Using Iron Heroes for Ravenloft

[Shadow]

I'm thinking of adapting the Iron Heroes rules to Ravenloft. I know that it seems like kind of an odd fit, but hear me out. I came up with this idea after talking to another player in my group. Both of us have some major problems with the standard D&D rules, especially when applied to Ravenloft. D&D assumes a world of fairly common and high magic. However, the gothic world of Ravenloft is assumed to be lower magic. Moreover, DMs are required to give out a standard amount of magical treasure each level (see the wealth by character level table in the DMG), otherwise the challenge rating system doesn't work. This idea seems antithetical to Ravenloft.

On the other hand Iron Heroes, assumes that heroes survive by their wits, not by the loads of magical treasure that they possess. Also, Iron Heroes assumes that magic is an art rather than a science, and that it is dangerous and foolish to rely too much upon. This seems like a perfect fit for Ravenloft. The Iron Heroes Player's Companion features the spiritualist class, a class that gains magic from making pacts with outsiders. This just screams gothic horror to me.

The only potential problem I see for Iron Heroes is the overall increased bonuses to saving throws. All classes have a saving throw bonus equal to their character level. This makes saving throws, especially fear and horror checks, fairly meaningless after a certain level.

Any thoughts about this?

[Dimitri Mazieres]

I have only glanced over Iron Heroes, but it does seem to have a more "gritty" approach than standard D&D, so parts of it might work with Ravenloft, even if it's more geared towards combat.

Another setting that follows similar guidelines (low magic, low magic items) would be FFG's Midnight. Magical items are extremely rare (not to mention acquiring weapons and armor) and the concept of legacy items is introduced, which are magical items which acquire new abilities as the PC reaches higher levels.
There's also a point-based magic system that's fairly interesting, with a base spellcasting class called the Channeler, and wizards and druids being prestige classes.

[Isabella]

Go for it, I say. Don't worry about fear and horror checks becoming obsolete. I think Ravenloft can, and preferably should, be run without them.

Blasphemy, I hear them say. But think of it this way - even if you don't overuse fear and horror checks, eventually the players will become accustomed to them. I mean, how many monsters do they have to fight before they can all admit they aren't "average citizens" anymore and aren't going to freak out because this googly-eyed beast man is different from the last twenty they've seen?
What I'm saying is, you can't force horror. Fear and horror checks ultimately boil down to rolling a die and telling the player, "OK, you're scared now." If the players aren't scared, they're just going to roll their eyes. If they are, why add extraneous rolls?

I think your biggest concern would be observing how spells would be affected by the high saving throw DCs (I don't know if Iron Heroes has its own spells). For example, save or die spells would be less effective (good, in my opinion), and touch spells would be better than save based ones. It's just a change in tactics for your spell-casting foes, really.

[JinnTolser]

Personally, I've always found D&D's challenge rating system to be wildly inaccurate, whether you follow the established "wealth by character level" chart or not. Once I got a feel for how powerful the players were in relation to the monsters, I was able to adjust encounters accordingly (although I admit to using many more NPCs than monsters as the levels went higher).

As for Iron Heroes, I didn't enjoy the one game of it that I played, but in retrospect I think it had more to do with the DM than with the system itself. It could be usable for RL if you don't want to use standard D&D, but as far as the saving throw bonus problem, why not just adjust the DCs accordingly?

[Sylaire]

Go for it, I say. Don't worry about fear and horror checks becoming obsolete. I think Ravenloft can, and preferably should, be run without them.

Blasphemy, I hear them say. But think of it this way - even if you don't overuse fear and horror checks, eventually the players will become accustomed to them. I mean, how many monsters do they have to fight before they can all admit they aren't "average citizens" anymore and aren't going to freak out because this googly-eyed beast man is different from the last twenty they've seen?
What I'm saying is, you can't force horror. Fear and horror checks ultimately boil down to rolling a die and telling the player, "OK, you're scared now." If the players aren't scared, they're just going to roll their eyes. If they are, why add extraneous rolls?

Preach on! As a game player, fear (or more accurately, suspenseful tension) comes from the perception of risk to my character, and horror is strictly a function of the quality of the storytelling of the scenario design and my fellow players. Trying to have these reactions converted to a game mechanic for the character--particularly, for a character who is far more competent and courageous than I am--is clumsy and harsh to the atmosphere.

I always thought the fear check--especially the fear check as it was introduced, in the Black Box's Weekend from Hell games--was the most absurd game mechanic of Ravenloft (yes, more than the 3% powers check for that diabolically evil, fiendishly unhallowed spell which lingers on your soul like a mortal sin, feign death). I mean, to the average outlander PC of mid-level or higher, the reaction to a ferocious lycanthrope bursting out of the underbrush is, "What, only one? You're telling me that's supposed to scare me? We just offed sixteen of 'em in one pack last week back in the Realms and there wasn't any o' that 'fear check' crap then!" Fear of werewolves tends to show up right about the time the player character learns about how Ravenloft makes it really hard to get rid of lycanthropy...

The flaw here is that the fear/horror check was adapted from other horror RPGs--Call of Cthulhu's Sanity checks, Chill's FEAR statistic, GURPS Horror's fear/sanity rolls...but the mechanic is based upon a game system where the protagonists are assumed to be more-or-less normal members of a real-world society, where the very concept of the supernatural is unusual and mind-blowing. FRPG heroes do not come from that perspective. Can you see Conan dropping his sword and running in horror when confronted with hideous monsters? Sparhawk freak out at the sight of a vampire? Aragorn be struck dumb with horror at the sight of a man transforming into a wolf? For Ravenloft natives, it's a different story, of course--that's one reason, I suspect, why Ravenloft is such a low-magic, low-fantasy-quotient setting and why "modern" domains such as Mordent and Dementlieu are so popular--that kind of setting and background make it easier for the players to slip into the "Gothic Horror" mindset.

Um...we now return you to your regularly scheduled thread...

[Gwenfloor]

I just give bonuses for characters against monsters "common" to the domain.
For example, Verbrekans are not going to be as horrified by the sight of a werewolf as a Nova Vaasan would (knowing the typical Verbrekan, she/he would still run away in order to survive), or a Tepestani witnessing a Shadow Fey cast a spell.

[Jonathan Winters]

About Iron Heroes,

I think you can make it work.

(OTOH, NPCs keep their magical items tuned to them or something like that so they still keep their advantage and PCs just don't start picking them all up after a fight.)

AND, I can really see it happening in the Frozen Reaches, Valachan, Verbrek, Barovia... Any domain that isn't too civilized. I did think of doing a Frozen Reaches IH game at some point. I might still do it after this current campaign...

Let us know how it turns out!

Patrik