Iron Heroes - I have it in my hands!

[Particle_Man]

Does 25 BAB = 5 attacks/round?

How does an arcanist gather mana?

 

[Particle_Man]

Do Pcs = The First?

 

[Matrix Sorcica]

+25 BAB = 4 attacks.

An arcanist doesn't gather mana per se
It's just a term to describe the use of mana to cast spells. I think there's some erratta here, because I can't seem to find how you regain mana... Plus, the special abilities of the arcanist says 'mana pool' but there's no description of that ability. Mike?

and PC are not the first. They are powerful npcs, to be used as villains or patrons.

 

[Kintara]

How many masteries go all the way from 2-10? What are the general feats like?

More feat info, all around! Please.

You get it early, and so you now have an important duty, to placate everyone!

 

[JohnSnow]

You suck!

Okay, now that I have that out of the way, I'll have to sate my desire with questions as I await delivery from the warrior woman's bookstore...

"Brigit blasts a group of skeletons with a 30-foot cone of flame. The minimum mastery for the cone is 7, while the fire damage is mastery 1. Thus, the base cost of the spell is 8 mana: 7 for the the area of effect and 1 (half of 1 is 0.5, which rounds up to 1. always round up when figuring mana costs). She wants the spell to inflict 4d6 points of damage, for an additional 4 mana.

The blast's total cost becomes 12 mana. Normally the channeling DC for a 12-mana spell is 17. However, for this method you double the mana spent on amage to determine the DC. In this case, the DC is now 21: base DC 5, plus 7 for the area of effect, plus 1 for the fire energy type, plus 8 for spending 4 mana on damage."

Okay...this makes LOTS of sense - simple and intuitive. Sounds similar to the system in WFRP and the one from Black Company (but less complex) as well. So there are specified mana costs for various areas of effect (I imagine a 30' cone is more than a 10' cone? or a 30' line?), energy types (fire and what else?), and damage increases. Since every mana spent on damage adds 2 to the casting DC, I think you'll see fewer direct damage spells. I assume there are mana costs for the non-damaging spells as well? How are those laid out?

I wouldn't exactly say 'I've been missing it', Bob....

No martial arts would be a plus for me...

Great movie!

Creating an Unarmed Combat Mastery Style by adapting the martial arts (and/or brawl) feats and talents from d20 Modern would be trivially easy. If I decide I want it, I'll put it in.

I think it is more heavy to run than D&D. It even says in the book that 'combat takes longer'. It also says that much of the focus is on combat. But then again, it has some very very cool feats that are effective both in and out of combat.

I'm not sure combat "taking longer" is quite so bad. If IH manages to make combat an entertaining and interesting part of the narrative of the game, then it's OK if it takes longer. I think part of the issue people have with D&D combat as it currently exists is that it takes you "out of the story" and dumps you into tactical tabletop gaming. If the IH rules make combat MORE flavorful, most people will probably be okay with it taking longer, because it'll actually be more FUN.

As an analogy, I didn't mind that Peter Jackson spent more of the "screen time" on the battles in The Lord of the Rings movies than Tolkien spent "page time" on them in the novels. Tolkien focused on the character's banter and the general events, because battles are mostly boring to read about. However, they're much more fun to watch. If these new rules mean that Iron Heroes battles play more like the action movie and less like the book narrative, it should be about the same.

Just my opinion.

 

[Erekose13]

One thing from a playtesters point of view (i dont have the full copy yet).

The feats of strength should be at the end of the skills section if I remember correctly.

 

[JohnSnow]

One thing from a playtesters point of view (i dont have the full copy yet).

The feats of strength should be at the end of the skills section if I remember correctly.

Well, the table of contents mentions "Ability Checks" as the last item in Chapter 4: Skills and Ability Checks, so that's probably where it is.

But I'm just guessing.

 

[Matrix Sorcica]

28 feats go to mastery 10, although not all of them have ten tiers.

The generel feats are basically core rulebook feats likearmor prof., great fortitude, skill focus and skill affinity (+2 to 2 skills of choice).

I will give the short descriptions for two random feats. For the rest, you must wait til August 1st

Razor Fiend [Finesse]
1: Gain Quick Draw with dagger; full attacks gain extra dagger attack.
4: Full attacks gain two extra dagger attacks.
6: +1 damage bonus with dagger attacks for every previous dagger attack that hit
8: Full attacks gain one extra dagger attack.

War Leader [Tactics]
1: Strategy token pool; token grants allies +4 flanking bonus.
2: Token grants ally extra AoO.
3: Gain strategy tokens as move action.
4: Token removes flatfootedness from ally.
5: Tokens grant allies attack bonus of +2 per attacker on chosen foe.
6: Tokens grant allies defense bonus of +1 per adjacent ally.
7: Gain strategy tokens as free action
8: Tokens grant allies +1d6 damage against chosen foe.
9: Tokens grant ally immediate extra standard action.
10: Tokens grant allies attack bonus. (a lot!)

 

[Darrin Drader]

Um.... yeah, I want this book. I really, really, really want this book.

 

[Matrix Sorcica]

One thing from a playtesters point of view (i dont have the full copy yet).

The feats of strength should be at the end of the skills section if I remember correctly.

And they are!!
And I really like those rules, very simple and flexible, yet wholly adequate.

To get a +2 bonus to an ability check, suffer 5 hit points of strain damage. No upper limit, so anything's possible!

Cool