Iron Kingdoms RPG

[Alexandra]

After about two years of playing a tabletop Legend of the Five Rings game, our GM put an idea to us about ending the game, and trying something new. Namely, Iron Kingdoms.


For those of you who have not heard of it, it is an RPG based in the world of the Warmachine tabletop miniatures game. You can find more out about it here. The majority of my gaming group has been playing Warmachine for a while, so they have a leg up when it comes to setting knowledge.


I suppose, my question is; has anyone here any experience with this before? Do people like it?

 

[Grey]

I like the setting, but I'm iffy about the system. It's fine for wargaming, but I feel like the near-direct translation was not the right move.


Still, first edition. It reminds me a lot of classic D&D in that regard. I'd still love to play and maybe run.

 

[Alexandra]

We shall see how the first session goes, and whether or not it will be a TPK because we're as yet unsure of power levels. Our GM is quite methodical, and extremely story-driven (occasionally a detriment, but only occasionally) so I suspect there shall be a period of hand-holding.


One little thing about character creation I already love is the Adventuring Company benefits. If the group wish, they can choose a theme for their party, giving particular benefits. Like Pirates, for instance. The requirement is that all players choose one of their two careers from a specific short list, with the other completely up to them. Then the benefits, at least for pirate adventuring groups, would be things like a ship, crew and hideouts.

 

[DeusExAlice]

1st Edition: It honestly just felt like a DnD supplement. Cool setting and stuff.


2nd Edition: No on hand experience, but I heard it's really neat and incorporates the tabletop rules well? I like the class stuff they did from what I was told.

 

[Alexandra]

We've only gotten as far as character creation, but it seems super streamlined while still allowing you a huge scope for the type of character you would want to play.


You pick your race, as usual, with different options giving different starting and maximum cap stats. Then there's the Archetype; Gifted (must be taken for a magic user), Intellectual, Mighty and Skilled, which give access to specific lists of abilities both at the start and as exp starts flowing. Then there are two careers...from a long list, giving further abilities, and equipment.


If the group are designing an Adventuring Company, then a single career must be chosen from a shortlist appropriate to the company.


I rather liked the way it handled all the way through, nothing got confusing, and it allowed for me to create a human Arcantrik (yes...that's how it's spelled :/ ) Engineer that sidelines into alchemy. Her thing is magic items and explosives...

 

[DeusExAlice]

I did like the career things and how they give you a package of skills! In most DnD games I usually burn through my skill points like candy to get non-class ones, but with the way they had it set up it looked like I could actually get what I wanted.


What's the campaign like? What are the other characters like? Have you acknowledged Everblight as your divinely ordained liege?

 

[MaHaSuchi's700]

I've played a couple sessions of it. Grey pretty much hits the nail on its head - the system can be wonky at time in roleplaying scenarios. We nearly had a party wipe in our second session due the storyteller overestimating our capabilities and underestimating the lethality of the system. He ended up having to retcon half of the guards in the encounter away, and even then my character and the NPC both nearly died.

 

[Alexandra]

Yeowch.


We should be finished the first session this time next week, all going well, so I will be able to let people know how it's unfolding.


I must admit I am not of much use when it comes to analysing mechanics. I can give an answer based on how smoothly character creation goes, or whether or not combat slows things to a crawl, but I need to play it for a while to give any kind of opinion. Just looking at mechanics for something I am unfamiliar with often can mean very little to me without playing. It's my blind spot.

 

[HumanPlus]

Well the combat is pretty easy but you're seriously fragile in that game unless you make a seriously tanky character or did as me and make a snipey gunmage. With the right rune shots, nothing will survive. A tanky character can get up on armor 20 or something which is like Warjack amounts with less weaknesses. The setting is really fun as well, it's worth a shot.


I started out making a duelist/spy who simply got wrecked by the first couple guns that got pointed at him.

 

[Alexandra]

Oh gosh yes, we discovered how fragile a bunch of us are. Luckily we have a trollkin in the party, so we just get behind him, and because we have an Intellectual Archetype in the group, if we're near him there's no penalty for firing into melee. Then we can use Feat dice to reduce damage....which all of us had done by the end of the round of combat.


