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Rob and Jonathan specifically call out the recharge thing as a point of disagreement on page 170 - Jonathan thinks you should get one recharge roll for each power and that's it, Rob thinks you should get one each rest (but does concede Jonathan's way is how it's supposed to be).
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Feb 8, 2015 16:19
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If the commentary on the recharge rule tells you one useful thing, it's that you can do it either way you think is better, and both ways work (as opposed to "you can do what you want, it's your game" with no indication at all if one particular thing has been tested and leads to issues).
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Feb 9, 2015 08:55
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Captain Walker posted:Also, I need a good one-word name for a class feature I want to add that works like momentum or greatness. You'd gain it when an attack misses you and lose it when you miss with an attack. Thoughts? Maybe it doesn't exactly scream "warlock."
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Feb 14, 2015 23:03
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For a more distinctly magic term, how about gnosis? It's a term for a state of meditation or deep focus on your goal. Attack misses you, obviously it's safe enough to go into gnosis (or you already were in it enough to be able to just put the attack aside). You still miss? You weren't in gnosis deep enough after all! Although you might as well use trance to avoid having to explain esoteric terminology. e: vvv well in that case 
My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 23:24 on Feb 14, 2015 |
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Feb 14, 2015 23:22
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Raenir K. Artemi posted:It should be called Hubris obvs e: cockiness My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 13:01 on Feb 15, 2015 |
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Feb 15, 2015 08:53
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Colette posted:I still worry that a Strength 18 paladin with the escalation die is going to be more accurate than a Strength 16 paladin with the same escalation die. As for damage scaling, level*CHA*2 with CHA 18 gives you: Level 1: +8 Level 2: +16 3: +24 4: +32 5: +40 6: +48 7: +70 (assuming you raised CHA at level 4 and 7 you're at 20 now) 8: +80 9: +90 10: +100 while the average damage bonus to a fully feated-up Smite Evil as written is +26. The level*CHA*2 bonus consistently hovers around 50% of a single same-level monsters HP, tendency towards more. I'd consider that maybe a bit high. quote:Grid movement It works if you say "far away = between 40 and 80 feet" and that nothing can target creatures at distances beyond 80 feet. But frankly, you'd just be replacing one set of keywords (enganged, nearby, far away) with another (adjacent, 40 feet, 80 feet). And then there's the question of what happens when someone says "I move exactly there" where "there" is behind a tree or something, because at that point you have to come up with a whole set of rules around cover and positioning and honestly if that's what you're after games like D&D 4E offer a much better experience out of the box. You could probably steal 4E's grid system wholesale but it's always going to be clunky.
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May 6, 2015 16:25
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Verbalizations isn't really about concrete mechanical benefits and bonuses and trying to negotiate for a better spell. It's the feat you take when you and your DM enjoy hamming it up and engaging in banter and bouncing ideas off each other in the context of elf stories. It's not balanced against Evocation or other talents in the sense that a wizard who has one can do as much as one who has the other. They just do very different things and some players enjoy one thing more and some the other. Frankly if the DM is worried about their capacity for improvisation, you shouldn't take that particular talent. There are a few elements that rely on cooperation like that in 13th Age.
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May 7, 2015 20:01
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Fluffwise that sounds to me like you could take a Barbarian and soup him up a little, which apparently he could use anyway.
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May 12, 2015 21:06
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I probably wouldn't take away the two ritual caster classes when I wanted more subtle magic.  More to the point, have you considered restricting spells instead of classes? I get your point on stuff like Acid Arrow and Javelin of Faith (although with reskinning they'd be fine), but less direct spells like Blur, Charm Person, Confusion, or Bless and Shield of Faith on the Cleric's side, seem like the very definition of witch- or priest-like spells.
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Jun 4, 2015 08:06
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It's always "spells known". Wizards (and apparently Necromancers) get the additional goodie of being able to shift around what spells they know each long rest, but they still know only the number given. At-will, daily or any of those restrictions don't enter into it. Say the table says you get 3 1st level spells, then you can pick 3 at-wills and cast each of them as much as you want (but no others), or 3 dailies and cast each one only once, or (most commonly) a mix and proceed accordingly. Your sorcerer definitely doesn't automatically get all at-will sorcerer spells. Reading for the Dilettante seems to check out, but I'm not sure if you're supposed to be able to downgrade in the vanilla game, i.e. take a 1st level spell in a 3rd level spell slot. I want to say you're not and when it says "two 3rd level, four 5th level" that's exactly what you get, but I haven't checked. (Course, in vanilla 13th Age it doesn't really matter because all spells have higher level versions.) My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 21:41 on Jun 9, 2015 |
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Jun 9, 2015 21:38
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Huh, I really thought I had it right with "spells known". But then again, it works out to the same either way. So in your sorcerer example, you could use only spells of 3rd or 5th level, but you can upgrade any 1st level spell to either of those. (I think I actually understood that wrong initially.)
