The Gaming Den

I looked at the Iron Heroes books, and I think that at last my long search of D&D games where kick-ass characters are not overshadowed by others simply for taking a certain class is complete. I look through the game, the rules, and I love what I see. Magic is a plot device mainly, with rules for magic items not trumping story (Mastering Iron Heroes). Ever get that feeling with the standard magic spell casters, people constantly ask "if magic is so common, why is the world still medieval?" They have a magician class, but overall it is weaker than the other classes.
Overall, what do you folks think of it?

P.S. Frank Trollman, Ceilingcat, etc. is more than welcome to point out all the rules inconsistencies and possible game-breaking combinations out there. It really helps me to look out for potential loophole/overlooked rules so that I am not caught unawares by a rules-monkey.

While not perfect, the game seriously rocks. The arcanist appears weaker, but when you consider his attacks ignore damage reduction and he can cast in armor with no chance of spell failure, it really brings him up to par with the other classes. Although when an arcanist does fail a spell it can be deadly(our party arcanist killed himself a few times with failed spells).
Feat masteries and skill groups are definately an improvement. Cleave 10 with a beserker (or any THF) is broken though. All in all I think Iron Heroes is a great concept and is a great improvement on the existing system.

Iron Heroes has been discussed a few times on this board, particularly [counturl=83]here[/counturl], but also somewhat
[counturl=84]here[/counturl].

Hey, that second one seems familiar somehow.

The core quandary about the entire system is Bonus Feats and Feat Mastery. The Iron Heroes books revolves around them and they work at cross purposes.

So for example, let's consider getting Projectile feats or Armor feats, or any other chain that goes up to 10. In order to get the mastery up to 10 you'd have to pull some weird multiclassing BS or take one of the specialized classes out to level 17. But you don't actually haveto do that because all the specialized classes say this:

IH, p. 32 wrote:At 2nd, 6th, 10th, 14th, and 18th levels, you gain a bonus feat that must come from the Projectile feat category. Otherwise, you can spend this selection on any feat of your choice, provided that you meet its mastery requirements.

Now, the writing there is abominable, but it does say in black and white that a 2nd level Archer can simply take Far Shot 10 as their bonus feat - neatly obviating ever needing to take Far Shot 8.

It's a systemic problem. I genuinely don't understand what they were trying to accomplish with throwing in the mastery system and the bonus feat system at the same time. Also I don't understand why Far Shot 10 supercedes Far Shot 8 and also does not require Far Shot 8 - that's really obviously bad game design.

-Username17

It's been universally accepted that Iron Heroes is an unpolished work because Mearls stopped working on it partway through.

For instance, that rules quote as Frank pointed out to be poorly written, should properly be written as "you gain a bonus feat that must come from the Projectile feat category, provided that you meet the prerequisites for the feat". And everyone I've ever seen even speak of the game work with that basis. Basically, that bonus feat system is a typo and will be errata'd once it's pointed out. As an aside, I can only partially see where the writing allows a 2nd level archer to get Far Shot 10, so I'd appreciate it if you explained it better (I believe you, but elucidation is great).

I'm not quite certain how you can actually get mastery 10 in anything through multiclassing, since the errata which actually gives an explanation (rather than leaving us in the dark).

As for Far Shot 10 replacing 8, that is considered a feature. Only the archer is ever able to get Mastery 10 projectile feats, so having lesser effects around to choose is there.

I stated this before, but Mearls intended some feats in a mastery tree to supercede lower ones, on the basis that some people may want the basic effect sooner rather than later. This is especially so when you don't expect the game to go on long enough to get the better one. Yes, a stacking effect would be better than feats that obliviate lower ones, but that's an almost insignificant problem compared to others.

Most of the classes are fine, but I basically consider the Arcanist, Armiger, and Weapon Master to be structually unsound (in descending order of suck). The only way I've been able to reconcile such is to replace those three classes with variants.

But don't let all that scare you away, as it is still quite enjoyable (ran 2.5 campaigns under the system). The Arcanist absolutely needs something done to it (I've got my own uses, others have bigger lists), and the 'average' player is likely to not even notice the flaws inherent in the Armiger & Weapon Master (though I still house rule them). Since any other system I've played tends to have house rules, I don't consider the flaws to be significant enough to hinder enjoyment.

