Iron Heroes - Why?

[amethal]

Would have went with an answer that included A, B & C, so I went with B (makes warriors mechanically fun and/or interesting to play).

Me too.

In fairness to D&D and its magic items, it does allow the characters to get into some strange and interesting locations (e.g. this week we had a halfling on a magic broomstick attacking a flying dinosaur and next week I plan to have them challenge a dragon eel in its underwater lair).

I think nothing but Iron Heroes might get a bit limiting in its scope. In an ideal world, I'd like to play both Iron Heroes and D&D with my group (maybe on alternate weeks).

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

You could use a broomstick that only works once a year, or needs a special recharge, or was loaned to the PCs by a more powerful, but very retired and friendly and useful, NPC.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Me too.

In fairness to D&D and its magic items, it does allow the characters to get into some strange and interesting locations (e.g. this week we had a halfling on a magic broomstick attacking a flying dinosaur and next week I plan to have them challenge a dragon eel in its underwater lair).

I think nothing but Iron Heroes might get a bit limiting in its scope. In an ideal world, I'd like to play both Iron Heroes and D&D with my group (maybe on alternate weeks).

But an Iron Heroes PC could have been riding a dinosaur of his own (or rather, a loaned/captured one), and wouldn't that have been even more awesome?

Underwater presents more difficulties. I'd give them diving suits, but that's because I'm more likely to play a game with steampunk elements. Hmmmm...

 

[JohnSnow]

Well, my approach in Iron Heroes would be to have an arcanist/witch give them potions of Water-Breathing that allow them to breathe underwater (and underwater ONLY) for a specified period of time.

Mike made a comment about handing the DM more control over the "story elements" of the game. Being able to breathe water definitely qualifies as a story element IMO. Of course, in Iron Heroes, adventuring under water would actually feel like adventuring under water. No helm of underwater action, no fire spells...and so forth.

 

[JohnSnow]

Oh, I also voted. And while I picked the "does away with Christmas Tree magic items" that's not the ONLY reason.

I really like the Iron Heroes tagline: "It's not the sword, but the arm that wields it..." because that really sums up my ideal for fantasy.

[rant]
Heck, in The Lord of the Rings, that gold standard of high fantasy, the most "Christmas-Treed-up" character is Frodo, who has arguably 6(!) items at the story's absolute height. Getting specific, he has: a magic sword ("Sting"), a mithril chain shirt, a magic light (The Phial of Galadriel), an Elven Cloak, a really good walking stick (a gift from Faramir) and a corrupt artifact Magical Ring that he really can't use. Now, item 6 is a plot device, item 2 may only be masterwork, and the "magical" status of item 5 is debatable to say the least. And all the other characters have even less stuff than Frodo does.

There's no headbands of intellect, belts of strength, cloaks of charisma, pale green ioun stones, bandoleers of magical potions, or jewelry boxes full of magical rings, brooches and bracelets. And the characters have ONE, or maybe two weapons, if they're lucky.

I don't see any problem with a couple magical items. I just don't like characters needing closet-fuls of them. Can't we just have "magic" swords? Why do they have to be flaming, shocking, frost, vorpal and demonbane? Anyway...[/rant].

That said, I also agree with "more options for warriors." Because while most systems just subtract when taking things out (like magical items), Iron Heroes gives with the other hand. So that characters are just as interesting to play, and have just as many options (and in the case of all the classes but spellcasters, more interesting ones) compared to standard D&D.

Anyway, that's why I like Iron Heroes.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

There have been many other "alternatives" on the market for quite a while now.

Yeah, but not really like this one.

 

[Erekose13]

I went with cool stuff for fighters to do, because to me personally the only high level character I found interesting in D&D was spellcasters precisely because they have so many more things to do.

As with all others though ABC are all good choices.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

B and C were sort of the same thing, IMO; the stunts are a big chunk of what makes... well, all non-spellcasters more interesting to play.

I suppose I should have worded it better; I was trying to distinguish between "warrior classes have interesting class abilities" and "characters (in general) can pull off crazy stunts".

I can't say I agree with John Snow's rant - though what I can agree with is that magical items should be more interesting. There's nothing wrong with the shopping list of properties in the Dungeon Master's Guide - the problem is when people look at that list and see nothing else.

One of the most memorable magical items a party I played in ever had was Wavebane, a +1 shocking burst water elemental-bane longsword. That set of attributes is nothing special - but the fact that we always treated it as a named item made it special.

 

[Particle_Man]

I voted for Xmas tree magic item lack. I remember playing a 3rd ed. Rogue (skill focus). then he found a ring of telekinesis and instead of being the Rogue (with some magic items) he became the ring of telekinesis guy that happened to be a Rogue. sigh...

I want to try a heavy crossbowman in IH. I think I could have fun with that. Although I suspect I will be Gming rather than playing, which means lots of warriors with nothing but toughness as feats (I am lazy).

 

[JohnSnow]

I remember playing a 3rd ed. Rogue (skill focus). then he found a ring of telekinesis and instead of being the Rogue (with some magic items) he became the ring of telekinesis guy that happened to be a Rogue. sigh...

Sounds familiar. I HATE characters being defined by their gear. I hate that in vanilla D&D, 90% of the work with any PC over 5th-level is figuring out what his equipment list looks like. I hate that you can spend days coming up with how your character acts and behaves and that if he gets a magic item, every thing he does becomes based around that magic item.

I can't say I agree with John Snow's rant - though what I can agree with is that magical items should be more interesting. There's nothing wrong with the shopping list of properties in the Dungeon Master's Guide - the problem is when people look at that list and see nothing else.

One of the most memorable magical items a party I played in ever had was Wavebane, a +1 shocking burst water elemental-bane longsword. That set of attributes is nothing special - but the fact that we always treated it as a named item made it special.

You're obviously entitled to disagree. However, there is no way to treat it as anything other than a "shopping list" (good term, thanks) when the character is given a spending limit to buy powers. The problem, in my mind, is not that the item abilities are boring, because they can be made quite intriguing, as you point out. The problem is that when you have a 650,000 gp "budget," you end up with TOO many items. Every item can't be special when every character has a dozen (or more) of them.

So IMO, there's nothing wrong with your Wavebane (although was its shocking burst ability strictly necessary?). Similarly, "Sting" (which could easily just be a +1, Orc-detecting, orc-bane short sword) and the mithril coat are fine. So is anything (like an elven cloak) that's a special gift that marks the character in some way. Magic trinkets (self-tying rope, a fire-starter) are also fine in reasonable numbers. However, things beyond that (like a light that also drives away evil creatures) should probably be limited to one item per character.

Where I REALLY start objecting is when the character is deriving spell-like abilities or mundane-enhancements from his items that he has to have in order to remain competitive with other characters at his level. That's just too...batman-utility-belt for me.

Just wanted to clarify.