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Jun 11, 2015 06:58
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Pretty much. If you look at page 169, there's a paragraph about reducing monsters to 0 HP:quote:When monsters drop to 0 HP, it usually means they've been slain, unless the characters' intent is to keep the monster alive and the attack seems like a potentially humane blow that could knock the monster unconscious instead. Another way, if the rest of the group is on board, would be to make it an element of the game. The party know how to handle monsters and undead, but they simply won't resort to violence against people. You'd have to put them through scenarios where there's a diplomatic solution for everything.
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Jun 14, 2015 14:22
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Ettin occultist. You know you want to.
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Jul 21, 2015 06:47
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I'm trying to work out whether that's more annoying in a physical book or on a pdf. The pdf is currently ahead slightly.
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Jul 12, 2016 20:19
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PublicOpinion posted:Something I kind of want to try when using a blank slate setting for 13th Age would be where the DM comes up with just 1 Icon to start, then the player next in line chooses to either have a relationship with that Icon or make their own, then the next player chooses to either tie themselves to 1 of the existing Icons or make their own, and you do two rounds of that and one round where you have to choose one already on the table.
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Aug 13, 2016 14:46
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That was always my take on it, too.
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Nov 13, 2016 18:06
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xiw posted:Pretty much, I'm totally fine with weird background applications but I wasn't happy with well, you have a +1 background in Picking Locks and +5 in Hairdressing so you'll use a bobby pin to trip the catch - on the one hand cool, on the other hand what's the point of the +1 background then I also feel like high bonus backgrounds should be more specific than low bonus ones as a kind of balancing factor, with the understanding that it's not the kind of balance where I ran any maths. My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 08:26 on Nov 14, 2016 |
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Nov 14, 2016 08:22
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This kinda just feels like shifting the issue with "my hairdresser background applies to opening locks with a hairpin" from "because that's my +5 background" to "because that's the last one I need to use to get a bonus."
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Nov 14, 2016 15:07
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As in "the same recipe" or literally continually having the same batch on the fire, where either they occasionally take from and add to it or that's just how long it takes to make it?
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Mar 7, 2017 09:16
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Aw yeah, I finally got a group together to play this again, I'm psyched! We're gonna meet monthly for a whole day so I thought I'd try the variant where each game session covers one level, trying to make it short self-contained adventures with recurring elements rather than an overarching plot. In fact I'm gonna go so far as to cast the PCs as a group of people that meets once a year to Do poo poo (not yet sure whether out of their own volition or by fate) so the whole game is gonna span 10 years. That's enough in-game time for circumstances to change to whatever extent the next adventure requires. Maybe we'll go all out on emulating ensemble cast movie franchises and make the later adventures increasingly implausible and idea-starved (Level 6: 13th Age In Da Hood). Does anyone have experience running the game in one level = one session mode? One player wants to either turn into a wolf or be a Lovecraft cultist. So for him that's either "Druid" or "literally any spellcaster class with the right backstory, or what the hell, any class at all", I guess, although personally I'd actually like to DM for a Chaos Mage...
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Jan 2, 2018 11:58
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Looking at a multiclass rogue/wizard on a player's behalf and it seems pretty fuckin' good from a basic numbers point of view, or am I mistaken and you end up spreading yourself too thin?
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Jan 6, 2018 14:45
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It's fascinating to me that with all the Druid's options and spell lists you can very easily build one that probably plays only about as complicated as a Ranger. Hope that's fun for my newbie player in the long run, although I can always allow him to exchange his adept status for a third talent down the line if not.
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Jan 12, 2018 22:16
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Final party composition: Three players are conflicted with the Archmage, one dislikes the Emperor, one's tight with the Prince of Shadows, one with the High Druid, and two with, of all things, the Crusader. I... guess this could eventually be about the Crusader's secret plan to stage a coup and take the Emperor's seat? e: A RULES QUESTION A ranger with Fey Queen's Enchantment picks a chain spell. He casts that spell "as if you were a sorcerer." Does that also imply "as if you had the sorcerer's Chain class feature"? My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 20:36 on Jan 14, 2018 |
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Jan 14, 2018 20:07
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Makes sense. Plus I now figure, he's a ranger. Basic attacks are all he's got apart from this spell, might as well let him make the most of it. Unique things so far, along with my take on it: "When I taste ashes, I get a vision of the last moments around the fire." Neat investigative ability, well defined, and suggests an interesting fire-themed backstory. "I'm the only human A student to come from the Elven magic academy. Somehow everyone forgot this." Obviously this is because the Elves were humiliated at being upstaged by a human and came up with an epic forgetfulness ritual just to spite her. What else did they make everyone forget?
