13 True Ways and 13th Age Bestiary releases incoming!

[Tony Vargas]

The Commander clearly takes its inspiration from the Fourth Edition Warlord, but there are significant differences between them. The Commander has a stronger focus on making allies do things, and it has a resource that must be tracked in the form of Command Points. The Commander gains Command Points to spend by either attacking in melee or sitting back and 'Weighing the Odds'. WtO can net you more command points but you forgo your melee attack.

For a while the Commander was going to be called the 'Battle Captain' and that name makes a reappearance as a talent. Incidentally, the Chaos Mage was originally a Chaos Shaman, so there's a theme with renaming going on here.

It's worth noting that the Commander isn't an out-and-out healer like the Warlord was. He has options that can allow allies to spend extra recoveries, but they come with a cost.


And now we turn to the long-awaited Druid class.

Well, at least they're honest about it!

Druidic spells are Divine. So, no primal power source here!
...

Through the years Druids have meant a lot of different things in different versions of the game. The 13A druid uses talents to support the following builds: Animal Companion, Elemental Caster, Shifter (Wild Shape), Terrain Caster (terrain-based daily spells), Warrior Druid and Wild Healer. Using the adept/initiate talent system a Druid can potentially 'major' in one of these areas and 'minor' in another.

OKAY! That's about it for the druid. That is a seriously epic class, though!

Next up is the Monk, which is also a tad overdue, seeing as there was a monk featured on the cover art of the core book (whoops!).

There's quite a bit of backstory for the monastic traditions of the Dragon Empire. Apparently the monasteries coalesced to oppose an evil 'Terrible Emperor' who could not be defeated by martial or magical means...

I've been on the fence about 13A. It did look like a game I could have some fun running, but none of the classes appealed to me as far actually playing - I've tried Cleric, Fighter and Paladin (I don't even like pallys, but it was just less objectionable than the others I looked through), all were disappointing, the fighter just brutally so.

The three new ones above, though, all sound like they have potential. I'm glad they changed Battle Captain to Commander (which seems to fit the emphasis better, but still isn't as strong as Warlord), and it sounds like it could be good. I've always liked Druids, and this one sounds like it has potential for several good character concepts. Conversely, I've never cared for Monks (and people who did the play test kept telling me I'd like the Monk mechanics), but if the backstory holds up and gets away from the 'orientalism' the Monk usually gets saddled with, I'll give it a chance.

Very encouraging stuff, thanks for the review!

 

[mach1.9pants]

"Super Epic Russ Mega [MENTION=1]Morrus[/MENTION] ey" I really, really hope they changed your name to that and that is not what you requested...

 

[Morrus]

"Super Epic Russ Mega @Morrus ey" I really, really hope they changed your name to that and that is not what you requested...

Nah, I requested it as a joke, and they said OK, so I figured I'd just go with it!

 

[Dungeoneer]

I've been on the fence about 13A. It did look like a game I could have some fun running, but none of the classes appealed to me as far actually playing - I've tried Cleric, Fighter and Paladin (I don't even like pallys, but it was just less objectionable than the others I looked through), all were disappointing, the fighter just brutally so.

The three new ones above, though, all sound like they have potential. I'm glad they changed Battle Captain to Commander (which seems to fit the emphasis better, but still isn't as strong as Warlord), and it sounds like it could be good. I've always liked Druids, and this one sounds like it has potential for several good character concepts. Conversely, I've never cared for Monks (and people who did the play test kept telling me I'd like the Monk mechanics), but if the backstory holds up and gets away from the 'orientalism' the Monk usually gets saddled with, I'll give it a chance.

Very encouraging stuff, thanks for the review!

Really? I thought the fighter was brilliant! What were you looking for?

Several of the classes in the core book were designed to be relatively simple for players who prefer that sort of thing. No such considerations were made in 13TW! !

The book talks about the monk as an homage to high flying kung fu films. I don't know how far away from orientalism you planned on getting... The back story is at least more about monks as a resistance movement.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Really? I thought the fighter was brilliant! What were you looking for?

Not much. Class features that did something, maybe? Maybe it was the selections made for the pregen, or maybe it was a conspiracy of coincidence, but my fighter had a total of 7 feature/talents/feats (I"m not sure I have the labels right, someone with 13A open can correct me if they like), none of which, in 3 fairly varied and otherwise engaging combats, did /anything/. That is, he could have lacked all those features, and everything would have played out exactly the same way.

