Category Archives: DnD

IKCG Errata?

Eliminating errors with extreme prejudice

Many moons ago, a company called Privateer Press released a book called the IKCG after years of teeth-gnashing delays, setbacks, consternation, and a change in the core ruleset from d20 3.0 to d20 3.5. In the scramble to convert 400+ pages of content to the new rules, a fair amount of quality control issues slipped through the cracks. Some of the numbers don’t add up, some of the tables contradict the text, there are some rather amusing typos, and so forth.

But hark, news arrives via a mailing list:

Actually we are working on an official errata document for the IKCG to be released at the first of the year.

Paraphrasing the upcoming errata, the Gun Mage will be able to avoid spell failure in light armor as part of his spell focus ability with his pistol. This means if you are not holding your pistol, you will have a chance of spell failure for being in armor. This is different than the wording in the Bard class concerning casting in light armor.

-Nathan Letsinger

Nate Letsinger is the director of the Iron Kingdoms RPG line, and hence in a position to authoritatively make such claims. Since an online errata document isn’t subject to the vagaries of the printing process, and the Privateers already have a tried-and-true FAQ-and-errata web interface (here), I have higher hopes for this “first of the year” release date than I might have for other Iron Kingdoms products.

Welcome to Llael

Llael, circa 604 AR

The fair nation of Llael is blessed in a great many ways. Located along the busiest trade routes in Western Immoren, Llael is a nexus of commerce, culture, and politics. Rhul borders to the North, Khador to the West, and Cygnar to the South. Ample coal and sulfur deposits lend stability to this kingdom’s economy, which is otherwise subject to the ebbs and flows of international commerce. As the home of the international monetary exchange and the headquarters for the Order of the Golden Crucible, a great deal of wealth passes through Llael.
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Radio Free Llael

Llael, circa 604 AR

Radio Free Llael is a podcast produced rather in the spirit of Fell Calls, but instead of being run by a gaggle of wargamers, it is run by a group of roleplaying enthusiasts. At only two episodes, it is already shaping up to be the National Public Radio to the Fell Calls’ wacky sports talk. The tone is relatively mellow, and the hosts Thurston and Nick clearly get along well with each other and their guests very well. One thing that is clear from the first two episodes is that these folks aren’t afraid to break away from the canonical Iron Kingdoms, going so far as to incorporate airships into their upcoming Llaelese Resistance campaign.

Give it a try for some mellow, geeky fun.

Five Fingers: Port of Deceipt

Map of Five Fingers and Environs

With the release of Five Fingers: Port of Deceipt, Privateer Press paints an interesting picture of an “evil city” for their campaign setting, the Iron Kingdoms. From other sourcebooks, we fans of the setting knew Five Fingers as a pirate haven on the border of Ord and Cygnar, a city with a dark and lawless reputation. Port of Deceit simultaneously confirms and dispels these notions.
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Utility Spells

Every adventuring Wizard and Sorcerer worth his salt has a Fireball or Lightning Bolt and a couple Magic Missiles spell up his sleeve in case a fight breaks out, and spells like Bull’s Strength and Cure Serious Wounds have an obvious appeal when out dungeoncrawling or dragon-slaying. This post isn’t about those no-brainers, but rather the more subtle, multi-use spells you may have been forgetting.
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Five Fingers Interview

Five Fingers

Tonight saw an IRC-based interview with Privateer Press writers Douglas Seacat and Wolfgang Baur regarding their upcoming release Five Fingers: Port of Deceit. Mr. Seacat is a Privateer Press veteran, having a hand in just about everything they’ve published since the second installment of the Witchfire Trilogy, and Mr. Baur was a major contributor to the best campaign settings ever released by TSR: Planespace.

I enjoyed it greatly, in no small part because several of my less-asinine questions were directly addressed. Transcript follows.
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Social Adventures

The Dungeon Master’s Guide presents some very clear guidelines for the use of experience points as a reward mechanism for overcoming obstacles during an adventure. This is universally-understood to include combat encounters, but is also intended to include puzzles, riddles, traps, and social interactions. This is all well and good, and even the most inexperienced DM quickly learns how to plan for traps and combat, mapping out a dungeon, ruin, castle, village, or forest in which such obstacles are placed, and handling their presentation as a tactical matter. Where does this leave you when the obstacles that need to be overcome are the attitudes of a group of people that are all roughly in the same place?

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IK Fate Aspects

As part 0.11 of the IK Fate Roadmap, it is necessary to generate a representative sampling of Aspects that characters in the Iron Kingdoms may find useful or interesting. I will break them up into a handful of subcategories for organizational purposes. This is not intended as a complete listing of possible aspects, as a total lock-down of the character-generation process strikes me as antithetical to the Fate system.

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IK Fate Roadmap

Migrating an existing campaign setting from one rule set to another can be a daunting task. Many of the details of the setting are strongly-tied to the assumptions of a given system. In the case of the Iron Kingdoms, a great deal of this has to do with the mechanisms of magic, especially who can use it and how. Dungeons & Dragons themes of Wizards, Sorcerers, Druids, Paladins, and Bards suffuse the setting, and should be translated into any new system for the Iron Kingdoms to any other rule set.

Happily, there are some fairly-close correlations between the various rounds of character creation in the d20 system and Fate, and between one of the recommended Fate magic systems and the way spells have traditionally been divvied up in D&D. I’m sure this is no accident, as most folks that design RPGs have at some point played Dungeons & Dragons themselves.

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