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Jan 15, 2018 08:08
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It does kinda raise the question of what happens if she tells anyone. Do they forget immediately? Do they just not believe her because, well, who ever heard of a human graduating the Elven academy with honours? Third unique: "I was a Druid's animal companion. Upon his death, his powers were transferred to me. Now I can turn human." Nice and basic for a totally new player. It's interesting figuring out which part is unique - do other druids not transfer power upon death, or do they never transfer it to their companions (and to whom do they transfer instead)? It suggests a lot about how druids are set up.
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Jan 15, 2018 14:20
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Yeah I had the idea that there might be a rightful recipient around somewhere, so I'm definitely going with "all druids do this". Bit weird to imagine that in 13 ages this is the first time it went wrong but that's why players define what's unique. Maybe there just aren't a lot of druids. Doing fixed ranges on hex or grid maps has a fairly big disadvantage. You'll have to define how many steps count as nearby and far away, and how far you can move in one move action. Remember that you're always supposed to be able to use one move action to get from nearby to far away and vice versa. Now, say you define 2 steps away as nearby, 4 steps away as far away, and you can move 2 in an action - what happens if you're ever 6 or more steps away from someone? You start far away, you move your 2, and you're still far away. e: question: PCs as enemy creatures doesn't really work here and if I want to set up, say, an enemy party of adventurers I'm best off building monsters by monster math and giving them attacks that emulate PC abilities, right? My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 14:04 on Jan 17, 2018 |
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Jan 17, 2018 14:01
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Plot outline for our first adventure: The druid has had a headache for days and animals have been disappearing. He's tracked a potential source. The rogue has been on the trail of a valuable magic runestone. The crusader soldiers are on a mission to desecrate an old temple ruin's altar before the Priestess finds and consecrates it. They meet in a village near the temple ruin. It will eventually turn out that the Archmage had sent adventurers to the temple with the runestone to plant it on a nearby ley line, but they got ambushed by goblins who are now using the stone to enslave wildlife. After dealing with the goblins, they'll have to decide whether to plant the stone or destroy it, either fortifying the empire's magic defenses or giving the forest its wildness back. Based on their backstories they'll want to pick destroy, but that means missing out on an opportunity to sell a valuable magic runestone... unless they find another way. Sidequest: rescue a surviving adventurer, who will then join them for the final battle. Sound any good?
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Jan 20, 2018 11:39
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I realize I'm probably being too forward with info about my preparations, but I'm excited and haven't played this system in a while. And it's just a thing I do  Real talk though, I could use some experienced eyes to go over our list of backgrounds and tell me if you see any room for improvement: The Wizard Arcane scholar / Wizard in the Elven Tradition Witch Hunter Elven Poetry I'm not to keen on the Witch Hunter, but mostly because that player hasn't yet actually told me what that entails or what the backstory is there. As a background, it's totally okay. The Ranger Troop Leader of the Imperial Guard Wilderness Guerrilla Apprentice Imperial Clerk Firestarter I just realized the hilarious contrast between a badass guerilla and a clerk, but my girlfriend pointed out he's probably a park ranger. So Firestarter is pointing towards a guy who's probably pretty interesting to get to know. The Rogue/Wizard Daughter of a Thief Clan Arcane Scholar / Stolen Arcane Knowledge Horizon Nightlife Regular The Druid Wilderness Native Herbalist This guy's totally new to this and relying on me, and I want to make sure he's getting good backgrounds. I'm a bit concerned about overlap between Wilderness Native and Wilderness Guerrilla, but more so about Wilderness Native and Herbalist. Kinda feels interchangable. Sure, he could just put 4 points into each but that seems lazy. I'm inclined to say with anything he could use Herbalist for, he can probably talk me into allowing Wilderness Native, and that frees up points for something flavorful. Anything you guys would suggest or ask people to change/reword? e: I'm also thinking about strongly suggesting to the Wilderness guys that they pick one type of wilderness as laid out in the Druid's terrain caster feature, but I'm not sure if it doesn't go against the "make poo poo up" spirit of the game. My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 22:04 on Jan 22, 2018 |
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Jan 22, 2018 21:50
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I see what you guys mean about the multiclassing, but I don't think she's gonna want to change things now. We can still go a different route and adapt things between sessions if it proves to be too much. I'm not above just giving a rogue the Spelljack thing for the same cost if that's how the concept works better. We went with Herbalist and Druid's Wolf Companion for the Druid. I also privately decided the ranger got kicked out of forestry academy for playing with matches. Witch Hunter is an academy mage who hunts other mages that "become too powerful and shame the academy"; I instantly thought "well those are obviously sorcerers, they get power from the Three and the Lich King and stuff, no academy is gonna stand for that." Gave me a neat, if obvious, idea for a recurring sorcerer enemy so that's totally fine.
