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Iron Lore: Malhavoc's Surprise?
- Thread starter TerraDave
- Start date
MoogleEmpMog
First Post
If this turns out to do exactly what I want without my present hodgepodge of Conan, d20 Modern, OGL Steampunk, Grim Tales, Call of Cthulu and AU...
Well, I'll be out $39.99.
Well, I'll be out $39.99.
Let's see if I can answer some questions here.
Michael Tree asks, about my comments on spells for Mystic Secrets:
Was this sneaky foreshadowing for the new magic system in Iron Lore?
It could very well be!
JVisgaitis asks:
This book sounds really cool. Just one question Mike, I bought the Iron Might PDF which I thoroughly enjoyed, but I really don't get a lot of use out of PDFs and I was intending on buying the print book. Would there be a point in me buying the print version of Iron Might or should I just hold off for Iron Lore?
There's a lot of stuff from Iron Might that doesn't have an analog, like the new feat types, the combat maneuver/component system, and the ironborn. I think Iron Might is a good supplement for Iron Lore.
ecliptic observes:
I am just afraid the book may take it a bit too far. Like a feat that makes your weapon "magic" for going through damage reduction.
ICK! No, IL does not cheese out on you like that.
Scouger asks:
Also, how portable is it, really? I may be able to achieve the same effect as a DM by just challenging the group of non-magic PCs to standrad adventures that are a few CRs lower in level. Why embrace IL to make this happen?
This is a key design consideration in Iron Lore. Playing Iron Lore, as opposed to running it, is a slightly different experience. IL characters have a lot more dynamic options in combat. If you just take away magic items, buff spells, and so on, you really cut down on the game management, character design, and decisions the PCs can make. There's really only a small slice of tactical decision you can make that have a big effect on the game.
IL gives the players new toys to play with. There's more decisions, and new points on the PC decision tree, to replace the loss of magic items and reliable magic.
To draw a more concrete example, with an attack a D&D fighter decides his target, if he wants to fight defensively, and if he wants to use feats like Power Attack or Combat Expertise (if he has them).
An IL character can decide to make a risky attack that reduces his Defense, a conservative one that enhances, a risky stunt for a big bonus. If he has the right feats, he might adopt a defensive stance, parry a few attacks, then unleash a deadly riposte. He could use his skills to find a weak point in a foe's armor.
In essence, IL replaces magic with new, interesting stuff. To draw on your example, D&D without magic is like an ice cream sundae with just the ice cream. IL is a like a D&D sundae with different toppings. You drop the magic, but you still have all the cool extras you want. They're just different. In many cases, a lot different.
A'koss asks:
Are there any changes in the way Spell Resistance and Spell Save DCs are handled? I imagine all monsters now have "Damage Resistance"... true?
SR and DCs remain the same. Monsters only have DR if they wear armor. Natural armor modified Defense.
Matthew L. Martin ponders:
Dare I hope for an abstracted wealth and/or equipment system as well? Picking out equipment has always been my least favorite part of D&D character creation, regardless of edition.
It isn't in the core book...
Equipment is so simple (weapon, armor, ranged weapon, dagger) that shopping is trivial.
Michael Tree asks, about my comments on spells for Mystic Secrets:
Was this sneaky foreshadowing for the new magic system in Iron Lore?
It could very well be!
JVisgaitis asks:
This book sounds really cool. Just one question Mike, I bought the Iron Might PDF which I thoroughly enjoyed, but I really don't get a lot of use out of PDFs and I was intending on buying the print book. Would there be a point in me buying the print version of Iron Might or should I just hold off for Iron Lore?
There's a lot of stuff from Iron Might that doesn't have an analog, like the new feat types, the combat maneuver/component system, and the ironborn. I think Iron Might is a good supplement for Iron Lore.
ecliptic observes:
I am just afraid the book may take it a bit too far. Like a feat that makes your weapon "magic" for going through damage reduction.
ICK! No, IL does not cheese out on you like that.
Scouger asks:
Also, how portable is it, really? I may be able to achieve the same effect as a DM by just challenging the group of non-magic PCs to standrad adventures that are a few CRs lower in level. Why embrace IL to make this happen?
This is a key design consideration in Iron Lore. Playing Iron Lore, as opposed to running it, is a slightly different experience. IL characters have a lot more dynamic options in combat. If you just take away magic items, buff spells, and so on, you really cut down on the game management, character design, and decisions the PCs can make. There's really only a small slice of tactical decision you can make that have a big effect on the game.
IL gives the players new toys to play with. There's more decisions, and new points on the PC decision tree, to replace the loss of magic items and reliable magic.
To draw a more concrete example, with an attack a D&D fighter decides his target, if he wants to fight defensively, and if he wants to use feats like Power Attack or Combat Expertise (if he has them).
