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<blockquote data-quote="DonTadow" data-source="post: 2725058" data-attributes="member: 22622"><p>I wouldn't call the recommended character wealth a diehard system that determines where a character should be at that level. It is a gauge at best and one that is easily replaced in low-level campaigns. My problem with your statement is that you claim that Iron Heroes does this "tremendous" job in making character creation easier, when all it really does is take away you picking magic items(which could be rolled using one of the charts) and replace it with picking additional skills and training. It doesnt really do anything different. It takes away magic and replaces it with magic like special abilities called stunts. Just because I take away the cherry and put a strawberry on top of it doesnt mean that its going to take more or less time for me to eat that pie. (sorry hungry so only food analolgies today). </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>This isn't a neccesity and something I dont see in games. I see pcs want to buy more unique magic items but the power + power is rarely a factor. They are more worried in later weapons at having the special abilities on the weapons to handle particular kinds of monsters. Again, Iron Heroes doesnt really get away from this thinking anyway, they only provide you with stronger stunts. As you grow in levels you have to choose abilities and stunts approriate for that levels. All IH does is replace magic with stunts (as far as this aspect of the rules goes). In many cases the stunts equal magic items. J</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Ah, you complain about the power of magic weapons but yet you go against reality and make them more powerful and magical. I find this odd considering your position. But you have to admit, having an upkeep cost on magical items does solve this problem. My thinking is that the magic eventually fades and I have a nice little chart for players whom try to skip out on their upkeep costs. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Quite the contrary, my players rarely find usable weapons. Everyone still have their original weapons after 2 years of actual game play (50 sessions). And the magical weapons they do find are dire evil or cursed. They learned a long time ago not to take anything of the enemies unless they know of a good black market to sell it on. The one player whom found a good magical weapon uses that, but its an artifact magical weapon she found 42 sessions ago. I think its up to the DM to shift the emphasis off of gear and on to the adventure. I consider that apart of managing the tempo. I don't follow the wealth chart (which is just a guide) unless the player is making up a character. And even then I don't manage it, essentlally they can have anything they want so long as no one item is half of the wealth. When an enemy falls in battle, i make note of them searching the body. Anything of interest is noted quickly and it is not until the end of the segment or dungeon that they know what was retrieved. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Depends on what you're doing for upkeep. I can't remember where I read it, but upkeep was calculated at 10 percent of the expected character wealth, no matter if they have that much wealth or not. Spell casters have to buy components, which means they have double costs. Priests have to pay a frequent tithe at level (which increases with each level -higher membersips dues). I think this is where alot of DM's get gaffled. A number of dms dont use spell components. Which is fine, i dont use the listed spell components but I do use the cost system for the spell components. When I say upkeep cost I'm not talking about bread and wine. I"m talking about taxes, airship fees, upkeep of living facilities and supplies. Keeping track of this is quite easy. After a big adventure when they return hme I just tell them how much they owe. Sometimes i caculate and sometimes I just throw a number out that sounds right. </p><p></p><p>When they do shop the shops have inventories and unless its a major city theres rarely any special magical weapons or armor. There are black markets that can produce and fix "special items" but as the pcs found out the last trip to the black market shops (when an npc stole maps to their next dungeon) there is a price to it. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>At most, with a normal character you have to pick FIVE feats in the entire lifespan of the campaign. YOu will increase a stat ablity about FOUR times. That's hardly a chore. You get one or two spells everl level. Tell your players if they are going to a familiar town to know waht they want to buy well ahead of time before they go into a shop. And i dont see how difficult that is. I want X weapon. GIve me X gold. Sweet I am out. </p><p></p><p></p><p>I don't see how this is different than 3.x. Yeah the items get more expensive and you got to carry an additional 0. I'm sure most of us got past long division. I don't get it? The way I hear people complain I swear they hire accountants for their game. