Ironborn of Questhaven (PFRPG) PDF

4.30/5 (based on 7 ratings)

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Ironborn: a race of artificial creatures usable as player characters, with customizable ability packages that provide unprecedented flexibility at character creation. These ability packages give you an optimal choice for each class you wish to play. However, ironborn are not superior to existing races and are still playable as 1st-level characters. Included with this is a plug-and-play 1st-person point-of-view descriptive text that allows for an easy introduction of this new race into your existing campaign as though the race only came in the campaign world recently. In addition, each ironborn has a burden, or an inherent urge to perform the duty for which it was constructed.

    Updated from 3.5 to the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, this product also includes:
  • New descriptive text told from an ironborn perspective
  • 22 ability packages
  • 10 feats
  • The ability to create your own Ironborn Cohort
  • The Constructed Sorcerous bloodline
  • Clockwork Familiar template

From the same designer who crafted the hugely successful Evocative City Sites and the best-selling Feats 101 comes the first book in the extraordinary Questhaven Campaign Setting. This new line brings you the best of the 3.0 and 3.5 Open Gaming Content updated for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Each element is customized yet kept modular, providing game components beyond the core products helping to create an evocative campaign experiences.

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4.30/5 (based on 7 ratings)

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A great player option

5/5

I picked this PDF up because it was an option for a steam-punk inspired game I was looking at. I really liked the character options so that you can tailor the character specifically to your needs. I know this book is dated but I'd really like to see options for favored class and traits to really flesh out a character. I highly recommend it to anyone and the fluff and crunch can be dropped into nearly any campaign as long as you are comfortable with the concept of an Ironborn.


Ironborn rising!

5/5

The Ironborn of Questhaven is an exciting race that can be easily added into any Pathfinder campaign with some creative storytelling. (Treasure-hunting Pathfinders delve into ancient Thassalonian temples waking the sleeping ironborn! The Clocktower of Absalom dials open its inner workings and reveals its guardians and workers! A iceberg cleaves off the glacier in the Lake of Mists and Veils, revealing a hidden frozen temple protected by immortal Ironborn guardians!)
The PDF has a smooth layout and the illustrations simply whet the appetite for more unique ironborn.
The authors incorporate organic components into the ironborn to make them more accessible living characters instead of the easy route 'talking robot' characters. This eliminates some of the large complaints about those OTHER construct player character races. There are many roleplaying ideas and well-thought out options available to individualize your character with the numerous 'packages' available, each roughly equal to the Pathfinder Society Traits options for character generation.
The personalization options to craft radically different ironborn make for unique characteristics and avoids the cookie-cutter syndrome. This PDF includes additional ironborn Feats, a Sorcerous Bloodline, Clockwork Familiar template, and introduces motivational starting points for ironborn characters with the creation of Burdens, driving instincts derived from the ironborn master's purpose in crafting them. ironborn characters can learn to craft other ironborn, perpetuating their race and creating unique personalized cohorts.
One of the best Pathfinder compatible races available!


An actual GOOD contruct PC race!

4/5

Disclaimer:
I HATED, HATED, HATED the Warforged. There are several reasons for this and it has, quite frankly, been the main reason for me not to buy this pdf for a long time. Until one of my players asked, whether it would be possible to play a gear-enhanced human and presented an excellent 4 page backstory. I dislike construct races for PCs, but his concept was cool.

To the review:
The base race is VERY well-balanced and the ironborn-subtype features the construct-flair without making wilderness/starvation/environmental adventures a joke for the character. Kudos!
The true strength is the versatility of the race, though. You choose a base-suit of abilities according to the purpose of the ironborn.
The concept of the "burden", i.e. an instilled craving to do what it was created to do helps to easily drop them in any adventurer group and makes for nice roleplaying opportunities.
The ability suits are well-balanced, with one possible exception: The Centurion Suite is, on low levels, the ULTIMATE tank. Plus, it hits a pet peeve of mine: It has a 25% chance to negate crits against the players. This is the only suite I'd exclude for my players, at least until they are level 5. My favorite was the Omenbuilt: I'm going to use the mini-token mechanic for other chars, too. Awesome!

