Is Iron Heroes Dead

[Azgulor]

One of the biggest problems with IH was the fact that Mearls admitted the book was really incomplete. The magic section was especially lacking. When the author eevn says it isn't done and apologizes, but it gets released anyway, I really don't have any interest in buying it. If IH got revamped a bit, fleshed out in the places it needs it, I would consider picking it up. I'm not going to knowingly pay for an incomplete game though.

For a full-price hardcover I'd agree. For a $10 PDF, however, you're missing out on some good stuff.

 

[SSquirrel]

Yeah, I still haven't gotten too into pdfs. I own some stuff that way, but I vastly prefer a physical copy. The pdf is great when I need to do a quick wordsearch to find something specific or if I had a laptop, but I don't own a laptop. Pdfs are handy for being able to stick gaming books on my USB key and look at them at work tho.

 

[frankthedm]

Fun ideas, good to mine from.

I have to echo the "felt unfinished" comments.

AC as DR just aggravated the problem of 3.5's way too good Power Attack.

Would likely buy a new Iron Heroes that used Pathfinder as a base.

 

[Khairn]

I used EN's Elements of Magic instead of Mearl's IH magic system, with the core IH classes and the combination worked great. I would have loved to see what kind of magic system Monte could have created to fit into the IH mold.

IH is still one of the very best 3PP 3e variants that I purchased over the years.

 

[SSquirrel]

That crown still goes to Arcana Evolved for me.

 

[Smeelbo]

Mike Mearls: Works by the Word

Mike Mearles is famous for completing the easy stuff (i.e. writing enough words to fill his contract), but avoiding the hard work (i.e. editing, revising, balancing, etc.). When you're paid by the word, there's little incentive to finish your work.

Iron Heroes is no exception.

Smeelbo

 

[Wik]

Harsh words, Smeelbo.

For the record, I loved Iron Heroes. We ran it a few times, and the group loved it. The player of the Arcanist had a lot of fun when he screwed up and brought negative effects to the rest of the group. The Archer got to do all sorts of fun stuff (and he wasn't bad in a melee fight, either!), the Armiger really had fun taking hits, and our Weapon Master was an absolute terror. We got things to around 5th level, and yeah, it was a lot of fun.

Tokens were a bit messy, true, and there were some definite problems. But we had a lot of fun with it. Unfortunately, I loaned the book to one of my players, who disappeared for a while afterwards. And now I only rarely see him... and each time I mention the book to him, he says "yeah, I'll get it back to you".... and then I don't see him for another six months.

 

[jdrakeh]

Mike Mearles is famous for completing the easy stuff (i.e. writing enough words to fill his contract), but avoiding the hard work (i.e. editing, revising, balancing, etc.). When you're paid by the word, there's little incentive to finish your work.

Iron Heroes is no exception.

Smeelbo

That sounds perilously close to being a personal attack. In other news, only a teeny tiny percentage of contracted designers aren't paid by the word.

 

[Celebrim]

That sounds perilously close to being a personal attack.

It was a little harsh, but for my part, I'm more inclined to overlook an attack that borders on the personal if the person is a public figure where such attack is directed at the person's public works. If for example, someone where to say, "Celebrim's work on 'The Explicatae Incompositae' proves he just doesn't have the chops to be a great game designer. His work lacks imagination, his technical prowess is limited, and he shows no signs of doing the hard work necessary to finish the project.", I consider that a valid review (even if I disagreed) of my work. In the case where I had actually offered the work up for sale at $39.95 I would expect people to offer up occasionally such scathing reviews of my work. After all, I'd demanded $39.95 from them. The least I could do is suck it up when someone said, "You suck. I feel cheated. Get a new job."

Mearls is hardly my favorite designer either. As I look over his work, I don't see alot that just jumps out at me as a must have.

My biggest problem with his work on IH is that it doesn't accomplish what I think it was implied it was setting out to accomplish. The IH product wasn't marketed on how well it would play from 1st-5th level, but on how well it would play from 10th level on. What I think most people wanted from the product could be summed up as 'grim-n-gritty low magic and speedy play at high level'. IH never felt like it could deliver.

I think IH is a great game from 1st-5th level. At low levels of play it looks like it could be alot of fun. I very much got the feeling that the product was offered up having never been play tested beyond 3rd or 5th level or so.

I very much got the impression that Mearls found ''grim-n-gritty low magic and speedy play at high level' to be a very hard task to achieve, and that he in effect cheated by taking magical abilities and putting a thin cosmetic of mundaneness on top of them. Painted up high magic play posing as low magic play is just not what I wanted. I can do wuxia just fine with standard D&D.

All that isn't to say that I wouldn't put Mearls on a design team or that I think he should get a different day job. I think Mearls is brilliant at the small scale stuff. I think he's very imaginative, and capable creating very innovative and flavorful subsystems. And he's prolific as anything. If you want words to pad out your work, Mike is definately your man. I just don't think I'd tap Mearls to be head designer for an entire system.

 

[jdrakeh]

It was a little harsh, but for my part, I'm more inclined to overlook an attack that borders on the personal if the person is a public figure where such attack is directed at the person's public works.

Well, Smeelbo's comment was directed at Mearls himself, not his works, as evidenced by the lead in "Mike Mearls is famous for. . ." IANAL, but since Smeelbo is asserting that Mr. Mearls "is famous for" [not completing his commissions], I think that he (i.e., Smeelbo) needs to offer up proof of that, otherwise it seems that he's also treading dangerously close to libel. Regardless, the comment seemed nasty, petty, and unsupported. It's one thing to say that IH seems incomplete*, but quite another to claim that X designer is notorious for padding his projects with filler, while failing to deliver on substantial content.

*Seeing as how IH was marketed as an alternate PHB, not a stand alone game, even that complaint seems pretty ridiculous, however. IH wasn't without its flaws, but criticizing a product that was never meant to be a standalone game for not being a standalone game is absurd.