Iron Lore: Malhavoc's Surprise?

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

I can't give any details, but we've been playtesting this - and it's a blast. Despite being a "low magic" kind of guy, I'm full of good things to say about the game. It's not low magic like Grim Tales is (grim and gritty), it's low magic like the Conan books are (heroic asskicking where the person is far more important than the gear.)

And here's the Pope o Cat town himself speaking on it.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

From the new DD on skills that was put up today:

Iron Heroes addressed this issue in two ways. The minor issue was collapsing all the Knowledge skills into one skill. As you buy ranks in Knowledge, you gain new areas of study all at the same total Knowledge check bonus. That alone dropped the skill count by 10 or so

Sweet merciful methusalah! Can I get an Amen?!?!

Admittedly a minor point out of what I'd argue is maybe the best composed and argued of his DDs, but still it's a minor point that makes me extraordinarilly happy.

Like the pie fight in Blazing Saddles. The movie is already excellent without it, and we've all seen pie fights before, but to see such a well done pie fight in such an already excellent movie when the overall emphasis really is, 'sure we've made you laugh but you're also gonna get a pie fight so go ahead and laugh some more,' is a true joy.

Linkage:

http://www.montecook.com/cgi-bin/page.cgi?designdiary_mmearls_16

 

[JEL]

Sweet merciful methusalah! Can I get an Amen?!?!

No. Definitely one change I don't like. A few, broad areas of knowledge as separate skills makes a lot more sense to me.

 

[A'koss]

Sweet merciful methusalah! Can I get an Amen?!?!

I'm kinda torn on this too. On the one hand, it's simple, it makes taking ranks in Knowledge attractive to players and undoubtedly Iron Heroes will use Knowledge skills in all kinds of fun ways. But the other hand, anyone with 10 ranks in Knowledge now has broad knowledge on *every* topic! You won't have any "specialists" in knowledge fields anymore with this new rule and I'm not so sure I like that.

A'koss.

 

[BryonD]

No. Definitely one change I don't like. A few, broad areas of knowledge as separate skills makes a lot more sense to me.

I agree with you. But its also a VERY simple thing to fix.

The skill challenge thing sounds like it may be a very good system, however.
And it also sounds like the first element that may be directly portable to standard D&D.

So all in all this seems a net plus. At least to the degree that the partial hints can be

 

[A'koss]

I agree with you. But its also a VERY simple thing to fix.

I was just toying with a house rule to this on Monte's site...

I would change it so that characters continue to get a new knowledge skill with every point spent, but every new field starts out with just one rank, not the current total. So a character with 10 ranks in knowledge will have 10 ranks in 1 field, 9 in the second field, 8 in the third... all the way down to 1 in the 10th.

The skill challenge thing sounds like it may be a very good system, however.
And it also sounds like the first element that may be directly portable to standard D&D.

So all in all this seems a net plus. At least to the degree that the partial hints can be

I quite liked this DD, it was well presented and his solutions all sound very enticing. We've got skill challenges, skill groups, expanded skill uses, stunts that use skills and just... more skills for everyone in IH. I also get the impression that his magic system won't pollute the skill system the same way D&D does. Me likey.

Cheers!

A'koss.

 

[coyote6]

The skill system sounds intriguing; I'll give it a try.

But I still want some way for characters to get more skill points. It may be that I've just played too much GURPS, but characters just don't get enough skill points. An otherwise fit wizard or cleric that spends all that time tramping around dungeons, wandering the wilderness, and spelunking, ought to be able to pick up a little bit of athletic ability, without crippling their capability at their specialties.

Hopefully, skill groups will work.

 

[Andor]

Well he didn't say it was one Knowledge field per rank. One per two or even three would enable braniac loremasters, without letting everybody know every dc 20 fact in the universe by 7th level.

And as someone who like 3.0 perform better than 3.5 I'm kinda cool with that.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

No. Definitely one change I don't like. A few, broad areas of knowledge as separate skills makes a lot more sense to me.

Why? What's the difference between one broad knowledge skill and three?

The one skill system lets you customize your character's knowledge base so that there's real difference between the one scholar and the other and does a good job representing a guy who puts a lot of value on his academic education without crippling his other capabilities.

A broad based three skill system would seem to penalize the character who really wants to have a liberal education while eliminating any real difference between scholars.

Though looked at another way:

Craft, Knowledge, Perform, and Profession with specialities do make a good amount of sense in terms of character representation and all of those are basicly some form of a broad based knowledge skill.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

The skill system sounds intriguing; I'll give it a try.

But I still want some way for characters to get more skill points. It may be that I've just played too much GURPS, but characters just don't get enough skill points. An otherwise fit wizard or cleric that spends all that time tramping around dungeons, wandering the wilderness, and spelunking, ought to be able to pick up a little bit of athletic ability, without crippling their capability at their specialties.

Hopefully, skill groups will work.

Classes seem to be getting more skill points, attributes are probably going to be slightly higher (if more well rounded), and knowledge effeciency will help too.

I'm not yet a huge fan of having hide and MS as seperate skills, but I'm thinking that the idiosyncracies of this system and the way it strikes me as really flavoring character creation may convince me.

I'm a little concerned about teaching it, but I have high hopes and certainly look forward to using it.