13th Age Discussion: A Love Letter to The Best Parts of D&D

Li Shenron said:

Sounds interesting, and the authors are very good designers...

Unfortunately there are dozens of other fantasy RPG that also sound just as interesting. For what fundamental reason should I prefer to try this specific one out?

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That is always a really personal question - gamers like different things.

For me, the icons are incredible. They guarantee sweet story/PC/campaign hooks. When I read that chapter on the icons I was ready to create a campaign.

The ability of the edition to provide yummy crunch but support open imaginative play should be another strong selling point.

I also like the blend of previous D&D editions. It does it differently than Next, and for some of our group this blend was really the main selling point.

On the DM side, it was easy to have fun combats with monsters created on the fly by the DM. That could be really interesting to some.

Cool 13th Age bits like the Escalation Die can really make a difference and be a strong selling point.

But, for me, I like that this game probably won't have 20 books. I could see it having a couple of supplements and I would love a campaign book. That keeps the cost manageable, allowing most gamers to enjoy D&D Next and 13th Age, for example.

13th Age currently trumps my excitement for any of the other impending RPGs. Definitely keeping an eye on this, and only wish it could be released during the summer months I have time to really study it. I will be preordering right now, though.

Alphastream said:

I felt absolutely as strong as any other PC (we playtested level 7) and I had fun both building and playing the PC.

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Then you must've been playing another versio of the playtest. Or maybe you played past 1st level, and it gets better at some point. But at level 1, it's a pretty sorry sight.

The battlecry benefits are pretty meager--usually meangingless--and the bard is not equipped with good enough defenses to be a melee class.

The bard gets fewer spells/songs than other classes, and none of them are at-will. It either has dailies, or a song that has a 50% chance of burning out every round, and then a 50% chance of burning after the battle.

Regarding that as being as strong as what a cleric gets is beyond even the most generous comparison. Quantifiably awful.

Aberzanzorax said:

I don't totally object to healing surges per se. I do object if they pull you ot of the narrative (e.g. If someone misses me I healing surge. or If an ally hits some dude, I healing surge.)


Did they integrate healing surges into the narrative flow well?

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Well, a healing surge in 4e can just as easily be an invigorating surge of spirit rather than instant healing. When some people see a loss of immersion, others cite an unwillingness to extrapolate. That can be a facile assessment, but in this case I don't see the big whoop against surges.

In 13th Age, some abilities are extremely abstract, and often have a requirement that you win the DM over to let you do what you want. Others are rigidly mechanical. So somewhere between A and B you'll probably see fighters getting second-windish healing surges. But it's mostly spells right now.

In other words, they *are* currently trying to appease everyone. Perhaps they're choosing a path, or perhaps they'll try to have a little something for everyone. But right now, it's really not its own game. It just lifts from a lot of sources, and the result seems inconsistent.

Alphastream said:

And yet, 4E is the favorite system of most of my playtest group. The biggest 4E fans actually were the biggest 13th Age fans. None of our gamers were playing 13th Age out of disenchantment. We like a variety of games and we like to playtest.

We like how 13th Age spoke to 4E. Arguably, it does so more than D&D Next (at this time, I won't be surprised if that changes - especially with additional modules). 13th Age at-wills and powers often feel like 4E and the game attempts to have probably a 3E level of balance (as compared to earlier editions). The game has solid crunch, yet is clearly supporting imaginative open play. There is a lot for a fan of any/all editions to like.

I bought the book on pre-order already, as will probably 4 of 6 gamers in our group.

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I think more of my meaning here was not with the mechanics, some of which do speak to 4E, but with the open style of the system. Many groups I played 4E with pretty much played with the sentiment-This is what my power says it does, so that's what it does. In 13th Age there was a lot more experimentation with the powers and in some cases the players did some things that weren't tied to their class powers directly. The game seems to encourage that, where it seemed not to in 4E.

I know I said it in my initial, rambling post but this may have just been a perspective thing in 4E. All your characters abilities seemed so tied up in the powers that the focus on what you could do was narrowed down to that list. Yes, in 13th Age there are powers, but they are more loosely presented and seems to leave enough opening to apply them differently. It's likely we could have done more of that in 4E, but it just didn't feel right.

Regardless of the reason behind it, I experienced a group of inspired players for the first time in a long time. As a GM I also felt the level of freedom that I had enjoyed in editions prior to 4E and the game at the table reflected that. I can't ask for more than that, which is why I will be picking up 13th Age and will likely be running it as my game of choice.

Darn, I was interested until I saw "4e" and "healing surges".

Good luck with it though

I was in Isaac's playtest (empathy unique thing). I thought I'd toss in my own quick synopsis of my impressions.

--I know nothing about the designers, and frankly don't care. In the end, it's the quality of the product that matters, not who made it.