An IL character can decide to make a risky attack that reduces his Defense, a conservative one that enhances, a risky stunt for a big bonus. If he has the right feats, he might adopt a defensive stance, parry a few attacks, then unleash a deadly riposte. He could use his skills to find a weak point in a foe's armor.
In essence, IL replaces magic with new, interesting stuff. To draw on your example, D&D without magic is like an ice cream sundae with just the ice cream. IL is a like a D&D sundae with different toppings. You drop the magic, but you still have all the cool extras you want. They're just different. In many cases, a lot different.
A'koss asks:
Are there any changes in the way Spell Resistance and Spell Save DCs are handled? I imagine all monsters now have "Damage Resistance"... true?
SR and DCs remain the same. Monsters only have DR if they wear armor. Natural armor modified Defense.
Matthew L. Martin ponders:
Dare I hope for an abstracted wealth and/or equipment system as well? Picking out equipment has always been my least favorite part of D&D character creation, regardless of edition.
It isn't in the core book...
Equipment is so simple (weapon, armor, ranged weapon, dagger) that shopping is trivial.
Anabstercorian said:
He looks like a single classed berserker. Probably has the Arctic Born or Mighty Build trait, one of those and the Savage Appearance trait, all excellent picks for a berserker. I'd lean towards Mighty Build because of the axe.
In terms of feats, probably Two-Weapon Fighting and Power Attack, with Power Attack taken to the higher mastery. For skills, definitely the Athletics skill group, with Intimidate, Survival, and maybe some Perform thrown in if he's the type of warrior that uses his personality to bludgeon his foes into submission.
He has an orc head on his spear, so I think his basic strategy in battle is to intimidate foes, lure them into focusing on him with Savage Appearance and Perform checks, reaping lots of fury tokens from that, and cashing them in as fast as possible. Meanwhile, his allies swoop around to flank or take out anyone who doesn't get bogged down with him.
He probably adventures with a hunter, a thief, and maybe an archer. His chosen spread of abilities would work really well with those classes, depending on their builds.
OTOH, he could just as easily be a harrier or a hunter who doesn't wear armor. In that case... well, I'm not sure I can start detailing all the possibilities here. Suffice to say, that guy screams Iron Lore to me.
And no, I can't detail any of that stuff until we start doing more previews. I probably raced ahead of schedule by three months in this post alone. Still, I hope it shows you what you can do with an Iron Lore PC.
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There are a lot of interesting issues that go along with shifting the focus away from external, magic-drive character abilities and placing it on ones that are inherently linked to a character. Ben asked me about this, so I'm going to give everyone an idea of what's up with that in Iron Lore.
There are two types of issues that come up with yanking out D&D's point buy powers/magic items. As I mentioned before, that's what magic items are - a point buy system welded on to the class system.
These two issues fall into everyone's two favorite camps of RPG stuff - fluff and crunch. Personally, I prefer "story" and "rules" as the distinction here, primarily because the words fluff and crunch make me think of marshmellow fluff and crunchy peanut butter, two components of one damn fine sandwich.
See, I'm getting hungry already.
Anyway, the key to the system design lies in figuring out what parts of magic items/spells address story elements and which parts address system elements.
Being able to fly is a story advantage for the characters. It's useful, and it opens up tactical options, but it doesn't mean anything when the beholder zaps you with his disintegrate eye. A flying monster still needs to get close to you to affect you, and there are things you can do (independent of the rules) to neutralize its power, like run into a cave.
That disintegrate eye, OTOH, is a rules issue. It has X% chance to hit you, and then X% chance to kill you. There are story things that can help you deal with it, like running into a cave, but a designer has no control over those. I can't design a (good) game that tells the DM to include a cave that the PCs can hide in as part of every encounter.
So, you need to sort the story stuff that the DM has absolute control over from the game stuff, which he usually doesn't have control over (IME, the vast majority of players object to house rules unless they take part in the rules' creation.)
You'll notice that IL is designed to use the MM, but it isn't necessarily designed for use with every d20 adventure out there. Some adventure assume that you can fly, or that you can teleport, or that you can breathe water, or whatever.
But you know what? Those story bits don't matter, because just as the DM can say "You need to fly to get to this city" he can also say "... and this griffon is willing to take you there." As a DM, it's really easy to design that stuff. The monsters in the MM don't care where they are or how they got there. They just have their BAB, damage, AC, and so on, to pit against the PCs, and that's what IL is balanced against.
As a consequence, high level IL adventures are far easier to design. You can now run a murder mystery for 15th level PCs that doesn't immediately end when the wizard and cleric team up to read everyone's minds, talk to the gods, and teleport to where the murderer is hanging out. In many ways, IL hands DMs far more control over the story elements surrounding the game bits.
