13th Age RPG: D&D with Modern Design

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > 13th Age RPG: D&D with Modern Design

djw175: Apr 23, 2012; by zen death robot

I was in PublicOpinion's game and I was the bear. It was a lot of fun. I think the best part for me was trying to stretch my +3 Is A Bear background to as many things as I could.

# ¿ May 8, 2013 07:38

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 07:48

djw175: Apr 23, 2012; by zen death robot

It may be me, the bear. :ssh:

# ¿ May 23, 2013 00:02

djw175: Apr 23, 2012; by zen death robot

Murder Bear is still the best bear. Short story: We killed something statted for twice the party number we were at.

# ¿ May 29, 2013 03:45

djw175: Apr 23, 2012; by zen death robot

Also our bard managed to do a shitton of damage in one attack. Shattered my record 48 by a mile.

# ¿ Jun 5, 2013 03:12

djw175: Apr 23, 2012; by zen death robot

To be fair, the man down was our healer. If you hadn't immediately whiffed on that first attack, we would have felt it.

# ¿ Jul 10, 2013 03:08

djw175: Apr 23, 2012; by zen death robot

Golden Bee posted:

You're underselling just how amazing an asswhupping we doled out.

OK, our group (fresh off arresting the organizers of a mage academy) were hunting The Red Cyclone. He was somehow involved in illegal drugs and was known to run an illegal fighting ring where he punched people's heads off.

We sent three in-game days tracking him down; we shut down small town suppliers, investigated drug fiends, and infiltrated (and destroyed) the mob's main hideout. But still, no Red Cyclone. The police hadn't even heard of the guy.

So we hit the streets, trying to draw him out; he's hunting impure-bred orcs. We find a 1/8th orc guy and make a big spectacle of him trying to shut down illegal fight clubs.

We make a scene basically all day, but nothing's doing. We take the 1/8th orc back to his inn.

We find one of the mafiosi sneaking into the building through the chimney, and neutralize him. Without proof that he was committing a crime (besides burglary) we're about to let him go...

When THE RED CYCLONE bursts in through the bar, diving through the window!

Unfortunately, he whiffs.
The ENTIRE GROUP piles on him (perhaps angry that he kept us waiting).

The Red Cyclone, who we've been hunting for THREE DAYS, basically six hours of game time is taken down within six seconds. He does ~3 hitpoints of damage to us; we do 100+ to him.

We laughed so hard about it we had to end the session.

He didn't do any damage. Rurik used his sword and hurt himself. The Mafiosi did more damage. For a total of 8. Then a half-orc hit you with an exploding bench dealing 9. Then Rurik did 9 to himself.

# ¿ Jul 10, 2013 03:56

djw175: Apr 23, 2012; by zen death robot

PublicOpinion posted:

My rogue player couldn't make it until late in the session, and actually wound up rejoining when the party was in the middle of a fight where they were getting their heads kicked in (one of them actually hit negative bloodied due to taking a crit from a giant flying poisonous devil-bug, but it wasn't really a proper fight to have death on the table for). Since it's the rogue and he'd already missed a few rounds, he asked if he could immediately try for Shadow Walk and retroactively have been hiding. Sounded good, so he pulled that off, and then rolled drat great on damage with his next attack and took a pretty rough enemy from full health to 0 in a single go. Pretty rad way to make an entrance, and it turned the tide of the whole battle.

Funnily enough it wasn't even the "big fight." That had already happened and we were on our way back. We picked a fight with something on the way. My justification for it was that I was exasperated at a nearby NPC being really stupid so I was bursting for a fight.

# ¿ Aug 7, 2013 06:07

djw175: Apr 23, 2012; by zen death robot

PixelScum posted:

It's the budgeting, I don't use standard encounter budgeting because I like making fights pretty deadly so a lot of the time my players will fight stuff that's more dangerous than they should. Mind you PC death at my table is actually pretty rare; but getting dropped can be pretty common in my boss encounters. It's less to do with the game and more to do with my table.