The feats are well-designed and don't seem to be too overpowered, although two of them hit another pet peeve of mine: "Spring-loaded Reflexes" and "intricate joints" give Ironborn access to uncanny dodge, and improved uncanny dodge, respectively. These are class features for me, not something that other classes have readily access to without multi-classing.

While the prose is good, it's not as AWESOME as the prose in the "Wyrd"-pdf.

Due to the fact that it hit 2 pet-peeves of mine, I give it 4 stars. Highly recommended for any campaign and better designed than the warforged.




Don't just look at the stars above (more to the story)

3/5

The main reason I gave this three stars is not due to the work put into this. Not only is the original concept a pretty good one when it first appeared in The Book of Iron Might, but the work to update and extract the OGL material into this product is pretty good as well.

Its a good, general construct race that doesn't require quite as much backstory as a certain other living construct race. That having been said, I guess I'm still of the opinion that I'm very leery of introducing a construct PC race. If I had a player that wanted one, I'd certainly offer this one up for use.

On top of the fact that living constructs can be a touchy subject, there is the fact that the race can be highly customized. This is both a plus and a minus. For someone that just wants to play a "golem," it might be a bit much to see all of the options at one time, although with a little digging its pretty obvious what are the best choices for what type of character you are going for.

So, to fully explain my three stars, I'd have to say that its more a matter of thinking that this race might need to be carefully introduced into a campaign for what it is, rather than the quality of the work involved. Not only is the design work solid, but its a fun read.

Give it a look, but if you are the type of GM that doesn't want too many "non-standard" races running around, know that you may need to be careful with how often you throw these around or how much access you let your players have to these guys.


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As my review notes, this product has not been completely updated to the Pathfinder RPG. Buyer beware.


World of Dusk wrote:
As my review notes, this product has not been completely updated to the Pathfinder RPG. Buyer beware.

I already had purchased it and I do own the Book of Iron Might. I'll have to take a second look as I was intending to do a review as well. Anything specific I should notice aside from your review?


Thanks for the Review, it seems a few skills were missed in the update I will go back through today and make the updated changes, and see about getting the new file uploaded ASAP.


World of Dusk, I wanted to thank you for making me aware of this issue, I found where the error was made during layout and have uploaded the correct file (Errata). Paizo has to review the updated file before it becomes active and available, I will post here as soon as that happens.

Quote:

Dear Customers,

Due to a major mistake on my part during layout a number of conversions to the Pathfinder Rpg were not made properly. Specificly skill name changes and a major error on how the holy icon feat works. These have been corrected in the Errata version of this document that is now available for you to download.

If you find any further Errata please contact us and I will be happy to correct it.

My apologies for the errors

Steve Russell
Rite Publishing


Quote:


Steve,

I've updated the file and notified purchasers.

-Vic.

A big thank you to Vic for helping me correct the issue and Charles Dunwoody for making me aware of the issue.

Steve Russell
Rite Publishing


Qwilion wrote:
Quote:


Steve,

I've updated the file and notified purchasers.

-Vic.

A big thank you to Vic for helping me correct the issue and Charles Dunwoody for making me aware of the issue.

Steve Russell
Rite Publishing

Steve, thank you for your honesty and great customer service. I'll look over the updated PDF and rewrite my review accordingly.


I quickly looked over the updated PDF. Divine Mark still has a small error (+2 to turn checks which instead now uses a Will save instead), but many of the others were updated. I'll read it over and redo my review.

Steve and Vic, thanks for the quick fix.


Some of my original proofreading was inadvertently overlooked; I just sent Steve a handful of things to touch up (we're just talking typos, for the record; not my job to point out continuity mistakes between editions) about 10 minutes ago. But nothing that should effect a review.


