Iron Lore: Malhavoc's Surprise?

[A'koss]

That Mike has made CR-compatibility a central feature of Iron Heroes is not news.

No, it's not news. But it's one thing to repeated say "IH characters have the same power curve as their D&D counterparts" and "It is a major part of Mike's own design process to address CR. Clearly he is intent on addressing the mechanics of CR." It's like chastising a bridge construction crew for not building a skyscraper.

So although I think you're being deliberately obtuse, here you go:

http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=2097339&postcount=22
http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=2100444&postcount=88
http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=2104440&postcount=128
http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=2105513&postcount=138
http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=2119514&postcount=269


I would like to have checked out the design diary to give you a few more links, but unfortunately Malhavoc must be some kind of a threat to the government here: Blocked!

I wasn't trying to be obtuse - I wanted to know where Mike specifically said he's going to address the mechanics of CR. That would have been an interesting addition to say the least. However, nothing in these quotes suggests (to me anyway, if anyone else feels I've missed the boat on this - let me know) he's going to do what you're saying here. If there is something I should be looking at on his site that specifically says differently, let me know...

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Nevermind.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Curioser and curioser.

Do we have a point where Mike says IH characters will have the same power curve as DnD characters?

Not even AE did that, as long as your idea of power curve means similar power progression.

I thought the claim was simply that you could drop DnD material onto IH characters and they would do all right and that you could drop IH material into a DnD game and that it would be interesting and workable?

On a sidenote I'm playing for the first time in a long time, and for the first time in longer I was making a vanilla DnD bard, well not totally vanilla I was playing FR so I got to play a Gold Dwarf with the Thunder Twins feat and free armor, but the overall point is that I never realized until tonight precisely how boring it can be to create a first level vanilla DnD character, and I don't know why. At the least this makes me eager to see how it looks in IH. Guess I'd been making high level characters so long that it skewed my view towards those problems. I hadn't really realized how many of them show up early in the process.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Do we have a point where Mike says IH characters will have the same power curve as DnD characters?

From the [second] link above:

There is an enormous difference between those games and Iron Lore - Iron Lore replaces magic with expanded/new abilities and a different model of play, all while keeping the power curve at D&D's level. You can use your Monster Manual, or Tome of Horrors, or Fiend Folio, or whatever, with Iron Lore without a single smidge of conversion, and the monsters work in just the way you'd expect WRT CR and party level.

That's pretty much the money quote.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

From the [second] link above:



That's pretty much the money quote.

Yeah, there's another good one in the first post. In either case, though, there are some complications in that the emphasis is on the droppability and we know that the classes of IH or DnD would have to be adapted before they could be dropped into the other system. Explicitly the lethality and resources will be the same, but they would have to be if you are going to have the CR system work for your characters at all.

There are other ways in which the powercurve/powerprogression of IH seems to be wonky. The archer certainly parallels the fighter in BAB development, including the bonuses of magic weapons, but at the same time starts with better skills, hit points, and class abilities than its fighter counterpart. Not too mention implied greater flexibility through the stunt and maneuver system. In that sense I think we may be looking at a flatter and more even power-curve for the characters, especially at the lower levels, which in some ways makes more sense for the system as a whole since you won't have access to the high level abilities, cleric spells most importantly, that PCs in DnD can 'pay' for from their society.

On the other hand there are a lot of things that we don't know about these characters even from the class write ups that we have seen. I really thought the feats at every even level were a given, for instance, until Mearls came in to say that IH characters get two at first level and we've had hints that something interesting is being done with saving throws yet all we see in the class write ups seems fairly conventional.

 

[A'koss]

There are other ways in which the powercurve/powerprogression of IH seems to be wonky. The archer certainly parallels the fighter in BAB development, including the bonuses of magic weapons, but at the same time starts with better skills, hit points, and class abilities than its fighter counterpart. Not too mention implied greater flexibility through the stunt and maneuver system. In that sense I think we may be looking at a flatter and more even power-curve for the characters, especially at the lower levels, which in some ways makes more sense for the system as a whole since you won't have access to the high level abilities, cleric spells most importantly, that PCs in DnD can 'pay' for from their society.

