What are everyones thoughts on Iron Heroes?

[ThirdWizard]

So, I can rest easy giving out Rings of Protection knowing that the standard PHB fighter can benefit while the IH hero cannot and doesn't become unbalanced. But if IH abilities all grant unnamed bonuses and such, then I consider that poor game design because it could have been avoided.

Iron Heros PCs are built from the ground up more powerful than a standard D&D PC, though. They arn't just PCs with pluses that mimic magical items; they get neat abilities that would be overpowered in a normal game. This is offeset by the fact that they don't get magical items.

Take feat trees for instance. You can take feats in the Finesse line that give progressive Sneak Attack (remember IH PCs gain feats much more often than D&D PCs), or things in the Power line that inflict status effects on enemies in addition to damage dealt. They gain BAB (and iterative progression) faster than D&D classes. And, other such things. An IH PC is a different breed than a D&D PC, its even more of an alternate system than Arcana Unearthed/Evolved was from D&D.

EDIT: This doesn't mean an IH PC can't play in a normal D&D environment with a few tweaks (mainly no magical item treasure). It just means that to keep on the same power level as a D&D PC, they can't have magical items. The main reason behind IH being made, as far as I know, was to make PCs that don't need magical items, so that's kind of the point.

 

[A'koss]

You can add me to the list of those completely stoked over Iron Heroes.

The stunt system (which should make high level fights very interesting), the expanded and tweaked skill uses, the combat zones, the easy-bake "Villain" classes, the cool classes and being geared towards balance vs the encounter (instead of per day abilities)... I think Mearls is really onto something with this one.

I don't know if this has been mentioned yet in this thread but there are magic items in Iron Heroes - but apparantly they operate similarly to CoC's (as in, they're potentially dangerous to use). It's just that you don't need magic items in IH.

I probably wouldn't mix D&D characters with IH's varieties unless you could put them into some kind of neutral situation. You don't want to give IH standard magic items and you don't want the D&D characters without them. Adventure's though? I can't see why not so long as you change the NPCs to IHs and drop the magic items.

One of things I've always thought was a bit odd about D&D was that it was never the best system to model a lot of the mythological, fantasy and cinematic sword & sorcery genres which inspired it in the first place. I think IH is shaping up to be the ruleset you'll want to use in many of these kinds of settings.

Cheers!

 

[A'koss]

I'm curious about the management of combat from the DM's perspective -- is there a "tokenless" method for DMs?

"Villain" classes as I understand it are tokenless (at least on the class-ability level. Certain IH classes like the Man-at-Arms (the most flexible of all the PC classes), the Harrier (the most mobile/nimble of the classes) and the Arcanist all don't use tokens either.

And I'm very curious about the magic system.

Spellcaster checks, mana, spell recipes, dangerous, but easily replenishable seem to be their hallmarks.

 

[Andor]

Iron Hero classes don't get bonuses in place of magic items a la the Vow of Poverty, they are differently designed classes as you can see here.

So no, they are not by default balanced with DnD style classes if they both have access to the same items. The two obvious fixes are to either A) buff the DnD classes or B) Disallow magic items and spells from the Iron Heros classes.

Since it has been stated that a conversion guide will be in the book, so you'll probably see both discussed in the text.

 

[CronoDekar]

Don't know if I'll buy it right away, but I'm very stoked. Usually I like settings with lots of magic, but supposing it lives up to the hype this looks like it'll be a good system for fun games. As Yair mentioned earlier, I like the fact that challenges seem to be based on per encounter rather than per day.

Plus there's a guy I know who has a great homebrew setting, but he's always tried to shoehorn it in to D&D (since that's what the group plays) and while it kinda worked, it was odd. IH looks like it's made just for him, particularly with the rare magic items and dangerous magic.

 

[Particle_Man]

I think you could use IH heroes in regular D&D if you "forsakerize" them. Make them take a vow never to use any magic items, and place them under a super "by all the Gods put together and its unbreakable even by multiple Wishes so there" curse that makes them completely unaffected by beneficial magics/psionics of any kind (but still affected by hostile stuff like a fireball).

[edit] Oh yeah, Me Want Iron Heroes! It will be an extremely hard decision as to whether I would rather DM C&C or IH, but I would certainly rather play IH, as described so far, than anything else.

 

[Acid_crash]

This book was on the I'll wait and see rack to the I will buy this book as soon as it comes out rack.

About time someone took the game to the next level. AE was a step above, but IH just looks like the next evolution in class and game d20 design. At least, to me it does.

 

[mearls]

Too little sleep, a D&D session, and loads of work have turned my brain into tapioca, so I'm in no shape to answer anything but the simplest question. However, I can say that there are definitely classes that have no resource management aspects. That was an intentional design decision, to give a nice, broad array of options. Both the uber-flexible man-at-arms and the harrier lack token pools. In the harrier's case, tokens didn't model what I wanted the class to do. In the man-at-arms's case, the class is built as a sort of blank, generic template that you can use as a do-it-yourself, build your own class kit.

 

[Li Shenron]

What I really want to see is how IH changes the CORE PHB classes in order to compensate for the lack of magic in the campaign.

If the change is not too complicated and doesn't imply the use of "tokens", and of course if it isn't unbalanced (but I am sure it'll be very balanced), then I will really consider taking this book, even if I may not use the new classes at all.

The "tokens" idea isn't bad, but it also complicates combat a lot. IH is openly combat-centric, but tokens go way beyond my taste for complexity. Their use is optional of course, but I am afraid that Mike & Monte had become so enthusiasts of this idea that maybe the book revolves too much around them.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

What I really want to see is how IH changes the CORE PHB classes in order to compensate for the lack of magic in the campaign.

In short, it doesn't. Like Arcana Evolved it abandons the core classes entirely.