(The character was still ultimately fun thanks to his One Unique Thing and some RP situations, though. But he'd've been just as fun & effective if he'd gotten nothing but basic hps, damage, & bonuses from his class.)

Several of the classes in the core book were designed to be relatively simple for players who prefer that sort of thing. No such considerations were made in 13TW! !

The book talks about the monk as an homage to high flying kung fu films. I don't know how far away from orientalism you planned on getting... The back story is at least more about monks as a resistance movement.

If the Monks aren't from a distant, mysterious land with a different culture, and don't have powers just because they're exotic, that'd take care of it.

 

[Dungeoneer]

Not much. Class features that did something, maybe? Maybe it was the selections made for the pregen, or maybe it was a conspiracy of coincidence, but my fighter had a total of 7 feature/talents/feats (I"m not sure I have the labels right, someone with 13A open can correct me if they like), none of which, in 3 fairly varied and otherwise engaging combats, did /anything/. That is, he could have lacked all those features, and everything would have played out exactly the same way.

Talents are basically build options, of which of course the fighter has a few (such as Cleave). But the main feature of the class is the maneuvers and 'flexible' attacks - roll first, decide what you're doing afterwards. I think this is pretty clever. But it is possible that due to the dice and limited first level maneuvers, you didn't actually get to make many choices based on this.

If the Monks aren't from a distant, mysterious land with a different culture, and don't have powers just because they're exotic, that'd take care of it.

You should be good to go, then! These monks hail from right here in the Dragon Empire. As for the source of their powers... the book honestly doesn't get very specific about that, so you're free to decide whether they're blessed by the gods, tapping their innate psychic powers or just REALLY good at karate.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Talents are basically build options, of which of course the fighter has a few (such as Cleave). But the main feature of the class is the maneuvers and 'flexible' attacks - roll first, decide what you're doing afterwards. I think this is pretty clever. But it is possible that due to the dice and limited first level maneuvers, you didn't actually get to make many choices based on this.

I don't recall which was even and which was odd, but, yeah, on one, he had exactly one maneuver that activated, that increased threat range (and never made a difference), and on the other, if it was a miss, he had a choice. But, again, regardless of that choice, the maneuver ended up doing /nothing/, because whatever even/odd-miss (choice)-hit/miss-whatever chain never linked up. Similarly the fighter's intercept ability kept not coming up or not working - which, combined with no sort of mark or other aggro had him doing nothing tactically beyond taking up space.

Like I said, it /could/ have been a series of situational and dice coincidences, but I've rarely seen a character with that many carefully-defined abilities to keep track of that actually all ended up doing nothing for that long. Not in any system. It was a unique experience in that sense, I guess.

And, yes, it does look like a clever way around the oft-voiced (but, imho, invalid) complaint that limited-use fighter abilities were unrealistic (or 'dissociative' or other made-up circumlocutions for "fighters mustn't have nice things"), since it models the fighter reacting to opportunities in the chaos of battle. But, it also eliminates player agency - in effect the dice play the character for you as far as 'maneuvers' are concerned.

You should be good to go, then! These monks hail from right here in the Dragon Empire. As for the source of their powers... the book honestly doesn't get very specific about that, so you're free to decide whether they're blessed by the gods, tapping their innate psychic powers or just REALLY good at karate.

That sounds good. This may sound like faint praise, but that's the least-objectionable rationale for including & empowering the monk class in a D&D-like fantasy game I've heard, but thats actually quite a milestone. Next time I drop by my FLGS, I'm having them order 13TWs for me. You should hit up Pelgrane for a commission. Thanks again for sharing your review of it.

 

[Dungeoneer]

I have the actual, physical 13th Age Bestiary clutched in my dry, bony grasp!

I'm still reading through it, in fact I've only gotten as far as 'C', for Centaurs and Chimeras. However I can already tell you that if you love seeing imaginative new takes on classic monsters, or tables of fun extras that you can roll on to 'surprise' your players, or weird lists, you are really gonna love the Bestiary.

In a departure from the other 13th Age books so far, this seems like one that it would be easy to recommend to people who have no intention of actually running 13th Age. Lots of system-neutral lore and inspiration here.

Full review coming soon!