looking to get started...

[Darkona]

hi first time poster, ive been looking over iron kingdoms for a while now but am still a little muddled.
I would like to start playing it and have a good group of friends who are willing but i just cant get my head around where to get the basic rules- as i can see there are campaign books for the narrative but in which book(s) are the basic rules kept? or am i missing something very simple?

thanks
Darkona

[KrielMaster]

You are- but that's OK, since the IKRPG runs on 'Old' rules. You need to get the IK books, {The IK Character Guide, World Guide, Leiber Mechanika and the Monsternomicon 1 & 2, are the 'full monty' a bit of an investment, sure but worth every blackpenny, IMO.}
The 'Basic Rules' are Dungeons and Dragons version 3.5- for this you need the 3 CORE books, Players Guide, Dungeon Master's Guide and Monster Manual, nothing else from WoTC needed.
All of these are available on line as PDFs- once you get them, you can run the game, forever, if you like...

[The_Gun_Nut]

and ever and ever and ever and ever and...

[Nyarlathotep333]

My advice would be to pick up the Iron Kingdoms Character Guide first. That's got all the basic rules specific to the Iron Kingdoms (after you have the core WoTC stuff of course). Liber Mechanika and the Monsternomicon Vol. 1 are the next two you'll want.

The World Guide is awesome and you'll want it eventually, but it is largely background material about the places, countries, and setting of Iron Kingdoms. A superb resource, but ultimately not necessary to actually play the game with. I'd suggest picking this one up when you can though as it really does a great job filling in the details of the world setting.

The Monsternomicon 2 Is great as well but a large portion of it deals with the eastern area of Immoren, which is great if you want to set adventures there but the MN1 is probably the better book for starting with. Both of course have a lot of great monsters to throw at your players and I'd reccommend getting them both in the long run.

A couple other notes: There is a book detailing the port city of Five Fingers, however I don't own it so I can't say much about it except that I've heard great things about it. Also, the Witchfire Trilogy is a great adventure that is meant to be an introducion to the setting which can be good for new players (and GMs!). I'm currently running my group through it.

Also, the actual hard copy books can be hard to find, however Privateer Press made PDF copies available recently (which are text searchable!) and can be found at DriveThruRPG.com and Paizo(?).

Good luck! Let us know how it goes for you!

[theWestWinds]

The IK Character Guide is by far the most important, and most often used. If you get a hard copy of any book, this is the one. This has the differences between D&D and IK. This has the new classes, the prestige classes, the gods, and the the rules for mechanika.

The Monsternomicon is just the D&D Monster Manuel for all the beasts specific to IK.

Leiber Mechanika is important if your characters really get into the Mechanika aspect of the game. But otherwise, it is not often used except for an occasional reference.

The World Guide is a lot of fluff and story. Important of you want to create a very rich game world. But, if you kow enough of the fluff from the Character Guide and playing WM/Hordes, or reading other fluff, you should be able to do without it.

This has been my experience as a player :)

[Whimper]

Step One: You need the rules for Dungeons & Dragons 3.5. These are the basic rules that everything uses. You can either buy hardcopies of the Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide, or do what I do, and use http://www.d20srd.org which is a compilation of the core rules indexed for online use. It's missing a few key things, but is 90% complete and easy to use.

Step Two: You need the Iron Kingdoms Character Guide. Absolutely.


Everything after this is gravy.

[The_Gun_Nut]

But tasty gravy. For the hardcore technophile (like me) the Liber Mechanika is an absolute dream. It still leaves unanswered questions (like what is an arc node and how do I get/use one) but it also brings forth a tremendous amount of fluff hidden amongst the crunch. The rules and statistics and mechanical descriptions give insight as to how the IK's view technology and magic and their applications.

The updated Arcane Mechanik is very useful if you have a player who wishes to explore the technological side of the IK's. And the Cyriss tech and the PrC's for Cyriss really help to define what Cyriss followers are like.

Whimper is correct about just needing the 3.5 books and the IKCG to play, but I highly recommend the LM.

[KrielMaster]

The only further thing I have to add to Whimper and Gun Nut's very correct posts, is that the 3.5 Monster Manual contains several important sections, such as the creature advancement rules, basic 'critter' stuff {the sections after 'Zombie' on Animals is key in any setting} and the details on how to handle non-human races with level adjustments.
As I stated earlier, the 3 'Core' books are, well actually 'core', and contain little, if any redundancy. No further WotC books need be bought to run 3.5 D&D, they are often available in a bundle, and ANY other OGL setting is going to require them in any case.
Perhaps, most telling from a design standpoint is the fact of how functional and un-broken the rules-set is, without all the extra encumbrance of secondary materiel.

I agree that the IK Character Guide/Monsternomicon 1 and the Core Set are all that is needed, but my vote goes to including the Liber Mechanika for the clarified rules.

[Galleon]

For added fun you can also pick up alot of fluff , rules , feats , weapons , classes and alot more from the back issues of no quarter.

[demongg]

I'll toss in a couple thoughts... With the D&D 3.5 rules you can find the SRD (System Resource Documents) on various websites, that has ALL of the rules necessary to play D&D 3.5, minus any "fluff" and images from the 'core' D&D books. They're great and free online - but if you're not familiar with the D20 system at all getting the actual books might be best to start.

Conflicting with what others have said, I don't think the 'core' D&D 3.5 books are available online as PDFs anymore - unless you find them illegally. WotC broke any/all sales of all their PDFs with the release of D&D4, not allowing anyone to sell PDFs even of old material anymore. I could be wrong on that...

Otherwise - I'll pitch in and say HECK YES the IK book PDFs are awesome to have. It's near impossible to find printed copies of any of their books anymore and if you do the prices get high. The PDFs are excellent anyway for searching for rule notes and especially for fluff info. I've found that alot of great detail to flesh out the setting as well as indespensible ideas for the flavor of the world are peppered throughout the books, making them easy to miss on casual read/research. So NOW... anytime I want to create a story involving any IK fluff/character/location I literally open all the IK PDFs and do a quick search for the name of the thing I want. You'll find all sorts of mentions on things that way.

Last bit... if you're trying to absorb all the 'canon' of the IK setting to best tell your story with loads of world events and background finding the Warmachine books could be helpful. They're NOT out on PDF yet (as far as I know) but I'd love to see them released! Many of them are still in stores if you search. They're helpful for fluff and background info in the IK setting from the RPG timeline (set around the Witchfire Trilogy timeline - 602-3 AR) up to and through the most 'current' canon timeline of the Warmachine game material witch goes up through 610 AR or so. (correct?)


hope that helps

-kev-