IRON HEROES & Arcana Evolved by Monte Cook

Sell on IRON HEROES First. I hear its grim and Low Magic. Could I use IRON HEROES to start a Dark*Sun inspired game well ? Tell me everything it changes from normal D&D d20


Next. Sell me on Arcana Evolved. I hear its High Magic righ, real high magic. What could I use it for ? Tell me about the changes to the normal D&D d20 method.

Iron Heroes is the finest low magic variant of D&D I have ever run across. It is very well built as a system, and has a number of perks and easter-eggs for the mechanically-minded player.

For example, the use of style descriptors for weapons gives PCs reasons to use many of the otherwise sub-par weapons. A warhammer is no longer something a PC chooses for flavour over mechanics, but now provides a PC with the ability to use feats that are available only for cudgel wielders. In play, this means a more diverse arsenal is used, which leads to more distinction between warriors.

The feat system is also redesigned. Feat trees are more clearly established, and scale in power. PCs get cooler abilities from their feats than in the SRD, without just replicating magical effects. The feel of the feats in play is that of playing a badass warrior going for broke.

The classes are well designed. They are now mainly based around fighting styles, which makes it easier to distinguish PCs and bring them to life. In my experience, it also means much less multi-classing, since you no longer need to jump through (minimum) three classes and PrCs to build a solid two-weapon fighter, for example. That makes it easier to build PCs and NPCs, and to figure out what they do in a fight, leaving you more time to concentrate on things like who they are and what they do when they're not fighting.

The skill system redesign is handy. PCs have more skills, and they can do more things with them. Weaker versions of some SRD class abilities and feats make it into the regular descriptions of skills (No need for a "Track" feat to track someone and Perform works as bardic music if your check is high enough). Because PCs have more skills, they can attempt more daring actions, like clambering up a building in combat or fighting on unstable ground, without having to worry about their wizard not having ranks in Balance or whatever.

Anyhow, there's a lot more than what I've listed above that's good about the game, but those are some really stand-out features I've noticed in play.

Based on what I've heard, if I were less broke I might even get IH. So if any of you cashed-up types want to convert a crusty old RPer who hasn't touched D&D with a ten-foot pole since 1982, you can PM for my address....

You can get the DRM-free pdf of the Revised version for US$15 from

https://shop.fierydragon.com/displayProductDocument.hg?productId=45

If I had US$15 to spare I'd be buying Agon. But thanks for the info.

I thought Iron Heros was just another churned out setting in the D20 glut. But that sounds very cool. I think I'm going to have to look into it.

Quote from: RoninI thought Iron Heros was just another churned out setting in the D20 glut.

Jeez, I dunno how you got that impression. It isn't a setting at all. The default "setting" of the game, such as it is, is called (if I recall correctly) the Swordlands, and details are very, very vague. IH is primarily a variant d20 system in which the fighting classes take the spotlight, and in which the PCs don't need to have magical abilities or items to stay on par with D&D characters of the equivalent level.

Pseudoephedrine covers some of the cooler aspects of the game. I particularly like the way skills are handled.  The only thing that slows the game down are the "tokens." Each class (except in a couple of cases) needs to collect "tokens" in order to use some of their class abilities (or for various other acts). No, the tokens aren't real, and are more akin to something like "action points." Each class accumulates them in different ways - for example, the Armiger (a class based on the use of armor) collects tokens by getting hit in combat; the Archer gets them by taking time to aim; and etc. Those aren't the only ways to get tokens, though. Anyway, these tokens can be used for some of the more spectacular or powerful class abilities or skill usages. Keeping track of them can be a bit of a hindrance.

Can we please, please leave Sell Me threads where they came from? Try "Hey guys! What's the new XYZ game like?" or "Has enyone played game ABC yet?" or anyhting - ANYTHING - else!

"Sell Me" just rubs me the wrong way, and belongs on The Big Purple.

-clash

Quote from: LacrioxusIRON HEROES & Arcana Evolved by Monte Cook

Sell on IRON HEROES First. I hear its grim and Low Magic. Could I use IRON HEROES to start a Dark*Sun inspired game well ? Tell me everything it changes from normal D&D d20

Combat-heavy, low-magic D&D. As a matter of fact, forget the included, stop-gap magic system. Half-assed.
You basically get classes for different styles of combat, from the guerilla harrior, the aw-shucks-no-melee-please archer to cutthroat executioners and expert weapon masters.

Most of them have innate abilities that require "tokens" that you gain through different actions (berserkers getting hit, archers aiming etc.). You can spend some of those for specific actions or some bonuses.
And most classes have different accesses to categorized feats.

