Iron Lore: Malhavoc's Surprise?

[Ace]

This caught my eye in the preview PDF



The combat styles feats which are distinct to particular weapons reminds me of the wonderful things which I heard about "Men At Arms" by Second World Publications(?), but which I wasn't able to get hold of. Check it up in the reviews database and you'll see what I mean.

Cheers

Thats still available in a PDF version updated for 3.5 -- I thought it was a pretty neat book when I had it but it didn't click for me

 

[Ace]

Cool cover art!

I can't wait to start my Purple Monkey Dishwasher campaign this August!

Ozmar the Fan

Great!

You have 2 really good system choices

For rules lite you can use Monkey, Ninja, Pirate, Robot from Atomic Sock Monkey

If you prefer a more conventional system Terra Primate by Eden Studios

Good gaming

 

[Ozmar]

For rules lite you can use Monkey, Ninja, Pirate, Robot from Atomic Sock Monkey

What?! No dinosaurs?!

Ozmar the Disappointed

 

[Plane Sailing]

Thats still available in a PDF version updated for 3.5 -- I thought it was a pretty neat book when I had it but it didn't click for me

Is it? From where? I remember asking a while ago (year+ ?) whether they were going to go PDF with it and they said no plans at that time.

Regards,

 

[BryonD]

Is it? From where? I remember asking a while ago (year+ ?) whether they were going to go PDF with it and they said no plans at that time.

Regards,

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=4351&

 

[woodelf]

The book is more on the AU level, but I really don't see a director's cut on the horizon. The setting is intentionally kept a bit shallow (witness all the people who want to use IL in their own setting or a different one - unlike AU, the setting isn't so much of a selling point here).

Was the setting a significant selling point for Arcana Unearthed? Did i completely miss that? I bought it for the rules, and my recollection of the advertising, especially the Design Diaries, was that it was very much of the "look at my cool new rules! oh yeah, and if you're interested i'll have a quick sketch of a setting tailored just for those rules available, too" tone. But maybe i was just hearing what i wanted to hear?

[Aside: all the setting stuff that i'm not interested in is why i still haven't decided for certain whether or not to buy AE. It'll be very ironic if i *do* buy all the Iron Lore stuff (likely, given the topics), and then there *is* a "director's cut" that collects all the material i already have (unlike AE, where anything that's not in AU is new to me).]

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

[Aside: all the setting stuff that i'm not interested in is why i still haven't decided for certain whether or not to buy AE. It'll be very ironic if i *do* buy all the Iron Lore stuff (likely, given the topics), and then there *is* a "director's cut" that collects all the material i already have (unlike AE, where anything that's not in AU is new to me).]

I don't know your budget, but in general looking at your considerations here I would pick up AE on .pdf. I did, and while I'm sad to miss out on how lovely the book looks I'm just as happy to have the new material easilly printable and available to supplement the old book.

As another note, a lot of the Malhavoc hard bound collections have also been a response to the release of 3.5. Unless we get 3.8 or, shudder, 4.0 by 2007 I think we should all be ok.

 

[A'koss]

Mike's First Iron Lore Design Diary is now up and it gives a pretty good overview of what to expect and a few juicy details t'boot.

www.montecook.com/cgi-bin...mmearls_10

You can also download the Insider catalogue PDF for an interview with Mike on IL, but most of that interview has been covered elsewhere.

www.montecook.com/images/SSI_Q205.pdf

Discuss!

 

[mearls]

As another note, a lot of the Malhavoc hard bound collections have also been a response to the release of 3.5. Unless we get 3.8 or, shudder, 4.0 by 2007 I think we should all be ok.

Unless 4.0 radically changes things IL should be compatible with it. If creatures change a lot, to the point that an Nth-level party in 4.0 is weaker or stronger than a 3.X Nth-level party, then IL might need an update. However, I really doubt that Wizards would make that sort of change to D&D. Even if they did, if you had the 3.X monster SRD files, you'd be all set.

FWIW, I have a basic architecture of my vision for what 4.0 could be. I might end up creating a wiki with my changes/new systems over the summer, depending on how things work out. At the very least, I'll probably do it if/when WotC announces 4.0, if only to have a historical document of how I think 4.0 would/should look to compare to how they do it.

EDIT: It looks like the link that A'koss posted is b0rken. Here's the link:
http://www.montecook.com/cgi-bin/page.cgi?designdiary_mmearls_10

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Unless 4.0 radically changes things IL should be compatible with it. If creatures change a lot, to the point that an Nth-level party in 4.0 is weaker or stronger than a 3.X Nth-level party, then IL might need an update. However, I really doubt that Wizards would make that sort of change to D&D. Even if they did, if you had the 3.X monster SRD files, you'd be all set.

Good to know, though in a complete aside I could theoretically picture WotC changing up the CR system a lot. Still I agree it's not a problem.

The Design Diary is awesome. I like that it at least obliquely answered a lot of questions raised here, though I'll fight such a self-flattering perspective by imagining that other people were asking similar questions.

The DR mechanic is amazing! And does a lot to address my concerns v. Conan, which is a fantastic game for any number of other reasons, where it's a headache to figure out which method people are using to bypass the hugely high DR armor provides. A dice based DR is just brilliant and makes it really easy to figure out how armor would stack with monster DR which is another big Conan complaint for me.

Plus Token! Eeeeee, another brightly colorred thing to add to my dice bag. Sadly, as I grow older I find I more, not less, like a bird or an Ewok. Particularly with the beard, the tendency to roast visitors, and to worship flying metal things.