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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crothian" data-source="post: 2663936" data-attributes="member: 232">[imager]http://graphics.drivethrurpg.com/images/IH_Cover220.jpg[/imager]    It is interesting to see a book that has alternate playing rules not attached deeply to a setting. There has been Mongoose’s Conan, Green Ronin’s Thieves World and Black Company, Red Spire Press’ Dark Legacy, and Malhavoc’s Arcana Evolved. These games all change the way the normal D&D game runs and is handled but they are also heavily tied into a setting. Iron Heroes is more like True 20 by Green Ronin. It is a set of rules for playing the game without the setting. Iron Heroes is a good sized book being two hundred and fifty eight pages long. It continues Malhavoc’s great line of books with solid production values, art, book marks, and just really high quality. The art especially is really interest as they are action pieces. There is a lot of things happening in the art as they are stills that hint at epic battles and really serve as a driving force behind the action oriented style of the book.Iron Heroes is an alternate Players Handbook that tones down the magic and increases the power and options of the characters. The idea here is that instead of the equipment defining the character’s abilities that character actually does with class abilities, feat, and skills that are more versatile. Magic in this system is dangerous and unpredictable to the caster. It can still be a powerful force, but not one that easy to control. Characters created with this rule set should be on par with other PHB created characters in terms of power. So, using this book should not make a lot of the other d20 books useless. There are conversion rules in here so with time and a little effort those bookcases of d20 books will not be wasted. The characters built will be more action oriented. They also have good potential to become the movers and shakers in a setting. Players will have more options for their characters. It does seem though that most of the rules are very straightforward and much will be familiar to people that know d20 and D&D. The book starts with attributes. The bonuses and attributes are the same from normal d20. The attributes themselves though are much better defined and clear for people to understand what they are. Generating abilities though with their point buy system is much better then the point buy system D&D uses. The cost increases happens at the even scores instead of the odd ones and it really supports the heroic character type of play the game seems to assume. The first new part of the game is traits. Each character starts with two. They can be background oriented, physical, or mental. Once traits are picked a character can never change them and no new traits are ever gained. Background traits indicate where the character comes from. It could be a desert community or artic. He could be an artisan or raised on religion. These can offer a direction for a role playing or providing a theme for a character. Mental traits can deal with the mental abilities or skills that are more mental oriented. They can also affect things like combat by adding a bonus contacted with a mental attribute. The physical traits can raise a physical attribute, help with weapon use, and other physical oriented parts. The character classes might be the most interested in part of the book since this is the core of a character. One of the first changes is with saving throws. There are still the basic three of Fort, Reflex and Will. But there is not strong and weak saves for different character classes. All saves are equal to ones level though they do have different attributes that can add to this. Attack bones are also higher as the weakest is equal to the cleric and the best is better then a fighters. There is also a defense bonus that is at its best not as good as the best base attack. Characters gain more feats gaining a feat every odd level. However, attribute point gain is the same and I was surprised by that. XP needed to gain a level is also a bit different requiring 10% more per level. Characters get tokens to power certain abilities and feats. There is a maximum number that a character can have and it is rare to see a limit like that but it seems to work to encourage people to use them a little more often then just hoarding them. There is also a feat mastery system. Basic each class has certain feats that it takes over and over again to gain additional bonuses in its use. Skills are very similar just expanded nicely. There is a much better system for using the skills. One great addition is the skill challenge. A player can accept a penalty to a skill to be able to do more with their skill if he succeeds. A common one could be something like fast completion, so with a penalty the character can complete the task faster then normal. Skill challenges are also going to be a good way of handling things that are not perfectly covered by the rules. So, when the player declares he wants to do something not readily apparent in use by the DM, the DM can make it a type of skill challenge. This can add a lot of flexibility and make skills a lot more useful. There are also skill groups so one skill point can buy a rank in a number of skills. There is still the same limit to ranks for skills, and skill groups are determined by ones class. Skills can also be bought individually. Lots of the skills are a lot better defined and offer a lot more abilities for them. There are a few less feats even though they now do more. The general feat list is nicely trimmed down and the Mastery Feats are where all the action is. The Mastery Feats are feats that are taken multiple times to gain addition abilities. Like Improved critical when taken twice gives a +4 bonus to confirm, the third time increases a weapons critical modifier, and the fourth automatically confirms all critical hits. There are lore related Master Feats, as well as offensive and defensive ones. Many of the Mastery feats higher level abilities replicate what would be found in magical items. It is very well done. While it has been a lot of good things so far the role playing chapter is really one of the few lacking areas of the book. It is only about seven pages long and while it presents some good character developing ideas it really could have gone into more depth on how to create back story, personality, and role play the characters that are created with this book. The chapter covers some basics but I wanted more. The equipment section is also very familiar to people that know D&D. The big change is the armor in that armor provides damage reduction and not a set amount. Each gets a die of damage reduction and it gets rolled. There is an option for static DR as well. There are less types of armor and medium and heavy armor is actually going to be useful and not completely out classed by the light armors. There is plenty of normal equipment and weapons as well.Combat starts of on an excellent note. It goes into all the things that are different. This will make it very easy for DMs and players to get familiar with the changes. One nice change is reserve points. It is a fast and easy way for player to heal since healing magic is not going to be an option. Reserve points return at a rate of one a minute so faster then hit points but not fast enough to make character invincible. A lot of things in the chapter will be familiar to people like the different types of actions, cover and concealment rules, healing and dying, space, movement, among other topics. The last bit to really discuss is the magic section. One of the classes presented here is for magic. The game uses Mana that players spend though they are able to go into the negative with Mana with potential of problems for the caster. Using magic is a risky endeavor and it is filled with great risk though the power of magic is still pretty good. Magical ability is very much like the feat mastery with the different schools of magic. This is another good chapter but still too small. Magic could really have been expanded on here.Iron Heroes is a nice switch from the magic happy core game. The characters have a lot more options and really can do things that D&D characters cannot with the skills and feats defined to be so useful. It will allow character to face most of the usual monsters and challenges.</blockquote>

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