Iron Heroes Campaign Starting--What Classes Are Good?

[Felon]

I've been looking through the classes for an upcoming IH campaign, and some of them look a lot less cool than my initial impressions led me to believe, mainly because I didn't look at them as starting from 1st level (which is where this party's starting).

Weapon Master--Stacking up tokens on a target by scoring hits, but the targets usually drop by the time enough tokens get placed. Is this class just a "boss-killer"?

Harrier--Doesn't seem to much of anything at low levels. Gets a speed boost, but that's not all that impressive. Access to feat master kinda stinks. The class design is pretty heavy-handed about imposing finesse weapons--they're basically grafted into a harrier's hands. It seems a very unnecessary limitation. It's not like there are a lot of martial finesse weapons to choose from, which means being stuck with the likes of a rapier when a scimitar should work just as well, conceptually. And since there won't be any power-attacking, the attack bonus from mobile assault can't be converted into damage.

Those are the two main classes I'm having issues with. Can anyone help me get a better handle on them?

 

[monboesen]

The weapon master is not just a boss killer, it's a killer. Except for opponents with loads of HP you are likely to kill them before tokens will do any good. This does not mean that the class is weak, rather that it is quite strong and doesn't really need tokens to hold its own. In short the weapon master is all about melee full attacks and a bit dull. There are several attempts to tweak the class in order to make it more interesting, you can find them on Monte Cooks message boards.


The harrier gets double its dex bonus to tumbling checks from level one. This allows for Tumble stunts every time you attack. Tumble stunts can provide an attack or damage bonus. The increased movement also makes Jumping challenges a breeze. You don't need power attacking to increase damage, just take attack challenges instead. In short the Harrier is about stunts, movement and defense.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Of note, the Bastard Sword is (very unusually, might I add) both a Finesse and a Power weapon, so a Harrier of sufficient level could Power Attack with it. Harriers are fairly-well-served with the Weapon Bond (Bastard Sword, Dexterity) trait, after which point you pump Dex like there's no tomorrow and you can pretty much ignore Strength.

In my Arabian Nights Iron Heroes game, the Harrier had a very exciting (and somewhat Aladdin-esque) chase scene with the town guards bearing down on him where he ran through the marketplace, jumped on a rolling cart going at breakneck speeds down a downward-sloping street towards the harbour, cutting canvases, knocking over carts, and generally making things difficult for his pursuers before leaving a cloak-covered set-up in the cart and leaping off into the side alley while the guards followed the cart.

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The Weapon Master, on the other hand, while he looked cool initially, got a very raw deal when the entire party except him wound up with Stealth skills (even the Berserker for some reason). They kept making excellent plans that used Stealth and then leaving him behind because he was the only one who would ruin the Stealth.

 

[Aus_Snow]

[. . .] my Arabian Nights Iron Heroes game [. . .]

Just gotta say, that would pretty much rock on toast.

 

[Wik]

When we played, The Weapon Master was able to dish out obscene amounts of damage for a 2nd level character. His effectiveness against the "boss fights" was absurd. The archer is also a pretty good damage dealer (and he doubled as a sneak in our game, scouting out areas), although he didn't have much use for tokens.

My personal favourite is the man-at-arms, which fits my play style perfectly (Adapt to the combat as necessary). His wild-card feats are awesome - I really think the D&D fighter should be able to do something similar; I actually made a "master improviser" PrC that wound up being based off the man-at-arms just a little bit.

The Armiger sucks; avoid it. It doesn't seem very "iron heroes"ish anyways, despite being made of iron. The hunter is a fun class to play - perfect for those weird freaks that love playing the cleric.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Just gotta say, that would pretty much rock on toast.

Yeah, it was a lot of fun and a great change of pace for our group from our usual D&D game. Each character except the Weapon Master has had some good spotlight time (though in the Thief's case, his spotlight was from bumbling).

For instance, the Archer managed to dissuade a pirate ship from closing with the party's vessel by engaging all the enemy corsairs in a firefight. What they didn't know is that he had the ability to use aim tokens to negate range penalties, so after a little while of doing nothing, he shot the captain dead-on in the chest 1000 feet out. They figured it was a fluke until a half-second later a second arrow came in and split the first arrow (he had Rapid Shot).

 

[Varianor Abroad]

The Armiger sucks; avoid it. It doesn't seem very "iron heroes"ish anyways, despite being made of iron. The hunter is a fun class to play - perfect for those weird freaks that love playing the cleric.

Gotta contest that (friendly-like) since I have an Armiger PC. The armiger is not about dealing tons of damage. The class is all about absorbing vast amounts of it. Use the errata'ed version for more fun. My armor once absorbed over 72 hp of damage in a session! Gotta love it.

 

[Wik]

Gotta contest that (friendly-like) since I have an Armiger PC. The armiger is not about dealing tons of damage. The class is all about absorbing vast amounts of it. Use the errata'ed version for more fun. My armor once absorbed over 72 hp of damage in a session! Gotta love it.

Maybe the armiger gets better; my iron heroes campaign didn't last too long (not really due to the game... I was just getting annoyed with d20 in general and split for a while). In our experience, the 2nd level armiger did absolutely nothing. While he did take a few hits, at the lower levels, those hits really weren't any bigger than the hits the weapon master was taking.

I personally think any class that is designed solely to be hit so that the rest of the group can focus on killing the monster is, well.... boring.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Gotta contest that (friendly-like) since I have an Armiger PC. The armiger is not about dealing tons of damage. The class is all about absorbing vast amounts of it. Use the errata'ed version for more fun. My armor once absorbed over 72 hp of damage in a session! Gotta love it.

I'm not sure whether Wik was saying they were weak or just that he didn't like them, but I agree that Armigers aren't weak. In the first IH game I ever GMed, the party Armiger was so overwhelmingly superior to the rest of the group that every difficult battle was mostly a countdown until the rest of the party was knocked out so that she could beat the encounter herself. Fortunately, she did have the visage trait that let her sometimes deflect blows to her, which helped.

That game was a bit weird though--I allowed an Arcanist, and he wound up spending the first major battle without doing anything except giving himself -4 to Defense and an enemy +4 to Defense (that enemy took a while to kill after that!).

 

[Rystil Arden]

Maybe the armiger gets better; my iron heroes campaign didn't last too long (not really due to the game... I was just getting annoyed with d20 in general and split for a while). In our experience, the 2nd level armiger did absolutely nothing. While he did take a few hits, at the lower levels, those hits really weren't any bigger than the hits the weapon master was taking.

I personally think any class that is designed solely to be hit so that the rest of the group can focus on killing the monster is, well.... boring.

Oops--looks like you posted while I wrote my response. Trust me, the Armiger who dominated the game was level 1 when she started her inexorable march. Admittedly, she took the Mighty Build trait, which is guaranteed to pack a punch for any character.