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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ruleslawyer" data-source="post: 3453340" data-attributes="member: 1757">Hmm...rycanada: I'm on my way out to a party, so I'll post more later. Please don't take this as my entire set of thoughts.I'm switching to players roll all the dice in my IH game as well! Certainly no more difficult than in D&D.  There is a mechanic for this in IH, actually. Mastering Iron Heroes gives the glory points mechanic, which is flat-out awesome, along with different (simpler and more story-based) XP systems, all of which I think are way cool. (For example, you can have a character with a flaw, and if you allow that flaw to be exploited, you gain extra XP... if you survive!)Stunts and challenges are for you, then, at least thematically. The real question is whether those mechanics are too complicated for your purposes. There are some things you can do about that:<a href="http://ironheroeshouserules.pbwiki.com/SimpleStunts" target="_blank">http://ironheroeshouserules.pbwiki.com/SimpleStunts</a>is one of them. Basically, the character has to tell you what he wants to do; the bonus is already figured out (sparing you the calculations and opposed rolls) but the solution has to be creative and you can award the bonus in whatever way you like. Nice for free-form play.There are actually tons of ways to slim down combat in IH. One is to do what you're suggesting: Get rid of the token-based classes and just use the Man-at-arms. The feats and skills should give you enough customization for the player to do exactly what he wants to do, and a straight MaA is certainly powerful enough! In fact, this may be a stroke of genius, since players can then use their wild card feats to simulate those "cool combat maneuvers" you're talking about without having to take a permanent feat to do it.Some other ways to slim down combat:a) Use hong's negate defense rule:<a href="http://www.zipworld.com.au/~hong/ih/skills.htm" target="_blank">http://www.zipworld.com.au/~hong/ih/skills.htm</a>This folds all the different ways to negate defense into a simple, easy-to-remember mechanic.Hong's custom feats also do a good job of this, especially Dodge and Combat Expertise, which remove the token pools in favor of fixed bonuses. Easy to remember, easy to use.There are numerous other ways to slim down combat mechanics in IH, but IMX, the most difficult things PCs do (in both D&D and IH) involve build design. Taking that stuff out of the picture by using one or two classes makes things a lot easier.Perhaps the Ironcarnum system?<a href="http://ironcarnum.pbwiki.com/" target="_blank">http://ironcarnum.pbwiki.com/</a>Hmm; that is tricky. I'd refer you to hong's IH hacks, which more closely map feats to token abilities, but then you're back using token abilities and their related classes, which introduces a level of complexity you may not want. One way to go might be to allow everyone to pick a token pool at 1st level: Armor, Defense, Finesse, Power, or Projectile. (IMHO, there's no reason to bother with social since those feats give their own tokens anyway.) Each is tied to a particular feat category, and basically you can spend tokens to "unlock" feat uses. Then just add in the token abilities (pick some armiger for Armor, harrier or weapon master for Defense, executioner for Finesse, berserker for Power, archer for Projectile) and you're golden!</blockquote>

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