The Ironics: Pregenerated Characters for d20 Fantasy Games
By Eric Jensen
Published by E.N. Publishing
Pages: 60
Fully bookmarked
The name of this PDF is a not-so-subtle riff on the Iconics, that is, those characters such as Krusk and Mialee and Lidda that have been with us ever since D&D 3rd edition was released. Somewhere in my hazy recollection, before the big switch to 3.5, I seem to recall that game statistics were eventually released for those characters, showing off their abilities at a number of levels. The Ironics seeks to do the same thing for a bunch of, well, nobodies really. But that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because it means my players will never have heard of them!
What you get is a ZIP containing four files: a front cover, a back cover, the Ironics as a PDF, as well as in Rich-Text-Format. The front cover is very simple, giving you the products title and a logo featuring a shield, a hammer and a sword, all on a parchment-textured background. The back cover is even simpler than that, as it features only the exact same parchment-textured background! Well, fair enough. Chances are that few people will be printing this document out in its entirety, but if you are one of those people, your bases are covered. The RTF version contains just the statistics for the various Ironics, preceded by a small section describing the character’s background and general tactics. It is formatted with the same layout that you are currently reading, which is to say, sans columns, in order to facilitate cutting-and-pasting the text into your own notes, where you would presumably be reformatting to your own personal preferences anyway. The PDF is in standard portrait format, and aside from the title page, presents everything in the familiar two-column format we’ve largely come to expect from the industry. The pages are very printer-friendly. There are no toner-hungry borders surrounding each page, and where backgrounds are shaded to offset the text, they are done so in a light grey. In addition, there is no artwork to speak of, and so I won’t. It comes fully bookmarked, and each bookmark entry is listed by class and role for ease of use. For example, the bookmarks show three rogues listed, one as a “Con Artist”, another as a “Trapsmith”, and the last as a “Sneak Attack Master”. For those who do wish to print the entire thing out, the Table of Contents provides a little more information for each character, including a name, race, class, role, and most importantly, a page number. The Open Game License is the only thing on the last page, making it easy to omit in the list of pages to print.
Along the left side of the full-page Table of Contents runs a brief introduction, which explains the following: The Ironics contains twenty-six pregenerated characters, each with full stats given for levels five, ten and fifteen. Every base core class is represented with at least two distinct character builds, the exceptions being the Rogue which gets three, and the Fighter which gets five. Each character is created using the point-buy method, and while the text declines to tell you the actual number, a little reverse-engineering on my part reveals it to use 28 points. The characters all come fully and appropriately equipped using the PC wealth-by-level guidelines. In addition, each of the core races is represented, and each character comes with a short background, a brief description of common combat tactics, and what changes to consider if the DM wishes to use the character as a villain. The product was also designed to be used as a resource during tournament play, using only the core rulebooks to provide some sort of parity amongst the characters brought to the table by those players coming in from each of the four winds and all walks of life.
Both as a player and as a DM, there’s a lot to like about The Ironics. Characters are easily identified by their role, so if I need a half-orc tank to throw at my players for the next session, a quick glance at either the PDF’s bookmarks or the Table of Contents will swiftly see me to the page I need. (The Table of Contents itself is also fully hyperlinked, so clicking on an individual entry takes me there.) As a player, I may have just lost a PC mid-game with no hope of resurrection, and could use a replacement on short notice. Or, never having played a bard charmer, I might want to see how to go about building one. The statistics provided include brief descriptions of character’s special abilities, enough that you generally don’t have to go flipping through another book in the middle of combat. Nowhere are you told to “see p. XX of the PHB”, for example. Class features such as familiars, special mounts, and animal companions are all included and statted out as well. Spells come pre-picked, and spellbooks have spells listed. Each character is formatted in such a way that, for a given character level, it never takes up more than one printed page, minimizing page-flipping. If as a DM, I know that an encounter is coming up in which I want to use one or more of these characters, I can simply print off the appropriate pages, staple them together and be done. Having different levels per character is useful as well, as I can mix and match levels between different characters to get an appropriate EL for the encounter. The character backgrounds are also a nice touch. They’re not so large and detailed as to be unwieldy, but do provide enough meat to decently run the character as a PC, NPC, or long-term villain.
All of the characters presented look like good and viable builds. There isn’t anything there that screams to me “That’s silly, that’ll never work!” There are no gnome barbarians, halfling monks or half-orc wizards. Not to say that such combinations are impossible, rather just that it’s much more work on everyone’s part, and extra work isn’t what The Ironics is about. That isn’t to say you don’t get interesting race and class combinations, because you do. I’ve never thought to stat out a dwarf urgrosh-wielding ranger, but the one in here seems well done. In retrospect, yeah, a half-orc monk specialized in grappling should work, so why not? And why wouldn’t a halfling fighter focus on archery, that’s just playing to their particular strengths?
If I have any real issues with the product it’s that the stat-blocks provided use the old format, the one that’s been with us ever since Krusk, Mialee and Lidda showed up on the scene. I personally really like the new format introduced by the DMG II and the more recent issues of Dungeon Magazine. Even at the sacrifice of space, something a PDF isn’t generally concerned about, I feel it’s easier to read, easier to follow, and quicker to navigate in the heat of combat. And while I can understand if the new format was probably revealed while The Ironics was in the middle of its development cycle, and can imagine the utter horror of the author thinking to himself “Do I change seventy-eight stat-blocks to the new format?!?”, I do hope that any future products will use the new format. As it is, coupled with the total lack of any artwork to break up the large blocks of fine text, while perusing The Ironics, mine eyes hath frequently glazeth over. It’s a good thing that it’s clearly not meant to be read from start to finish. (Like I tried to do... *cough*)
In searching for mistakes I didn’t find many, most likely owing to the inclusion of two separate “rules-editors” in addition to the editor listed in the credits. A sentence or two in the character backgrounds may come off sounding a little awkward at times, or the occasional word might be in the wrong tense, but I didn’t note anything overtly problematic or incomprehensible. As for the stat-blocks themselves, I didn’t see any errors or typos with any of them at first glance. The author keeps things relatively simple, putting full ranks into skills, never multiclassing, etc., and I think that decision paid off handsomely in minimizing the number of errors slipping through the nets. Presumably, since this is the meat of the product, it would also be the most heavily edited.
Will I use this product? Absolutely. One of the most time-consuming tasks a DM is faced with is statting out NPCs with which to challenge their players. The Ironics provides a nice mix of classes and archetypes to do just that. Even if I don’t use all of these provided characters verbatim, they do give me a good leg-up on the process, freeing up time for the more important aspects of the game: planning fiendish plots and executing them, not to mention the occasional character that gets in their way.
Reviewed by Scott Benoit
