The Book Of Iron Might.pdf

™

IRON MIGHT

A combat sourcebook

BOOK

By Mike Mearls

Requires use of the Dungeons & Dragons® Third Edition Core Books, published by Wizards of the Coast, Inc.

This book utilizes updated material from the v. 3.5 revision.

Additional Credits

Editing: Richard Thompson

Cover Illustration: Kieran Yanner

Interior Illustrations: Kev Crossley and Scott Purdy

Production: Sue Weinlein Cook

Creative Direction: Monte Cook

Proofreading: Scott Holden-Jones

Cover and Interior Page Design: Peter Whitley

Playtesters: Kelly Graham, Brian Hendley, Justin D. Jacobson, Dave Maldonado, Sean K Reynolds,

Mark W. Rickard, Michael Ruiz, J.E. Sawyer, Del Shand, Nicolas Shand, and Terry Spier

For supplemental material, visit Monte Cook’s Website: < www.montecook.com >

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This edition of The Book of Iron Might is produced under version 1.0a, 5.0, and/or draft versions of the Open Game License, the d20 System Trademark Logo Guide,

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Designation of Open Game Content: Subject to the Product Identity designation above, the following portions of The Book of Iron Might are designated as Open

Game Content: the maneuver system in Chapter One; the sections titled “Ironborn Details,” “Creating Ironborn,” and “Ironborn Feats” in Chapter Two; the feats in their

entirety in Chapter Three; the skill and stunt game mechanics in Chapter Four; and anything else contained herein which is already Open Game Content by virtue of

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THE

The Book of Iron Might

Table of Contents

Introduction: DEATH AND GLORY

How Will This Book Help My Game? ..............3

Using This Book ...............................................4

Chapter Three: FEATS OF IRON MIGHT

Arcane Battle Feats .......................................34

General Rules ...............................................................34

Magic Items and Arcane Battle Feats .......................34

Arcane Battle Feats in the Campaign........................36

Arcane Battle Feat Descriptions ...............................36

Battlemind Feats ...........................................42

Battlemind Feat Descriptions ...................................42

Fighting Style Feats .....................................46

Fighting Style Feat Descriptions..............................46

Chapter One: COMBAT MANEUVERS

Building Blocks ...............................................5

Game Balance Alert ........................................6

The Rule of 20..................................................6

Spells and Maneuvers ....................................6

Key Abilities .....................................................6

Maneuver Effects ............................................7

Melee Attack Effects .....................................................7

Ranged Attack Effects .................................................13

Maneuver Drawbacks ....................................14

Drawback Descriptions ...............................................14

Selecting Drawbacks ...................................................16

Combining Maneuver Effects......................16

Designing a Maneuver...................................17

Preconstructed Maneuvers ........................................17

Customized Maneuvers ................................................17

Free-Form Maneuvers...................................................17

Creating Maneuvers Step by Step ...............................18

Maneuvers and Your Campaign ..................20

Using Maneuvers .........................................................20

Working With Maneuver Drawbacks .........................21

Sample Maneuvers..........................................21

Character Maneuvers ..................................................21

Creature Maneuvers ....................................................23

Chapter Four: SKILLS AND STUNTS

Base Attack Checks........................................53

Conjoined Skill Checks................................53

New and Variant Skill Uses ..........................53

Appraise: Find Weak Point ...........................................53

Balance and Climb: Vertical Run ...............................53

Bluff: Feign Death .......................................................54

Climb: Scaling Attack ..................................................54

Concentration: Focused Determination ................54

Diplomacy: Call for Truce ..........................................54

Disguise: Disguise Weapon .........................................55

Handle Animal: Manipulate Beast .............................55

Handle Animal and Sense Motive: Study Beast .......55

Intimidate: Blood-Kissed Threat ...............................55

Jump: Leaping Charge ...................................................55

Sense Motive: Predict Action .....................................55

Sense Motive: Read Foe ..............................................56

Sleight of Hand: Conceal Weapon............................56

Survival: Wilderness Tactics .....................................56

Tumble: Tumbling Strike .............................................57

Use Rope: Create Lasso.................................................57

Stunts: Free-Form Combat Skill Use ..........57

Mechanics ......................................................................57

Determining a Stunt’s DC ...........................................57

Skills and Stunts..........................................................57

Free-Form Stunts .........................................................59

Attack Stunts ...............................................................60

The DM’s Judgment Factor .........................................60

Descriptions and Stunts .............................................61

Common Sense and Stunts..........................................61

Optional Stunt Rules...................................................61

Chapter Two: THE IRONBORN

Ironborn Characters ...................................25

Personality ....................................................................25

