Iron Lore: Malhavoc's Surprise?

[Mac Callum]

Actually, I started D&D with third edition, never having played AD&D second edition. I'm a bit younger than the average guy around here (ten years younger if the 1974 talk around here is any indication). So I have no clue what the green-cover books were. Sorry.

S'ok.

The Green-cover books were:

HR1 - Vikings
HR2 - Charlemagne's Paladins
HR3 - Celts
HR4 - A Mighty Fortress (15th-16th Century European fortresses)
HR5 - The Glory of Rome
HR6 - Age of Heroes (Achilles, Odysseus, Jason, Heracles, Alexander, etc.)
HR7 - The Crusades

Seemed like your kind of thing ...

 

[Mac Callum]

I had actually written a post "harping" on that this morning. I don't think it makes it more believable; rather, I think it's a back-door acknowledgement of how "wahoo" it is, especially since I expect that doing 9 points of damage will be a rather mundane task for the Archer.

It's akin to saying, "The Iron Lore monk can walk on water. However, this only works if he has perfected the technique of not breaking the surface tension of the water."

"Ah, that explains how he does it. Now it's a lot more believable."

Ok, maybe I'm just being dumb, but I really don't see how the Arrow Ladder ability is "wahoo." Of limited use, and likely to make infrequent appearances, yes, I can see that - but not wahoo.

It's freakin arrows shot into a surface at regular intervals. What's so weird about that? I can do that. Maybe they wouldn't be lined up as nice as a "real" Archer could do it, but it's perfectly feasible. The Hardness rule prevents it from becoming wahoo.

I think that's quite different from your walking on water ability - a skill no one has claimed is "reasonable" given known physics. If an IL stunt, feat, or yet-to-be-revealed class ability allows a PC to climb a wall by driving his hands through oak or stone, then yeah, that would be wahoo. Driving steel-tipped arrows into wood or flesh is perfectly reasonable.

Unless of course, the "wahoo" part of Arrow Ladder is that the arrows could support someone's weight. In that case, yeah, it's a little out there - but the Hardness rule makes that neither harder nor easier to believe.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

At this point I'm more than willing to accept the idea that one or the other or both sides of this debate are being irrational, obtuse, prejuidiced, willfully disdainful, churlish, and/or mean spirited, that I don't really care which side is guilty of what, and that as a result there's not much point to further discussion.

I'm sorry most people missed the fun of the original one, but the possibility of there being two discussions of the sense of flatulence in the same thread, amusing as such a conversation might be, is simply too horrifying to tolerate.

If, on the other hand, someone has a picture or movie or other demonstration of someone shooting/constructing an arrow ladder and then climbing it please bring it because that would be coolness in its own right.

 

[Particle_Man]

Well in the movie "Mystery Men" one of the heroes climbed a ladder of forks....

RE:npc's in 1st ed. Some were weaker. The cloistered cleric comes to mind. Some were cool: The Sentinel (Modern equivalent -- a Fighter with spot and listen and sense motive as class skills...hmmmm...something like dwarven defender, now I think of it...), The Duelist. The Archer. The Smith. The Jester. The Incantrix (modern version: Spell Thief). The list goes on...

Of course, 1st ed. also had 0 level characters...

 

[JohnSnow]

Personally, I'd have to grudgingly agree with Wulf that a "fork ladder" is a bit 'wahoo.' Of course, a fork does 1 point of damage (at best) and, as such, would have a great deal of difficulty doing damage. Heck, you can't even power attack with a fork! (definitely a light weapon).

Question: Is Robin Hood shooting an arrow at the castle (with rope attached for climbing) wahoo? Said arrow certainly holds his weight, and doesn't seem "wahoo" in the least (to me, anyway).

Wulf, I get that Iron Lore doesn't meet your definition of "Grim and Gritty" or, as you put it GnG. That's cool, and I wish you luck finding something that does. However, I will say that everything I've seen of this game makes it seem like a much better way to model sword & sorcery adventures similar to the fiction and myth that first got me interested in the genre. And THAT is what matters to me.

So, for those still interested in IL, have we learned anything new recently?

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

Well, I guess I'll chime in with my take on Iron Lore.

