Curse of Strahd in Iron & Gold, so far

Iron & Gold

(Yeah, the tag says Iron Gauntlets and it probably will forever. But the game system I’m currently using is Iron & Gold, also from Precis Intermedia Games.)

Curse of Strahd is a big sort-of-sandbox campaign that has the players traveling all over, to try and get the items to deal with Strahd Von Zarovitch. It is a Dungeons & Dragons 5E campaign, possibly the most popular one, and it takes the characters from level 1 (with the optional “Death House” adventure) to ten.

I have been running it in Iron & Gold, a PIG game from their genreDiversion&tm; line, with some things changed to make it more like the PCs came from Amherst, the default setting for Iron & Gold.

However, this is what we’ve done:

• Death House
• Buried the burgomaster of Barovia but did not fight the vampire under the church
• Saved the young Vistani girl, killed five vampire spawn, retrieved bones of St. Andral
• Took Ireena to Krezk and lost her to the pool
• Fought druids and blights at winery
• Fought druids and berserkers at Yester Hill

They have not received the invitation from Strahd for dinner at Castle Ravenloft, because they have not been at their last known location, and are on the move to Berez.

They are at the point where they now have teleportation, but a fight with, say, a berserker can still be a threat.

Now, Iron & Gold has teleportation but does not provide distance guidelines; it does limit teleportation (Fabrica Ge, the game calls it) to locations the caster has been to, so the wizard still has to get to the place first. However, the PCs have already been about 27 miles by road or about 11 miles as the raven flies.

To avoid PCs skipping all over the map, I have instituted an arbitrary limit of 2 kilometres per Creativity, the stat that governs wizardry. Stats run from 1-5 in PCs, and I allow time-consuming ways to extend that so there can be teleport circles that go anywhere in Barovia. For Hrelgi, the PC in question, this gives her a range of 8 km, or 5 miles, straight line. That gets them very far but not everywhere.

Is it workable? I dunno; I’m making this up as I go along.

Edit, a couple of days later: Looking at some other items (the use of the magic skill that allows knowing about and controlling the ability of other wizards to do magic), perhaps I should have limited it by the caster’s skill rather than the caster’s raw power. Maybe; the important thing to me was to keep them from traveling to some part of the map and thenceforth bipping back and forth: “Hey, Hrelgi, go back to the first town we were in and tell her brother we messed up, okay?” Putting a limit of about 8 kilometers on teleportation means they still have to walk sometimes.

Sample NPC converted from Dungeons & Dragons

Berserker

Fitness 4 Awareness 3 Creativity 2 Reasoning 2 Influence 2 Race Human
Skills Athletics 5, Composure 4, Dueling 4, Stealth 3, Subterfuge 3
Gimmick Fearless
Weapon War Axe 3 inj (does 4 inj because of Fitness) Armor Studded leather

The studded leather is mine; it’s not in Iron & Gold — just leather provides protection 1 against bruising damage (clubs and such) but “studded leather” provides protection 1 against both kinds of damage, bruising and piercing/slashing.

Things I Like About Iron & Gold

• Essentially point-based character creation, but bonuses or penalties depending on character vocation and race
• Much looser magic system with different penalties
• Armor can absorb damage (have I mentioned that I dislike “armor class” as a thing that makes you harder to hit?)
• Much smaller range of health: everyone has the same health levels

Later I’ll reproduce this list and include things I dislike about Iron & Gold because there are some.