Interestingly, I discovered my character's Arcantrik rifle was seemingly far harder to damage things with than her basic spell; Arcantrik Bolt. I was literally smearing pig-men all over the train with that bolt.


I'm not terribly fond of using the minis in combat, though I can see how it could be useful in larger combats, just to keep track of everyone and everything. But I'm a little wary of our GM using them, as his narration of combat is like "You hit him, and do some damage. You hit him, and he dies."


It could become a crutch :/

 

[HumanPlus]

Yeah, i'm not too keen on that either. Especially in games like Iron Kingdoms where fighting in buildings and cover is so important. I have my Dwarven Gunmage/Rifleman now who i'm having quite a time with since she just sort of hiding in a distance and one-shotting things with her pimped out magelock rifle which she cares for like a baby. My Duelist/Spy was really great as well, he had a hidden holdout pistol in his sleeve and a mechanical rapier. But alas, i underestimated his frality and he died protecting the mechanic in the group whom he owed his life.

 

[Grey]

First Ed, and all that. I'm hoping to see some good errata and expansions.


...Mostly because I'd like playable Circle Orboros and Skorne.

 

[DeusExAlice]

First Ed, and all that. I'm hoping to see some good errata and expansions.
...Mostly because I'd like playable Circle Orboros and Skorne.

I don't see Everblight on that list >_0


I personally like using models as a supplement, my group has a bad habit of everyone interpenetrating the scene differently and always magically assuming they're in range regardless of what they're using.

 

[Grey]

I want playable Everblight, but I do not ever anticipate playable Everblight. So the others will do, I guess.

 

[Alexandra]

I don't know if you'd be able to get quite as gribbly as Everblight, but you could get your necromancy fix by playing a Thamarite. And necromancy isn't illegal quite *everywhere*....though you may not enjoy the company of the Cryx...

 

[Psychopomp]

I've been running it for a while now. (Coming back after finishing the typing - I started to discuss some aspects of the game and for the first time actually codified and wrote down what I've been doing with it. As such, my first post here turned into a full-on essay in length, so I think I'm going to break it up into three posts. I hope this doesn't look like I'm trying to pad out my post count. But as you'll see, all together this would be one HUGE post.)


My general impressions so far: Knowing the tabletop game and system is a tremendous help. Having PDFs or hardcopys of the old d20 edition books helps a lot with setting and fluff material. PCs are surprisingly powerful, and can be really resilient if the players are savvy with the wargame and figure out that Feat Points are a primary mechanic for saving their rears in combat.


It's tough on the GM to figure out challenges and PC/NPC survivability. I find that Encounter Points are freaking useless. They don't take into account PC party composition or NPC equipment/abilities. So, toss 'em out and start practicing the age-old GM art of "eyeballing it." (This is a skill you can develop through practice - hang in there!)


In the next post, I'll go through what turned out to be a surprisingly long account of my general theory when designing encounters.

 

[Psychopomp]

So, in designing encounters and dealing with the PCs' odd mix of lethality and fragility:


I find that nameless "mooks" - often battle NPCs or tweaked battle NPCs, sometimes NPCs pulled from the wargame stats - often get punked out like crazy. As it should be. But it's hard to build them to be a legitimate threat on the attack without being incredibly dangerous. So, sometimes you need to toss out human gangers with leather armor and clubs knowing that they'll need to roll boxcars to do anything to the PCs, but the PCs will drop them just by looking too hard.


That's why I also include one or more "midboss" or "lieutenant" class NPCs leading the mook horde when something important is happening. These are often one-career NPCs, a weak two-career NPC, or often just someone or something I build from scratch with stats and abilities roughly on par with a single PC. Give 'em a MAT or RAT of 6+ and suddenly they can hit most PCs reliably but without guarantees. They're a legitimate threat, but not a major one. The mooks occupy the party's attention, but the lieutenants can hurt if they don't spare the time to deal with them. Running all midboss/leiutenant NPCs in an equal number to the PCs is a risky proposition - it's either a tough fight or a PC murder machine, and its hard to gauge which it will be until a few turns in. Best to include up to half the party's numbers in midbosses and give 'em a mook blob to lead to fill in the rest.


