Iron Lore - Tokens, what the heck are they?

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

I would suspect that nearly all, if not all, classes get Tokens, but there is another question if anyone aside from Hunters get such a large pool of initial tokens in an encounter. The text seemed to emphasize that that was a fairly unique class resource.

One thing that certainly struck me in terms of Celebrim's spell casting analogy is that tokens are probably a superior accounting system to spells.

My spell casting players take forever to decide what's going on since they have a huge resource pool to draw from but strict limitations in terms of action and effect. A token system would be far more visual and since it limited your initial pool a great deal more would be ideal in terms of both accounting and decision making.

I mean a 15th level hunters seems to have a handful or two, depending on how feats use tokens if at all, of token abilities to decide between and he has lovely bright shiny poker chips to make that clear for him. Compare that to a 15th level wizard who has to pick from dozens of abilities written in a cramped hand and has to account for these abilities from encounter to encounter. Does he use that 5th level spell now and not have it later or a less effective third level one and hope he gets to the later encounter?

A hunter never has to make that metagaming accounting for his abilities. He always gets to be about the combat at hand and not the one down the hallway.

As a side note, I think the reinforcements and encounter way above level issues will have a beneficial influence on player behavior. Instead of bursting into every encounter and mowing people down or trying to blow it all on one major effort to hurt the big bad you are going to have players who have to be much more cautious tactically. Harassing enemies to get a better idea of their tactics and situation is going to make a lot more sense, suddenly, as is information gathering in general.

Both are valid styles of play, but the latter is at least more interesting to me and more literary.

 

[I'm A Banana]

The one thing I think people are overlooking is that 'earning' tokens is an 'action'. Using the Hunter preview as an example - I can choose for my character to move (move action) and attack (standard action) and gain no tokens. Or I can chose to move and do nothing but 'study the battlefield' for my standard action and gain two tokens. Or I can chose to not move and not attack (or undertaken any other action that is a move or standard action) and spend my full round action 'studying the battlefield' and gain 3 token.

This seems like an interesting mechanic, similar to FFT's "Combo Points" system, or even old-school D&D's "You get XP for finding treasure and making magic items" system. In that doing actions gives you expendible magical l33t power.

....To reverse-engineer it, think of what would happen if spell preparation was not all at once at the beginning of a day, but rather you had to prepare each spell before you cast it, but the preparation time was shorter...let's say you have to concentrate as a standard action every round to build up "spell tokens", (let's say 1/round) and you can cast a spell using a number of tokens equal to it's level....so concentrate for 3 rounds, then cast fireball, kind of thing. I'd assume there's probably some rate at which tokens dissappear or a limit on when they can be acquired or something to avoid the "I spend seven hours running around in circles to get tokens" problem, so you have no choice but to spend these actions in combat. And actions are perhaps the best way to build tension by spending in combat, since they are (a) severely limited rescources and (b) rescources the enemy has equal access to.

It's an interesting idea...quite possibly yoink-able.

One thing that certainly struck me in terms of Celebrim's spell casting analogy is that tokens are probably a superior accounting system to spells....A hunter never has to make that metagaming accounting for his abilities. He always gets to be about the combat at hand and not the one down the hallway.

That's not a bug, that's a feature. Plus, this is all highly subjective. I mean, you're writing off the planning involved in ONE CLASS in the standard system as non-literary and uninteresting? Methinks the evidence does not support your babbling.

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

*blink*.....it's hard to justify "rest replenishes your rescources?" It seems to me that that's the *easiest* way to justify any sort of limits on ability access...you access some powers until you sleep and then you get them again.

IL seems to be using a different approach to replenishing rescources, one which seems really interesting to me -- spending actions to get rescources. It seems to me that this one is a bit *harder* to justify ("if I get points for moving in combat, why don't I get points for moving out of combat? Do the magical forces that govern me care if I'm in danger or not? Do they hate me?"), but still an interesting departure.