The text that Frank referred to was changed in Iron Heroes Revised to:

At 2nd, 6th, 10th, 14th, and 18th levels, you gain a bonus feat that must come from the Projectile feat category. You can spend this selection on any Projectile feat of your choice, provided that you meet its mastery requirements.

So, yeah, it was worded wrongly in the initial release. Redundant feats were by design; from what the author said, apparently the intent is to make you choose between usefulness now and a better effect if you wait a while. I didn't like that aspect of the feat system, so when I ran a game of it, I allowed people to swap out feats for a feat higher up in the same tree once they qualified.

Anyway, in general I'm fond of Iron Heroes. It's a lot of fun to make characters and the new Player's Companion has some interesting options, but both the magic systems (the Arcanist in the core book and the new Spiritualist) have problems and need adjustment to make them more useful. The latter, for example, can produce effects that are basically impossible to get otherwise (flight, teleportation) but they're extremely unlikely to be able to affect an appropriate CR PC-classed opponent with a spell at high levels. This is also, apparently, by design: you're supposed to use your attack spells on monsters or NPC classes, both of whom have worse saves, but frankly I don't think it's a particularly good choice.

Redundant feats were by design; from what the author said, apparently the intent is to make you choose between usefulness now and a better effect if you wait a while.

Wow. That actually pisses on the entire concept of the level system. With assumptions like that, you can't even talk about game balance - the author has already decided to unbalance things structurally. What a douche!

'm not quite certain how you can actually get mastery 10 in anything through multiclassing

Men at Arms stop getting new Masteries at level 17, and the standard progression grants a level 2 mastery for even a secondary category at level 3. It grants a level 2 Mastery in a primary at level 1.

So a Man at Arms 17/ Executioner 3 would have Finesse and Power Masteries of 10. A Man at Arms 17/ Armiger 1/ Archer 1/ Hunter 1 would have Projectile, Armor, and Tactics Masteries of 10.

-Username17

There are also traits in the Player's Companion that increase your effective mastery by 1 for various specific feat trees while giving you some bonuses and one that lets you pick the feat tree but gives no bonuses. In general, multiclassing is pretty good in Iron Heroes since not all the classes have a super capstone ability at level 20 to miss out on and once you get access to a skill group, you keep it.

At the limit of infinite classes, you'd be able to get Mastery 10 at level 9.

-Username17

I wouldn't quite say it 'pisses on' the concept, as the lower-grade feats are level appropriate when you get them, and just not even having the option at lower levels is annoying. It is a shame they don't create a stacking effect instead (Far Shot 8 & 10 doing roughly the same thing, but stack in effect); but the game is already going to be seeing houserules, so allowing people to switch out a lower grade feat for the obvious upgrade equivalent when it's available should help your individual game.

The rules for multiclassing are not straight addition. For each mastery type, you get the highest one from one of your classes, and add half the value from the rest. Therefore, you get the mastery 9 for all feat trees at level 17 with the Man-At-Arms, and any level that grants mastery 2 will increase that particular branch to 10 (archer 1/Man-At-Arms 17 for Projectile 10, everything else 9). Of course, this is using the man-at-arms, and feats are his specialty, and he still gets to Mastery 10 one level later than a single-classed specialist.

Hmm, I guess you could get mastery 10 by level 9 if you made a sufficiently large number of classes with the same mastery; which I don't see happening.

Multiclassing is alright, but doesn't have an obvious "you're stupid if do/don't do it" descriptor to it.

I didnt' think the masteries added up, I thought you just used the highest mastery available. So if you had mastery 6 and another lcass that gave mastery 3, you'd only have master 6, not mastery 9.

They never actually stated in the original rules how multiclassing affecting feat masteries (editing process lost that paragraph). If you follow the errata link I gave earlier, it should have the errata'd rules where it actually gives the missing rules. I'll quote it here, for justice...

Iron Heroes Errata wrote:Feat Masteries: To calculate a multiclass character's mastery rating in each mastery type, add the full value of the mastery from the class with the highest value, and half the value of the masteries from other classes that get that mastery type, rounded down per class. For example, an Archer 4 / Man-at-Arms 3 has a projectile feat mastery of 4. He gets 3 from his Archer levels + 1 more (half his rating of 2) from his Man-at-Arms levels.

