I've been playing an increasing amount of Warmachine and Hordes lately.
The setting has a lot of eerie similarities to my homebrew of 15 years or so. Since the game mechanics in Warmahordes are impressive to say the least, I thought I'd check out the Iron Kingdoms RPG.
I haven't played it yet, but it looks like it is heavily inspired by 3.5 era D&D, and streamlined in a way I could only expect from Privateer.
I'm very excited to try it. It looks like it will give a very similar gameplay experience to Pathfinder/3.5 at its best, but it seems like it has a lot less cruft that's built into it. That stands to reason, since they were able to rebuild from the ground up in a way that was not really possible with Pathfinder's transition from 3.5.
So, does anyone around here have experience with this game they'd like to share with me? How do you find it differs from Pathfinder or other RPGs? Any big strengths, weaknesses or pitfalls to watch out for?
I'm not sure whether I dislike or enjoy the somewhat obvious combat emphasis in the rules.
I appreciate when systems are generalizable and give you a lot of other options for problem solving, but then... I have to admire their candor in this book. They know that they're expanding from a wargame and that their audience is mainly interested in combat mechanics. So they call it like it is.
The implications of this with respect to systems like magic are far-reaching. Almost all magic in IK is combat based. I predict this has a stabilizing effect on the setting as compared to Pathfinder/3.5, where magic is all things to all people.
I've also yet to actually play it, but I was really impressed with the quality of the writing. Everything seems pretty clear and easy to understand.
The focus on combat doesn't bother me so much since we're talking about the Iron Kingdoms, where the wars never end :P
I've only really got 2 issues with it.
1. No rules for playing as Warlocks yet (when I play WarmaHordes I run Circle Orboros)
2. I generally prefer to run my RPGs without minis. The way combat is written in this game, with facing being very important, makes this a bit trickier. I get that it's because the combat is based on the wargame, it's just a personal preference.
I am going to pick up the second 3.x book for the game in a few months. That's about the length and breadth of my devotion to it, although I found elements of the world quite fascinating(obviously).
1. No rules for playing as Warlocks yet (when I play WarmaHordes I run Circle Orboros)
2. I generally prefer to run my RPGs without minis. The way combat is written in this game, with facing being very important, makes this a bit trickier. I get that it's because the combat is based on the wargame, it's just a personal preference.
This is not a dealbreaker for me. I understand your perspective, but there are tons of games that do mapless play a lot better than IK would. As far as genres of RPG go, I think that map-based, combat-emphasis games are kind of a thing of their own, and this looks like a good one.
1. No rules for playing as Warlocks yet (when I play WarmaHordes I run Circle Orboros)2. I generally prefer to run my RPGs without minis. The way combat is written in this game, with facing being very important, makes this a bit trickier. I get that it's because the combat is based on the wargame, it's just a personal preference.This is not a dealbreaker for me. I understand your perspective, but there are tons of games that do mapless play a lot better than IK would. As far as genres of RPG go, I think that map-based, combat-emphasis games are kind of a thing of their own, and this looks like a good one.
Looks like that product is new from when I last looked at the game. I've got the core book and one or two of the early supplements. I'll have a look into it and see if it's got what I want. That looks mostly like a Beginners Box style intro to Hordes RP, so I assume there must be a full book for it coming out at some point, which is when I'll probably give it another look. EDIT: Having had a quick look around the site, yeah, this is like an intro box for another core book that's coming out soon. I'll hold off for that, since it doesn't look like rules for Warlocks are included in the Unleashed box.
Yeah, like I said, I know it's a game that is definitely designed with maps in play. It's not a dealbreaker for me either, it's just not my preference, and I'm more likely to just try and abstract a few aspects of it instead of bothering with minis and so on. Or, if I was to use minis, I'd probably adjust it to work a little simpler. Maybe use squares instead of allowing free movement in inches. I'd have to play with it to see what works though.
My group runs multiple styles.
We're all veteran gamers of between 15 and 30 years, so we're all comfortable with "theater of the mind" style play.
But because we play over Virtual Tabletops more often than not, we've gravitated more toward games like Pathfinder which have a tactical map emphasis. It's very simple to execute detailed, colorful maps in a VTT, and so products like adventure paths have a natural synergy.
I'd almost argue that the two styles are completely different entities, but we happen to enjoy both.
Iron Kingdoms would benefit immensely from VTT play, I think. We already play a bit of Warmahordes that way to experiment with armies, and it adds a level of precision and convenience that is hard to top.
I've been playing an increasing amount of Warmachine and Hordes lately.
