Mastering Iron Heroes? Worth it?

[SJE]

How useful is Mastering Iron Heroes for a veteran GM?

I ask, because I flicked through it today in Forbidden Planet and saw that it was mostly general GMing advice, some magical item properties lifted from the DMG and some poison or deisease damage thing.

So- any important stuff I missed on my flick through that elevates this book to 'must have' status?

SJE

 

[Varianor Abroad]

Only you can be the judge of that.

That said, zones and Villain Classes make it a good buy in my mind. I've used material from it because of that.

 

[Particle_Man]

It has an optional experience point system based on blowing your money on ale and whores.

BEST! GAME! EVAR!

 

[SJE]

Only you can be the judge of that.

That said, zones and Villain Classes make it a good buy in my mind. I've used material from it because of that.

What are zones? And the Villain classes- is it the usual Dark Lord Sauron/Jabba style crimelord/Black Knight type of thing?

Thx.

Steve

 

[philreed]

What are zones?

Zones are special areas on the map that (can be) interactive. They're things like falling rocks, boiling lava, and objects that the characters can interact with to set events in motion. An example in the book includes a catapult that a hero shoves off a castle wall into a crowd of enemies below.

A DM can design an area with several different zones and turn the battlefield into an interactive, action-packed landscape rather than a static background.

Zones definitely make the book worth its price. (I have the PDF.)

Question: Is the print version actually a hardcover? I haven't seen it in print yet. If it's a hardcover I may just have to grab the print version.

 

[Capellan]

The three villain classes in MIH are the demonic brute, dreaded sorcerer, and warleader. The "selling point" of the villain class concept is their convenience to GMs. Each comes in a range of CRs, ready statted with ability scores, feats, special abilities and so on. With the dreaded sorcerer, for instance, you have a ready-to-go spellcasting opponent for every CR from 3 to 20.

 

[SJE]

Zones are special areas on the map that (can be) interactive. They're things like falling rocks, boiling lava, and objects that the characters can interact with to set events in motion. An example in the book includes a catapult that a hero shoves off a castle wall into a crowd of enemies below.

A DM can design an area with several different zones and turn the battlefield into an interactive, action-packed landscape rather than a static background.

Zones definitely make the book worth its price. (I have the PDF.)

Question: Is the print version actually a hardcover? I haven't seen it in print yet. If it's a hardcover I may just have to grab the print version.

The print version is a thin softback of about 96 odd pages (guessing there) for about £12 in the UK. So not particularly cheap, or overpriced. Heft is quite light, which is why I paused from buying it- didnt feel like I was getting my moneys worth.

See zones dont seem particularly innovative to me. I've always run games where PC's can use props to enhance the battle- part of the old Feng Shui attitude of using the scenary at hand to make a more dramatic battle, and the more dramatic the scenary, the more dramatic the stunts you could pull.

Pushing a catapult off the wall? Boring. Jumping into the catapult, triggering it, and launching yourself swordpoint first into the gullet of the dragon to carve out its heart? Now we are talking! (and thats what my PC's did in my Exalted game a few sessions back)

Essentially I'm not hearing anything in zones that we have seen thats already implicitly implied in cinematic-style games like Star Wars or Spycraft

SJE

 

[Psion]

How adaptable is the material to non-IH games?

 

[Plane Sailing]

Essentially I'm not hearing anything in zones that we have seen thats already implicitly implied in cinematic-style games like Star Wars or Spycraft

Or, for that matter, suggested explicitly in the DMG! It sounds like the 'zones' are just an attempt to regularise it a little?

 

[Felon]

Yeah, someone please elaborate. I'm really not getting how slapping the label "zone" on a pool of acid is in any way adding content to my game that didn't exist before. It sounds more like general advice than an actual codified rules subset ("add interactive elements to your battlefield like falling rocks and pools of lava").