Well, I'm going to go ahead and do the legwork on adapting ME to Iron Heroes for my own campaign. I was about to go to the effort of doing something similar to what you've already done (both for IH and for my d20 Modern games). Personally, I'll freely admit to disliking the Core Rules magic system. However, if I can piggyback on your work so I don't have to start from scratch, I'm all for that. Any chance to pick your brain on rules mods would be appreciated though.Let's see what I can come up with.</blockquote>

Verification