The setting has a lot of eerie similarities to my homebrew of 15 years or so. Since the game mechanics in Warmahordes are impressive to say the least, I thought I'd check out the Iron Kingdoms RPG.
I haven't played it yet, but it looks like it is heavily inspired by 3.5 era D&D, and streamlined in a way I could only expect from Privateer.
Well, it might have something to do with the fact that Iron Kingdoms were started by a series of adventures to 3rd edition, later turned into full 3.5 setting. It had also one of the best bestiaries of the 3rd edition era: Monsternomicon. Only quite recently Privater Press decided to release Iron Kingdoms as independent system that, if I understand correctly, is Warmachine/Horde engine expanded to act as full RPG mechanics (which explains strong emphasis on combat).
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Only quite recently Privater Press decided to release Iron Kingdoms as independent system that, if I understand correctly, is Warmachine/Horde engine expanded to act as full RPG mechanics (which explains strong emphasis on combat).
And that's just the thing -- I've long felt that the 3.5 rulespace had some really awesome gameplay but was in need of a ground-up reorganization and clarification.
4e went too far and threw the baby out with the bathwater as far as I'm concerned. Pathfinder didn't go far enough -- or rather, kept the baby in some slightly dirty bathwater.
But starting from the wargame, where clarity of rules is absolutely paramount, and working back... that seems to have lead somewhere very interesting. I'm curious to see if it's really that good in practice.
I've become increasingly frustrated by PF when trying to run even slightly ambitious combat encounters at mid-high level. If my experience with Warmachine is any indicator, then Iron Kingdoms should be able to handle this very easily. A big part of this is the way magic is handled.
I haven't played new Iron Kingdoms, only seen it for a short time (I might get to borrow it from a friend and peruse it in the future - I think he got new ones) but what I have seen didn't appealed to me on a mechanical level. Felt too much like wargame, not enough like a more role playing mechanic.
If I would be GMing Iron Kingdoms I would probably end using GURPS.
What is most interesting about the new Monsternomicon is how they use templates. They are a spice. They are used to make monsters different without overpowering the original critter.
The lack of an extensive roster of creatures really hampered me when I tried running an IK game. This was before the new Monsternomicon was realeased and it shores up the lack a good deal. But I always wondered:
Are the creatures from Warmachine and Hordes able to be directly ported into IK? And if so, what book would you describe as the closest thing to a Bestiary 1? The widest selection of fighting monsters for any kind of IK game you might want to run, without further needing to refine the campaign by saying it'll mostly revolve around, say, Cryx?
I will add the monsternomicon to the stuff I am collecting from the series, then. I keep hearing good things about it in this thread.
Which monsternomicon should I get? The 3.5 one? Because I'm collecting 3.5 IK stuff.
Which monsternomicon should I get? The 3.5 one? Because I'm collecting 3.5 IK stuff.
Well if you're collecting 3.5 IK stuff, then yeah, the 3.5 Monsternomicon is what you want. The others aren't going to have much for you, the system is radically different from 3.5 since it's based on the tabletop wargame.
But which one is the utterly amazing one that was discussed above? Or are they all amazing?
The one they're talking about above is the actual Iron Kingdoms RPG, the new one, not the 3.5 setting.
I've got the 3.5 Monsternomicon books, they're also good. First one is probably better than the second.
Beware to not confuse 3.0 edition Monsternomicon with 3.5 - IIRC it's the same book, only revised. I don't remember if the Monsternomicon II was 3.0 and revised as well, or if it was released as 3.5 only.
Beware to not confuse 3.0 edition Monsternomicon with 3.5 - IIRC it's the same book, only revised. I don't remember if the Monsternomicon II was 3.0 and revised as well, or if it was released as 3.5 only.
thanks Drejk, this is probably what had me confused.
And there is new Monsternomicon for Iron Kingdoms to confuse things even more...
Ugh. This is confusing. Good news is that Vol I 3.5 has 3.5 written over it in visible color and has different cover than Vol I 3.0... Vol II says it's volume II but uses the same cover as Vol I 3.0 (a fanged maw breaching through door/wall).
New Monsternomicon has neither and uses different cover: a ghostly gunslinger.
So, I may have a chance to actually play the new IK RPG soon.
I made a test-run character just to see what the creation system was like. I really enjoyed it, but I can see that after a few campaigns that the characters will begin to feel very "samey".
I suppose that's to be expected. IKRPG definitely skews toward the tactical wargame side of the hobby. Sameyness and predictability are actually good things in that case, because they help to make tactical decisions meaningful.
So it looks like I'll be running a short IK game next month. I'm looking forward to it!
Anyone have GM resources or experience they'd like to share?