Then there's the "boss" level of NPC. Multi-career NPCs or a custom job built to be more powerful than any single NPC. I haven't run many of these - they're very tricky. Anything built to survive the attentions of the entire party at once is usually going to be powerful enough to one-shot a single PC on the attack. So, I find its best to limit the "one NPC vs the whole party" boss fights (I think DnD 4e calle these "solos", but I admit I'm no expert on that system) to vary rare occasions where you're careful to focus more on beefing up survivability traits for the boss over attack traits. (Covered in more detail below.) Usually I design a boss to be a little stronger than the PCs, myabe give him one or two lietentants, then some mooks to boss around as minions. The Warmachine/Hordes system handles large gang fights well, so this approach takes advantage of that.


Finally, I have my mental category of "big stuff". This is really a subset of "boss" where it's a large monster type like a heavy warbeast or gargantuan or just something not in the wargame but big, bestial, and deadly. At the heavy warbeast level, I like to try and find some logical mooks to add in and put in no more than one or two big guys and round out the rest of the encounter with mooks. Like a Dire Troll with some Pygs and Whelps. But sometimes you want a variant on the classic "dragon fight" style of encounter. So, like with a boss, I design to enhance survivability. You need to have a good idea of the average MAT, RAT, and POW stats of your party. Multiple PCs vs one target is rough on that one target, so boost ARM and/or vitality, or give the thing abilities that mitigate damage somehow. Don't boost DEF too much, because that leads to whiff-fights and frustrated players. (You can make the thing tough to hit, requiring a roll of 8 or 9 + the average MAT/RAT of the party, but try to avoid most of the players needing a 10+ to hit. That way lies grumpy players.) Also like the boss NPC, be careful not to boost damage output to the same levels as survivability, or you'll just one-shot players one after the other. Here you need to have a good idea of the average DEF and ARM of the players, and a rough idea of the lowest amount of vitality in the party. Try to set the beastie/boss's damage output so that on an average roll of 7, it does almost as much post-average-ARM damage as the lowest PC vitality. That way it hurts like a bastard without routinely one-shotting people as a matter of course. Instead of bumping up the POW+STR, add neat effects that effect positioning or add statuses. Slams, Pushes, Knockdown, or Chain-attacks are all good. This is where familiarity with the wargame provides a wealth of neat things to add in: Beatback, Shadowbind, and Weight of Stone are good examples of on-hit effects that effect the fight without just directly pouring in more damage - also they are good examples for devising your own, custom on-hit effects.

 

[Psychopomp]

And lastly, addressing a few concerns I saw mentioned upthread:


I agree on the use of miniatures having a tendency of sucking the description out of players' (and the GM's - I'm guilty too!) actions in combat. To push against this, I tweaked the rules for Feat Point generation. I reminded the group that we're all avid Exalted fans, so we know how to stunt actions - and that one of the three criteria for feat point generation is for cool descriptions at the GM's discretion. Also, I pointed out that the "kill a guy" criteria does specify something to the effect of disabling a significant opponent or some such wording. So I decreed that offing nameless "mooks" (usually battle NPCs or tweaked battle NPCs) no longer generated Feat Points for them. To make up for it, they could assume that anything that met the old Exalted criteria for stunts (1 die stunt: description beyond 'I hit him with my sword', 2 die stunt: incorporates elements of the scenery or environment, 3 die stunt: impresses everyone at the table with its awesome) would generate a Feat Point for them. It's taking some time and effort to shake us out of the Warmachine/Hordes mindset when the minis hit the table, but it seems to be working.


And lastly, on the topic of more stuff to play, Privateer Press has announced plans for four main hardback books: the corebook is the first and is out already. The second book, coming very soon, is Kings, Nations, and Gods, which will cover the background and specific careers, equipment, etc for the nations of Cygnar, Khador, Llael, and Ord. Some of the careers were teased last night at Lock & Load. Book three will be the 'wilds' book, and will cover Circle, Legion, Trollbloods, and maybe Minions, both culture and careers, and will provide rules for warlocks and warbeasts, as well as a bestiary of wilderness encounter monsters. Book four will be the 'weird' nations, such as Rhul, Ios, Cryx, and the Skorne Empire, with the related background and rules bits for those.


There: I'm done for now. Sorry for the hugeness of my info-dump, but I like this game and haven't had a good opportunity to discuss it yet.