Iron Lore - Tokens, what the heck are they?

[The_Universe]

Just took a look at Malhavoc's Hunter preview of Iron Lore - does anyone know what the heck the "Tokens" are, and why no Saves are listed in the class description? Any general thoughts about the preview?

 

[Celebrim]

They are lame. They are like hero or action points, only you get dozens per 'encounter'. Frankly, I consider 'encounter' to be way too lose of a term to base your main mechanic around. I'd guess that you'd something like poker chips or pennies or something.

In a sense, I was worried that Mearls would so revolutionize the game that all my house rules would be obselete. On the other hand, I was really excited to see what he'd come up with.

I'm not any longer.

The playtester preview combined with the sample class told me all I needed to know. I think alot of people are going to be really disappointed.

First off, the game will not be balanced unless monsters get token pools. But, that means that the DM is going to be overworked.

Secondly, its often hard enough to get players to decide on something without having a pool of tokens being spent, replenished and traded all the time. I think that it was really telling that the design goal of the game was to make fighters potent without the need for magic (a problem that only crops up at high levels) and yet the playtesting group reports playing a low level game. Forget the low level game. I've got no worries about how the system will play out at freaking 4th level. You tell me how it plays out at 15th level when everyone is dealing with a dozen or more tokens and bonus tokens every turn rather than just one or two tokens per encounter.

Thirdly, the hunter classed contained alot of cheese IMO. The ability to create terrain out of thin air just annoys me, and the ability to magically create a slippery patch between you and your foe is equally annoying. "Oh, look, the maid just happened to wax the floor here. Too bad for you Sir Blackheart." and "Oh look, the terrible dragon just happend to stumble over a root sticking out of the ground. Silly dragon." and "My look at all those orcs tripping over each other in there haste to get at me!"

That's one book that just got struck off my need to acquire list.

 

[EricNoah]

Saves: I bet there is no standard save progression for each class; rather, I would maybe guess that you pick one Good and two Poor saves, or maybe one Good, one Medium (?) and one Poor save, for your character when you generate him. Just a guess.

Tokens: As mentioned, like action points but you get more of them and are expected to use them. Remember that your character probably won't have the magical gizmos of an equivalent D&D PC. It does sound like it might be a little extra accounting during the game, but I bet I would get used to it pretty quick.

General impression: I am intrigued and want to see it all in action.

 

[Garnfellow]

That's one book that just got struck off my need to acquire list.

Now, I'm a huge fan of both low-magic settings and Mike Mearls's design work, and despite all this I have to admit that the more previews I've seen of Iron Lore, the less interested I've gotten in this book. It looks to be a much more radical recasting of d20 than I would ever want, expecially since we already have d20 Modern/Grim Tales/Black Company engines that fill the low-magic niche quite nicely and without enormous changes from the core d20 system.

But that said, aren't you really jumping the gun to write off a book after you've only seen a few short previews? I'd at least wait to read a few reviews.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Celebrim, the mechanic is sound, I think, so if the idea of "magically appearing" roots or slippery patches bugs you, change it so the Hunter has a "trip shot" that does the same thing.

And I don't see why

the game will not be balanced unless monsters get token pools.

It may be WAY too early to make that determination.

Secondly, its often hard enough to get players to decide on something without having a pool of tokens being spent, replenished and traded all the time.

Well, that's a problem with the players, not the system, isn't it?

In my brief D&D campaign last year (and the only one I ever DMed) I certainly never had a problem getting my PCs to act. Quite the opposite really. Getting them to stop and think was the hard part.

 

[TerraDave]

The per encounter thing also threw me a little, but yes, it means that they will get used and not hoarded. The fact that some charecters have more and some less also surprised me a little.

Tactically, the game seems to have a lot going on, but with magic out (or at least reduced), you can focus on other things more. In any case, we still have a few months to see for ourselves...

 

[Staffan]

First off, the game will not be balanced unless monsters get token pools.

You do realize that this is likely to be one of those things that are supposed to make up for all the +4 swords and +6 belts of giant strength and necklaces of fireballs the fighter-types won't have? So no, I don't see why monsters should get token pools too. Now, NPCs are a different story.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Just took a look at Malhavoc's Hunter preview of Iron Lore - does anyone know what the heck the "Tokens" are

From this article and other things that Mike has said, it seems that the tokens are a mechanism for handling non-magical resources, and also a neat way of getting around the x/day mechanism which is pretty difficult to logically justify.

From some of the words here it sounds as if there are more than one kind of token (whether they suggest using different colour poker chips or something for each, I don't know).

So far I still like what I see. In this particular instance I like the mechanism where the guy can gain additional tokens by spending time observing the situation.

Cheers

 

[EricNoah]

Maybe there's a "here's how to run NPCs without bothering with tokens" rule or guideline, though.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

a neat way of getting around the x/day mechanism which is pretty difficult to logically justify.

And a 'I can do this 3 times this encounter because that's how many blue poker chips I have' is different? If anything, this mechanic seems more metagame-y, not less.

With stock D&D, the character's abilties are almost completely defined within their world. I can attack more times as I get better, but there's a limit to what I can do in 6 seconds, or I can cast so many spells before I have to prepare more, etc. Obviously, still just a rationalization of a game mechanic, but internally consistent. There are a few exceptions, such as the luck domain letting you re-roll dice, but pretty few and far between.

Action points breaks that -- the character is doing things based on a player's exploitation of the rules system. The player knows ahead of time that his roll is bad and he'll probably fail his save, but the character wouldn't.

This just seems an extension of that. It seems to me that this just makes the character more like a piece on a board rather than a virtual person on a make-believe stage.