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Message: <blockquote data-quote="humble minion" data-source="post: 9164737" data-attributes="member: 5948">I read somewhere that PP have done some preliminary design work for the people of Zu, and that they have a Persian-influenced culture and aesthetic.  There's almost no detail, I don't even know whether they use warjacks or warbeasts, though the Protectorate colonists on the continent would be jack users of course.  PP ran a survey about what the next IK RPG product was going to be, and Zu was one of the options, so they must be at least thinking about it.  I believe the Strangelight Workshop won though, which sadly was my least preferred option!It's a bit hard to say without having actually used it all in play, but I can give some impressions.Firearms appear to be deliberately made more powerful than standard D&D ranged weapons, because the setting is about gunpowder combat more than melee.  There's almost certainly scope for abuse by character optimisers using Sharpshooter and so on.  Cover would be more important than in a standard D&D game I think, you'd want to be more careful about getting hit in a prolonged ranged fight.The balance of classes like the Warcaster and Warlock will depend a lot on your game and your GM, of course.  Their class features depend a lot on their 'pets', whether that be warjacks or warbeasts.  It's not like a 5e paladin where if your steed gets killed you can summon it again with a 10 minute casting time - if you're at sea and your warcaster loses their jack overboard, or your warlock gets his warbeast killed, then you're going to be without a major class feature for an extended period of time until you can derail the campaign and go and find a new one.  Warlocks have limits to the warbeast CR they can control, but as far as i can tell there's nothing stopping your level 1 warcaster bonding with a devastating top-of-the-line military grade heavy warjack and stomping all over the campaign if the DM is reckless enough to allow that to happen.  He won't be able to get as much out of it as a 20th level warcaster, but it'd still be messy.  I'm not sure how Warlocks would work in play.  Each subclass/resonance only gets access to a relatively small array of compatible warbeasts, and depending on your level, the power level of your available warbeasts might not be up to the challenges you're facing.  And there's no mechanic for levelling up your warbeasts as you go, so if your PC has a favourite 'pet' at low level, they're going to get replaced or die at higher level, which is sad.Power-wise, Bone Grinders look to me like they're maybe a little bit underpowered.  They remind me of Alchemist Artificers - versatile half caster with lots of options, but in combat they seem to lack that one big punch that you need when you're in a tough fight.  Still, in this setting that's compensated somewhat by the ability to buy them a really big gun i suppose.Shaman looks solid without being overpowered.  Druidlike spellcaster with some additional quasi-spell options instead of Wild Shape.  I'd be happy to allow them in a regular game.Gun Mage and Gunfighter look kinda hamstrung by the design choice to only allow you to use the signature magic/trick shot ability twice per rest.  Same problem as the Arcane Archer.  They'd still be viable I think, though personally I'd have given the gunfighter d10 hit dice.Blood Witch i find very hard to evaluate from a power level point of view.  It's a hybrid warrior/caster that doesn't use spell slots, instead you can fuel spells by expending 5 hp per spell level - and damage you caused to enemies in the previous round with a sacral blade (that counts as your arcane focus) can be counted towards that expenditure.  There's a spell level cap like the regular 5e Warlock, maxing out at 5th level.  So you can potentially cast 5th level spells every second round forever, so long as you can continue to slaughter enemies with your sacral blade on the off rounds.  I think this could be a very very powerful class if optimised.Raider is a sort of a light fighter, with only light armour proficiency and simple weapons (which does admittedly include a lot of powerful firearms in IK) and d8 hit points, but ASI/feats every 2nd level and a bunch of movement abilities.  Maybe slightly underpowered, but probably not too much worse than a Dex-based regular D&D fighter.There's also lots of subclasses, I'm not going to go through them one by one.  The upcoming Into The Deep Wild supplement also contains the Monster Hunter class (a spell-less ranger) and the Warlord, but that's still all beta material so I'm not going to grade it at this stage.Edit: there's also the Blackclad class, which is available as a low-cost download from the PP site.  Druidlike Wisdom caster.  This one looks VERY flexible and powerful, to be honest.  A couple of additional proficiencies, a bonus action 10ft range frighten effect with infinite uses, and some very powerful subclass abilities, like bludgeoning resistance at level 6, 60ft tremorsense at level 10, no-concentration flight for a minute per short rest at level 6, a reaction teleport when you get attacked at level 2, etc etc.</blockquote>

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