GoCorral

I finished my read-through of Ironclaw 2nd Edition and the associated supplement, Ironclaw: The Book of Jade which adapts Ironclaw’s more European Medieval setting for a Chinese setting. Unlike Jadeclaw Legacy, The Book of Jade is not a stand-alone system and requires the main 2nd edition book to know all the rules for running the game and options for creating characters.

The basics for the 2nd edition are all the same. Everyone is playing anthropomorphic animals. You have six traits, Body, Mind, Speed, and Will, and then Species and Career on top of that. The dice that are placed in each trait are different though. Everything is a bit lower than 1st edition with a two d8, three d6, and one d4 instead of a d12, a d10, two d8, a d6, and a d4. As the characters advance there is also a cap on traits of d12. In 1st edition the traits could grow beyond that d12 by adding a second die. Not so in 2nd edition, but Skills can still increase as much as desired.

Gameplay remains much the same. You add together the relevant Traits and Skills and roll all those dice. You look for the highest number you rolled and the highest number your opponent rolled and whoever has the bigger number wins. The bonuses and penalties in 2nd edition are much simplified as well. 1st edition messed about with changing dice sizes and taking away dice. 2nd edition is easier, a bonus is either an additional d8 or d12. A penalty works the same way, the extra dice are just given to the defender/challenge to increased the chance of a higher target number.

Character advancement and many other rules seem geared towards more simplicity. Experience is normally gained at the rate of 2 points per session. 4 experience points increases a Skill and 10 experience points gets a Gift. There are no longer Flaws that can be selected to get extra build points. Flaws are still around as an optional rule. If your Flaw hinders you during a scene then you get 1 experience point. Additionally, whenever your character completes a goal (like finishing an adventure), they gain a Gift based around their experience on that adventure. For example, a mage who used a lot of fire spells on an adventure might learn a new fire spell or a knight who defended his lord might gain the Bodyguard gift. These extra Gifts can be exchanged for 5 experience points if desired by the player.

Combat also got a lot simpler with the removal of the First Rank, Second Rank, Third Rank system. In 2nd edition characters get two actions each round, but they cannot repeat any actions. This actually does make the gameplay quite dynamic. The basic available actions are move, attack, aim, recover, focus, refresh, and guard. Depending on the situation three or four of these actions are desirable, so there’s still plenty of player choice in what their character does.

Magic is much simpler in 2nd edition. Many of the non-combat spells are now combined into multipurpose spells. Spells are learned as Gifts instead of Skills making their acquisition much more straightforward. There are still schools of magic that require the study of simple spells before more powerful ones can be learned. Thankfully each school is now split into its own section with the spells roughly organized in order of which should be learned. It makes it much easier to imagine a wizard’s progression depending on which school of magic they specialize in.

The books are much better organized in 2nd edition with a few minor quirks. The rules are written in a straight forward manner allowing for easy digestion instead of the odd glossary style that the 1st edition used. The lore information is kept at the end as before, but there is an unfortunate quality issue in proof-reading. It was obvious that some spells and Gifts were created by copying and pasting paragraphs from similar abilities. No harm there, but the text wasn’t changed to reflect the name of the new ability.

There are two more egregious errors, one in character creation and in the magic rules. Every PC is supposed to get the Combat Save ability. It’s mentioned in passing in the combat section and its listed on the included character sheet, but Combat Save is not mentioned at all in the character creation section and starting with it is not mentioned on the ability itself. The magic rules discuss using your hands, wands, or rods to cast spells, but never tell you why you would choose a particular option. The details are provided in The Book of Jade so I was covered, but what about for people who didn’t purchase that book?

Is The Book of Jade still Chinese flavored enough for me? I’d say yes. All the same martial arts techniques and schools are here. The five element system is still here with new rules for combining the elements together into new spells. The three schools of magic still exist, but I think I’d shy away from describing them as Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. Ironclaw’s Taoist magic is still clearly Taoism and Purity magic matches with Buddhism. Changes magic isn’t quite Confucianism though. I think the problem is that Confucius was actually against the practice of magic and religion for its own sake. He felt that if rituals were observed they should have a clear purpose in reinforcing his ideal family and state structure. His views were largely secular so its difficult to reflect that position with a magic system.

Obviously Chinese culture goes beyond martial arts and magic/religion, but the other factors don’t need representation in the rules. I don’t need a rule that represents the Emperor’s position, the Mandate of Heaven, the social value of the center and height, etc. The rest of it comes through with how I present the setting and design adventures.

Most importantly Ironclaw 2nd Edition solves the biggest problem with Jadeclaw Legacy. 2nd edition has an online character sheet on Roll20 that functions for adding Traits and Skills together for different actions. Perfect! There’s still plenty of time before I run a Chinese-themed campaign, probably several years, but I have a game now that has passed the “good enough to try” threshold. I’ll still read the others on my list to explore more options. Fortunately, there’s at least one winner already. If you’re interested in Ironclaw 2nd Edition and The Book of Jade both are available on DriveThruRPG. There’s more information about the games on Sanguine Games website as well.