13th Age Converting 13th Age's Eyes of the Stone Thief to D&D 5E

Eyes of the Stone Thief is a mid-level adventure for 13th Age which involves a living mega-dungeon which hunts the PCs. It's tag line is "Can you kill the dungeon before it kills you?" It's a big, 360-page hardcover. Publisher Pelgrane Press has converted two sections from the campaign to 5th Edition, which you can pick up free if you've got Eyes of the Stone Thief, or which you can purchase at their web store or DTRPG.

13th Age is - rightly - known for it's interesting monster design, and it's excellent ENnie-nominated Bestiary, which includes lore, variations, related rules, lairs, environments, plot hooks, and more. You can see their take on the standard Orc here. As you can see, their approach to monsters is a little different to 5th Edition's.

This 39-page 5E conversion contains The Maw and The Gauntlet, two sections of this vast living dungeon. If you're a 5E fan, but are curious about how other "D&D-based" variations approach things, this is a good way to dip a toe in and take a look.

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Talking of 13th Age, you can grab the PDFs from the Bundle of Holding right now at a knock-down price. There's the 13th Age Core Set ($19.95 gets you the 325-page 13th Age rulebook, the 13 True Ways rules expansion, and the 13th Age Soundtrack), and there's the 13th Age Adventures ($14.95 gets you The Book of Demons, The Book of Ages, and the newest collection of magical treasures, Loot Harder). And if you pay a little more, you get a whole ton more stuff. And 10% goes to charity!

 

[Arilyn]

13th Age is my favourite F20 game. It has shed the stuff most people don't care about, and is full of flavour. 13th Age is a lot of fun.

 

[Nebulous]

I never played 13th Age (I bought all the books though) but I always thought the monster manuals were absolutely amazing. Tons of ideas could be easily ported into 5e.

 

[EthanSental]

I think fantasy art in rpgs can vary and how it’s viewed depends on the viewers preference...13th age bestiary with Richard longmore’s interior art doesn’t strike my fancy, like a weird amalgamation of DiTerlizzi 2e and a high kid trying to mimic it in his trapper keeper but with his own style. It was the main reason I couldn’t get into the game, flipping the pages didn’t fill my imagination, like DeTerlizzis art in 2e books. Half his legs looked like they’d snap under their own weight.

 

[JeffB]

13th Age is my favourite F20 game. It has shed the stuff most people don't care about, and is full of flavour. 13th Age is a lot of fun.

And in place of what it has shed, 13A has added plenty of new/innovative and easy to apply mechanics & ideas to bring the game forward in to the 21st Century instead of going backwards -cough

It's my preferred/fave version of non-T/OSR D&D.

I do hope that Pelgrane follows the Troll Lord Games model of not putting the priority on 5E products and instead offering 5E conversions/updates of in-house game system material.

 

[Retreater]

I wish my group didn't take such a strong aversion to 13A. I invested pretty heavily in the system when it first released, but it fell out of favor in actual play.
Glad to see they're converting material to 5e, so it might see some use at my table.

 

[Enrico Poli1]

This book is the system-seller for 13th Age, even better then the Bestiary, and I strongly recommend to try it. Best megadungeon ever.

 

[mach1.9pants]

Is it known if the intention is to port/release the entire book in 5E???

 

[BrokenTwin]

I've been (slowly) working on converting Eyes of the Stone Thief to Shadow of the Demon Lord, so this document does interest me to see if I'm on the right track.
13th Age does look like a great system, but I'm not sure if I'd be able to convince my players to try another new game (getting them to try SotDL was effort enough). I do agree with the hope that the publishers focus on releasing content for 13th Age over D&D, and but continue to provide conversion material for their popular adventures.

 

[Anoth]

I wish everyone would give 13th age a try.