Quote:

Dear customers,

Based on a second review by Charles Dunwoody (special thanks to him)we have updated a number of conversion issues from 3.5 to Pathfinder Rpg Centurian armored body, Divine Mark divine vengence, aritisan and legacy knowledge, and disable device for the clockwork familiar, along with some notations about pervious changes changes from our proofreader Ben Stowell (special thanks to him too)

Steve Russell
Rite Publishing


Another update has been done to Ironborn to get it more in line with Pathfinder. The product is worth checking out.


Good to see that this is clearing up on a positive note. :)


I wanted to personally thank alleynbard for taking the time to do a review. 5 out of 5 stars does the happy dance of joy :0

Steve Russell
Rite Publishing


Is this PDF good to go now? I would like to purchase it!

Liberty's Edge

Denim N Leather wrote:
Is this PDF good to go now? I would like to purchase it!

Yes, it appears to be completely in order now.

It is a fantastic purchase and one I will see using for years to come. Steven did a bang-up job on the ironborn. This book made me a Rite Publishing fan nearly overnight. I really like the material they produce.

Might I also recommend the Wyrd of Questhaven? It is another compelling race with some seriously good flavor.


alleynbard wrote:
Denim N Leather wrote:
Is this PDF good to go now? I would like to purchase it!

Yes, it appears to be completely in order now.

It is a fantastic purchase and one I will see using for years to come. Steven did a bang-up job on the ironborn. This book made me a Rite Publishing fan nearly overnight. I really like the material they produce.

Might I also recommend the Wyrd of Questhaven? It is another compelling race with some seriously good flavor.

Thanks, purchased!


alleynbard wrote:
Might I also recommend the Wyrd of Questhaven? It is another compelling race with some seriously good flavor.

Just curious to see what your reaction is on this. (?)


Me too Dennim :)


Qwilion wrote:
Me too Dennim :)

HA!

Okay, a little copy/paste action from 3.5 Private Sanctuary's discussion on the subject. By the way, if you've not listened to 3.5 Private Sanctuary's episode 103, do so. There is an interview/discussion on both the Ironbord and Wyrd races with Steve Russell! My first impressions:

Quote:

Read through both the Ironborn and Wyrd supplements. A few times each, in fact.

I may write up something a bit more formal, but I'm afraid that I don't know enough about 3.5e in general for my opinion to be worth much.

That being said, here are a couple of things I really enjoyed from each book:

BOTH BOOKS

1. Layout and presentation is superb. The page borders and font are clean and make reading very easy. Overall, very easy on the eyes!

2. I read each supplement about 5 times, and for the life of me cannot spot a grammatical or typographical error! Well done!

IRONBORN

3. These mofo's are T U F F, especially if you're rolling one up as a Centurion fighter.

4. The feats are interesting but I think may make the Ironborn a bit overpowered. I will see for sure when I roll one up over the weekend.

5. I really like the creation method description and found that to be interesting and very well balanced.

6. I did not get a 'steampunk' vibe at all from this class, for which I thank God!! Smile

Okay, further to that. (I will now have to cross-copy/paste back to that thread lol)

I rolled up two lvl 6 Ironborn Centurian fighters as a boss fight. I ran the fight last night.

Let me put it this way: If I didn't nerf their second attack and Cleave feat, and if the Bard didn't have a staff of Cure Moderate Wounds, there woulda been an TPK.

When I said they were tough on January 6th, I had no idea how silly tough these guys really are!

At the risk of being punny, I will sum up with this: Ironborn Centurian is the ULTIMATE tank. (groan lol)

I've not rolled up any of the other builds yet, and am also still working on the boss encounter against the Wyrd.

(edit: btw, one of the Centurians withdrew from battle when his hp got low, but the other didn't get out in time, was killed by the dragonrider's steed's breath attack, and ground to a stop -- literally -- we played it very Terminator-esque. They failed all of their knowledge checks and the fighter removed one of the Irnonborn's arms for later investigation)


I just finished uplaoding a free preview of this product, as soon as it is available I will link to it.


I wanted to thank Mikhaila Burnett for taking the time to post a review and rate our product (5 star review!, Steve does the happy dance of joy!)

