Grist for the Iconic mill

[Blankbeard]

http://www.crafty-games.com/forum/index.php?topic=3369.msg55459#msg55459

This is the only word I could find on it.  Pretty much what Mr A said.  In species feats, it looks like an additional iconic class is 0.5 as well.

[Uncle Muppet]

Yes, a bit of thread necromancy here.  However, in reading through the core FC rules again I found the simpliest solution to the Iconic Class species drawback.

The big arguement against this penalty was that by reducing starting action dice you overly gimp the character because so many abilities depend on the number of starting action dice.  A lot of people get the idea that a character that bucks the racial mold might not be as lucky as other members of his race, but no one really gets behind the idea that they are less skilled as well (i.e. can do certain things less often than other members of thier chosen class).

However, in the Campaign Qualities section of FC rules, there is an option called "Bleak Heroes".  In this one, the starting action dice of all characters is reduced by 2...  BUT abilities that depend on the number of starting dice are not afffected.  They still use the normal number of dice the character is supposed to get.  If this option was used for the IC penalty, a lot of the grumbling would go away, I suspect.  Barring what the Crafty Guys come up with, I am going to implement this as a house rule for the game I will eventually run in the FC system.

(Yes, Bleak Heroes also states that action dice don't explode but that isn't required.  It might be an option in place of reducing action dice, however.)

[Sletchman]

My big problem in a game that throws off the shackles of 3.x, it feels like a massive throwback [and I felt the same way when OOTS came out for Spycraft].  It also inserts notions of a setting into a setting free book - yes I know GC's can change which Iconic's a race gets, but the majority I come across don't, accepting that "this is what Dwarves / Elves / Orcs are", instead of make them their species, their way.

It also isn't helpful that the penalty feels like being kicked somewhere unpleasant.  At -1 AD I'd accept it as the cost to play against type, but at -2 AD it's simply not worth it.

The top is my big problem though - to the point that I've changed all the species to remove Iconic Class [those that have it - I'm not rewriting Pech for example], and I'm currently considering what to add to beef up the species feats a little.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

The big arguement against this penalty was that by reducing starting action dice you overly gimp the character because so many abilities depend on the number of starting action dice.

But another big argument is that it's not a penalty for those who go with type, meaning in a sense that they don't actually have a drawback and therefore are slightly more powerful.