My current DM, PublicOpinion manages to make fights hard without making them last forever. Maybe ask for tips on how to do that. Because being hard doesn't equal taking forever.

vvv Edit: We use Skype and Roll20. vvv

djw175 fucked around with this message at 17:58 on Aug 12, 2013

# ¿ Aug 12, 2013 17:51

djw175: Apr 23, 2012; by zen death robot

Flaky Biscuit posted:

Speaking of computer aids for 13th Age, I started working on this today. It's a (very, very bare-bones) online character creator. Unfortunately, as I didn't plan ahead it's sort of become a mess of spaghetti code and bad coding practices, but I will definitely be fixing and refining it in the future (next goals on the agenda are weapon selection and making level/class/race actually give the stat bonuses they should.)

The only thing I'm wondering is how kosher it would be to use the Icons in this. I'm pretty sure I'm safe on the other mechanics, but I think Icons probably fall in the part of the fluff that isn't Archmage licensed. If I can't use them, I'll have to come up with unlicensed equivalents, I suppose.

You could just put some fields that are open for people to type their specific icons into. Unless you mean the system itself isn't licenced.

# ¿ Aug 13, 2013 17:17

djw175: Apr 23, 2012; by zen death robot

Ferrinus posted:

That IS how you optimize, yes, but you can only have two dump stats and Dex and Con are inherently superior irrespective of your class and there's no real way to guarantee that your low ability scores won't come up on a background check so you have no real way of getting away with being e.g. a buff sorcerer. It's so stupid.

But if you're quick enough, you can subsitute a different ability score if you can justify it. For instance, instead of using Dex to stay stable on a rocking ship, use Int to figure out the right angle to stand at to not fall or Con to just try to ignore the tilting or Str to grab onto something and sink your hand into it. Cha and Wis are the only two I couldn't figure out a justification for and I'm sure someone could if they really really tried.

# ¿ Aug 13, 2013 18:26

djw175: Apr 23, 2012; by zen death robot

Ferrinus posted:

What if you want to knock a door down or lift a weight?

Con to just keep on pushing until it finally gives up the ghost. Int or Dex to build a lever. Once again I can't figure anything out for Wis and Cha, but that's because they're less physical than the other two.

# ¿ Aug 13, 2013 18:30

djw175: Apr 23, 2012; by zen death robot

Ferrinus posted:

Mate, it was actually something like five points lower than I wanted it to be. Because, see, I was thinking that okay, I've got spell fist, and even though Dex provides initiative, Strength provides melee basic attacks and a sorcerer that's already getting engaged a lot is going to want to be able to make an at least decent MBA, right?

So, instead of this:

STR 10, DEX 14, CON 16, INT 09, WIS 08, CHA 19

I tried this:

STR 14, DEX 10, CON 16, INT 09, WIS 08, CHA 19

...and noticed that I'd lost two points of armor class. Oops!

So now I'm just playing a regular scrawny elf mage type because it'd just get depressing asking to use my Constitution to lift boulders all the time and I didn't want to pare myself back to being some kind of floating sentry crystal or something. Also, elves get extra actions.

EDIT: While we're on the topic, you know what's really awful? Having to pay feats or talents or whatever just to be able to use your main attack stat for a spell or power you already paid a feat or talent to access in the first place.

You're spending way too much time on sperging out about numbers and not enough time doing :krad:

poo poo with the abilities you already have.

Abloobloobloo I can't have an Ubermensch.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2013 06:21

djw175: Apr 23, 2012; by zen death robot

Also, take it from me. A high initiative doesn't guarantee you'll be going quickly.
:negative:

# ¿ Aug 14, 2013 15:16

djw175: Apr 23, 2012; by zen death robot

lenoon posted:

Could just take Improved Initiative, but then you'd just be good at initiative, not good at everything.

I have.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2013 15:20

djw175: Apr 23, 2012; by zen death robot

Ferrinus posted:

I don't like 13A enough to put work into improving its rules rather than shrugging my shoulders and going with the flow, and I'd be doing no favors for my DM by turning up to the first game of 13A played at our table with a spiral notebook full of recommended houserules regardless.

Wait, just to be sure of this, have you played 13A before? You're not complaining about something you don't even have actual play experience with are you?

