4E Fans: Could 13th Age be your Pathfinder?

[Incenjucar]

As much as I like the work of the folks involved, it sounds like more competition for Pathfinder than anything I'd care about.

 

[Serendipity]

It looks more to be targeting the 2e/early 3.0 crowd.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Well it'll be someone's 5e. Will it be a lot of peoples 5e? Doubt it. If you don't have brand recognition or be in the right place at the right time (Paizo), people are tired of yet another fantasy heartbreaker.

The designers have name recognition and Pelgrane (while no Paizo) isn't an obscure little company. Not sure I would label this one a fantasy heartbreaker. Based on the enworld post very much looks like they shooting for some kind of hybrid between old school and storygame.

 

[underfoot007ct]

I have never heard of 13th Age.

Lets try to correct that.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/news/323300-jonathan-tweet-talks-13th-age.html

Pelgrane Press Ltd 13th Age

 

[wrightdjohn]

my guess is that 13th Age is high informed by 4e sensibilities but also by other earlier game influences. It's not either or.

 

[Argyle King]

I don't at all expect 13th Age to be a 4E Pathfinder.


I do fully expect I will give the game a try. I like what I've heard about the game so far. I can honestly say that I'm currently more excited about 13th Age than I am about D&D Durango.

 

[the Jester]

I suspect that 5e will be 4e's Pathfinder.

It's not a perfect analogy, but nonetheless.

 

[fjw70]

I pre-ordered 13th age and have been looking through the Escalation Edition. I would describe it as a lite and more freeform variant of 4e. It isn't as close to 4e as Pathfinder is to 3.5 but it is closer to 4e than it is to any other D&D edition.

It has a healing surge-like mechanic, a second wind-like mechanic, spells that don't automatically scale with level, similar hp scale to 4e, tiers of play (adventurer, champion, and epic), and the monster design looks a lot like 4e.

I am very impressed so far and can't wait to see the final product.

 

[tomjscott]

I pre-ordered 13th age and have been looking through the Escalation Edition. I would describe it as a lite and more freeform variant of 4e. It isn't as close to 4e as Pathfinder is to 3.5 but it is closer to 4e than it is to any other D&D edition.

It has a healing surge-like mechanic, a second wind-like mechanic, spells that don't automatically scale with level, similar hp scale to 4e, tiers of play (adventurer, champion, and epic), and the monster design looks a lot like 4e.

I am very impressed so far and can't wait to see the final product.

I also have the pre-order version and I would say that it isn't closer to 4e than any other edition, but it does have some elements from 4e. I disagree completely that monster design is anything like 4e. Monster stats are very, very lightweight with more resemblance to 2e in my opinion.

This is definitely not a 4e Pathfinder. The need for a battlemat is completely non-existent. While there are some tactical options, you don't need to know precise positioning of characters/monsters nor count squares. The only reason for using a battlemat and miniatures would be to have a relative positioning of battle elements and keep things straight in everyone's mind. That's all I'm going to be using it for.

However, I question why 4e fans won't give this a try. Are ALL 4e fans just battlemat/tactic minded players? Is that the ONLY feature of 4e that interests you? If that's the case then 4e fans would definitely not like this. To me, this takes just the right amount of 4e stuff to modernize it for the next generation, but leaving out the complexities that bogged 4e down so badly.

For me, this is indeed my 5e. I tried D&D Next and found it really fun, but I'm liking 13th Age even more and it's going to be here much sooner. I'll certainly look at 5e when it eventually comes out and I'll continue to watch the beta testing, but for now, 13th Age is where I'm investing my time.

 

[Agamon]

I pre-ordered 13th age and have been looking through the Escalation Edition. I would describe it as a lite and more freeform variant of 4e. It isn't as close to 4e as Pathfinder is to 3.5 but it is closer to 4e than it is to any other D&D edition.

It has a healing surge-like mechanic, a second wind-like mechanic, spells that don't automatically scale with level, similar hp scale to 4e, tiers of play (adventurer, champion, and epic), and the monster design looks a lot like 4e.

I am very impressed so far and can't wait to see the final product.

Finally, someone posting that knows what they're talking about. 2.75? Pathfinder? WTF? This is how weird rumors spread! lol

While it's more like 4e than it is like any other version of D&D, it's really it's own creature, with nods to games like FATE and Burning Wheel, a fair amount of player agency and story-driven mechanics. I can see how someone that likes 4e might get into 13A, but I can also see other 4thers that wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole...um, if they used 10 foot poles.