Iron Lore - Tokens, what the heck are they?

[Lonely Tylenol]

....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.

This is exactly the casting mechanic in Donjon.

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.

I think this is the origin of the "per encounter/for the duration of the encounter"-style references. This is not without precedent. How long is a barbarian fatigued after a rage?

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

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.

Player: I spend a token to gain an advantage by grabbing something off the table and throwing it in his face before I strike. (slaps down token)
DM: Sure, there happens to be some silverware, and so you fork him in the nose. Strike away.

That doesn't seem so difficult. Certainly, the idea behind it doesn't fail on the notion that there might not be silverware in a tavern.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

...But this system has nothing to do with fatigue.

Actually, we can't comment intelligently on what the system as a whole "has to do with." It seems that the different classes will be dealing with different limited resources. It looks like the classes start a given period of increased energy expenditure with a set amount of resources to spend. The nature of the resource varies with what you're doing with it. The Hunter's is a form of mental focus. This mental focus gives him a nice tactical picture of the battlefield. When he does something to alter the battlefield, either via trickery or by alerting his teammates to something they can exploit, he also changes the nature of the situation, requiring him to refocus on the battlefield to recalculate the variables as it were, and thereby rebuild his mental picture. The larger pool he starts a battle with as he levels up is merely his increasing ability to track multiple tactical variables at the same time. And did anyone but me notice that outside of a stressful combat situation, he can use some aspects of this ability at will?

Outside of combat, your fortuitous insight grants your allies a +2 competence bonus to all Strength-, Dexterity-, and Wisdom-based ability checks as long as: (1) they stay within 60 feet of you; (2) you can see them; and (3) they can hear you offer advice to help them with their tasks. In the chaos of combat, you cannot be so free with guidance while maintaining your wits. This use of fortuitous insight carries no token cost.

This is a perfect extrapolation of how the "tactical picture" theory would work outside of combat. With no distractions or rapidly changing variables, the Hunter's sheer capacity for tracking the variables in a situation is unfettered.

Despite being rather mentalistic, that's a more realistic resource model than anything in core D&D, and it has advantages in terms of sheer fun, IMO, because it removes the "should I blow my 1 use today of Smite Irritation on this encounter?" with "let's rock, I have replenishable resources!"

I can't wait to see if the other classes use as reasonable and flavorful a resource model for their capabilities.

 

[Seeten]

Yeah. Sounds cool.

"Seeing the hole in the wall to shoot through" and "Leading enemies over a pool of quicksand" seem very cinematic, and very Conan/Predator to me. In fact, I like it.

 

[Drew]

I think this is key. One class preview (and an incomplete one at that) and suddenly we're all experts on how this system will fail or fly? Hello? Can we lose the nay-saying until there's actually a finished product to evaluate in its entirety?

Is it just me, or does this happen pretty much any time something new appears? Someone comes out of the woodwork with a pronouncement that the product will be utter crap, having seen a piecemeal and brief bit of information... Let's just settle down and wait to see what the product is actually like before we go off half-cocked and make ourselves look dumb.

Hi, welcome to the internet. Enjoy your stay.

 

[Felon]

No. There is one important distinguishing characteristic which separates the above from a spell system. In athe above cases, the assumption is that successfully tumbling, fast-talking, sneak attacking, or chopping something with a sword does not prohibit the character from doing it again. In fact, whenever you assume a naturalistic explanation for events, the assumption is that doing something once indicates that it can be done again.

There's nothing intrinsic to the concept of a spell system that limits the number of times per day you can cast a spell. That's just something D&D imposes. In GURPS, Fantasy Hero, or even D20 variants like Sovereign Stone, spells can be recast. If a limit on uses per day is some sort of criteria for qualifying an ability as a spell, does that mean these aren't actual spell systems? It does not.

If you have a natural talent for doing something, what should forbid you from doing it whenever you like - or at least more times per day than can be easily tracked?

In the case of the Hunter, he has to study the battlefield, which seems like a pretty mundane explanation.

The one case in the above that doesn't seem to fit into the others is the barbarians 'rage' ability. Why can the barbarian only get angry once per day? Balance reasons. The barbarian's rage ability could just as easily be a spell-like effect because it is not at all clear that it isn't some supernatural ability on the barbarian's part.