Nothing about this method of replenishing rescources requests low-magic or empowering fighters or liberating creautres from the dependance on items or any of that bunk. Based on the limited information, that's just a convenient selling point, not an actual result of the changes made, since "tokens" are "power points" are "spells/day", just with a different way to gain them back and a universal application to all classes (which, admittedly, has been a long time coming). This isn't nessecarily low-magic, it's just magic by a new name.

Roger took a few seconds to survey the battle field and noticed the wall the goblins were hiding behind was delapidated. "Hogesen! Go left" he called "there a missing section of the wall you can shoot through." System translation: Roger took a move action to gain a tactical token and spent it to reduce the goblins cover bonus for Hogesen.

I fail to see the problem here...

....I guess, for me at least, the problem is that I don't need tokens to do this by the system as it exists right now. This is just cover. The rules for cover include the ability to move so that the cover isn't blocking your line of sight. I don't need tokens to do this.

 

[Celebrim]

One thing that certainly struck me in terms of Celebrim's spell casting analogy is that tokens are probably a superior accounting system to spells.

That struck me as well, and in particular, what struck me about it is that it was the first spell casting mechanic I'd seen that seemed to get away from Vancian magic in an interesting way. I'm still not sure I like it, because it still seems to me that it could be a pain in the butt, but it does have the potential to better describe many player's expectations about spell casting than the Vancian system. I can even think of interesting mechanics for buying extra tokens beyond trading actions, and I wouldn't be too surprised if the Arcanist or whatever the spell casting cast is uses them.

As a side note, I think the reinforcements and encounter way above level issues will have a beneficial influence on player behavior. Instead of bursting into every encounter and mowing people down or trying to blow it all on one major effort to hurt the big bad you are going to have players who have to be much more cautious tactically. Harassing enemies to get a better idea of their tactics and situation is going to make a lot more sense, suddenly, as is information gathering in general.

I wish I could be optimistic in that assessment as you. It seems to me that haveing all your resources replenish with each new encounter (and any unspent resources be lost) could actually more encourage going in like gang busters because you get everything back as soon as you kill off the participants of one encounter. Harassing the PC's for example is meaningless, because harassment doesn't make them spend many unrecoverable resources. They get all thier 'spells' back every few minutes.

 

[Celebrim]

To reverse-engineer it, think of what would happen if spell preparation was not all at once at the beginning of a day, but rather you had to prepare each spell before you cast it, but the preparation time was shorter...let's say you have to concentrate as a standard action every round to build up "spell tokens", (let's say 1/round) and you can cast a spell using a number of tokens equal to it's level....so concentrate for 3 rounds, then cast fireball, kind of thing. I'd assume there's probably some rate at which tokens dissappear or a limit on when they can be acquired or something

The text seems to suggest that you have for a given level of ability a limit on 'hand size' (probably the size of your starting pool, or starting pool + 2 or something), and that at the end of the turn if the number of tokens exceeds this hand size, you must discard the extra ones. So, someone mentioned how the Beserker was spending the tokens as fast as he could get them, and its probably only partially true that this was because they were scarce. The other reason is that probably as a low level Beserker, he's not allowed to 'hold' more than one or two tokens at a time. Presumably this mechanic could be used to allow the more powerful 'spells' to only be castable at higher levels, because low level characters could never build up enough of a pool.

And actions are perhaps the best way to build tension by spending in combat, since they are (a) severely limited rescources and (b) rescources the enemy has equal access to.

Another possible mechanic would be trading pool size for more tokens. For instance, you could have a class that could buy a new token at the cost of shrinking his maximum hand size. This would give a class with alot of endurance, but which would be reduced to only 'cantrips' (as it were) by the end of the encounter. Another possible mechanic would be trading fatigue for pools of tokens. That seems particularly suited to spell caster. You run out of tokens, you buy a few more by (potentially?) making yourself winded, then fatigued, and latter exhausted. This fits with the standard convention that spell casting is tiring, but without limiting the spell caster to only one 'pop' per day. Or yet another mechanic would be to have a character the was fueled by success. I could see the Executioner recovering tokens for dropping an opponent, for example. Mooks beware.