--13th Age has *incredible* potential. There were a lot of aspects to the game that appealed to me immensely, and if it delivers on that promise, my next campaign will likely use the system.

--I particularly liked icons, backgrounds, one unique thing, and the overall tone of the writing. Isaac described the writing as 'transparent', and that's the perfect word for it. The classes did seem to be well individualized too.

--I'm somewhat neutral on the escalation die; I suspect it's a gimmick that shouldn't be needed most of the time with a good GM--but a reasonably good way of ending a battle if (as I have occasionally) the GM makes a mistake on a combat's fun or overall length.

--I'm neutral on how weapons and armour are basically flavour. Weapons are dice tiers and armour is 'if you're wearing the appropriate category, your AC is (this)". I've never been happy with Christmas Tree DND, so overall I like the idea, but I see this as one of the more controversial decisions.

--Not enough options in the current playtest. I played a bard too for example, and could pick three class features...out of a total of eight, two pairs of which were designated mutually exclusive. There were only two to four new bard spells to choose from each level. That sort of theme seemed prevalent throughout the book, not just the bard class. It was a playtest though, so hopefully the final version will have more options available.

--Based on what I saw from the playtest document, I'm frankly skeptical they'll be able to deliver on the many, many promising features of the system. Great potential, but August/September doesn't seem to be enough time to develop them. However, this is also my first playtest of a RPG still under design, so I may be being overly pessimistic. --And I am basing this comment on my "too few options" point above; the fundamental concepts themselves are reasonably well finalized atm.

Bottom line, based on what I saw I will probably not preorder it. I was very impressed with the game's potential however, and I will take a look at reviews of the final product and buy it if they do manage to deliver after all. It may be that buying it to lift certain mechanics and concepts out to your favourite system might be the way to go.

Isaac Chalk said:

- The Escalation Die: One thing about D&D is that as fights go on, characters get weaker. They accumulate status conditions or run out of powers and the fight starts to drag. Not so with 13th Age which has an escalation die - essentially, the biggest d6 you can find, laid squat in the center of the table, and each round beyond the first, you increment this die by 1, capping at 6. Player characters get this bonus to their attacks.

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This is pretty awesome. 4E should have add something like this from day 1.

Though it does show me that 13th Age might not be for me. I'm getting less and less interested in games that have a hard game mode change when you enter combat and more and more interested in games where you never stop describing things back and forth between the participants. Plunking down a giant die to announce the beginning of combat mode sounds about as jarring as clearing the table and laying down a battle mat.

IndyPendant said:

--Not enough options in the current playtest. I played a bard too for example, and could pick three class features...out of a total of eight, two pairs of which were designated mutually exclusive. There were only two to four new bard spells to choose from each level. That sort of theme seemed prevalent throughout the book, not just the bard class. It was a playtest though, so hopefully the final version will have more options available.

--Based on what I saw from the playtest document, I'm frankly skeptical they'll be able to deliver on the many, many promising features of the system. Great potential, but August/September doesn't seem to be enough time to develop them. However, this is also my first playtest of a RPG still under design, so I may be being overly pessimistic. --And I am basing this comment on my "too few options" point above; the fundamental concepts themselves are reasonably well finalized atm.

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These are two points that concern me as well and was included in my feedback on the playtest. The class features sections were extremely limited in my opinion. There needs to be more available there.

I was hoping that it was held back due to just being a playtest copy of the rules system, but the fact that they are releasing that with the pre-order makes me think that there might not be anything else there at the moment. Somewhat concerning if the full version is coming out in August.

I'm still picking up the system though. To be honest even in the current state it provided me and my group more enjoyment than we have had around the table in long while.

On healing surges: they're called 'recoveries,' which is a much better term and a testament to how much a good name matters. ('Healing surge' is not a good name.)

Everyone gets eight recoveries, at least. They work broadly the way surges do in 4E, opening up healing in some ways but limiting it in others. (Healing that doesn't expend a recovery is rare, so you can only take so much punishment in a day.) Taking a recovery as a standard action works broadly like second wind, representing you taking the time to staunch the bleeding or get your head on straight (possibly literally.)

I was never bothered by healing surges (or recoveries, or whatever they're being called.) D&D and its derivatives are games where an experienced character can chug a vial of scorpion venom and fall 50 feet off a wall after having been shot a dozen times with crossbow bolts, and then stand up and walk away. The notion that, sure, you can endure all that, but patching yourself up quickly in a fight, why, that's just plain silly? I was never convinced by it.

That said, there is an aside by the designers that boils down to "we like this rule, but if you don't, feel free to drop it. Just make sure your players have access to some extra magical healing." If someone held a gun to my head and demanded I come up with such a rule, I'd give everyone a self-replenishing healing potion vial that works essentially the same way as recoveries - works a limited number of times a day, takes some time to drink it, might not always work. (Then I'd tell everyone where I was and to send the police since oh God oh God there's someone with a gun to my head.)