Frank, when you post about game systems, you seem to be quite passionate, especially regarding design flaws and game balance? I do not mean to pry, but why is this?

Frank writes game-systems (sometimes for money) - would you want your game-designers not to care if the system was unplayably bad?

Because people's lives depend on these rules.

I think it's just his conversational style. Be interested to know though

I myself very much appreciate his style of critique in regards to pointing out what's wrong with a system. Rare is the day that I can disagree with his observations, which make me aware of what needs to be done as far as house rules are concerned (granted, I was more or less aware of IH's problems and had already dealt with most of them).

It does make me pine for the concept of an RPG that can be run out-of-the-box without having balance/functionality concerns. By the way, if anyone responds to that comment with a "use his SAME system", I'm going to be annoyed.

Play 2nd Edition BESM. Remove the 'extra attacks' ability; give out people new attacks per 20, 50 or 100 character points. That or simply give out no new actions per round ever.

I'm not sure what else is that wrong, but since everyone can get the same abilities and descrbribe them differently even with characters that are clones you can still get variety; balance issues are really an issue of player ability.

If you're playing a thematic game with BESM, then balance problems show up less. Especially if everyone has to use the same equipment (mecha, tanks, guns).

Really, the only annoying thing about a system like this is that as a GM you'll have to stat out everything that's not a PC.

There are so many ways to break BESM, it's not even funny. BESM is a system that's "balanced" by the DM disallowing overpowered characters, it even pretty much says that in the book.

It's the last system you want to use as an example of balance.

RC, at least it says to disallow overpowered characters.

D&D pretends that everything is balanced inherently, and that their text is gold.

What PO's me is that people pay so little attention to actual game design - look at the creditials of the designer in the credits of any game, be it computer or tabletop. Assuming there is one.

-Crissa

RandomCasualty at [unixtime wrote:1185648976[/unixtime]]There are so many ways to break BESM, it's not even funny. BESM is a system that's "balanced" by the DM disallowing overpowered characters, it even pretty much says that in the book.

It's the last system you want to use as an example of balance.

I would quote GoO on their manifesto

The RPG MANIFESTO
These rules are written on paper, not etched in stone tablets.
Rules are suggested guidelines, not required edicts.
If the rules don't say you can't do something, you can.
There are no official answers, only official opinions.
When dice conflict with the story, the story always wins.
Min/Maxing and munchkinism aren't problem with the game; they're problems with the players.
The Game Master has full discretionary power over the game.
The Game Master always works with, not against, the players.
A Game that is not fun is no longer a game -- it's a chore.
This book contains the answers to all things.
When the above does not apply, make it up.

That manifesto can go choke on a-

*restrains himself*

"Min/Maxing and munchkinism aren't problem with the game; they're problems with the players."

That's a load of horseshit right there. It might be if you have to sign a written statement of non-munchkinism before you play the damn BESM game, but to include it an document called the "RPG Manifesto" as if it should apply to all RPGs everywhere is crap of the highest magnitude.

What is it about gaming manifestos that I hate so consistly?

But you got to love this line...

wrote:The Game Master always works with, not against, the players.

Note its not a direction but a declaration.

The game master is not instructed TO always work with the players.

Whatever he does is simply declared to BE working with the players.

Always.

Rather than attack the manifesto's wording, I need to point out the flaw in using it as a defense. We can declare a rule to be imperfect, and we are not at fault for having logical reasons in making such an observation, and using this "RPG Manifesto" is the Oberoni Fallacy at its finest. And if you take the manifesto to its logical extreme, why are you even using BESM, and not just some kind of Baron von Muchausen or Feng Shui variant (which might be too constrictive in rules for your tastes)?

I wasn't using the RPG Manifesto as my defense, but as the one that is in the BESM core book. (I have the both versions of the system.)

I have played with BESM since first edition, you can't help but break the system even when the GM takes away some attributes for purchase.

The RPG manifesto is like a disclaimer before someone gives a bad speech. "This is going to suck, but please go easy on me"

I am sorry if my wasn't clear, it was sort of a half thought I had.