I think it interesting that the Hunter, if you think about it, could potentially be more powerful as a buffer than a front line fighter - spending his standard actions buying 'spells' (via tokens) - which he then casts onto other characters (often by giving away the tokens he bought) so that they can spend them to buff themselves in whatever fashion that class spends tokens, or buying AC for another character, or what have you.

Nothing about this method of replenishing rescources requests low-magic or empowering fighters or liberating creautres from the dependance on items or any of that bunk. Based on the limited information, that's just a convenient selling point, not an actual result of the changes made, since "tokens" are "power points" are "spells/day", just with a different way to gain them back and a universal application to all classes (which, admittedly, has been a long time coming). This isn't nessecarily low-magic, it's just magic by a new name.

And that I think is the key point. Even if all this works - and I'm not convinced that it would be worth it at higher levels, though I can definately see the attraction at low levels - it won't necessarily change the feel of the games. Essentially, Mearls has answered the question of how do you balance non-spellcasters with spellcasters at high levels without magic, with the answer, "By making everyone spellcasters." That may in fact turn out to be the only good answer, but I guarantee that it wasn't the answer that everyone was expecting.

I guess, for me at least, the problem is that I don't need tokens to do this by the system as it exists right now. This is just cover. The rules for cover include the ability to move so that the cover isn't blocking your line of sight. I don't need tokens to do this.

For me, the most offputting thing is that much of the token expenditures seem to be ways that the player can declare the universe to be different by 'finding' something about the environment that wasn't there before. This won't be offputting to everyone, and I can see the attraction of the consensual story telling to it, but it reminds me more of the Hollywood movies where the hero always finds the car keys in the get away vehical at the beginning of the chase scene, and always finds the alley in which the flower cart pulls out just behind him than it reminds me of the low gritty fantasy that is implied when people say 'low magic campaign'. The system might be awesome for a Spycraft type game (or even for that matter a silly game like Paranoia or Toon), but I'm not sure it actually what I want in D&D.

And I'm certainly not sure how the system handles itself as it gets more complicated. I would be a darn sight happier to see the system pulled off in Heart of Nightfang Spire or an even higher level module. That the system works for 4th level characters isn't surprising. Low level spell-casters are easy to run. They don't have that many options, and fighter types (even fighter types with a few 'fighter spells') work perfectly fine at low levels without a lot of magic (for one thing, they aren't facing alot of magic). Claiming that the system worked for 2nd-4th level characters is not only not very impressive, it's down right insulting compared to what the system was touted as.

 

[A'koss]

When I first heard of Tokens I admit I wasn't all that keen on the idea of "poker chip powers". But after seeing the hunter and spending some time thinking about it, it has certainly grown on me. The additional tactical options all seem to be geared to get players more involved in the game, to think a little more on their options, and even more importantly - it keeps the game fresh. You can now do cool things in every encounter, not just x times per day (which you're gonna save for the BBEG anyway). Stunts, Challenges... again, designed to draw you in and try something different, something more interesting. And I think in high level play, the IL options have the potential to really shine and keep that interest going when core D&D combat becomes a bit of slog.

Now, I'm sure when IL drops in our laps it's going to be a lot to take in. It's shaping up to be a significant departure from the default style of play and it looks like each character will have a plethora of options at higher levels. In some ways they do seem like limited wizards but I also think that playing from 1st level through 20th you will develop your own kind of style and figure out when try this and when to rely on that. But at the core, the options are always there to tempt you to try some crazy stunt or challenge or whathaveyou. You're not locked in the mentality that you have to save your best moves/attacks/etc. for a single encounter... I know I'm beginning to ramble a bit here, but you get the idea.

It's still very early yet, but my optimism grows every time I hear a new tidbit. I think Mike is definitely on the right track.

Cheers!