# ¿ Aug 14, 2013 16:01

djw175: Apr 23, 2012; by zen death robot

Talkie Toaster posted:

Just giving players 2 'good' defences, one 'ok', one 'poor' and letting them assign them how they'd like (then maybe tradeoff 1-2 points between them) would be a good solution. Given that's basically how 4e monsters work it seems like that would have been the obvious choice but...

But there's only three defenses? :confused:

Edit: vvv I wasn't. I was confused.

djw175 fucked around with this message at 16:57 on Aug 14, 2013

# ¿ Aug 14, 2013 16:52

djw175: Apr 23, 2012; by zen death robot

Myrmidongs posted:

I'm trying to wrap my head around things and started making a few of my characters, but I'm not sure I understand how they want me to apply mods. For example, calculating hitpoints, it tells me to take base hitpoints, add the con mod, and multiply times three. Now am I taking the con mod + level, or just the base con mod?

How do I know when to use one or the other?

When it says mod, you never add level. It will separately say to add level if you need to like in your defenses.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2013 18:18

djw175: Apr 23, 2012; by zen death robot

I know someone earlier said they were working on a character builder thing. I think the had a Gravity Falls avatar? How's that going?

# ¿ Sep 19, 2013 00:35

djw175: Apr 23, 2012; by zen death robot

PublicOpinion posted:

Might be a bit more overwhelming without a sorcerer, cleric, and bard throwing PD targetting attacks at it.

Part of it was that it had low health, our sorcerer crit, and I burned two dailies.

# ¿ Sep 28, 2013 05:58

djw175: Apr 23, 2012; by zen death robot

I think my problem with the barbarian is that it's simple to a fault. It's boring. There are only two tactical choices. "Who do I attacks" and "Should I start raging." And if they're either already raging or already used their daily rage, their only thing is "Who should I attack?" At least rangers get things like multiple attacks and the ability to take spells from other spell casting classes.

EDIT: It also doesn't have the defenses or HP to tank a big hit like you'd think a roid raging class might.

# ¿ Oct 18, 2013 15:09

djw175: Apr 23, 2012; by zen death robot

PublicOpinion posted:

Here's some enemies I had in my last session (slightly modified):

Bourgh � Large Level 8 Wrecker, Init +9

gently caress-off Maul +13 vs. AC (2 attacks), 40 damage
Natural even miss: 16 damage

Shatterblow: Against targets who are Dazed or taking ongoing Cold damage, Bourgh does 20 miss damage (even or odd miss).
Too Big to Fail: While Staggered, every enemy engaged with Bourgh takes 8 damage when he uses gently caress-off Maul

AC 21
PD 15 HP 404
MD 19

Lowenstein � Dbl Strength Level 8 Spoiler, Init +14

Resist Fire 16+

Lance +13 vs. AC, 45 damage
Natural even hit: Ongoing 20 damage

R: Icicle Javelin (1 nearby or faraway enemy) +13 vs. PD, 50 Cold damage
Natural even hit: 25 ongoing Cold damage
Natural 16+: Target is Dazed (save ends)

Superjumps: Lowenstein automatically succeeds at Disengage Checks when engaged with fewer than two enemies
Too Cool: The first time each round Lowenstein is missed with a melee or ranged attack, the triggering enemy takes 8 Cold damage

AC 24
PD 22 HP 288
MD 18

They worked pretty well, even if they didn't get to show off all their tricks. The party did dump all the bodies overboard, so there's the obvious opportunity for Round Two: Death Knight Lowenstein and Revenant Bourgh.

Holy poo poo. Looking at their stats, I'm kind of amazed we managed to take them as well as we did.

# ¿ Oct 22, 2013 06:04

djw175: Apr 23, 2012; by zen death robot

PublicOpinion posted:

The party has (almost) completely taken over the 'Barge now, which is a bit of a game-changer but might be just the thing that will define the Champion tier portion of the adventure.

Here's the map I used, click through for big:

The middle deck:

The upper deck and bridge:

The engine room:

Slightly abnormal spatial relationships, but an acceptable break.