Quote:
Well written...

I could not ask for a better compliment.


I wanted to thank flash_cxxi for taking the time to do such an indepth review of our product, (5 out of 5 star! more happy dancing)

Dark Archive

Qwilion wrote:

I wanted to thank Mikhaila Burnett for taking the time to post a review and rate our product (5 star review!, Steve does the happy dance of joy!)

Quote:
Well written...

I could not ask for a better compliment.

You're quite welcome. It was very much a case of 'right product, right time' for my homebrew. I needed something LIKE a Warforged, but I didn't want a Warforged. This filled that need perfectly. Bravo!


I would love to here about how its being used, played etc..


Thank you to KnightErrantJR for taking the time to do a review


Knight Errant Jr.

Oh I will point out there is an all metal body ability package that makes you really close to a pure construct if that's what you want to play.

Sovereign Court

I recognize that cover artist...
;-)


Hugo has done three of our Questhaven books (we gave him a break on giants) and Restless souls I think is the best piece in this series.


I wanted to thank Endzeitgeist for taking the time to do a review of our product.

Just a note:
While I did spend alot of time adding new packages and balancing existing feats and abilities I did not remove anything from the original source material because there could be folks who are playing the 3.5 version of Ironbron and I did not wish to make a radical change to their PC, So with that said Centurion ability package, "Spring-loaded Reflexes" and "intricate joints" and while I believe the abilities are optimal and as a philosophy don't believe class abilities should normally be feats in this case i think they are strong and optimal rather than overpowering.

Sometimes you err on the side of cool and fun rather than perfect balance.


I'd normally agree! The rule of cool should definitely supersede rules concerns. Plus: I think it's awesome that you wanted Ironborn to be backwards compatible!

It's just a pet peeve of mine and I tried to make that clear in the review.

It's awesome work and I really do like the race, even though I hated the warforged.

Your designs rock! I'm looking forward to "Gargoyles". ^^


Rolling another pair of lvl 10 Centurian fighters for my campaign. These guys make G R E A T melee bad guys!


Quote:
Your designs rock!

Thank you, but a lot of the credit goes to the source material.


I wanted to thank Bill Dodds for his review of our product and for all his cool ideas of how to introduce the characters.


I just bought this PDF 'cause I've always had a soft spot for sentient artificial beings. And the reading is truly excellent so far.

But I have found a few little things.

- On pg 9, under the Jungle Design Ability package, the secondary ability trait Friend of Snake and Spider, you are supposed to have a stronger than normal resistance towards venomous bites, but the +2 bonus to save is against disease, not poison. Am I missing something here or is it some kind of typo?

- On pg 10, the same thing is seen under the Secondbuilt Ability package, in the Dillentante secondary ability trait. The flavor text indicates resistance to "intoxicants", but the bonus is to disease.

- On pg 9, under the Mountain Design Ability package, the secondary ability trait Treacherous Terrain grants you a +2 bonus on your Combat Maneuver Defense. But seeing as that supposedly evolved from being steady on your feet, shouldn't that only apply against bull rush, overrun, trip and maybe grapple? For example, why would being steady on your feet help you defend against your sword being sundered?

- On pg 14, under the bonus feats of the Constructed Sorcerous Bloodline, one of the feats is Skill Focus (Knowledge [Engendering]). What is that skill? Never heard of it. Maybe you should include it in the PDF?

- On the same page and subject, under the Touch of Elan, is there a limit to how many objects an Ironborn can have animated at a time?

- Also, DR 20/- as a capstone bonus at 20th level sounds very powerful. I'm not sure if it's overpowered, but none of the other Sorcerous Bloodlines grants that much, but 20 and no weakness.

- A few things about the Clockwork Familiar,

The PostMonster General wrote:
“Clockwork familiar” is a created template that can be added to any familiar (referred to hereafter as the base creature).

Don't you mean *inherited* template, since the familiar is basically created from scratch?

The PostMonster General wrote:
"Size and Type: The creature’s type changes to construct with the magical beast augmented subtype."

