Iron Heroes threaten my GM style of low magic items...

[IronWolf]

The next campaign I run will be a little more magic heavy. The one I ran earlier in the year was on the stingy side of magic items that were not charged or single use items (i.e. wands and potions). Now having played (the campaign I was running ended in a near TPK) in campaign with more use of magic items I realize I probably should have been a little less stingy. The game is about having fun and sometimes getting some magic items in the group's hands is what they want.

Iron Heroes sounds like it might be a better way to go in this situation if you want a low magic campaign. In the end it will probably make the DM's job a little easier and help out with any frustration the players may be having.

 

[sword-dancer]

I didn't


During play, they have fun and we haven't had any difficulty yet. But the guys who complain after the fact are my min/maxers. You know guys who petition to get their first levels in barbarian after three levels of playing a city theif.

What`s wrong with that?
The Street tough who goes berserk, the man from civlization who is a berserker, who preferred the wild, rougher cultures...

 

[Psion]

That's fairly close to the reason that I am ambivalent towards IH. I never bought into this "MUST... HAVE... LESS... MAGIC... ITEMS" sensibility that some seem to have. As it is, 3.xe puts a lot of power in the players' hands. I see magic items as my tool to introduce capabilities to the party that I want them to have to face challenges I have in store. Taking the power alotted to players via magic items and putting it all in there court seems as if it makes the game all the more chaotic and managing PCs all the more like herding nuclear powered cats.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

Interestingly, the IH characters seem to just tip the fight structure from 4 short ones to one to two really grand ones. The DM for our group specifically threw a bunch of mooks out there for us IH types to fight, and plenty of casters for the AE types to fight. Worked out great. The IH abilities are not at all overpowering because all they do is feed your ability to do damage. Against some star oozes in the first adventure I was pretty terrible. Against a lot of 3rd level types I was great. Fireballs still suck when they take out a chunk of your hit points.

Put differently, IH abilities are no better or worse than Incarnum, just quite different. (And in the final analysis a lot lower powered I think.)

 

[CCamfield]

That's fairly close to the reason that I am ambivalent towards IH. I never bought into this "MUST... HAVE... LESS... MAGIC... ITEMS" sensibility that some seem to have. As it is, 3.xe puts a lot of power in the players' hands. I see magic items as my tool to introduce capabilities to the party that I want them to have to face challenges I have in store. Taking the power alotted to players via magic items and putting it all in there court seems as if it makes the game all the more chaotic and managing PCs all the more like herding nuclear powered cats.

It sounds to me like the players in the game of the original poster might be attracted to the idea of their characters having a greater variety of abilities. After all, in D&D, that's covered in part by magic items.

I would say, though, that the abilities that Iron Heroes characters get are more mundane than magic items. They don't get the ability to fly, spider climb, blast large groups of enemies at a time, phase through walls, move absolutely silently, etc. Iron Heroes characters aren't D&D characters with spell-like abilities.

Personally I prefer the style that the heroes succeed based on their own ability to kick butt and do stuff, rather than the equipment they are carrying.

IH is more than just that, though, in that it adds ways to reduce attack or defense for special benefits, use skills in combat, etc.

 

[ThirdWizard]

But isn't the point of the game (well, one of the points anyway) to be challenged by monsters? In other words, who cares what the CR of the monster was. Look at it this way, if you hadn't read the monster manual and didn't know that the CR of the monster you were fighting was lower than your character level, would you know?

Who knows, but after DMing 3E for two or so years, I was pretty well versed in the monsters, and fighting monsters that I would have sent at a party half our level, and the tough time we were having with them, was just sad. I like being challenged. I don't like being challenged by monsters that I perceve as weaklings. Where does that put my character? It's a hit to morale.

At level 8 a barghest killed a party member and we were forced to retreat. Now, I didn't know the exact CR of a barghest, but I remembered using it before for a party much lower level than we were. We stood no chance. It was frustrating.

How long do you have to fight run of the mill goblins before you want to move up to something else?

 

[Von Ether]

Who knows, but after DMing 3E for two or so years, I was pretty well versed in the monsters, and fighting monsters that I would have sent at a party half our level, and the tough time we were having with them, was just sad. I like being challenged. I don't like being challenged by monsters that I perceve as weaklings. Where does that put my character? It's a hit to morale.

At level 8 a barghest killed a party member and we were forced to retreat. Now, I didn't know the exact CR of a barghest, but I remembered using it before for a party much lower level than we were. We stood no chance. It was frustrating.

How long do you have to fight run of the mill goblins before you want to move up to something else?

Well, the question to that depends on the campaign. Are you in a game where goblins are speed bump in the quest for more levels or reminicent of the frightening critters in fairy tales.

If a GM wants to design a whole campaign for an "orc invasion" you either have it only for the first five levels, give orcs levels and toys too (which some people consider cheating) or you tweak the rules somehow. It's sort of the nature of the beast with a leveling system as compared to other XP styles.

 

[Rystil Arden]

If a GM wants to design a whole campaign for an "orc invasion" you either have it only for the first five levels, give orcs levels and toys too (which some people consider cheating) or you tweak the rules somehow. It's sort of the nature of the beast with a leveling system as compared to other XP styles.

How is giving orcs levels and toys too cheating? I run orcs with levels in some class other than Warrior more often than I run them straight from the MM, and you can bet that a big group of 1st-level Orc Barbarians using the Elite array to rage to 23 Strength are a dangerous threat, even to a higher level group.

 

[ecliptic]

Just don't be suprised to fnd your group extremely low on players one day.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

IMHO, monsters of any kind are as weak or as tough as you (the DM) wish them to be.

A poorly run dragon can be a pushover as easily as a warren of crafty kobolds run with care can annihilate a mid- to high-level party.

I have no problems with monsters taking levels in classes as long as they are appropriate to the setting and storyline. So, while you might find Orc Barbarians or Goblin Sorcerers, you probably WON'T find too many Stone Giant Monks, Minotaur Rangers, or Quickling Necromancers.

On the other hand...if the plotline DEMANDS a Stone Giant Monk- look out!

But I also give my players fair warning. They go into my campaigns knowing that monsters may have class levels.