Physical Description ...................................................25

Relations .......................................................................26

Alignment......................................................................26

Ironborn Lands ............................................................26

Religion .........................................................................26

Language........................................................................26

Names .............................................................................26

Adventurers ..................................................................26

Racial Characteristics .................................27

Ability Score Modifiers ..............................................27

Size ..................................................................................27

Ironborn Traits ............................................................27

Ability Packages............................................................28

Origin and Creator .....................................................30

An Ironborn’s Burden .................................................30

Ironborn in the Campaign...........................30

Ironborn Details...........................................................31

Creating Ironborn.........................................31

Craft Ironborn .............................................................32

Ironborn Feats...............................................32

Holy Icon .......................................................................32

Improved Natural Armor.............................................33

Intricate Joints .............................................................33

Memory Bank .................................................................33

Spell Runes ....................................................................33

Spring-Loaded Reflexes...............................................33

Weaponized Limb ...........................................................33

Appendix: ARCANA UNEARTHED CONVERSIONS

Stunts, Maneuvers, and Hero Points.........62

The Ironborn .................................................62

Feats ................................................................62

Open Game License........................................62

Table Melee Attack Maneuver Effects ..................................8

Ranged Attack Maneuver Effects ..............................13

Maneuver Drawbacks ...................................................14

Ironborn Feats ..............................................................33

Arcane Battle Feats ......................................................35

Battlemind Feats ..........................................................44

Fighting Style Feats.....................................................47

Call for Truce ...............................................................55

Introduction 3

Death and Glory

“Il nous faut de l’audace, et encore de l’audace, et toujours de l’audace.”

(“We must dare, and again dare, and forever dare.”)

— Georges Jacques Danton

might have to think about it for a few moments. It’s not as if combat is all that common in a game rife with rampag-

ing dragons, foul trolls, towering giants, and other monsters. Why, fantasy

roleplaying games are all about sitting at home, hoping that an adventure comes to call

on the next-door neighbor, not here, no thank you.

Wait, that’s not quite true. In fact, that’s utterly wrong. Fantasy roleplaying games

are all about charging a dozen orcs, sword raised high. Wars, revolutions, terrible mon-

sters, and epic clashes are par for the course. These are interesting times that our

heroes live in, and may they forever remain so.

The Book of Iron Might is a dash of hot sauce, a spicy kick for your heroic escapades.

Within this book are new rules designed to make quite literally anything possible in a

fight. New character options allow you to play an automaton built for war, or perhaps

one designed to serve as a crafty scout. New feats broaden the horizons of all charac-

ters, while many skills receive new variations crafted specifically for use in combat.

Here’s a chapter-by-chapter overview:

Chapter One: Combat Maneuvers: The crown jewel of this book, the combat

maneuver system makes it possible to simulate almost any sort of action in combat. If

a player wants to grab a fistful of sand and throw it into an ogre’s eyes, you can now

quickly and easily resolve that action. The system presented here allows you to design

combat moves that cover called shots to a foe’s vitals. Rules let you determine the effec-

tiveness of a variety of creative ruses, such as yanking a carpet out from beneath a foe.

Chapter Two: The Ironborn: Crafted from iron, built to serve, and now unleashed

on the world, the ironborn are constructs that you can play as a character. Each iron-

born was built to fulfill a specific purpose, allowing you to tailor your character (or an

NPC) with racial abilities that fit his class.

Chapter Three: Feats of Iron Might: This chapter introduces three new types of

feat. Arcane battle feats introduce the art of magic to fighters and other combatants,

building a whole new, feat-based method of using arcane power to improve one’s fight-

ing ability. Battlemind feats are tailored for high-level characters. In many cases, they

focus on granting powerful fighters fresh options at 10th level and above. Fighting

style feats grow with your character, allowing you to choose a fighting specialty and

improve it as you progress in skill.

Chapter Four: Skills and Stunts: The Bluff skill has a direct application in combat.

Why not extend that capability to other skills? This section provides new, combat-

focused applications for several skills. It also introduces the concept of stunts, a set of

rules that allows you to make use of a skill or attribute to gain an advantage in battle.

How Will This Book Help My Game?

Have you ever been a little bored by combat? Has there ever been a time when you

had a great idea for a move in a fight, but you weren’t sure how it would fit into

the rules?