Magical Beast is a creature type, and Augmented is a subtype, unless my lore is a bit off.

Also, there aren't a lot of details on just what kind of creatures can't be made into clockwork familiars. For example, could this feat be used in combination with the Improved Familiar feat? I personally would not allow that, and would restrict it to just the basic familiar list mentioned with the Wizard class, since that seems to have been the intention. I.e. it only works with animals (and possibly vermin) below a certain size.

- And finally, I can't find anything on healing or repairing Ironborn. That's something that I figured should have gone into the Traits section. For example the Warforged counted as a living construct, and therefor only recieved half the normal amount of healing from both the Cure Wounds and Repair Damage spell series. How do the Ironborn work in this aspect?

-----------------------------------

And that's about all I could find that struck me as kinda odd. Nothing big, but I feel I should point these things out.


I just found one more thing that has me a little confused.

On pg 7, in the Combat Virtuoso Ability Package, under the Counter Design secondary ability, it says

Quote:
You are created with the ability to counter an opponent's combat maneuvers. You use your Combat Maneuver check in place of your Combat Maneuver Defense.

Now, I'm not sure exactly sure what you mean when you say "Combat Maneuver check", but the Core Book says this:

Quote:
CMB = Base attack bonus + Strength modifier + special size modifier
Quote:
CMD = 10 + Base attack bonus + Strength modifier + Dexterity modifier + special size modifier

If you mean that I'm supposed to use my CMB instead of my CMD, that to me sounds like I'm actually getting *worse* at defending myself.

And if you want me to do the opposite, that means I get a +10 plus my Dex modifier as a bonus, which sounds maybe a little overpowered.

A bit of clarification here would be appreciated.


Sorry what was originally intended was that you now had the option of using a d20 roll as part of your Combat Maneuver Defense rather than just using the base of 10.


I love Malhavoc's Ironborn and am delighted to learn they'd been updated to the Pathfinder rules. Though, before purchasing the product, I'm wondering whether Tom Malmstrom's initial concerns have been addressed.


Quote:

but the +2 bonus to save is against disease, not poison. Am I missing something here or is it some kind of typo?

n the Dillentante secondary ability trait. The flavor text indicates resistance to "intoxicants", but the bonus is to disease.

The bonus was removed in mechanical editing because Ironborn are immune to poison.

Quote:
For example, why would being steady on your feet help you defend against your sword being sundered?

Because in a fight your stance has everything to do with fighting, boxers, swordsmen, every martial art i have ever trained under how you stand and in relation how you move your hips which holds your center of gravity controls everything you do.

Quote:
- On pg 14, under the bonus feats of the Constructed Sorcerous Bloodline, one of the feats is Skill Focus (Knowledge [Engendering]). What is that skill? Never heard of it. Maybe you should include it in the PDF?

Typo should be [engineering]

Quote:
- On the same page and subject, under the Touch of Elan, is there a limit to how many objects an Ironborn can have animated at a time?

No, your limited by the duration, and the component costs if you make it permanent, just like a wizard casting the spell or casting permancy is listed by the duration of the spell and the cost of making something permanent.

Quote:
- Also, DR 20/- as a capstone bonus at 20th level sounds very powerful. I'm not sure if it's overpowered, but none of the other Sorcerous Bloodlines grants that much, but 20 and no weakness.

I don't consider it any more powerful than the Celestial or Destined capstone ability.

- A few things about the Clockwork Familiar,

Quote:


“Clockwork familiar” is a created template that can be added to any familiar (referred to hereafter as the base creature).

Don't you mean *inherited* template, since the familiar is basically created from scratch?

no I meant created since he has no predecessor, inherited means the progenitor had the template this is not a requirement of this template.

The PostMonster General wrote:

Quote:

"Size and Type: The creature’s type changes to construct with the magical beast augmented subtype."

Magical Beast is a creature type, and Augmented is a subtype, unless my lore is a bit off.

