... until it becomes... a Thing of Iron!

[KawangaKid]

I am, of course... talking about the Marvel character Iron Fist!

 

I borrowed my friend's copy of Marvel's "Essential Iron Fist". Really cool idea, that essential collection... it's all black and white (probably from the films), and collects the key storylines of the character.

 

Iron Fist in particular is a great book to leaf through for several reasons:

 

1) it starts with his core origin, but relates it in flashbacks, and goes through adventures and further fleshes out his background in more flashbacks (similar to the original Kung Fu series) introducing characters from K'un L'un such as the Thunderer and Yu-Ti, the August Personage in Jade. So you have a great example on how to do "new characters" in a campaign.

 

2) all the caption narrations are in the 2nd person POV! In other words, they go something like: "Your name is Daniel Rand. You have toiled long and hard at perfecting your technique... only to see it challenged by this strange villain in clothes similar to yours. Your hammerfist and your bearpaw strikes are easily countered by this stranger in scarlet..." It's mostly like that in the earlier issues of the series... Very instructive for newbie GMs at a loss to describe the events in the game to players.

 

3) it actually has a long story arc tied to the origin and the decisions of the character that justify all the obstacles, rivals and villains that he encounters (some are kinda forced, though... oh well, we all have our off days).

 

4) interesting character designs to rip off!

[levi]

Re: ... until it becomes... a Thing of Iron!

 

Does it show the first appearance of Sabertooth...before he co-opted by Clairmont and folded into Wolverine's backstory?

[KawangaKid]

Re: ... until it becomes... a Thing of Iron!

 

Does it show the first appearance of Sabertooth...before he co-opted by Clairmont and folded into Wolverine's backstory?

 

Yes, that's in the compilation as well. You also get to see Iron Fist vs. the X-men with the funky costume of Wolvie that is NOT the Paul Smith era brown outfit and is NOT the Old / New Yellow & Blue outfit. It's the funky "africa" looking one.

[Superskrull]

Re: ... until it becomes... a Thing of Iron!

 

Yes' date=' that's in the compilation as well. You also get to see Iron Fist vs. the X-men with the funky costume of Wolvie that is NOT the Paul Smith era brown outfit and is NOT the Old / New Yellow & Blue outfit. It's the funky "africa" looking one.[/quote']

 

That's the one he took from Fang of the Imperial Guard after beating him during the M'krann Crystal storyline.

[jackalope]

Re: ... until it becomes... a Thing of Iron!

 

2) all the caption narrations are in the 2nd person POV! In other words' date=' they go something like: "Your name is Daniel Rand. You have toiled long and hard at perfecting your technique... only to see it challenged by this strange villain in clothes similar to yours. Your hammerfist and your bearpaw strikes are easily countered by this stranger in scarlet..." It's mostly like that in the earlier issues of the series... Very instructive for newbie GMs at a loss to describe the events in the game to players.[/quote']

 

That's one of my favorite thinsg about the series.

 

I also have Essential iron Fist - I've been a fan forever. He's just an awesome character. I mean, how many character's have the trademark move of putting their fist through the heads of various things? I love how they managed t throw a billion robots against him, just so he could explode their heads witha punch. I know they wanted him to do that to a real person, but it was a comic code authority comic. Can you imagine an Iron Age Iron Fist? SPLUTCH!!

 

In a previous campaign I ran, Iron Fist had begun his career in the 70's, and by the early 90's was a 900+ point martial arts GOD who had formed a team of super-powered martial artists, all trained in Kun'Lun. If you wanted to play a good super-powered martial artist, chances were you were a disciple of Daniel Rand.

 

The most recent comic sucks though. The art is incredibly bad (and I'm not a manga hater, it's just really bad manga), the supporting characters are boring, the plot is contrived and full of holes, and Danny doesn't seem liek Danny at all. And they really, really should have resurrected the 2nd person POV. Because that's a trademark of the character's solo comic!

[proditor]

Re: ... until it becomes... a Thing of Iron!

 

I reviewed the Essential IF over on the NGD a bit back, it's a winner IMHO. Very good art and nice "simple" late 70's/early 80's Marvel storylines.

