Iron Lore: Malhavoc's Surprise?

[Wulf Ratbane]

Yes, it would. It would be nice to know alot of things about playtesting, like in particular whether anyone tried any games outside of D&D's acknowledged 'sweet spot'. So far both playtester groups seem to have focused on levels 3-7, which already work quite nicely in D&D as far as I'm concerned and so its not really that impressive that the game works at that level of play. What would be impressive to me is if Iron Heroes allows characters to compete in typical published modules for say 12th level characters without resorting to anything more than a +1 sword.

Iron Heroes vs. Heart of Nightfang Spire, anyone?

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Iron Heroes vs. Heart of Nightfang Spire, anyone?

Mmmm, or City of the Spider Queen? Or Slavelords of Cydonia?

 

[Celebrim]

Iron Heroes vs. Heart of Nightfang Spire, anyone?

That was exactly what I suggested I wanted to see after the first play test spotlight came out.

What we really need to know is not that the game runs well at 3rd or 7th level when characters generally aren't that dependent on magic anyway, but at 10th or 15th level when magic items tend to start becoming more important to fighters (and to a lesser extent the other classes) than thier own abilities.

 

[Felon]

Looks awesome to me.

I gotta admit... Vorpal Hurricane makes me a little... turgid.

Kicks a bit of ass, it does.

Folks, I gotta say, I like "Iron Heroes" better than "Iron Lore". Be it the game of Xena or Conan or He-Man or what have you, this is not a book about ponderous tomes. It's about heroes.

 

[Particle_Man]

LOL, these young whippersnappers these days, they think they know what Conan comics are about. IN my day, Conan comics were huge-ass 80-page black-and-white deals that Marvel published twice a month for twenty years and recycled the same three or four stories in a non-stop loop.

Now, that's what a Conan comic is! Speak not to me of this Buisek fellow lest I skew your gizzard!

I've read the old marvel black and whites and a few colours. Kurt Busiek's are better, and are very closely following the entire Howard cannon. Try it, and you will probably love it.

If I can just convince them to do Solomon Kane, I will be a happy person.

Edit: Oh, and put me down as one who approves of "Iron Heroes" over "Iron Lore". Pity they did not also legally influence them to rename the "Hunter" and "Archer", but I'll live.

 

[Felon]

I've read the old marvel black and whites and a few colours. Kurt Busiek's are better, and are very closely following the entire Howard cannon. Try it, and you will probably love it.

It was sarcasm, duder. Try it, you might like it.

If I can just convince them to do Solomon Kane, I will be a happy person.

Ask Solomon Kane how you kill an incorporeal foe without spells or magical weapons.

Answer: You get really pissed off at it!

Edit: Oh, and put me down as one who approves of "Iron Heroes" over "Iron Lore". Pity they did not also legally influence them to rename the "Hunter" and "Archer", but I'll live.

LOL! Jinx! Buy me a coke!

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Ask Solomon Kane how you kill an incorporeal foe without spells or magical weapons.

Answer: You get really pissed off at it!

I'm thinking this may be a little prescient. Perhaps represented by some sort of saving throw or stunt?

I don't know Heart of Nightfang Spire, but IL in City of the Spider Queen would be pretty intriguing.

G'Lord how many times did we have to hole up immediately after our first encounter to wait for the few spells we were utterly dependent on to come back online. It was like World War I in that adventure.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Edit: Oh, and put me down as one who approves of "Iron Heroes" over "Iron Lore". Pity they did not also legally influence them to rename the "Hunter" and "Archer", but I'll live.

See, something I don't like but didn't harp on.

There are lots of more generic names for both of these guys ("Marksman" or "Sniper" works better than "Archer" for someone who's good with all ranged weapons...) but I think that with the names Mike is deliberately trying to evoke a specific genre. "Sniper" would place it firmly in the modern; Archer places it firmly in the medieval.

I don't know about the Hunter...

 

[Celebrim]

See, something I don't like but didn't harp on.

There are lots of more generic names for both of these guys ("Marksman" or "Sniper" works better than "Archer" for someone who's good with all ranged weapons...) but I think that with the names Mike is deliberately trying to evoke a specific genre. "Sniper" would place it firmly in the modern; Archer places it firmly in the medieval.

I don't know about the Hunter...

I don't understand 'Hunter' either, because the class is more like a battle field commander than a slayer of wild beasts.

But, I do understand Archer and Thief. It is I think a pretty conscious Conan the Barbarian reference.

Subotai was multi-classing.

 

[Irda Ranger]

looking over the archer's list of class abilities, I don't really see anything that I think is going to make it worth giving up a full attack action, and I think the most common things to spend tokens on would actually be the earliest available class abilities. The 'sniper' and 'killing' shot abilities are really narrow and less generally useful than the 'deadeye shot' abilities.

This last point seems right; I'd just like to know how it works out in play. I hope this is right, because multiclassing makes a near infinite number of new doors open up in character creation.

One thing that bugs me is that I would think that feat mastery would stack with your ability score bonus in the relevant ability.

Um, no.

Mastery is a class ability. If you allowed Stats to stack, consider an Archer with 18 Dex would
- Get 17th level projectile feats at only 9th level.
- Get the Rank 10 Feats in Finesse and Defense at 13th and 11th levels, respectively, even though that is not their area of expertise. The Archer would be able to do everything a Harrier or Armiger can do. Shouldn't something be reserved for those who specialize in it? Shouldn't Archers be the only ones who can get Rank 10 in Projectile? I think so.

Another thing I find worrisome - and admittedly this worry might go away on seeing the actual feats - is that I am hard pressed to imagine how a feat tree can be extended out to 10 feats without the upper end feats being utterly abusable.

Show me any 17th level Class ability, and I bet the Rank 10 Feats would be similar. That includes 9th level spells.

Is 'power attack 2' is just a synonym for 'cleave' and 'power attack 3' is just a synonym for 'great cleave'?

I would suspect so.

Lastly, if the feat trees do go out to 10 feats in at least some cases, then their will be a strong temptation to advance as far down the tree as possible.

There is no need to. Once you have the base feat you can take any other feat in the tree. You do not need to take them all, or in order.

That means that even if the new classes are getting 20 (or more) feats by 20th level, almost half (and in some cases more than half) of those feats will be spent making your character good at the one thing that that character does.

No it doesn't. Spend as few feats as you want. See above.

It's going to be very difficult to balance the increasing marginal value of additional specialization with the marginal value of going broad, especially with feat trees this tall and (to me conceptually) unwieldy.

Lots of things are difficult. That doesn't mean they're impossible. We have to wait until we see the whole system before deciding if it's balanced or not.

Looking over the feat trees of approved feats in my campaign, I see that feats like Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Expertise, Power Attack, and Toughness do open up the way to 10-14 different feats each. BUT, on the other hand the feat tree for each is never more than about 3 feats deep and I consider this a good thing.

Then you should be pleased to realize that the Feat trees in IH are only 2 Feats deep - the Base Feat plus any other feat you like. The Mastery Levels of 1 to 10 speak to the width of you choices, not the depth.

Why wasn't limiting a few feats to higher BAB an acceptable solution? What does feat mastery give you that this doesn't?

Mastery is a class ability. Should Archers and Beserkers get access to Projectile feats at the same time? Should Beserkers and Hunters get access to Tactics at the same time? And for that matter, what does Lore Mastery or Tactics Mastery have to do with BAB?

For that matter, since Thieves and Arcanists are bound to have a lower BAB than Beserkers, does that mean that Beserkers should have first access to Lore and Finesse feats?