Iron Kingdoms RPG

So last friday night I ran a 1 shot IK campaign for my RPG group. The main goal was to make sure we all had some type of grasp on the rules. The main plot centered around a Crime Lord who had escaped from Jail. Lael placed a large bounty on his head and the players went off to find where he was.

I pregenerated the Character so we could focus on playing. I'll dive into creation for a bit.

I am tempted to say this game has one of the easiest character creation processes I've seen in a role playing game. The Sheets can look a little daunting, but I think its actually a bit misleading. You start by picking a race. The Races are all pre-stated out so you just copy in the stats. Then you get 3 points with which to raise those stats. Then you pick 2 Careers. (The rulebook says pick your archtype first, but certain careers require archtypes so I would choose them first) The 2 careers come with preset Skills and Abilities, no math, just writing. From there you guy some gear and have to make a couple decisions. Its a very easy process, but ends up with a very detailed character. I like it a lot.

So the Party I put together looked like this.

A Skilled Human Pirate/Theif - This character was a bit roguey. Being our first game we missed several of her damage and attack bonus' but she still kicked a lot of butt.

An Intellectual Human Stormblade/Knight - He was a super tank, put out amazing damage, and got a lot of attacks. Likely the strongest PC in the party.

A Gifted Human Arcane Mechanic/Field Mechanic - He ran the steamjack and was able to dish out a few spells here and there. The Jack is actually pretty strong in this game, even the cheapo labor jacks.

A Gifted Human Duelist/Warcaster - The Duelist side didn't really come through for this character. But the Warcaster was pretty cool she could buff the entire party's armor and made them VERY tough.

Again, the main point of the game was to learn the rules. So the character got into some fights and used their skills here and there to track down the bad guy. IK calls to use Mini's and Tape Measurers for Combat. I'll be honest Im not a fan of the Tape Measurer idea. So we pulled out a D&D grid which has 1x1 squares all over it. So instead of inches we measured in squares. I like to think it worked well, but we are going to try the real deal next time with the Tapes.

The fighting went smoothly, but I have one problem with it and since I ran 1 game I am clearly an expert on the subject. Balance is a bit of a razors edge. In the 2nd Fight I nearly killed the Stormblade in the first round of Combat. I was shocked since he hadn't really been damaged to that point. But quickly the players took over and carried the fight with no problem. The game is BRUTAL, like L5R brutal in combat. There are more ways to mitigate damage in IK, but its still a very deadly system. I think its going to be tough for GM's to figure out how to balance fights properly in the system.