What are everyones thoughts on Iron Heroes?

[orangefruitbat]

Mixing Classes

My suspicion is that you could probably use SOME of the DnD classes with little difficulty, particularly the magic-using ones, even without their magical equipment.

Cleric: probably could be used as is. Their magical ability allows them to hold their own. Plus they'll be able to cast spells without losing all their slots to spontaneous healing
Druids: probably could be used as is. They get all sorts of cool powers, plus a nifty array of spells that I suspect is quite different than the arcanist.
Wizard/sorcerer: we'll have to see what the arcanist looks like. There might be some redundancy here.
Rangers, barbarians, rogues, fighters: probably rendundant and can be simulated by taking IH classes. Probably easy to convert existing characters into IH classes.
Paladin, Monk, Bard: these would be tricky. There is no equivilent in IH (as far as I know), and I suspect that they'd be underpowered without giving them magic. If people wanted to play these types, I would probably have to create new IH classes for them. I'm actually surprised that there is no monk/unarmed combat master class in IH.
Prestige classes: most would probably work fine as is.

 

[XCorvis]

Akrasia, you're not alone. Personally, I see it as an all or nothing kind of thing - you're either using IH or regular D&D. They don't sound like they cross over well, and I wouldn't want to anyway. If one of the playtesters hadn't mentioned a crossover game, I would have assumed that it wasn't possible without major tweaking. I still think the "conversion rules" refer to how to convert a D&D adventure into IH, rather than how to blend IH and D&D.

Anyway, why would you want to have a crossover game? It sounds like you can replicate almost every D&D class with IH classes. I don't know if multiclassing has changed, but here are some possible replacements for regular D&D classes:

Barbarian - Berserker
Bard - Thief/Arcanist
Cleric - Arcanist/any warrior
Druid - Arcanist/Hunter
Fighter - Any but Thief or Arcanist
Monk - Any warror that can fight unarmed
Paladin - any warrior/Arcanist
Ranger - Hunter/Archer
Rogue - Thief
Sorcerer - Arcanist
Wizard - Arcanist

 

[zen_hydra]

I don't understand the preceived desirability of using IH classes/characters with regular D&D ones.

My understanding of the game is that it is simply not meant for 'standard' D&D campaigns. Rather, IH is meant for campaign settings in which magic is fundamentally different than it is in D&D -- viz. rarer and more dangerous.

The rules look very similar to those of Conan OGL. Just as you wouldn't use a standard D&D wizard in Conan, likewise you wouldn't use a standard D&D wizard in an IH campaign.

The purpose of IH is to run a fundamentally different -- i.e. non-D&D -- kind of campaign.

(At least this is my impression... )

Why...because the IH classes don't cover every cool thing that I want in my campaign world.

While I like the sound of all of the IH classes, what if I want to also have AE Champions and Mageblades running around with D&D Ninja and Psions?

I want the rules to be able to be molded to my ideas and not have to mold my ideas to the rules (at least for the most part).

I love everything that I have read about IH so far and IH takes a giant leap in the direction that I would like to see D&D go, but Mr. Mike Mearls didn't write this book after consulting me on everything that I want in a game, so it doesn't contain all of the elements that I want to include in my games.

That, in a nutshell, is why I want the ability (guidelines) to convert D&D classes (AE ones as well) to be on par with the IH classes.

If these guidelines aren't in the book(s) already, maybe they could be distributed by way of a web-enhancement (wink, wink, nudge, nudge, Monte).

I would love to see Mike and Monte's ideas on adapting / extrapolating the D&D and AE class abilities to work in a similar manner to the IH classes.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I think it would be cool to make an IH paladin with paladin-esque abilities that scale up through level advancement and are powered by tokens.

 

[A'koss]

I wonder if you could fit IH classes into a magic heavy D&D world by having them take an experience penalty of some sort and simply allowing them to use magic items... You would still have to sort out how you wanted to deal with armor, DR and healing however. IH classes tend to get more HPs than D&D characters so having them a fall behind a bit on levels might not be a big deal.

 

[Akrasia]

Why...because the IH classes don't cover every cool thing that I want in my campaign world.

While I like the sound of all of the IH classes, what if I want to also have AE Champions and Mageblades running around with D&D Ninja and Psions?

I want the rules to be able to be molded to my ideas and not have to mold my ideas to the rules (at least for the most part).
....

Tastes obviously vary, but I think there are limits to what one can include in a campaign setting, and still have that setting be 'coherent'.

Just as you don't have psionists in Middle-earth, D&D wizards in Hyboria, or smurfs in the WFRP's 'Old World', I am not sure that Mageblades are appropriate for the kind of campaign settings IH is meant for.