It's marked as an extraordinary ability, which makes it very clear that is not a magical ability.

A few times a day the barbarian gets to call on supernatural forces. OK, that's magical so I don't need a naturalist explanation for why it can only occur a few times a day.

You don't, but it would certainly make the barbarian tremendously unappealing to other players. It could be described as supernatural, but is not. He can't rage whenever he feels like it because of physical and/or mental fatigue. That is as simple an explanation as magic.

But what is the naturalist explanation for only being able to make better use of cover a few times in a fight? I mean, if you can make superior use of cover once, why are you suddenly unable to make superior use of cover latter?

Because it gets harder to do. Call it mental exertion, stress whatever. The higher-level hunter is mentally more resourceful than the lower-level hunter. After all, characters do level up by a mechanic called "experience". It's funny We get used to the notion that experience equates to upgrades in raw power, but experience is pretty much a mental attribute.

The token system seems to encourage a explaining the situation in a way that fits the mechanics to a degree beyond what we are used to in D&D. Normally, if you had 'Improved Duck Behind Cover' then you'd just be good at crouching behind cover. Now though, the character spends his ability to crouch behind cover as a resource. "Ooops the goblin steps 6" to the left and you are completely out of ideas on how to stay hidden... at least until the sudden beginning of the next encounter."

Precisely. He's run out of ideas. His bag of tricks is empty. Maybe if he had more experienced, he'd have another back-up plan.

Only in a system that let's you raise dead at will.

That seems like an arbitrary reason for saying that raising the dead is not magical. Deities can raise the dead at will. That's not magic? A warlock's eldritch blast is usable at will. That's not supernatural?

 

[Janx]

I'm not sure why the negative reactions came up, the token system makes sense to me.

I think some confusion exists on what Iron Lore is about. I think the key feature of Iron Lore is that your PC that washed up on the beach with no stuff is just as cool as he was yesterday, when he was buckling swashes with a pack full of gear. Main point, your cool tricks are built into the character, not the the gear. I got a friend who will only play Forsakers with the Vow of Poverty (smashes magic items to get more powers, doesn't need gear), to avoid dependance (and DM vulnerability) on equipment. So I get that.

With that goal in mind, there's several ways to solve it. The "easiest" is to have lots of feats and class features that unlock at each level. In this way, BAB, AC and damage can go up, as if you had magical items. Throw in some funky effects, and you've got gear built into the PC. Problem solved, though you've got characters with some mighty mystical powers probably.

Now comes this token system. At the simplest, it is an easy way to model "charging up" for an action. This could be for casting a spell, "hulking out" on a barbarian, finding a tactical advantage. That's pretty useful actually. It also might encourage more than making attack rolls every round (which becomes fairly boring).

To further incorporate the token system, they've rolled it into each of the classes, making it even more essential. That's OK, it encourages their use, and gives them a way to manage the power levels (max tokens).

Now it is a valid concern to see how high level play carries out. Are there too many tokens to deal with? Are the PCs too powerful or not powerful enough? Is it any more complex than normal D&D? A fair number of players can easily handle high level D&D, it's usually the DM who can't (too many variables).

I suspect we'll have to wait and see if Malhavoc releases playtest notes on high level play. They've only had one playtest article after all (and they're not going to dump all their articles in the first week). They've got to build interest over time, until the release date.

Janx

 

[Belen]

The more I learn about Iron Lore, the less I like it. It was a great concept, but I want classes that can be yanked and still be compatible with 3.5. Also, I detest action points in my games.

 

[Belen]

The one case in the above that doesn't seem to fit into the others is the barbarians 'rage' ability. Why can the barbarian only get angry once per day? Balance reasons. The barbarian's rage ability could just as easily be a spell-like effect because it is not at all clear that it isn't some supernatural ability on the barbarian's part. A few times a day the barbarian gets to call on supernatural forces. OK, that's magical so I don't need a naturalist explanation for why it can only occur a few times a day.

Well, the old explanation was that a berserker was so tired after a rage that that needed some recovery time, although they watered that down with the niagra in 3e.

 

[Halcyon]

I envy all the playtesters. August is too far away.