 

[Andor]

For me, the most offputting thing is that much of the token expenditures seem to be ways that the player can declare the universe to be different by 'finding' something about the environment that wasn't there before. This won't be offputting to everyone, and I can see the attraction of the consensual story telling to it, but it reminds me more of the Hollywood movies where the hero always finds the car keys in the get away vehical at the beginning of the chase scene, and always finds the alley in which the flower cart pulls out just behind him than it reminds me of the low gritty fantasy that is implied when people say 'low magic campaign'. The system might be awesome for a Spycraft type game (or even for that matter a silly game like Paranoia or Toon), but I'm not sure it actually what I want in D&D.

You need to make up your mind about if you dislike this because it is magic, or because it isn't. If tokens are 'magic' to you* then why does their ability to alter the world boggle your mind? So do spells at all levels from grease to entangle to blade barrier to prismatic wall.

If tokens aren't magic then they aren't altering the world they are just reducing the granularity of it. A square isn't 25 sq ft of linoleum, it's 25 sq ft of uneven stone and bits of debris. That it might contain something to trip over is not amazing. For that matter it could be linoleum. If you watch the other guys foot work and side step when he's off line to track you you can make someone trip over their own feet. I've done it while fencing, I've had it done to me.

Honestly, in the games you play, If you were in a tavern and you tried to grab a spoon off a table and throw it at someone would your GM would stop and have a fit because he hadn't told you there was a spoon there? How dare you assume that just because you were standing next to a crowded dinner table there was silverware within reach?

DnD, even in the most hack and slashy dungeon crawl, is still a game of consensual story telling. You do not tell the GM what his NPCs do, he does not dictate what your character does. Between these is a grey area. In DnD you cannot assume the convinient getaway cart is there, you have to ask your DM. In Amber you could in fact tell him it was there. Tokens are not a shift to amber, they are not even the plot contrivance points from a friend of mines old homebrew. They aren't even quite hero points. The ones we've seen are option points. And the mantra of 3ed is 'Options are good.'

* And I don't think they are simply because they effect the game, so does a sword. If you want to call everything the players do, feel, or hit someone with a power put down DnD and go play Hero (A fine system btw)

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

For me, the most offputting thing is that much of the token expenditures seem to be ways that the player can declare the universe to be different by 'finding' something about the environment that wasn't there before. This won't be offputting to everyone, and I can see the attraction of the consensual story telling to it, but it reminds me more of the Hollywood movies where the hero always finds the car keys in the get away vehical at the beginning of the chase scene, and always finds the alley in which the flower cart pulls out just behind him than it reminds me of the low gritty fantasy that is implied when people say 'low magic campaign'. The system might be awesome for a Spycraft type game (or even for that matter a silly game like Paranoia or Toon), but I'm not sure it actually what I want in D&D.

I don't know that I want to go too far into the spellcaster analogy, but the above point is interesting to me as that's not the way I considered it.

For one thing I've played with features such as the above in all my games since Feng Shui, it's absolutely essential if you want stunts to work with any effeciency at all.

But that wasn't the way I thought of it either, for me it was, "Ah, finally, a mechanic that recognizes the role-playing ineffeciency of escapism, that is that we as players will know less than our characters and know we can assume the difference of lore works in our character's favor." Though the phrase that went through my head was more, "Oh look, it's something to deal with the Thief in the dungeon but the player forgets to check for traps scenario."

I mean, of course the 20th level hunter is going to set up his opponents approaches and force him onto off footing. That's what he does he's the 20th level hunter, it's not what I do I'm just the 4th level, I know I know I'm flattering myself, storyteller but it's sure as hell what the guy I'm playing would do.

Mind you I'd never thought that there couldn't be circumstances where the DM couldn't nix the ability or grant bonuses to the opponent on the save.

The Hollywood or Television script scenario isn't something I'd thought of, though it sort of appeals to me.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

That's not a bug, that's a feature. Plus, this is all highly subjective. I mean, you're writing off the planning involved in ONE CLASS in the standard system as non-literary and uninteresting? Methinks the evidence does not support your babbling.