Note how this all seems to be geared towards making characters who are both more self-sufficient and more predictable, power-wise, level to level. This will be a huge boon in designing adventures, particularly at those higher levels, as you'll have a nice, narrow range in power to build against. This, of course, assumes that Mike hasn't mucked it up somewhere down the line that we haven't seen yet...

On the other hand there are a lot of things that we don't know about these characters even from the class write ups that we have seen. I really thought the feats at every even level were a given, for instance, until Mearls came in to say that IH characters get two at first level and we've had hints that something interesting is being done with saving throws yet all we see in the class write ups seems fairly conventional.

I thought the feat every even level was *still* a given. If you look at how the class abilities seem to be built, they seem to be geared towards leaving open spaces for feats. And what have we heard about saving throws? All I've read was that it'll be easy to keep your saves high without a lot of effort (and I assume feats) on your part.

A'koss.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Note how this all seems to be geared towards making characters who are both more self-sufficient and more predictable, power-wise, level to level. This will be a huge boon in designing adventures, particularly at those higher levels, as you'll have a nice, narrow range in power to build against. This, of course, assumes that Mike hasn't mucked it up somewhere down the line that we haven't seen yet...

I origionally thought the token system was made to aid this, with the tokens being used per encounter so that the DM could more accurately guage them from battle to battle instead of taking into account as much pacing them through the dungeon. With the knowlege that the arcanist doesn't use tokens, though, I'm having to reevaluate this origional assumption. You know what they say about assumptions, oops!

Not a big worry right now, but feeling a little "huh, I thought that's where it fit best" kinda deal.

I hate waiting and seeing.

 

[A'koss]

I origionally thought the token system was made to aid this, with the tokens being used per encounter so that the DM could more accurately guage them from battle to battle instead of taking into account as much pacing them through the dungeon. With the knowlege that the arcanist doesn't use tokens, though, I'm having to reevaluate this origional assumption. You know what they say about assumptions, oops!

Not a big worry right now, but feeling a little "huh, I thought that's where it fit best" kinda deal.

I hate waiting and seeing.

Yeah, that was definitely an unexpected revelation but at the same time we do know that the Arcanist (or at least one kind of Arcanist) can fire energy blasts at will. I get the feeling that the "Mana" the Arcanist uses will replenish themselves very rapidly. If they do, you're back to balance per encounter again.

 

[Andor]

It is possible that the Mana the arcanists use is equivilent to tokens, but labled differently because it is actually semi-tangible in game. FREX: You cannot look at a Hunter and see how in tune to the fight he is. (IE: How many tactical tokens are in his pool.) But if an arcanist is taking full round actions to pull mana from the aether then presumably there is an in game way to percive this. There is certainly an in game way to percieve it's effects even if the Arcanists spell backfires and he gives himself a vorpal wedgie.

To me that is enough of a distinction to possibly warrent a different label for the same mechanic. (Although if that is the case I'd have just called them mana tokens.)

Kind of like how spell casting worked in Castle Falkenstein.

However given that they probably would just have called them mana tokens too, it does seem unlikely to me.

Ooh. Another possibility that just occured to me. Perhaps 'mana' is a way of tracking the power of a spell in terms of potential side effects. IE: A High damage, specially shaped, long ranged energy blast might stack up all those modifers to generate a 'mana cost' of, say, 5. When you botch your spell casting roll, you check the results on the 5 mana table. Or perhaps that mana cost sticks with you as fatigue modifying your future rolls untill you can rest.

 

[Celebrim]

It is possible that the Mana the arcanists use is equivilent to tokens, but labled differently because it is actually semi-tangible in game.

Actually, the only reason I can think of at this point to not label 'mana' tokens is because the Hunter can spend tactical tokens to give allies the token of thier choice. If the arcanist had mana tokens, it could imply that the arcanist could be buffed by the Hunter (or by similar mechanism we haven't seen yet).

Of course, I would just have called them mana tokens anyway and included the caveat on thier acquisition in the arcanist write up.