What are people taking from 13th Age to use in 3.xE D&D or Pathfinder?

[Erekose]

I've now read the 13th Age core rule book and it is exactly what it purports to be - that is a blend of 3E and 4E D&D. For me it's a little too heavy on the 4E blend for my tastes. So I've been thinking about porting into my 3.5E campaign the rules for icons (for the gods of the campaign) and considering using the escalation die.

So, I was wondering what others have considered adapting and how successful it's been?

 

[Morrus]

If I were to, perhaps the escalation die and the backgrounds.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

I'm currently running a 4E campaign set in Neverwinter and I'm going to do the one unique thing, backgrounds and icon relationships for each of my PCs purely for my own use as DM. I think organising the information like this - and possibly rolling icon relationships at the beginning of, or even during, a session that seems to lack inspiration - will throw out a few ideas on hooks and quests for the PCs to pursue.

I'm also planning to do this at the very beginning of my next campaign - it is also likely to be 4E - and see how it changes my running of the game. (I realise I am doing this as the DM rather than getting the players to do it but that's deliberate: I don't think my players want to do this extra work on their characters but it still seems useful to me as the DM.)

 

[Ahnehnois]

I'm thinking about taking a hack with something like the backgrounds approach. I like the idea of an open-ended skill system.

 

[RichGreen]

Hi,

We've been using the escalation dice in our 4e games for several months now. I am going to introduce the awesome flee rule the next time the PCs are in trouble, and will be asking for one unique things the next time people make characters.

Cheers


Rich

 

[GrahamWills]

Since I'm running a 13th Age game, I'll throw the question on its head; what do I miss from 3e / pathfinder / 4e that I am going to use in 13th Age?

The flippant answer is "nothing", but although 90% true, I do miss a couple of things:
- Spell Components. Stupid, annoying and pretty much always ignored as they were (unless they cost gold pieces) I liked them.
- Rituals; I think 13th Age is more ritual-friendly than 4e was, and it would be fun to see "ritual-only" magic as an option

The rest, not so much. So the list of stuff I'd use is more like "everything except the above". If it was an ordered list, I'd go for:

- No-grid combat; glad to see that go
- Losing iterative attacks; nothing guaranteed to make fights more boring than the fact that full sequence attacks are so much better than single attacks. Instead boost up the melee attacks so a single attack does the rough equivalent
- Off-turn actions; slows the game down too much
- XP gains for killing. Hated the "wait, wait, let's go back and kill the orc for it's XP" mentality
- Flexible attacks especially for melee types. Given the static nature of 3e fights, this would inject some interest for the fighter
- Escalation dice; easy to add

 

[Weather Report]

I have yet to get a hold of it (UK!), but I like the sound of zones for TotM.

 

[Vael]

If I can sell my group on 13th Age, I suspect we'll go the other way, adapt 3.X and 4e stuff to 13th Age. I'm already debating a port of the Avenger class.

 

[Emerikol]

13th Age is way too 4e (narrative) for me. Still I like a lot of things they did with backgrounds and one unique thing. I would use something like the Icons but probably not nearly as heavy handed as they use it in 13th Age. I might have more too.

I don't like the escalation die as it's used but I might find other uses for a counter die.

 

[RichGreen]

Morgan, it's a UK game so Orc's Nest should have it.