The centerpiece of the final fight was Sky Marshal Madeline, an experiment in more-or-less using a PC as an enemy. Turns out it works alright, but I probably should've toned down her damage since access to the escalation die basically meant she hit pretty much all the time, and maybe should've switched the Miss effect to a Natural Even Miss effect. I think I also wound up not enforcing her Fear threshold.

Sky Marshal Madeline � 3xStrength Level 7 Wrecker, Init +12
Fear Threshold 36
Crusader's Blessing: Madeline gets the escalation die as a bonus to attacks

R: Blazing Bolt +11 vs. PD (1 nearby or faraway enemy) � 40 damage (+7 against undamaged targets) and allies get +1 to attacks against the target

Great Halberd +12 vs. AC (3 attacks) � 30 damage
Miss: 7 damage

Smite Evil-er (1 per battle, recharges at Staggered) (3 attacks), +14 vs. PD� 36 Holy damage
Miss: 18 Holy damage

When Madeline first becomes staggered, make a Crusader's Judgement attack as a free action:
[Special Trigger] Crusader's Judgment (all nearby staggered enemies) +12 vs. MD- 25 Holy damage
Miss: 7 holy damage

AC 23
PD 20 HP 324
MD 18

Another monster which proved pretty challenging was the Iron Maiden, the haunted torture machine set on the party as they led a jailbreak from the Battlebarge's brig:

The Iron Maiden � Large Level 8 Wrecker [Construct], Init +10
Fear Threshold 48
Construct: The Iron Maiden is immune to effects (daze, weaken, confuse, vulnerable, ongoing)

Ensnare (up to 3 nearby enemies), +13 vs. PD: 25 damage and grabbed
Miss: 8 damage

Slam +13 vs. AC: 60 damage
Miss: 16 damage

Torture +13 vs. MD (grabbed enemies): 40 damage
Natural 16+: The target loses a recovery

AC 24
PD 23 HP 288
MD 18

Just for reference, we fell to 0 several times. We had to heal each other a bunch.

# ¿ Oct 27, 2013 01:37

djw175: Apr 23, 2012; by zen death robot

So I've been checking out the Elementalist because I have a character concept it'd work with. For the Weapon of Flame epic feat, what happens if you are already using d10s? Does it go up to d12s?

# ¿ Oct 28, 2013 21:54

djw175: Apr 23, 2012; by zen death robot

RyvenCedrylle posted:

Bingo. Here's one of the little subtle nudgings. Were I to run a game using DTAS, I'd have players not only add the +1 but change the name of the background to represent how that background has been affected by the adventure.

I know I've done this even in normal 13th Age. Although right now it's only been jokingly. We were trying to do something, I don't remember entirely and I rolled a nat 20. We joked that I had invented calculus, so I changed my "Alumni of (name I can't remember)" to "Inventor of Calculus".

# ¿ Oct 29, 2013 21:31

djw175: Apr 23, 2012; by zen death robot

I don't know. I'm always weary of forcing a PC into an NPC. I've seen it go wrong a lot. I mean I don't like 4e's daze, dominate, and stun rules for the same reason. It's taking away action from the players.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2013 22:12

djw175: Apr 23, 2012; by zen death robot

ProfessorCirno posted:

So, barbarians. Are they good? Bad? Boring? Exciting?

I'm still a bit unsure on some bits of the game - if I use the heritage feat to gain another class' power (let's say: bard battle cry), would I be able to use that with my barbarian powers?

Barbarians are good mechanically, but in play, they're simple to a fault I think. They just don't have any tactical options beyond hit guy and hit guy harder.

# ¿ Nov 7, 2013 06:47

djw175: Apr 23, 2012; by zen death robot

You can boost it to either a 55 or 60% chance at maximum depending on what rules your DM uses for stat increases. of course, at that height, your strength suffers, so it tends to be 35-50%.