Is it Grim and Gritty? Heck no. Grim and Gritty to me implies that death is always just around the corner and that the players have to not make any mistakes if they expect to survive. I think the lack of magical healing may be the one thing that is making people put this into the grim and gritty category. I don't yet know how healing rules are laid out in this, so it might be a factor that you cannot get a heal spell dropped on you in the middle of a fight, but perhaps you also don't need six days of rest to recover from the 87 points of damage you took in a fight, either.

I think this system is "reduced magic, high fantasy." Are some of the abilities "wahoo?" Maybe, but then again, things that people want to try in many games are "wahoo." This system gives you a way of doing thises things without having to rely on creating or finding the right magical item. You can plan to develop your character to be able to do these things instead of relying on the DM to give you what you need. Also, your character will be able to do some of hese "wahoo" things even if stripped naked and dropped into a slave camp. It means you are not dependent upon your stuff.

So far I think this system has a lot of potential. Can it end up as over the top as standard high magic D&D? Yep, I think it can, but I like the idea of empowering the character itself as opposed to the character having to rely on magical items which can be destroyed or negated. This expresses the character's experience as being the real reason they are killing machines.

My only concern with this system is how well it will play out when the combat is not the main focus. If it can still work OK, then I think I will love it. I am looking forward to seeing more and hopefully having a chance to try it out.

 

[Mac Callum]

So, for those still interested in IL, have we learned anything new recently?

There's the second playtester spotlight if you haven't read it. Other than that, no.

http://www.montecook.com/cgi-bin/page.cgi?mpress_IL_playtest2

Darn it. I can't get the hyperlink toggle to work. What's the html for that?

 

[Felon]

Is it Grim and Gritty? Heck no. Grim and Gritty to me implies that death is always just around the corner and that the players have to not make any mistakes if they expect to survive. I think the lack of magical healing may be the one thing that is making people put this into the grim and gritty category. I don't yet know how healing rules are laid out in this, so it might be a factor that you cannot get a heal spell dropped on you in the middle of a fight, but perhaps you also don't need six days of rest to recover from the 87 points of damage you took in a fight, either.

Looks like it uses the "reserve point" system outlined in Unearthed Arcana (though it may have originated elsewhere). You have a pool of reserve points equal to your hit points. You can expend the reserve points to replenish hit points over time, at the rate of 1 per minute IIRC. The reserve points themselves recover at the same rate that hit points normally do (character level per day). That can be pretty grim, because the reserve points don't kick in during fights, only afterwards. Of course, you do run into an odd situation where the less durable characters recuperate back to full health faster than the tougher characters, but that's always been an idiosyncrasy of the hit point system.

I think this system is "reduced magic, high fantasy." Are some of the abilities "wahoo?" Maybe, but then again, things that people want to try in many games are "wahoo." This system gives you a way of doing thises things without having to rely on creating or finding the right magical item. You can plan to develop your character to be able to do these things instead of relying on the DM to give you what you need. Also, your character will be able to do some of hese "wahoo" things even if stripped naked and dropped into a slave camp. It means you are not dependent upon your stuff.

I think there's a distinction that needs to be made here. Saying that IL isn't grim-n'-gritty isn't the same thing as condemning it for lacking grim or grit. But if it produces characters that are more in Xena's league than Conan's, let's make sure the right allusions are being made.

 

[ruleslawyer]

Sounds like IL would handle a Conan archetype just fine too. Conan isn't exactly a normal man in terms of strength or endurance. He's capable of tackling lions, frost giants, nagas, and giant serpents one-on-one, bringing down swarms of were-hyenas with normal arrows, and even tangling with amorphous god-like entities. The only limits on Conan's superhumanity involve his susceptibility to large numbers of attackers and to missile weapons (although, in "The God in the Bowl," there's a strong implication that he could even strike faster than a guard at range could spear him with a crossbow). Write in some bonuses for multiple attackers and some hit point caps (like those that exist, say, in the Conan RPG) and you've got your Conanesque feel right there.

 

[Garnfellow]

Looks like it uses the "reserve point" system outlined in Unearthed Arcana (though it may have originated elsewhere).

I'm pretty sure this rule first appeared in Jonathan Tweet's Omega World mini-game in Polyhedron.