This was written before the bestiary was released in 3.5 you always listed what the creature was augmented from, the bestiary changed that to listing just the augmented type.

Quote:
Also, there aren't a lot of details on just what kind of creatures can't be made into clockwork familiars. For example, could this feat be used in combination with the Improved Familiar feat? I personally would not allow that...

It works with "any familiar" that's exactly what it says, that's is exactly what it meant. A improved familiar did not break the game in playtests so we saw no reason to restrict it. You as the GM are free to do whatever you want.

Quote:
- And finally, I can't find anything on healing or repairing Ironborn. That's something that I figured should have gone into the Traits section. For example the Warforged ...

It does in the Ironborn traits section

"Humanoid: Unless otherwise noted, an ironborn is treated as a humanoid creature. For example, it falls below 0 hit points, stabilizes, and dies using the same rules as any other creature and has no other vulnerabilities or immunities based on its type and subtype. "

It is not a construct unlike the warforged (and because of this the warforged needs a host of special rules the ironborn does not need them).

This was the genius of mearls design, vs. the warforged design simplicity, flexibility and just plain old concise writing.

@Ambrus there are only three things I would like to fix in this at this time for the pdf, the typo, the modification to the combat maesstro, and the changing of the flavor text to match the mechancis but right now my focus is on putting together the updated version for the print compilation of all our racial books before the end of the year.


A quick query - with Alternative Favoured Class Bonuses for different races being common now, is there any plan to add some to the Ironborn? Or should they use one of the other Race's Favored Class Bonus list, chosen at first level with everything else? Or just count as human/half-orc/whatever? Or are they stuck with +1hp or +1 skill point?


There are no plans at this time but in my opinion they could be designed with any favored class bonus that their creator would have had potential access too.


Thanks.


Are there any plans on making any Hero Lab files for this? It would make Ironborn creation far easier. I do own the PDF already.


Grand Moff Vixen wrote:
Are there any plans on making any Hero Lab files for this? It would make Ironborn creation far easier. I do own the PDF already.

Its on the list, but its a volunteer effort so there is no timeline.


The Secondary ability for the Centurion build is basically light fortification, which was removed from the Pathfinder rule set when it was updated from 3.5. I would have to say that that particular package is broken since no other creature or armor in the Pathfinder ruleset has that ability. It would be an unfair balance to the game as these abilities were removed for a reason. Perhaps this is a typo or merely the tattered vestiges of 3.x? Any chance on changing this? Also, the feats "Intricate Joints" and "Spring Loaded Relexes" bestow class abilities, is this correct? This cheapens the levels in certain classes and are simply not equal.


they are there because they are part of mike mearls original 3.5 design from book of iron might. your free not to allow that package or those feats if you feel that way, because I agree with you, but felt I need to keep the core design and add to it rather than take away.

Dark Archive

1. Fortification is still in the game.
2. It's worse than fortification as it only works against critical hits, not sneak attacks.
3. Alchemists can take a similar ability, as do several other classes.


Rite Publishing wrote:
Grand Moff Vixen wrote:
Are there any plans on making any Hero Lab files for this? It would make Ironborn creation far easier. I do own the PDF already.
Its on the list, but its a volunteer effort so there is no timeline.

Just curious, is there any update on any Hero Lab files? I would love to see this happen. :)


1 person marked this as a favorite.

They are rather hard to make since they don't follow any of the standard rules for the races. But our Coder is working on In The Company of Monsters (which compiles this an 5 other races) as well as a Complilation of our Variant Monsters, Monster Feats, and monster template books.


New Hero Lab Files from Rite Publishing!

In The Company Of Monsters (PFRPG), contains six evocative player races and racial paragon classes that are sure to bring new and exciting player options to your game. Includes new options for the Gargoyle, Giant, Ironborn (constructs!), Minotaur, Restless Soul (a soul returned from the dead), and Wyrd (half-elf/half ogre mage) races. ($9.99)

http://www.wolflair.com/index.php?context=hero_lab&page=pathfinder_rpg_ packages#ritepublishing

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