 

Of course it has the best tagline in all of comics...

 

I literally still get chills over "Like unto a thing of IRON!" Just a great phrase.

 

I picked up Essential Avengers #4 yesterday, it's something like 30 issues....

[RDU Neil]

Re: ... until it becomes... a Thing of Iron!

 

I own all the original issues of Iron Fist, including his first appearances in Marvel Premier, or whatever that comic was. Key comics of my formative years. I remember debating selling the Sabretooth issue at the height of the early '90s craze for about 500 bucks... but decided I'd rather have the comic than the money. 500 bucks I can get anywhere... that comic is a classic.

 

Not really looking forward to the Iron Fist movie (gee... another Kung-Fu movie... we got enough of those) but I still have fond memories of this classic run.

 

(I also have a full run, including first appearance issues of Master of Kung-Fu. Shang Chi is an infinitely better character, and that 125 issue run from the '70s and '80s is the best.)

[Just A Guy Name]

Re: ... until it becomes... a Thing of Iron!

 

(I also have a full run' date=' including first appearance issues of Master of Kung-Fu. Shang Chi is an infinitely better character, and that 125 issue run from the '70s and '80s is the best.)[/quote']I would not agree that Shang Chi was a better character, necessarily (I collected both during their original runs, and I always kinda liked IF for the 'low-powered superheroic' feel): I would say that MoKF was a much better book, with better developed supporting characters and (usually) better written.

[Metaphysician]

Re: ... until it becomes... a Thing of Iron!

 

Recently got the Essential TPB. Great stuff. Iron Fist is way underrated.

 

Despite his inexperience, an accurate conversion of him would be pretty monstrous, pointwise. Legendary level characteristics, tons of MA maneuevers and damage classes, combat levels, all the usual martial arts skills/talents/powers, plus the Iron Fist technique multipower and related energy defense bonuses.

[Theron]

Re: ... until it becomes... a Thing of Iron!

 

I had no idea they'd put this out. I know what I'm getting at the Funnybook Store tomorrow.

[RDU Neil]

Re: ... until it becomes... a Thing of Iron!

 

Recently got the Essential TPB. Great stuff. Iron Fist is way underrated.

 

Despite his inexperience, an accurate conversion of him would be pretty monstrous, pointwise. Legendary level characteristics, tons of MA maneuevers and damage classes, combat levels, all the usual martial arts skills/talents/powers, plus the Iron Fist technique multipower and related energy defense bonuses.

 

I think I've seen half a dozen Iron Fist clones over the years, and they never cost more than 300 points. Easily within super hero range. Basic Hand Attack that costs lots of extra END, with Extra Time. Eight martial arts maneuvers would cover most of what he does, low PD/ED, but decent combat luck... a few points of wealth... average stats with a slightly higher Dex and SPD. Nothing special at all. This guy wasn't punching tanks or whatever. Even when he landed an Iron Fist Punch, he wasn't disintigrating anyone. Based on those classic issues, I'd say his Martial Punch just went from, say 9d6 normally, to 15d6... maybe with double knockback. Simple and cheap.

 

Now, you can flesh out any character with dozens of nit-picky skills to try and reflect all the myriad things they might logically know, but Iron Fist (the classic Byrne stuff here) is a classic 4 Color hero, where all that detail stuff is glossed over with a couple minor KS: Martial Arts and WF: Martial Arts Weapons. Good to go.

[proditor]

Re: ... until it becomes... a Thing of Iron!

 

Essential Avengers #4 is also quite good. It features the first appearances of the Squadron Sinister, the Squadron Supreme and Hawkeye as Goliath. Same price as IF and actually marginally thicker to boot!

[Pendaran]

Re: ... until it becomes... a Thing of Iron!

