Iron Lore: Malhavoc's Surprise?

[Capellan]

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.

I can vouch for this: PirateCat and the other players took on a (slightly modified) Green Dragon last night, without a magic item in sight.

What they did have, however, were exploding marsh gases, impromptu barbarian abseiling lessons, and buildings falling on people, among other things ... fun stuff.

Let me put it this way: as one of the playtesters, when I read Iron Lore, my immediate reaction was: "I wanna grab some dice and play this! Right now!".

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Does look pretty neat. I look forward both to the new implied setting and the rules for eliminating magical items. Though I must admit that I would probably need them to be fairly easily strippable.

 

[Wombat]

Sounds like quite the intriguing project.

Hoepfully I'll have spare cash when this comes out.

 

[mearls]

Hey all,

I'll try to answer as many questions as possible. Here we go!

Stormborn asks:
1) Is this indeed the BIG THING that is supposed to "wow" us as much as AU/AE that Monte has mentioned? Or should we expect another?

Answer: I think it is, yes. I'm 90% certain this is what he was talking about.

2) Will there be other support for it? Setting, adventures, etc? Or can we take your comments about using any d20 Monster book as is to suggest that might be true of other things like adventures and settings?

Answer: There's one supplement already written, another in the works. The game is designed to be very portable for DMs. Since the base power level is built around D&D's, you can import almost anything for the DM to use without any hassles. For character option, like classes and feats, there's some simple conversion rules. A lot of the design is built to make life as easy for the DM as possible.

Plane Sailing asks:
I've been trying to get hold of the print version of Book of Iron Might because I was interested in the stunt system you'd put together in there. I wonder, how does this relate to Iron Lore? Parallel, overlaps, distinct?

Answer: There's some parallels in that fighting-type characters reign supreme. Some of the stuff in BOIM appears in Iron Lore, but most of it has been redesigned. The basic design concept - expanded options for warriors - is taken to the nth degree in Iron Lore. One of my big pushes was to make the game more interactive, to give you more flexible options in combat and other situations.


A'Koss asks:
Mike, does Iron Lore address any of the growing balance issues and disparities between the classes at higher levels? The real weakness I find in D&D is the disparities in hit points, attack rolls, saving throws and so on make encounter balance more ornery with every level after say... 14th or so. I've always found it a bit... disjoining that HL characters are actually more vulnerable and die faster than mid level ones.

Answer: Iron Lore tends to push a lot of what I think of as maintenace stuff - saves, healing - off into the background. Your saves get really good without having to take feats. There's no healing magic, but you still recover hp's between fights. In essence, a lot of the passive, defensive abilities go up automatically as you level. Thus, characters tend to be rather tough nuts to crack without the players' putting a lot of resource into that end of character development.

That was very intentional, for the reasons you cite. Character mortality above level 10 is just too common due to a single bad roll or the failure to slap the right defensive spell on the party. Iron Lore chucks a lot of that stuff. Hopefully, if PCs fall in IL combat it's because they made bad decisions or were outfought, not because they rolled a 1 on a Fort save.

 

[ruleslawyer]

Custom high level character stated up quickly. I'm listening. Convert it to Eberron, I'm sold.

If this works the way it's advertised, I will be using it for my Forgotten Realms campaign.

Yup, you read that right.

 

[Verequus]

If the magic items aren't necessary for IL characters, does this result into a reduced treasure curve, too? A big part of the treasure are in the core rules the magic items, but this aspect seems to be eliminated. If the IL character has the same amount of treasure as the D&D character, for what purpose the treasure is used?

 

[A'koss]

Answer: Iron Lore tends to push a lot of what I think of as maintenace stuff - saves, healing - off into the background. Your saves get really good without having to take feats. There's no healing magic, but you still recover hp's between fights. In essence, a lot of the passive, defensive abilities go up automatically as you level. Thus, characters tend to be rather tough nuts to crack without the players' putting a lot of resource into that end of character development.

That was very intentional, for the reasons you cite. Character mortality above level 10 is just too common due to a single bad roll or the failure to slap the right defensive spell on the party. Iron Lore chucks a lot of that stuff. Hopefully, if PCs fall in IL combat it's because they made bad decisions or were outfought, not because they rolled a 1 on a Fort save.

That's awesome Mike, just what I want to hear. IME, D&D players are often reluctant to experiment tactically and try new things at high levels due to how fast combat goes at these levels. I'm hoping IL will find ways to stretch out combat a little longer, place less emphasis on winning initiative and have fewer one-round maulings of weaker characters...

Cheers!

 

[Von Ether]

If the magic items aren't necessary for IL characters, does this result into a reduced treasure curve, too? A big part of the treasure are in the core rules the magic items, but this aspect seems to be eliminated. If the IL character has the same amount of treasure as the D&D character, for what purpose the treasure is used?

There in lies a potential nightmare/wet dream depending on who you talk to. I know several of my players will have thought of this the moment they hear "and it lets you take on stuff at the same levels without all the magic items." They'll be thinking, "So what does this mean I can do when I demand my magic items back? Yeah, baby!" They won't say it, hoping they can talk me into giving them old amounts of treasure back along with the enhanced fighting.

One question: Is this version more minis/AoO based than regular DnD?

 

[Janx]

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).

I think Mike missed the point (or a point) the original question was based on. If I'm DMing an Iron Lore game, and Joe and Bob are playing, can Joe run an IL barbarian and Bob bring his 3.5 Druid and "just play together" Meaning, from my perspective, I run my IL game, I hand out treasure and XP the same as always, and the only thing the Druid complains about is a lack of treasure items.

I'm speaking from a single game perspective, and not acknowledging the fact that in the long term, the Druid would be hosed, due to not getting bigger magic items to beef him up.

I think people are interested in simple cross-over capability, for a one-shot say. You'd want to keep D&D magic items out of the hands of the IL PCs, and such.

It's kind of a litmus test on how compatible IL is with D&D.

Thanks,
Janx

 

[Gez]

If the magic items aren't necessary for IL characters, does this result into a reduced treasure curve, too? A big part of the treasure are in the core rules the magic items, but this aspect seems to be eliminated. If the IL character has the same amount of treasure as the D&D character, for what purpose the treasure is used?

With all that speak about Conan, Fafhrd, and the Grey Mouser, I think the purpose for treasure is ale and whores.