By the same token, the changes needed to rip out spell bleeders (environmental stuff in an adventure that's basically there to force you to use spells to deal with the environment, like an underwater adventure, an aerial adventure, an adventure in a lava cave, etc.) are trivially easy to handle. In a lot of ways, those factors are a lot more fun now because they have a far bigger impact on the game. If you run an underwater adventure, you can do that at any level in IL. The characters can't just snap their fingers to turn the environment into something that just forces them to bleed a few spells to treat it like any other dry land adventure.
If you've ever come up with a real cool adventure idea, then realized that the adventure would never fly because of a spell like teleport, or detect thoughts, or divination, you're going to love Iron Lore. The story side of the game is much, much easier to deal with.
So that's the basic issue - a lot of the stuff that magic items let you do doesn't have a real impact on how you can fight the stuff in the MM, but it does make things tough on the DM when he wants to come up with the story elements for his game.
There are two types of issues that come up with yanking out D&D's point buy powers/magic items. As I mentioned before, that's what magic items are - a point buy system welded on to the class system.
These two issues fall into everyone's two favorite camps of RPG stuff - fluff and crunch. Personally, I prefer "story" and "rules" as the distinction here, primarily because the words fluff and crunch make me think of marshmellow fluff and crunchy peanut butter, two components of one damn fine sandwich.
See, I'm getting hungry already.
Anyway, the key to the system design lies in figuring out what parts of magic items/spells address story elements and which parts address system elements.
Being able to fly is a story advantage for the characters. It's useful, and it opens up tactical options, but it doesn't mean anything when the beholder zaps you with his disintegrate eye. A flying monster still needs to get close to you to affect you, and there are things you can do (independent of the rules) to neutralize its power, like run into a cave.
That disintegrate eye, OTOH, is a rules issue. It has X% chance to hit you, and then X% chance to kill you. There are story things that can help you deal with it, like running into a cave, but a designer has no control over those. I can't design a (good) game that tells the DM to include a cave that the PCs can hide in as part of every encounter.
So, you need to sort the story stuff that the DM has absolute control over from the game stuff, which he usually doesn't have control over (IME, the vast majority of players object to house rules unless they take part in the rules' creation.)
You'll notice that IL is designed to use the MM, but it isn't necessarily designed for use with every d20 adventure out there. Some adventure assume that you can fly, or that you can teleport, or that you can breathe water, or whatever.
But you know what? Those story bits don't matter, because just as the DM can say "You need to fly to get to this city" he can also say "... and this griffon is willing to take you there." As a DM, it's really easy to design that stuff. The monsters in the MM don't care where they are or how they got there. They just have their BAB, damage, AC, and so on, to pit against the PCs, and that's what IL is balanced against.
As a consequence, high level IL adventures are far easier to design. You can now run a murder mystery for 15th level PCs that doesn't immediately end when the wizard and cleric team up to read everyone's minds, talk to the gods, and teleport to where the murderer is hanging out. In many ways, IL hands DMs far more control over the story elements surrounding the game bits.
By the same token, the changes needed to rip out spell bleeders (environmental stuff in an adventure that's basically there to force you to use spells to deal with the environment, like an underwater adventure, an aerial adventure, an adventure in a lava cave, etc.) are trivially easy to handle. In a lot of ways, those factors are a lot more fun now because they have a far bigger impact on the game. If you run an underwater adventure, you can do that at any level in IL. The characters can't just snap their fingers to turn the environment into something that just forces them to bleed a few spells to treat it like any other dry land adventure.
If you've ever come up with a real cool adventure idea, then realized that the adventure would never fly because of a spell like teleport, or detect thoughts, or divination, you're going to love Iron Lore. The story side of the game is much, much easier to deal with.
So that's the basic issue - a lot of the stuff that magic items let you do doesn't have a real impact on how you can fight the stuff in the MM, but it does make things tough on the DM when he wants to come up with the story elements for his game.
John Q. Mayhem
Explorer
I want this. I really want Grim Tales (looks more useful for an IK game). I really want Black Company.
I'll probably buy them all. I'm such a hopeless consumer whore...
I'll probably buy them all. I'm such a hopeless consumer whore...
MoogleEmpMog
First Post
Darn you, Mearls! Darn you to heck!
Between the Cthulu-like magic items, the spine-tinglingly evocative ability description gave for that WAR art, I was just about ready to preorder Iron Lore. Then I told myself, "look, it's cool, but you already have a cyclopean amalgam of houserules to accomplish the same thing."
Then you go and give a stinking treatise on game design that's so penetratingly accurate it reminds me of why Iron Lore is going to rock so hard.
So now I have to buy it.
I hope you're happy.
Between the Cthulu-like magic items, the spine-tinglingly evocative ability description gave for that WAR art, I was just about ready to preorder Iron Lore. Then I told myself, "look, it's cool, but you already have a cyclopean amalgam of houserules to accomplish the same thing."
Then you go and give a stinking treatise on game design that's so penetratingly accurate it reminds me of why Iron Lore is going to rock so hard.
So now I have to buy it.
I hope you're happy.
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