 

The man, in his early days, punched hard enough with the Iron Fist to make Collossus and the Wrecking Crew feel it and go flying, nerve striking one of them to the point where they cry out in pain (the Wrecking Crew, who fight Thor. Thor.), to damage Warhawk and send him flying, used the Iron Fist to heal himself and others both physically and mentally, outright shrugged off various powerful energy attacks ranging from radiation blasts to the Flames of the Faltine, was able to dodge sniper fire and figure out where the sniper was, was able to manhandle an entire team of X-men, punched hard enough even without the Iron Fist to be making Iron Man feel it, and to bend steel and the like when he was fighting a giant steel robot. At one point against Batroc's legions was fighting in the many multiples of guys at once. He could will himself to ignore pain and to restore feeling to atrophied nerves. He took a blunt impact to the chest stated to be "as powerful as a howitzer", the impact of such having one shot KO'd various other people, and he kept going. He's been smacked in the back of the head with pipes and still stayed conscious. He was able to take out Sabertooth while blind and fighting off of blindfighting techniques. When Iron Man attempted to use illusions on him, Danny simply laughed it off and seemed to automatically know which Iron Man amidst all the doubles was the real one, striking him and staggering him.

 

His mental defenses are such that when a mystic buffed a constant psychic attack of one of his henchmen to mess Daniel up, while at the same time he had to nonlethally subdue a close friend of his who was trying to kill him (and was an expert fighter herself), he managed not just to subdue her anyway, but to use his abilities to totally undo the brainwashing and psychic conditioning she had undergone, basically thus shrugging off all the while the constant, being magically buffed at that, psychic assault on him.

 

I mean seriously, low ED? low? you saw his fights with Radion? or Master Khan? or taking Banshee's sonic scream and only faking being KO'd? This is all early Danny Rand. Who yes, ontop of everything else, was rich and had a bunch of useful contacts.

 

a 300 point Iron Fist is one that I boggle at accomplishing any of the above. Especially the manhandling a team of X-men part. Nevermind later Daniel Rand, who can toss off multiple IFs per day without feeling drained by them and who's strikes have shredded Vibranium.

[RDU Neil]

Re: ... until it becomes... a Thing of Iron!

 

The man' date=' in his early days, punched hard enough with the Iron Fist to make Collossus and the Wrecking Crew feel it and go flying, nerve striking one of them to the point where they cry out in pain (the Wrecking Crew, who fight Thor. Thor.), to damage Warhawk and send him flying, [/quote']

 

15d6 attack with Double KB would do just that. The nerve strike enough to make a super feel it, slip it into a MP with the Iron Fist as one slot, and this as another, and you have it for a couple points.

 

used the Iron Fist to heal himself and others both physically and mentally,

 

Simple regen or increased REC based on Extra time, meditation required... dirt cheap.

 

 

outright shrugged off various powerful energy attacks ranging from radiation blasts to the Flames of the Faltine,

 

Yeah... the ED thing... you are right. He did have high ED as a benefit of the Iron Fist, I'd forgotten that

 

was able to dodge sniper fire and figure out where the sniper was,

 

Simple Combat luck or perception roll... harldy expensive

 

was able to manhandle an entire team of X-men,

 

the power of being the main character of the comic... this is editing, not points...

 

punched hard enough even without the Iron Fist to be making Iron Man feel it, and to bend steel and the like when he was fighting a giant steel robot.

 

If I remember this issue, it was earlier Iron Man, and a little Find Weakness isn't too expensive.

 

At one point against Batroc's legions was fighting in the many multiples of guys at once. He could will himself to ignore pain and to restore feeling to atrophied nerves. He took a blunt impact to the chest stated to be "as powerful as a howitzer", the impact of such having one shot KO'd various other people, and he kept going.

 

Like I said, PD plus Combat Luck... and if you take quotes like "as powerufl as a howitzer" from the mighty Marvel Bullpen seriously, I'd be surprised. Just as many instances of his taking a punch from another martial artist and feeling it. What is consistent over time... not one hyperbolic instance... defines a character.

 

 

He's been smacked in the back of the head with pipes and still stayed conscious.

Combat luck.

 

He was able to take out Sabertooth while blind and fighting off of blindfighting techniques.

There is a cheap skill that covers this.

 

When Iron Man attempted to use illusions on him, Danny simply laughed it off and seemed to automatically know which Iron Man amidst all the doubles was the real one, striking him and staggering him.

 

A good perception roll? How tough is that?