# ¿ Nov 12, 2013 02:34

djw175: Apr 23, 2012; by zen death robot

Galaga Galaxian posted:

Yeah, good point (though I completely forgot about the resistance when I quickly statted that skeleton up). I used skeletons mostly because the module I'm loosely adapting used them. Given 13th Age's Lich King, I'd guess random wizards would be less keen on using undead as servants.
What else might a 20 wizard-alchemist use to guard his secret lab? Has to be something that can survive sitting in a room for 20 years, hmmm.

Your two enemies look cool, its nice to see that you don't need a laundry list of spells to make mages interesting. Love the sprite art too.

Golems?

# ¿ Nov 16, 2013 04:50

djw175: Apr 23, 2012; by zen death robot

ProfessorCirno posted:

It could work; use Born for Battle to grab the Thief background, and if you want to go complete purist, ask if you can do Battle Cries as their own action rather then attacks.

The battle cry feat let's you do this for 1st and 3rd level battle cries.

# ¿ Nov 22, 2013 13:52

djw175: Apr 23, 2012; by zen death robot

Ratpick posted:

And one of the Bard's at-will spells allows them to use battle cries even though it's not a melee attack, so you don't have to mix it up in melee.

Yeah, but that spell does jack poo poo damage. It's usually better to choose if you use a battle cry than to do that tiny amount of damage and rely on random chance.

# ¿ Nov 22, 2013 14:16

djw175: Apr 23, 2012; by zen death robot

It was a hard fight. PO even counted each phase as two fights for purposes of full recoveries. Not that it mattered cause we completed our main quest and leveled up anyway.

# ¿ Nov 23, 2013 04:39

djw175: Apr 23, 2012; by zen death robot

Does anyone have a backup of the Kensei? I was making a character with it and stopped halfway through. I can't find anything about it now that 13thage.org is down.

djw175 fucked around with this message at 11:29 on Dec 10, 2013

# ¿ Dec 10, 2013 11:24

djw175: Apr 23, 2012; by zen death robot

-Fish- posted:

Someone ported the Kensei paragon path from 4e?

I swear there was, but now looking at the thing, it's not there. I may have just been delirious when I was making the character. Happens from time to time.

# ¿ Dec 11, 2013 00:54

djw175: Apr 23, 2012; by zen death robot

Ryuujin posted:

Yeah was going to ask if there had been a Kensei because I didn't remember seeing one. But that sounds like an interesting class. Any idea what you were looking at?

Man I want to try so many classes, including the Druid on 13thage.org.

I was actually looking at the Vanguard. Skill being more important than strength and all that.

Anyway, all this Kensei talk made me want to actually make a class. A couple things. First is there a good place to discuss this stuff without stuffing this thread? Second, does anyone have see problems with making it a feature of the class that they have one weapon that "evolves" over time to different magic weapons. It'd be a bit weird focusing on a single weapon and then changing it when a magical one comes by.

# ¿ Dec 11, 2013 15:22

djw175: Apr 23, 2012; by zen death robot

Captain Walker posted:

I'm running Blood and Lightning for some friends tomorrow after my last disastrous attempt at running. I've got a general idea of what I want to do but I'm hoping some of you guys have tips for a GM whose previous experience is a few very poorly thought out 4e games. It goes without saying that if I mention anything specific and spoiler tag it, Mimir, don't read it. Like so:

As far as I can tell this game really depends on character icon relationships to develop backstory/set the stage for future events. The one character we have so far is a pagan barb. His OUT is that he's the sole survivor from a clan who follows the High Druid's traditions, after the Emperor razed his town to get at the primal energy site nearby. This indicates to me that the Emperor is a more ambiguous figure than the default setting would seem to imply, and that the Druid is gonna be important...IF Angus rolls a 5 or a 6 on his relationship dice tomorrow. Positive dice I get; he's got 2 points with the High Druid so on a 6 Druids show up and recognize him at some point, for positive effect, and on a 5 he gets a benefit but has to work to avoid the associated complications. What the hell do negative/conflicted 5s and 6s do?

With a negative, you can either make the icon's folks mad at you or get help from enemies of the icon. I used a Negative 6 with the Diabolist to get help from the Crusader's guys for example.

