Looking for Iron Heroes anecdotes

[shuyung]

Hi,

I would be interested in hearing tales of anyone's experiences with play using the Iron Heroes variant rules. What was surprisingly fun, what was surprisingly maddening? Was your environment entirely Iron Heroes, or did only a character or two use it?

[GoatBoy]

I was in a full Iron Heroes game that lasted about 3 months. I played a Weapon Master who used a 2-hander, and I was usually responsible for the majority of the party's damage.

From an optimization standpoint, I really enjoyed the Feat Mastery system. It was just close enough to 3.5 to be easy to understand, but different enough to be refreshing.

Our DM tried to incorporate a bit of 3.5 material, notable a Lightning Elemental. Unfortunately, with no form of energy defence, save boosts, or any method for our Myrmidon to do sneak attack damage, the results were disastrous and we lost a party member. So, converting 3.5 material isn't as easy as the book makes it out to be, and should be done with care.

We didn't have an arcanist so I can't state on how imbalancing magic is compared to 3.5. Our group was also playing at wildly different optimization levels, so I can't really comment on class balance either.

It's not a perfect system, but it's fun, and different enough from 3.5 that it might appeal to someone who is fed up/tired of the former.

[shuyung]

So your DM was building combats entirely using the Bestiary until the Lightning Elemental incident, or did you notice mundane combatants from out of 3.5?