Iron Lore: Malhavoc's Surprise?

[TerraDave]

Hey, thank you!

(Side note: If you like the idea of Iron Lore... and you like the BattleBox... I think you'll be happy with a product coming out later this year....)

- James

Now, if it is what you seem to be saying it is, then it is just too much! too much!

 

[mearls]

I was wondering when the word would finally get out. Iron Lore will be officially announced at the GAMA trade show in Las Vegas. Technically, the show has already started, so I can answer a few questions.

Iron Lore is a game of high action and adventure. Like most fantasy games, it draws inspiration from a variety of classic sources - Robert Howard, Fritz Leiber, Clark Ashton Smith, and so on. However, if you were to ask me which movie most closely embodies Iron Lore's design, I'd say Die Hard. John McClain is the prototypical Iron Lore PC - he's tough, resourceful, clever, and he takes a beating but keeps on going.

Iron Lore is *not* low magic - there are plenty of powerful spellcasters in the world, it's just that not many (if any) of them are PCs.

The key design concept of Iron Lore is that you can use *any* D&D monster book with this game. 10th-level Iron Lore characters can fight demons, beholders, frost giants, and so forth, with the same lethality/resource curve as their D&D counterparts. While the PCs don't normally cast spells or carry a lot of magical gear, they're just as powerful as their D&D counterparts.

This has a variety of interesting changes for the system - Iron Lore combat tends to be much more tactically rich. Players have more options and class abilities that are more interactive than D&D ones.

As a consequence of the changes to the core d20 engine, you can now stat up an 18th-level NPC from any class in about 5 to 15 minutes, tops, once you're familiar with the system. I estimate that Iron Lore adventure prep takes about half, if not less, time than adventure prep for D&D. The time savings become even more pronounced at high levels. Yet, the game still supports all the cool, weird, fun action of D&D - trips to other planes, battles against dragons, demons, and other powerful monsters, and so forth.

We'll be doing a lot of previews, design diaries, and other stuff on the website leading up to the game's release.

 

[TerraDave]

However, if you were to ask me which movie most closely embodies Iron Lore's design, I'd say Die Hard. John McClain is the prototypical Iron Lore PC - he's tough, resourceful, clever, and he takes a beating but keeps on going.


The key design concept of Iron Lore is that you can use *any* D&D monster book with this game. 10th-level Iron Lore characters can fight demons, beholders, frost giants, and so forth, with the same lethality/resource curve as their D&D counterparts. While the PCs don't normally cast spells or carry a lot of magical gear, they're just as powerful as their D&D counterparts.

As a consequence of the changes to the core d20 engine, you can now stat up an 18th-level NPC from any class in about 5 to 15 minutes, tops, once you're familiar with the system. I estimate that Iron Lore adventure prep takes about half, if not less, time than adventure prep for D&D. The time savings become even more pronounced at high levels. Yet, the game still supports all the cool, weird, fun action of D&D - trips to other planes, battles against dragons, demons, and other powerful monsters, and so forth.

We'll be doing a lot of previews, design diaries, and other stuff on the website leading up to the game's release.

Thanks Mike! These are some bold claims, especially about the ease of stating up high level NPCs.

How easy would it be to mix and match charecters from this with traditional D&D charecters: could the Iron Lore warrior adventures with the 3.5 druid?

Also, what about other d20 genres: you mention die hard, could this be used with D20 Modern

 

[mearls]

Thanks Mike! These are some bold claims, especially about the ease of stating up high level NPCs.

How easy would it be to mix and match charecters from this with traditional D&D charecters: could the Iron Lore warrior adventures with the 3.5 druid?

Also, what about other d20 genres: you mention die hard, could this be used with D20 Modern

1. Mixing classes - you need to do some conversion work, but it isn't much. Without magic items in the equation, there's a gap between an IL character and a D&D character. IL characters have additional features and abilities that close that gap. Thus, moving a character requires you to either give a character the IL features that close that gap (if you move to IL), or remove those features to put that gap back in place (if you move out of IL).

The spellcasting classes are the easiest to move. They don't require any changes to their class abilities, just some added capabilities that all IL characters have. Moving characters from IL to D&D requires a little more work. In some cases, it makes no sense to move a class from D&D to IL (and vice versa) because an IL class fills the same role as a D&D one. To draw an analogy, it doesn't make sense to convert the D&D fighter to d20 Star Wars, because the SW soldier class already fills that role. There's a few classes like that in IL.

2. I *hope* that there are lots of IL rules that people use in other games, including d20 Modern. For instance, the changes to the skill and feat system have proven very popular with the playtesters, and both are relatively easy to migrate.

One of my design goals with the game was to make it useful in an Unearthed Arcana sort of way - you can use it as a treasure chest full of new rules that you can add to your game. The supplements also follow this design pattern.

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

This sounds awesomely cool. I hope I've got enough cash to buy it when it comes out.

Also, you should put "Heroic asskicking certified by Piratecate in your signature.

 

[MaxKaladin]

That bit about statting and 18th-level NPC in 5 to 15 minutes for any class is really appealing as that's one of the biggest time-sinks for me when running standard D&D.

 

[Rystil Arden]

This sounds like a really great idea. Fromt what I can tell, I could definitely use some of these ideas in my homebrew post-Arthurian setting, where magic is less common and hard to control (and only NPCs have it), and magic items are extremely rare. Also noting that the characters would need some boost to make up for the loss of magic items, I basically custom-built a powerful advance class for each PC based on the exact concept they wanted to play,for which they could qualify about the time they would be getting lots of magic items, but this sounds like a much better and flexible way to balance it out than I was using (not to mention it doesn't require me to custom-build powerful advanced classes for each PC). I might just have to do a bit of conversion when this comes out!

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

One of my design goals with the game was to make it useful in an Unearthed Arcana sort of way - you can use it as a treasure chest full of new rules that you can add to your game. The supplements also follow this design pattern.

An admirable design goal.

Sounds familiar...

 

[DaveMage]

Is this an OGL supplement, or d20?

And would this usable with D&D the same way as Arcana Evolved is, or different?

(Or should I just read the previews when they're posted? )

 

[Anabstercorian]

For budget purposes, how much should I expect to spend on this astonishingly enticing product?