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I"m going to recommend your next favorite thing. Buy NPCdesigner (PLUG) which is a featured sponsor at Enworld. It's only 15 bucks but its the most usefull tools. Every NPC I build from the lowly guardsmen to the higher level sorceror I build with this program. I don't care too much for trying to get the character the right magical items prices correctly too. So I just push a button and in 3 minutes i have a statted character. </p><p></p><p>What did I do before this program. I only provided the magical items that were pertinent to the character. If i didn't care Id roll on the ole percentage chart in teh dmg. I don't think it would take any longer and there's no NPC Designer (PLUG) for Iron heroes (yet he is working on ARcana Evolved now). </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>If my characters were adventuring for loot they would have quit a long time ago. My characters adventure for various things. One is adventuring to find out and kill the person who betrayed her. The other is adventuring to serve her gods, another is adventuring to build a great library and another is adventuring to save her homeland. No ones in it for the money. One character was doing it for the fame, but changing the timeline so that his family became rich and famous he found himself locked in a tempoeral prison. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>We're doing the same thing with this one. Are you sure we're playing different games? AGain I consider these things upkeep and entertainment costs which bost a lot of the party's money (in particular bribing the drow king and funding a war from both sides). </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Again I like a low level magic campaign every now and then, and my next campaign is going to be centered on that. But I also don't believe in the decked out magical item'd party either. I am not sure if I'm thinking of the ELEMENTS OF MAGIC (PLUG) system I'm using but can't you only carry 12 magical effects worth of items. But this is where dm'n comes in from. Just limit the items of your players. My characters can't carry any more than 4 permanent magical items at any one time. But thats a DM controlling the world which I think is a big responsiblity. </p><p></p><p></p><p>Hey I agree with you that forcing players to play classes they dont want sucks. There's no cleric, someone has to be one. I think some DM's give the game a bad name by playing their setting like that. The DMG nor the player's hand book have anything about required classes for a party. But as a low-level magical setting IH is one of the best. </p><p></p><p>If I had to do this campaign all over again, I'd use one of the point buy varients. I'd even consider using IH (when i bought the setting at Gencon I damn near upheaved the whole campaign to replace it with that and the three mage classes Elements of Magic book). I've eliminated the cleric class and the magic classes from my campaign. I know use the EOM's mage and characters are allowed to build their magic characters from those (very flexable system). </p><p></p><p></p><p>I liked Iron Heroes because I liked what it did with the merceanry classes and what it didnt do with the magic system. I agree, the magic system in the core book sucks, and I dont use it with the exception of picking magic items. But I like magic which is why I chose a better system. But I don't think that IH is any easier, its just a different system and probably one of the best systems for low magic .</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="DonTadow, post: 2725058, member: 22622"] I wouldn't call the recommended character wealth a diehard system that determines where a character should be at that level. It is a gauge at best and one that is easily replaced in low-level campaigns. My problem with your statement is that you claim that Iron Heroes does this "tremendous" job in making character creation easier, when all it really does is take away you picking magic items(which could be rolled using one of the charts) and replace it with picking additional skills and training. It doesnt really do anything different. It takes away magic and replaces it with magic like special abilities called stunts. Just because I take away the cherry and put a strawberry on top of it doesnt mean that its going to take more or less time for me to eat that pie. (sorry hungry so only food analolgies today). This isn't a neccesity and something I dont see in games. I see pcs want to buy more unique magic items but the power + power is rarely a factor. They are more worried in later weapons at having the special abilities on the weapons to handle particular kinds of monsters. Again, Iron Heroes doesnt really get away from this thinking anyway, they only provide you with stronger stunts. As you grow in levels you have to choose abilities and stunts approriate for that levels. All IH does is replace magic with stunts (as far as this aspect of the rules goes). In many cases the stunts equal magic items. J Ah, you complain about the power of magic weapons but yet you go against reality and make them more powerful and magical. I find this odd considering your position. But you have to admit, having an upkeep cost on magical items does solve this problem. My thinking is that the magic eventually fades and I have a nice little chart for players whom try to skip out on their upkeep costs. Quite the contrary, my players rarely find usable weapons. Everyone still have their original weapons after 2 years of actual game play (50 sessions). And the magical weapons they do find are dire evil or cursed. They learned a long time ago not to take anything of the enemies unless they know of a good black market to sell it on. The one player whom found a good magical weapon uses that, but its an artifact magical weapon she found 42 sessions ago. I think its up to the DM to shift the emphasis off of gear and on to the adventure. I consider that apart of managing the tempo. I don't follow the wealth chart (which is