 

 

His mental defenses are such that when a mystic buffed a constant psychic attack of one of his henchmen to mess Daniel up, while at the same time he had to nonlethally subdue a close friend of his who was trying to kill him (and was an expert fighter herself), he managed not just to subdue her anyway, but to use his abilities to totally undo the brainwashing and psychic conditioning she had undergone, basically thus shrugging off all the while the constant, being magically buffed at that, psychic assault on him.

 

Mental Defense of 20 is cheap... the taking out of Colleen Wing (I think that was her) is a PC taking out an NPC of considerably less points... the psychic cleansing... how often did you see him do that ever again? Story telling. I'd allow that with a Blue Chit spent with my Luck Chit system, because it was cool and flavorful. It wasn't a matter of points on the character sheet. It was dramatic story telling.

 

a 300 point Iron Fist is one that I boggle at accomplishing .

 

If you are trying to have a character who has every "one off, written for dramatic flare by a writer" power, you'd never be able to approximate ANY superhero in comics. 300 points would get you a Danny Rand that would look and feel like classic Iron Fist 90% of the time, and with a six months of playing him, would have enough EXP to flesh out a lot of these details. After a year...around 400 points... easy to do.

[Pendaran]

Re: ... until it becomes... a Thing of Iron!

 

Ooookay... first off on the healing, one use of it comes when Danny is crushed and dying under the rubble of an exploded building, internal injuries, the whole shebang. Concentrates, uses the Iron Fist, healed and whole.

 

Also, so, once again, how are you expresses his being able to undo mental conditioning in others and ease psychological trauma? With regen and rec? That works on others now? These are not nitpicky details, these are big things he does. Big important at one point climax of an entire plot and issue style things. As for the psyching cleansing, they repeatedly referred to it after that in the series, and he used a lesser variant of it to ease the mental scarring and nightmares of others at various points. It was never taken as something he could only do that one time.

 

That you say "well, I have a home brew custom system for things like that", that's nice, I'm taking in standard Champions, y'know, the game what says one can approximate comics.

 

 

At least you acknowledge the rather high ED he needs to have, resistant at that considering Radion's attacks at the very least.

 

And the power of the main character in a comic thing? I bluntly find that completely ridiculous. Danny's a superhero in a superhero comic, he takes on the entire Wrecking Crew at once, he takes on whole teams of X men at once, he takes on groups and groups of guys, at once. This is just something he's capable of doing. It's part of his overall capacity. It's something that someone, oh, saying "I'd like to play Iron Fist", in, oh, a role playing game designed to approximate the feel of superhero comics, would legitimately expect to be able to do.

 

As you're fond of saying, this is something he does "consistently over time"

 

As for the cheap find weakness for Iron man? Considering every strike he lands on the guy sans Iron Fist on the guy in their fight is affecting him, that's one hell of a find weakness roll to be making, would seem to be a bit better than the standard 11-... at least 6 times by my count. And even the Iron Man of this era was actually rather tough, not like he was the guy in the 60s golden tin can. Daniel was in an even fight with him.

 

As far as the illusions, it wasn't "ah, I recognize from the telltale sign that this is an illusion" it was, Iron Man activates image inducer, Danny responds by clocking him.

 

Oh, something else, as far as his overall above normal senses and reaction time, he clocks Nightcrawler as he teleports in.

 

Oh, and Coleen Wing is a multiple degree black belt and expert swordswoman, among other things, not on Rand's level no, but in a fight where he's desperately holding back and she's not..

[JmOz]

Re: ... until it becomes... a Thing of Iron!

 

One thing I find useful for this type of character

 

34 50% rDamage Reduction (Physical/Energy) with Combat Luck lims

 

or

 

34 50% rDamage Reduction (Physical/Energy): Non Persistant, Stun only

 

Both are VERY VERY USEFUL

 

This can explain how he takes "Howitzer" type hits and still is effected by MA types...

[nexus]

Re: ... until it becomes... a Thing of Iron!

 

As for the cheap find weakness for Iron man? Considering every strike he lands on the guy sans Iron Fist on the guy in their fight is affecting him, that's one hell of a find weakness roll to be making, would seem to be a bit better than the standard 11-... at least 6 times by my count. And even the Iron Man of this era was actually rather tough, not like he was the guy in the 60s golden tin can. Daniel was in an even fight with him.