The feats elaborate on the D&D combat options, some of them are straight copies, some of them are less powerful (where you have to have three feats to approximate all the bonuses of the one D&D feat), some of them expand the basic mechanisms (i.e. cleaves that you don't just get for dropping foes, but just for inflicting criticals on them).

You also can do some stunts in combat, where you use skills to gain a significant advantage. Running up monsters, dropping chandeliers etc. Obviously, this is pretty much left to the interpretation of the players and the DM.

The DM's booklet also includes the neat idea of "villain classes" (just use a Demonic Brute CR 14 and personalize some abilities and the looks of it) and combat zones (that wall looks pretty old, Strength DC18 and it crashes down etc.).

Ah, yes, and like most low-magic D20 variants, it uses a class defense bonus and armor as DR.

I'm not sure what to make of it right now. It's a pretty decent rule set for low-magic, but for old-schol sword & sorcery Conan is a good competitor (for less Mortal Kombat-like games), and with the new, ingenious Book of 9 Swords for D&D, martial players don't have too look much further.

Quote from: LacrioxusNext. Sell me on Arcana Evolved. I hear its High Magic righ, real high magic. What could I use it for ? Tell me about the changes to the normal D&D d20 method.

It's a "variant player's handbook". Monte Cook just re-invented some of the basic classes and took some non-Tolkien races, mixed it with lots of Stephen Donaldson, screened out the resulting depression and hired some nice artists to illustrate it. (Really, Arcana Evolved is the best-looking D20 product I know of)

Races: Lion Furries, Dragon Furries, Doggy Furries, Fairies, Vulcans, Singing Giants, Humans.
Classes: Heavy Fighter, Light Fighter, Magical Fighter, Seriously Single-Minded Unarmed Fighter, Meditating My-Style-Is-Stronger-Than-Yours Fighter, Tree Hugger, Wizzard, Variant Paladins, Barbarian Shapechangers, Rune Dudes, Witchy Mutants.

The biggest change is the magic system. There's no distinction between divine and arcane magic. You still have spell levels, but the casting itself is a mix between D&D sorcerers and wizards (you basically choose your spell list per day). You can also cast the spells one level higher or lower, with variant effects. You have a new, large spell list and most of the legacy problems are removed. It's about as high-magic as D&D, with less abuse in the higher levels. It's just that the world reflects the presence of the magic a bit more, comparable to Eberron.

The world is full of dragons, giants, large cities and magical wonderlands. The evil dragon-demon race is gone now, made extinct by the care-bear giants who rule benevolently. But now the dragons are back. And no, the dragon-demon servitor race wasn't their fault...

I've been running an Arcana Evolved game for about 3 years now, and many of the characters have advanced from 3rd (where they started) to 15th or so.  I've gotten a pretty broad appreciation of the game and the way everything works.

It is very D&Dish, but with a lot of twists.  The classes are completely different, and skew D&D's regular archetypes.  Most of the classes are flavorful, interesting, and powerful at the same time.  It is very high magic, but not in the magic item sense.  Many classes can cast spells right from the start.  I think about half the classes, in fact.  Also, many feats (the "ceremonial" feats) provide overtly magical abilities.

The races are very different, and I really don't think calling any of them "furries" is very fair.  The Sibeccai (jackal-headed humanoids) have a very Egyptian flavor, and the Litorians are kind of archetypal plains-nomads.  I can't stand the whole furry fandom thing, but it's asinine to call anything that involves lion-headed people "furry."  I think we had this debate here a while back.

The most interesting part of the races is that all start out about D&D-normal (if not a little weak), but characters can advance in their "racial levels" in various ways.  It allows for both Large (Level 3 Giants) and Tiny (Spryte) characters.  Advancing as a racial level usually adds to attributes, allows special abilities, or so on.  They're a very interesting character option, and even the spellcasters in my group have been taking them.

There's no alignment.  It has thankfully been completely excised.  Getting rid of alignment in D&D 3.x is pretty difficult, but Monte did the work for us here.  I've found this to be very freeing.

The classes are generally pretty fun, and many feel like "fixed" versions of the normal classes or character ideas.