I agree that 'ideas' should come before rules. For that reason, I initially decide on what kind of campaign I want to run (e.g. 'high magic' versus 'low magic'), and then find the appropriate rules system to use. This is my approach, at any rate. (YMMV and all that.)

 

[philreed]

You are either fighting someone, or you are not - right? I mean, this is something I feel pretty certain of at any given moment in the real world. Whether I'm in danger is uncertain at times, but once a fight starts you know it.

But what if -- as a fight is winding down -- new opponents arrive and you don't get a chance to rest? Is this a continuation of an encounter or a new encounter?

I personally would rule it as the same encounter.

 

[Ozmar]

You are either fighting someone, or you are not - right? I mean, this is something I feel pretty certain of at any given moment in the real world. Whether I'm in danger is uncertain at times, but once a fight starts you know it.

Yeah! You know you're in a fight because the background music changes.

That and the DM calls for initiative.

Happens all the time.

 

[Tolen Mar]

Zen_Hydra and Akrasia have been discussing something that has been bothering me for a while.

It seems from all the posts Ive read here and on Monte's boards that everyone is wanting to mix the two. To a point I understand the desire, and with AE it was fairly easy. Therefore there seems to be a lot of expectation that it will be as easy to blend IH and DnD.

However, I have to agree with Akrasia here. You pick Iron Heroes because you want to play a low-magic, combat centric system. It isnt a splatbook for DnD. Wanting to blend them before we see the rulebook is kinda like hearing about a new sci-fi setting and wanting to import the classes straight into your fantasy game. They may be modeled by the same (or deeply similar) rules, but that doesnt mean they'll fit.

The whole point to Iron Heroes is low magic, and rare magic items as opposed to Monte Haul campaigns. What we've seen in the previews should be enough to tell us that IH is intended for far different things.

It's a common sense rule: Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.

Now I will say this: The classes may not mesh like you want (and we'll all have to wait a little longer to see), but there are a lot of other possibilities mentioned. The new skill rules sound like thay can be adapted easily to vanilla DnD, as can the stunts. (From what we've heard.) So it may not be wise to have your Executioner and Berserker standing with your cleric and wizard, but it doesnt mean that you wont be able to have that wizard and cleric pull off some interesting tricks during a battle that bring in some of the wow factor that can get lost in a "swing, you miss. swing, you hit. Cast a spell" kinda game.

Man, I can't wait to get my copy....

P.S. I think the Berserker may be the easiest to blend in, if you make him come from a tribe that forgoes magic items.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

But what if -- as a fight is winding down -- new opponents arrive and you don't get a chance to rest? Is this a continuation of an encounter or a new encounter?

I personally would rule it as the same encounter.

It seems to me as if it actually doesn´t matter.
Many of the tokens seem to be applied to certain targets (think of Archers aim pool, or the Executioners pool), so if the target is still there, you continue to use your token. If all old targets are gone, you have no useful tokens, anyway.
The hunters token seem to be the only terrain-based ones, I think they might actually be a "problem" - or in fact the indicator: No time to rest, still the same area? Encounter goes on. But the Hunter is also special - he gains a few tokens automatically at the beginning of combat, so he might not even care about wether he "lost" token due to a new encounter beginnin.
But probably it doesn´t matter for a second reason: You try to spend tokens as fast as you get them (according to playtester reports), so chances are good that you don´t have that much to lose by starting a new encounter.
The way tokens are gained and spend indicates to me that the duration of an encounter or the number of encounters doesn´t really matter.

 

[zen_hydra]

Tolen Mar,

I don't want to drop my IH characters into a D&D campaign and expect them to be comparably powered to D&D classes (it makes no sense to me that a IH character would forgo a magic sword if one was available).

All I want is a set of guidelines to build new IH style classes to mirror existing D&D and AE ones.

So that I can have a paladin that mechanically works like one of the IH classes, but is thematically a paladin.

I want to know the appropriate power levels for token powered class abilities, so that I can make paladin style abilities that ramp up as the character gains levels (like the previewed Archer class).

If I have at least a rough set of tools, to act as a set of balancing scales, I can make a paladin with increasingly powerful holy smiting goodness as well as other nifty paladin flavored abilities that can function quite well in a low-magic environment.

I want to remake D&D and AE classes to function in a rare magic item environment.

The Arcanist doesn't sound like it can't produce huge and powerful magical effects, so the power-level of magic doesn't seem to be decreased (necessarily).

Magic seems to be unstable, as opposed to waning out of existence.

I will happily play the game with or without the ability to convert classes.

It would just be an added bonus for me.