just a guide) unless the player is making up a character. And even then I don't manage it, essentlally they can have anything they want so long as no one item is half of the wealth. When an enemy falls in battle, i make note of them searching the body. Anything of interest is noted quickly and it is not until the end of the segment or dungeon that they know what was retrieved. Depends on what you're doing for upkeep. I can't remember where I read it, but upkeep was calculated at 10 percent of the expected character wealth, no matter if they have that much wealth or not. Spell casters have to buy components, which means they have double costs. Priests have to pay a frequent tithe at level (which increases with each level -higher membersips dues). I think this is where alot of DM's get gaffled. A number of dms dont use spell components. Which is fine, i dont use the listed spell components but I do use the cost system for the spell components. When I say upkeep cost I'm not talking about bread and wine. I"m talking about taxes, airship fees, upkeep of living facilities and supplies. Keeping track of this is quite easy. After a big adventure when they return hme I just tell them how much they owe. Sometimes i caculate and sometimes I just throw a number out that sounds right. When they do shop the shops have inventories and unless its a major city theres rarely any special magical weapons or armor. There are black markets that can produce and fix "special items" but as the pcs found out the last trip to the black market shops (when an npc stole maps to their next dungeon) there is a price to it. At most, with a normal character you have to pick FIVE feats in the entire lifespan of the campaign. YOu will increase a stat ablity about FOUR times. That's hardly a chore. You get one or two spells everl level. Tell your players if they are going to a familiar town to know waht they want to buy well ahead of time before they go into a shop. And i dont see how difficult that is. I want X weapon. GIve me X gold. Sweet I am out. I don't see how this is different than 3.x. Yeah the items get more expensive and you got to carry an additional 0. I'm sure most of us got past long division. I don't get it? The way I hear people complain I swear they hire accountants for their game. I"m going to recommend your next favorite thing. Buy NPCdesigner (PLUG) which is a featured sponsor at Enworld. It's only 15 bucks but its the most usefull tools. Every NPC I build from the lowly guardsmen to the higher level sorceror I build with this program. I don't care too much for trying to get the character the right magical items prices correctly too. So I just push a button and in 3 minutes i have a statted character. What did I do before this program. I only provided the magical items that were pertinent to the character. If i didn't care Id roll on the ole percentage chart in teh dmg. I don't think it would take any longer and there's no NPC Designer (PLUG) for Iron heroes (yet he is working on ARcana Evolved now). If my characters were adventuring for loot they would have quit a long time ago. My characters adventure for various things. One is adventuring to find out and kill the person who betrayed her. The other is adventuring to serve her gods, another is adventuring to build a great library and another is adventuring to save her homeland. No ones in it for the money. One character was doing it for the fame, but changing the timeline so that his family became rich and famous he found himself locked in a tempoeral prison. We're doing the same thing with this one. Are you sure we're playing different games? AGain I consider these things upkeep and entertainment costs which bost a lot of the party's money (in particular bribing the drow king and funding a war from both sides). Again I like a low level magic campaign every now and then, and my next campaign is going to be centered on that. But I also don't believe in the decked out magical item'd party either. I am not sure if I'm thinking of the ELEMENTS OF MAGIC (PLUG) system I'm using but can't you only carry 12 magical effects worth of items. But this is where dm'n comes in from. Just limit the items of your players. My characters can't carry any more than 4 permanent magical items at any one time. But thats a DM controlling the world which I think is a big responsiblity. Hey I agree with you that forcing players to play classes they dont want sucks. There's no cleric, someone has to be one. I think some DM's give the game a bad name by playing their setting like that. The DMG nor the player's hand book have anything about required classes for a party. But as a low-level magical setting IH is one of the best. If I had to do this campaign all over again, I'd use one of the point buy varients. I'd even consider using IH (when i bought the setting at Gencon I damn near upheaved the whole campaign to replace it with that and the three mage classes Elements of Magic book). I've eliminated the cleric class and the magic classes from my campaign. I know use the EOM's mage and characters are allowed to build their magic characters from those (very flexable system). I liked Iron Heroes because I liked what it did with the merceanry classes and what it didnt do with the magic system. I agree, the magic system in the core book sucks, and I dont use it with the exception of picking magic items. But I like magic which is why I chose a better system. But I don't think that IH is any easier, its just a different system and probably one of the best systems for low magic . [/QUOTE]
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