[RPG]: Monte Cook Presents: Iron Heroes, reviewed by Jannica Thales (4/5)

http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/11/11672.phtml

Jannica Thales's Summary:

Too much magic in your game and not enough fantasy? Iron Heroes aims to please.

Go to the full review for more information.

[Seroster]

Overall not a bad review, but... a few comments.

- Referring to Hercules, Xena, and the Scorpion King? Granted, these are... um... pop culture things from the 90s, but I would be hard pressed to pick three lower-quality inspirations for the game. (I know some people like Hercules and Xena, but not me. And the Scorpion King was awful.) Ok, you did mention Conan and Camelot(!?!?!) at the end. Sorry.
- There are no references to orcs or elves in the Swordlands because, so far as I know, they don't exist in that setting. You'll note the lack of elves or dwarves in Conan, for example...
- Traits exist to customize your character, not your race. Maybe what you wrote was intended to mean that if you had elves and dwarves, you could pick one of those races, and then take feats. But the game as written supports humans only, and the conversion notes at the end of the book say that if you include ECL0 races, their racial abilities replace traits.
- What class is your sample character Shasta? Dodge is a much better feat in Iron Heroes than in D&D, but it's difficult to appreciate the value of a character without knowing what class they are, and thus what abilities they have on top of traits and feats.
- It's quite reasonable a reasonable criticism to wonder what the heck players are supposed to buy with their loot. That's only covered in Mastering Iron Heroes, the second book. But it shouldn't take much imagination to suppose players should be able to spend money on wine, women, and song, land and buildings, mercenaries (albeit, mercenaries aren't covered in MIH either), etc.

[Fhtagn]

Decent review there, covering a variety of points. I do have one minor quibble though, and that's that "alternative" does mean "instead of", rather than "in addition to"(crudely, anyway). As such, it sounds very much like an alternative PHB, much as Arcana Unearthed was.

[buzz]

So, essentially the smarter you are the harder it is to cast a spell. What, as they say, is up with that?

This is in fact a typo.

Originally Posted by Iron Heroes errata

p. 222, Step 3: Channel the Spell
Where the description of a channeling check says, "Your channeling check has a Difficulty Class equal to the amount of mana spent on the spell + 5 + your Intelligence modifier," delete the phrase " + your intelligence modifier."

The errata is available at http://www.montecook.com/cgi-bin/pag...ress_IL_errata.

[Hogscape]

so how does Conan shape up as a magic-lite game system?

[Mr Jack]

I've been playing in a game of Iron Heroes. In general I think it's good stuff, and really like it. But it does feel rushed around the edges. There seems to be a lot of errors in the text, a lot of rule systems that aren't quite finished (Mike himself admitted the spell system wasn't finished to his satisfation) and balanced properly.

It's a pity, because Iron Heroes could have been great and it's merely good.