A lot of DMs are understandably nervous about letting their players try weird,

daring, or strange actions in a battle. Most of the time, the available choices include

the actions from the core rules and a few other options. The Book of Iron Might

breaks the disarm and trip attacks into their component pieces and uses that foun-

dation for a comprehensive look at all the different effects you can create or produce

About the Illustrators

Cover artist Kieran Yanner has always

been interested in art, roleplaying games,

and the fantasy/sci-fi genre. From Decipher

to Malhavoc Press, White Wolf to Dream

Pod 9, Kieran has produced hundreds of

illustrations for the roleplaying industry

and continues to do so.

Leeds, England, illustrator Kev Crossley

learned early on that a monster lived in the

abandoned house down the street—after

that, he saw monsters everywhere. He

drew monsters all the way through school

but in art college and university he was

told to stop. After getting a job in comput-

er games, however, people started paying

him to draw monsters. Moral? Art college

and university were a waste of time.

Scott Purdy , a UK-based illustrator, has a

great love of horror, evil, and all things

tentacular. He wills clients his way if they

have need of nasty critters to bring to life.

You can see more of Scott’s work at

< www.scottpurdy.net > .

Malhavoc Press

Malhavoc Press is game designer Monte

Cook’s d20 System imprint devoted to the

publication of evocative game elements

that go beyond traditional fantasy.

Malhavoc Press products such as The

Book of Eldritch Might exhibit a mastery

of the d20 System rules that only one of

its original designers can offer.

Current titles are available to purchase in

either print or electronic (PDF) format at

< www.montecook.com >. Look for Monte

Cook’s Arcana Evolved , available soon.

H ave you ever run a battle or participated in one during a roleplaying game session? Don’t answer too quickly. You

About the Author

Mike Mearls has worked as a freelance

roleplaying game designer since 1999. This

prolific writer maintains a high volume of

work without compromising quality, which

has won him a place on many gamers’ lists

of favorite designers. Buoyed by positive

reaction to his first d20 works, he went on

to produce material for the leading RPG

publishers, including AEG, Atlas Games,

Decipher, Fantasy Flight, Fiery Dragon,

Goodman Games, Mongoose Publishing,

Necromancer Games, and others before

joining Malhavoc Press. His work appears

regularly in Dragon® Magazine.

The Book of Iron Might

with a weapon. By linking these effects with a series of draw-

backs, you can meld the two systems to create new combat

moves. At the very least, The Book of Iron Might will change how

you view actions in combat. Even if you don’t use the maneuver

system as presented here, you’ll still have a better understand-

ing of how to balance rewards with risks when making snap

decisions during combat.

The ironborn represent a whole new take on character races.

You can customize this race of manufactured constructs to fit the

character class a person wants to play. This change brings a whole

new layer of options and opportunities to characters.

The feats introduced in this book seek to establish new types of

abilities tailored to benefit fighters. As the character class that

receives the most feat selections, fighters have the greatest poten-

tial for customization. The Book of Iron Might expands on a fight-

er’s choices and runs with the idea that you can define fighters by

the feats they choose.

Finally, the skill rules demonstrate how abilities that might play

only a tangential role in combat can become more important.

Conjoined skill checks allow you to attempt dangerous maneuvers by

making multiple, simultaneous skill checks to accomplish a single

task. The stunt system builds on the maneuver rules to introduce a

new set of options for all characters.

Using This Book

Like its predecessors, The Book of Eldritch Might and The Book of

Hallowed Might , this tome is designed to present new character

options and systems that you can use to improve your game.

Where the first two books focused on arcane magic and divine

magic, respectively, The Book of Iron Might covers combat.

The Book of Iron Might is a toy box full of stuff that you can use

to make combat more fun in your game. The maneuver system in

particular features plenty of advice, including a step-by-step

example, for using the new rules and incorporating them into

your game. In addition, it presents new feats and options for

fighters, but any character who wants to play a role in combat can

benefit from the new material here. DMs can unlock the potential

of monsters, creating tricky maneuvers that reflect a creature’s

abilities and adding a new level of variety to the game.

Throughout The Book of Iron Might , all references to spells,

feats, and other rules come from the v. 3.5 revision of the three

Core Rulebooks: the Player’s Handbook , DMG, and MM.

Bonus source material and ideas to augment the information in

The Book of Iron Might appear on Monte Cook’s website. To find the

links to these free web enhancements, visit the book’s product page

online at the following address: <www.montecook.com/BOIM>.

This sourcebook is protected content except for items specifi-

cally called out as Open Gaming Content on the title page. For

full details, please turn to the Appendix. Open content is not

otherwise marked in the text of this book.

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