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Jan 26, 2018 11:53
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Has anyone run or played in the organized play adventures? And more specifically, has anyone used them outside of organized play and just made one or two big marathon sessions out of one? I'm thinking about giving them a go for my group, we meet around once a month for 5-6 hours of playing time and it'd be great if we could squeeze one of those in every time, and at the moment I'm a bit unconvinced by my own planning/designing skills. e: just realized a few of them are designed for only two short sessions, that's perfect, and I have no qualms about adapting them to different levels. My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 18:53 on Apr 7, 2018 |
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Apr 7, 2018 18:39
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"Talks to items" is such a viable character concept particularly in 13th Age that I don't see why you need to attach the AUTISTIC descriptor to it. Much like modern real world ideas like that translate to a fantasy setting only so much before it becomes "actually a reskinned contemporary setting" (I'm definitely guilty of running games like that).
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Apr 12, 2018 07:34
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I mean, yeah, fantasy and sci-fi always to some degree mirror our own world. I guess what I'm trying to say is if there's stuff like sentient items already in the setting and mechanics, it's much more interesting to give your characters traits that would be classified as autistic in a context where things simply aren't sentient than flat out say "oh he talks to items because he's autistic." Like one of my players once played a character that "heard voices" and would talk to objects or just empty air, and we gave it an animistic spin where she would sometimes get replies, but we often left it kinda ambiguous whether the replies were her own thoughts or actual spirits in an object or place, and we did fine with that without ever claiming representation of actual schizophrenia.
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Apr 12, 2018 09:18
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I'd like to say to whoever designed that part of Wyrd of the Wild Wood from the organized play series: coming up with wolves made from living wood and calling them Timber Wolves is one thing, and gets my grudging respect. Giving them an ability called Worse Bark: I will hunt you.
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Apr 17, 2018 19:44
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The impulse is the only mechanical element, but it is pretty strongly implied that items have personality and some measure of sentience and it's up to you to what degree you make that a factor in your game, much like anything else in 13th Age. I'm really struggling to come up with good ideas for my games lately, and I'm not sure if that's because I'm so used to 4E and have to get to grips with how 13th Age runs things first (most importantly the inability to rely on combat filling most of the game time), or if I'm just generally not creative right now. e: I've also more or less stopped playing video games so maybe I just don't have any more plots to steal
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Apr 19, 2018 10:15
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I'm getting a little more confident about running this, had some montages yesterday and they worked out really well. The most background details came from a player who usually struggles to come up with something on the spot, that was pretty cool. Another player is a smart guy who answers "okay, what's some of the stuff you guys saw or did on the way here" with "we found the magic sword of ultimate annihilation +7." While I was still considering how to "yes, and" that one, another player carried on "... but we immediately lost it." Clearly I now need to foster a running gag where the party periodically finds and loses the magic sword of ultimate annihilation +7, always during the same montage.
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Apr 22, 2018 14:35
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Razorwired posted:Half the bearers are guards and stable boys who picked up the sword in a moment of desperation and then had to go on some stupid quest to kill all the River Devils or something.
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Apr 23, 2018 10:53
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No if you're looking for "D&D but more streamlined" this is pretty much the first place you should go. It's got the D&D traditions like six basic stats and classes and spells, but it also does away with a lot of traditions like exact skill lists/points and precise positioning in combat that tend to slow things down. What it mostly adds to the table is a huge narrative focus - players get to define details about the setting, their own characters, and regularly get to come up with events during a play session.
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Apr 23, 2018 15:09
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Well, my once-a-month game went from "self-contained adventures, one level per session" to "we are doing a campaign" in no more time than it took me to read Eyes of the Stone Thief and tell my group I'd found something super awesome and were they up for it ("of course"). I'm still gonna have to run some preliminary sessions, I think; do some foreshadowing, establish some locations, get them to level 4... but then.
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Jun 21, 2018 09:56
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paradoxGentleman posted:I know there are some complex martial ones, but is the opposite true? Are there any simple casters out there?
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Jun 27, 2018 12:51
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Mind you, don't take my word for it, I'm at best a casual reader and GM. No idea what Glorantha brought into the mix, for example.
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Jun 27, 2018 13:38
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