I don't understand where you are agreeing and disagreeing with me here.

 

[Celebrim]

You need to make up your mind about if you dislike this because it is magic, or because it isn't.

The above statement indicates that you aren't understanding my points. I'm sorry I've been unclear, but its worth noting that I don't get the same impression from Dr. Strangemonkey's replies, so maybe it's not all me. Perhaps if you don't understand what I'm saying, then you should speak your own mind rather than commenting on mine.

If tokens are 'magic' to you* then why does their ability to alter the world boggle your mind?

In case it wasn't completely clear, my principal objection to tokens is that they needlessly complicate the game and will increasingly complicate the game as character level increases. And in particular, it bothers me that this complication is added to the game for the express reason of getting away from magical world altering effects but in fact what the system really seems to do is give magical world altering effects a mundane explanation. So, when I refer to the token system as a 'magic system', I mean that in a gamist since. Obviously, from a simulationist/narrativist perspective, what's going on isn't magical. But at some level its starts to 'feel' magical to me.

So do spells at all levels from grease to entangle to blade barrier to prismatic wall.

All of which are expressly magical in a way that the token system (at least for non-magical characters) isn't.

If tokens aren't magic then they aren't altering the world they are just reducing the granularity of it. A square isn't 25 sq ft of linoleum, it's 25 sq ft of uneven stone and bits of debris. That it might contain something to trip over is not amazing.

That it and every other 25 sq ft. area of the universe contains something which provokes a DC 20+ balance check (the difficulty of running on a oiled balance beam) is somewhat amazing.

Alot of this seems very Mage the Ascension to me, with the "You can do magic, but it just has to not look like magic."

Honestly, in the games you play, If you were in a tavern and you tried to grab a spoon off a table and throw it at someone would your GM would stop and have a fit because he hadn't told you there was a spoon there? How dare you assume that just because you were standing next to a crowded dinner table there was silverware within reach?

I'm perfectly willing to allow PC's to assume that the universe is more complete than the description. A forest floor contains leaf clutter, sticks, and detritis even if I don't mention it. There are ants crawling around and so forth. You're particular example though shows exactly why such assumptions by the PC's must be grounded in the particular game world that you are in. Specifically, in my campaign world most taverns would not have tableware - you'd eat with your fingers off a slice of bread - and if you did have a spoon it would almost certainly be made of wood and thus not silverware. There would far more likely be a dagger on the bar than a silver spoon. If the PC was dining at a formal ball in a nobleman's house, the assumption that there would be some silverware present is on the other hand a pretty good one.

And that's the problem I have. I think that in a given environment, the assumption that there is a spot which is slightly more trippy than the rest of the floor is reasonable. But for the most part, this is not useful information, because the assumption that there is a spot on every floor as trippy as an ice rink is unreasonable to me. I already force players to make low DC balance checks on any reasonably trippy surface. You know its my campaign when you charge through the forest and I call for everyone to make DC 0 balance checks. It wouldn't be unreasonable for a player to try to place a trippy surface that forced someone who charged him to make a DC 5 balance check. But DC 20? DC 25? That's not taking advantage of the terrain. That's magic, or more to the point cinematic/dramatic movie magic.

But let's not get sidetracked. The principal objection I've had to this since the first is that adding all these tokens to the game is a complication I don't really need that doesn't solve the actual problems I have. It doesn't seem like its going to be able to help me run a high-level gritty campaign more easily. It doesn't seem like an extension of the D20 system. It seems like a completely new (and perhaps in the right genera interesting) system. The rest is just an excercise in exploring the ideas in the game out of my pure enjoyment of game mechanics as a thing in and of themselves.

 

[Staffan]

It doesn't seem like its going to be able to help me run a high-level gritty campaign more easily.

I haven't seen any marketing material about Iron Lore that said it's gonna be all gritty and stuff. The brochure emphasises lack of "safe" magic, "daring action and clever tactics", and "heroic combat."