Iron Heart: attacks all players

question
#1

Rules question/help from my fellow lumpy heads. When drawing a monster card that “attacks all players,” what happens? Does it attack players individually? Do players pool attack dice in defense? What happens if someone fails the defense? What happens if the monster is defeated? Who keeps them in their vault? Does anyone keep them in the vault? Does everyone simply get the coin value in their vault? Is it split among the defenders?

Second rules question: what mechanical benefit is there really in keeping alliances secret in the beginning? All we’ve found is it makes things counterproductive in the long haul, especially in strategies.

Also in the vein of alliances: does anyone add rules to further cooperation between allies? Card swaps as a playing action? Sacrificing a vault card to Add dice to an allied defense? “Visiting” Lords? Some sort of “zone control” mechanic for cooperative games? A way to add a monster to an allied attack, perhaps by “holding an action” their turn?

#2

@GmGrizzly First love all the stuff you have put out on Drivethrough and your blog!

I am not going to be much help on the first question however for question 2 it makes me think of Wil Wheaton’s Valkalah. Mechanically I am not sure it makes a lot of difference but it can allow for RP opportunities as the story develops. It also adds complexity and difficulty in earlier encounters. Like a player will make a character based decision in battle based on their secret and the other players will be unsure how to react.

I am not sure if that is what you were looking for but it was the first thing that came to mind.

*edit - oops did not catch the Iron Heart in the title. My bad.

#3

I’m glad you like my stuff! Actually, your point on question 2 is basically the conclusion we came to about alliances in Iron Heart. It just led to some silliness mid game when dropping probing hints like “what’s your policy on punting puppies?” Marvelous family holiday game hahaha

#4

When we’ve played we run the “attacks all other players” as exactly that. We do a single roll for the monster (Eternal, Agnar, Coal Demon, or Shadow Yeti) then let each Player’s heroes roll against the one attack. Whichever player had the highest total that defeated the monster gets the coins. At least that’s how we interpreted it.

Hope that helps you out.

#5

Thank you! Simple. I like it. Follow up then: what happens to those who fail defense? Nothing? Is it an all or nothing for you and yours?

#6

We go with failed roll counts as a defeat for that player, regular rules for defeat or specific card rule for defeat.

#7

we’ve been doing the "attack all players"in turn order…so the monster will attack the player that is next in turn order, if he loses the player defending vaults the card, if the monster wins move to the next player in turn order rinse and repeat until everyone has been attacked. i kinda like @JDStirling 's interpretation better to be honest. I still have never played iron heart with more than 4 people…

#8

I’m in the same boat for number of players, haven’t had more than 4 yet. I’m hoping New Years might change that. We’ve got a few easy to pick up and play games for the table and Iron Heart might get crazy. Hehe.

#9

Did anybody answer this question? A monster rolling 4D6 (ex 3+2+6+5=16) against - who? How to handle this?

  1. The next player with 6 armor left and now dying (-10 HP)?
  2. Or distributed amongst ex 4 players with 4 “damage”/effort against each individual (16:4=4)?
  3. Or 4 players contribute with their armor in a pool with a sum of ex 7+8+15+4=34 - and therefore left with a pool of 34-16=18 armor? And how to distribute these?
#10

The questions are referring to Iron Heart, not ICRPG. However, I usually run ICRPG monster attacks against multiple players as a single attack roll, effects go to all who failed defense. Not distributed. I guess the advice here is essentially the same thing for Iron Heart… which makes sense the more I think about it.

#11

what jd said is how we do it

#12

Got it, yes, it makes sense, thank you. :writing_hand:

#13

Sweet! Just what I needed to know. Y’all rock!!