Akashics - Weird skill-based characters who can use skills & feats they've never learned.
Champions - Basically, 'fixed' Paladins without spellcasting but with flavorful abilities.  They choose a cause, and I think 8 possibilities are presented (Light, Life, Dark, Death, Freedom, Justice, Knowledge, Magic).  It's a versatile class.
Greenbonds - Kind of like a fixed druid.  No wild shape, but pretty good spellcasting, some innate healing abilities, and powers which let them draw strength from the land.
Totem Warrior - Kind of like barbarians or rangers, depending on your totem animal.  They're good warriors who get animal companions.  Two different totem warriors are almost different classes.
Magisters - Your basic wizard, only tied to a staff.
Mageblade - An actually worthwhile Fighter-Wizard combo, with some neat casting perks and a constantly-improving magical weapon which improves as they do.

There's more, but I don't want to type any more.

Multiclassing is less restrictive, but except for racial levels, pretty uncommon in my experience.  Each class is interesting enough that it's pretty unnecessary.

The magic system is pretty brilliant.  As mentioned, there's no divine/arcane split.  Instead, all spells are classified as "Simple" (which any spellcaster can fling), "Complex" (which require feats or class abilities to access), and "Exotic" (which usually require a separate feat to learn, all of their own).  Each spell has a higher-level and a lower-level version, which can be selected upon casting.  What's more, spellcasters can learn feats to add templates to spells.  Normally, a template provides a tradeoff for an additional perk.  For example, the Fire template adds +1d6 fire damage to any damaging spell, at the cost of a (iirc) 20 gp red gem.  There's about 20 of them, including Runic (spell takes longer, but the target's Save DC is Int-based), Permanent (AE's version of the Permanency spell), and Unraveling (which tries to dispel any protections directly preventing the spell's effect).

I'd put the base character power level as higher than D&D, overall.

It is nowhere near as major a re-write as Iron Heroes is, but there's some real brilliance in it.  I generally prefer it to normal D&D.  It has a different tone & feel, and it feels a lot "tighter" and better thought-through.  It gives players a lot more options for their characters, and allows them a wider range of fun & interesting things to do during a game session.

-O

Sibbacai appeared in Rolemaster back in the day. C&TII i think (written by Monte!).

As for IH. I started off liking it as it gave fighters a proper amount of individualism. But as time went on it sort off fell off my radar. The best part is the feat trees, which can really add to the individualism. To be honest, you could probably get rid of the character classes altogether and just put the class abilities into feat trees and get the same result. No classes, but feats which emulate them (as well as meaning you can totally customise your character). Perhaps that was a move too far for the designers though.

Quote from: ColonelHardissonJeez, I dunno how you got that impression. It isn't a setting at all. The default "setting" of the game, such as it is, is called (if I recall correctly) the Swordlands, and details are very, very vague.

I kind of made some assumptions about it. Without looking at it. It sounds interesting to me though. I think the DM from my D&D game I play in would be interested as well. As he runs a low to medium magical campaign anyways.

Quote from: One Horse TownAs for IH. I started off liking it as it gave fighters a proper amount of individualism. But as time went on it sort off fell off my radar. The best part is the feat trees, which can really add to the individualism. To be honest, you could probably get rid of the character classes altogether and just put the class abilities into feat trees and get the same result. No classes, but feats which emulate them (as well as meaning you can totally customise your character). Perhaps that was a move too far for the designers though.

Well, restricting some abilities to classes certainly sounds like a design decisions, I don't think Mearls did it that way just to avoid some work. Some stuff can be done by all fighting men (and women), but for some stuff you just need to stick to being a Berserker for several levels.

Porting the feats to True20 would be neat, though.

For all those still reading, Hong's hacks seems to be a well-rounded "second edition" of Iron Heroes, which was admittely a bit rushed...

For all those wanting to reap some of the same benefits for a lesser cost, there's also the Book of Iron Might. Stunt rules are in there plus some groovy feats and feat tress, plus some nice maneuver rules that allow you to do more cool stuff on the fly instead of by carefully planned feat and class selection.
(Which also nicely synergizes with C&Cs SIEGE mechanic)

Quote from: SosthenesWell, restricting some abilities to classes certainly sounds like a design decisions, I don't think Mearls did it that way just to avoid some work.

Course not. I meant a move too far away from d20.

Quote from: One Horse TownCourse not. I meant a move too far away from d20.

There's no real reason for it, that's the simple explanation. IH is certainly no simplified D20, and putting it all in feats would have made it even more complicated. This way, you don't have to get everything just right, simply be selecting a certain class it's rather likely that you're able to use that kinda combat style in play. Feats are just an added bonus. And it has the nice benefit, that some people will have unique abilities. Which has been known to increase peace at the gaming table

IH Saga would be interesting; with almost no feats at all but different talent trees for the classes...