One important thing to keep in mind when designing encounters for ICON is that unlike the other Mendicants as well as Leader foes, Harvesters and Chanters are not outside the triangle.

While they aren't countered by a particular role, they do absolutely counter Heavies and Skirmishers respectively, possibly even more than a Wright or a Stalwart would, depending on the build.

This means that a seemingly color balanced party can actually be significantly stronger against a certain type of enemy than expected, which can make encounters easier than intended if you, for example, use a Skirmisher elite against a party with a Chanter

ICON is so fucking cool

(this is a new trophy, basically a single-use item, added in 1.5)

In the German localisation of Lord of the Rings, elves aren't called the direct translation of the term which would be "Elfen", they're called "Elben", a neologism invented to make people not think of pixies, sprites, et al which I think is a pretty interesting move but also damn the confidence that requires, I think if I told my players "by the way they're not called dwarves in my setting they're dlarves" they would laugh at me

ICON does a lot of stuff differently and a lot of the time that just makes me question why things are usually done that way in the first place.

For example, 1.5 got rid of the concept of a melee attack and yeah I don't think there's really that much of a reason to have a melee/ranged distinction in the first place. If the game is highly simulationist you should be more nuanced than that and otherwise why bother?

ICON Introduction One-Shots

Now that ICON 1.5 is out I have prepared a one-shot to introduce people to the system. If you're interested in the system and want to participate, join my discord server here.

One-shots will be run as much as there is demand for it and will usually take place on Saturdays (not immediatly this week) but I might have other days free up too.

ICON 1.5 official release

Everyone go and read it NOW!

Yesterday's session of Will you be my Hunter was all fighting against Rachel's party and the fight still isn't done yet, you'll get the summary once it it (probably next week)

If you're running a combat encounter against a very challening foe where the PCs have some NPC allies, instead of frying your brain by taking care of way too many characters, you can just say that the allies deal and tank an unspecified amount of damage and adjust the foe to something that the PCs can reasonably defeat on their own. Optionally, implement a time limit before the NPCs are defeated.

Dispel Magic? Uh yeah, I sure hope it is!

Will you be my Hunter: Before the fight

To prepare for the upcoming fight with Rachel et al, Sethra and I're scouted out the area where the battle would take place. After talking for a bit about how frustrated they both were this battle had to happen in the first place and how they didn't like being dragged into this cult politics stuff, I're told Sethra that they should return soon or the others might start talking.

Then she kissed her on the cheek. Sethra got flustered but kissed I're back.

The next morning, they all went to the place and saw that a small crowd had gathered there to watch the upcoming specatcle. Additionally, there was a wizard creating a zone of nonlethality to make sure that this fight wouldn't kill anyone.

We played the first 2 rounds of combat before stopping because it was getting late. I'll tell you more about the combat once it's done but I can already tell you that the Legend I was using (the 1.5 blood-bound band) is significantly weaker than expected and I am very glad I have plans for a followup to it because I don't want them to go away from this thinking that Rachel is super weak and barely worht allying with.