 

As I understand it, Find Weakness need only be rolled once. From that point on, for the rest of the combat. The target's defenses are halved against the appropriate attacks. You can roll multiple times for great effect, but you don't have to roll for each attack.

[Pendaran]

Re: ... until it becomes... a Thing of Iron!

 

and that the number of times he hits hard enough sans Iron Fist to affect otherwise notably durable things would yet implies it's vastly more reliable than being at basic levels. By this I mean in separate situations. It's something he reliably does whether on people in power armour, or robots, or Iron Man, or whichever.

 

As far as other things that would go into his point cost, it occurs to me to mention that even the most basic descriptions of Daniel quite usually note that he's used chi to amp his physical attributes to above human levels. He and a guy trained to operate on his level have hung with flippin Spider Man in fights (said guy having caught Spidey mid leap and hurled him into a tree).

[Metaphysician]

Re: ... until it becomes... a Thing of Iron!

 

Okay, let me try another tack:

 

20+ Strength. 20+ Dexterity. 20+ Constitution.

 

Right there is 60+ points spent, probably a good deal more than 60 points. On three characteristics.

 

7 Speed adds another 30-40 points. Thats over a hundred points before even touching half the characteristics, martial arts, powers, talents, skills, perks. . .

[Pendaran]

Re: ... until it becomes... a Thing of Iron!

 

well, and 20 Body or so. And the man's Ego, if you even consider just his origin and "I will myself to move past the pain" routines, should be fairly notable besides. Though hey, at least that makes the mental defense cheaper...

 

Actually, I'd likely leave his strength at 20 and just give him some damage classes.

[phydaux]

Re: ... until it becomes... a Thing of Iron!

 

I would not agree that Shang Chi was a better character' date='[/i'] necessarily (I collected both during their original runs, and I always kinda liked IF for the 'low-powered superheroic' feel): I would say that MoKF was a much better book, with better developed supporting characters and (usually) better written.

 

Back when I was collection (early 80's) I collected both MoKF and Powerman and Iron Fist. There was one differance I noticed between the two.

 

The combat art of Iron Fist fighting in Powerman and Iron Fist was usually a series of pics of Iron Fist in all these wierd poses. There was no sense of "flow" from one maneuver to the next.

 

In Master of Kung Fu there was clear flow from one maneuver into the next. It made the comic much more enjoyable to me.

 

But I mostly collected Powerman and Iron Fist because I prefered those characters and stories.

[Rapier]

Re: ... until it becomes... a Thing of Iron!

 

Colour me intrigued. IF is pretty much before my time. I didn't catch the bug until the late, late 80s, and even then I was an X-Men junky (please no Claremont comments, I actually liked that stretch) and Spider-Freak. I was aware of IF but that was about it (I could pick him out of a poster, knew he was some martial arts dude). But now I'm interested. Hmmmmm.

 

SO many comics...so little money...er...time...no...money.

[Metaphysician]

Re: ... until it becomes... a Thing of Iron!

 

well, and 20 Body or so. And the man's Ego, if you even consider just his origin and "I will myself to move past the pain" routines, should be fairly notable besides. Though hey, at least that makes the mental defense cheaper...

 

Actually, I'd likely leave his strength at 20 and just give him some damage classes.

 

Actually, thats my inclination, too.

 

Now, building the Iron Fist, *THAT* is a pain. My gut feeling says the most straightforward way to do it would be to build it as +X DC, Limits. That way, you avoid having to build multiple slots ( one for HA, one for HKA, one for Exert STR ). However, I'm pretty sure putting Damage Classes in a multipower and tagging limits on them is verboten.

[JmOz]

Re: ... until it becomes... a Thing of Iron!

 

I don't remember the fist doing anything other than increasing damage (and healing) so a MP with HA makes sense to me

[Metaphysician]

Re: ... until it becomes... a Thing of Iron!

 

I'd agree, except that there are a couple occasions where it seems to behave more like a KA than an HA ( mostly when destroying objects ), and he's also used it to do grappling on occasion.