Conflicted is a bit more complicated. From what I can tell, you can go either way with it, but they might not trust you for whatever reason or not provide as much help.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2013 19:56

djw175: Apr 23, 2012; by zen death robot

PublicOpinion posted:

Man, all the places where I forgot rules really jump out at me when I'm editing the audio. Anyway, here's Session 1 of Glitterhaegen Nights, which may not actually take place during the night at all.

Featuring djw175 as Bozzy the Bar-bear-ian, Rhinoceraptor as Apostrophe Jones the Other Barbarian, Lord Frisk as Jack the Bard, Golden Bee as Kordelia Poe the Rogue, Jakse as Rurik the Paladin, and Frocobo as Blake and Gizmo: the Ranger and his faithful porcupine.

PublicOpinion posted:

Anyway, here's part 1 of session 2 of Glitterhaegen Nights, the investigation session:

Anyone remember these? Yeah, neither did we until recently. PublicOpinion was too busy to edit them so I picked up the slack. I think I might try to get a session out weekly.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2014 01:07

djw175: Apr 23, 2012; by zen death robot

PublicOpinion posted:

Also, handy trick: I had a monster that could grab people and teleport away with them, which is great for pulling strikers away from targets, defenders away from their allies, and casters into danger-town. Going to have to come up with some variations on that.

Or casters out of danger-town if the party's doing badly, as the case may be. Jesus I didn't realize being down 2 people would be that bad. I guess that's what happens when you bring 4 people to a fight built around 10.

Also, I'd like to state for the record, Discombobulate's the best thing.

# ¿ Jan 11, 2014 05:30

djw175: Apr 23, 2012; by zen death robot

Serf posted:

Okay, right. I forgot that the players could use up their advantages too. That helps out a lot. I also didn't know about banking them for later, that should come in handy too.

Also, I was reading through the writeups for the Dilettante and Eldritch Knight, and I was intrigued by the talents that poach talents/powers from other classes. I was considering allowing that as a houserule for classes that don't have it. For instance, I have a friend with a drow ranger who has a little bit of magical talent. I was gonna let him replace a power with an equivalent wizard power, since he specified Magic Missile in his Background, so I was thinking of giving him Magic Missile as a Daily spell, and maybe letting him take feats to make it a Recharge/At-Will power. Ranger powers seem pretty sparse, so it might be cool to let him spice it up a bit.

Well Rangers at least get talents where they can take Sorcerer or Cleric spells. I don't remember one for wizard, but I don't see how it would break things to let them do that for a wizard one.

Edit: Also rangers can't really give up powers. They have none, since they're a super simple class. Probably simpler than barbarians.

# ¿ Jan 12, 2014 18:33

djw175: Apr 23, 2012; by zen death robot

General Ironicus posted:

I know, I'm not looking for solutions so much as a place to vent and a shoulder to cry on. I don't think our wizard player is aware that he's allowed to think about his turn before it starts.

I'm pretty bad at thinking through my turns, especially if something big changes. So I just developed a small checklist for myself. If I have a spare minor action, I use Song of Heroes. If I need to damage a bunch of things I use Song of Thunder. If the Paladin needs a heal badly, I forgoe my standard action to use a battlecry for free to heal him. If the whole party is hurt or if two people are badly hurt and others aren't at all, I use Wild Heal. If the Paladin's in a super sticky situation, I use Blur on him. Really helps speeding up my turn.

# ¿ Jan 13, 2014 22:17

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 07:48

djw175: Apr 23, 2012; by zen death robot

My Lovely Horse posted:

If you can calculate 4(level) you can calculate 4(level)+0.5(level). And then you have the base value for everyone around the table and just add their CON modifiers. If someone's using d6 or d10, you just subtract or add the level.

I guess I don't get how even if you do the maths all over again each time it can take two people long enough to do this that it puts a noticable lull in the action unless they're just making 100 sample rolls and drawing a curve each time to figure out the average.

Eh, dice math is weird and hard for a lot of people. If you're calculating it for every person, it could take like a minute or two which is a rather large lull.

# ¿ Jan 13, 2014 22:33

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > 13th Age RPG: D&D with Modern Design

«‹›2 »