My Review of 13th Age

[Manbearcat]

Cool review. I do believe that dragon born are in the book, as an optional race called dragonspawn.

You know, I knew that. I have no idea why I forgot that when I wrote that review. Good catch. I'll amend the above right quick.

 

[TwoSix]

The best thing, I think, you can say about a TTRPG is that it knows what it is trying to do, it expresses plainly what it is trying to do and it then proceeds to do so. 13 Age hits on all 3. Great game system and I'd expect nothing less from these creators.

Great review, MBC. Re: rituals, I think Icon relationships and the OUT can be used to flesh out possible ritual "seeds" (which is really what spells provide in the 13A ritual system) for a non-spellcaster who really want to use the ritual system. A rogue with 3 dice for the Price of Shadows should certainly be able to work some invisibility or divination rituals if he invests in the Ritual Caster feat.

Also, I think the Disease Track mechanism could be an excellent replacement for the "last gasp" save system, which I'm not particularly enamored with.

Also, I think I really need the multiclass rules from 13 True Ways to feel truly comfortable with the classes. I want just a little more granularity in the class builds to be able to customize the complexity level. Barbarians or paladins with maneuvers, for example. Something that isn't trivial to do like a talent swap currently is in the system. That's what I need to see before 13th Age becomes my go-to system, although it's already very close.

 

[Manbearcat]

Great review, MBC. Re: rituals, I think Icon relationships and the OUT can be used to flesh out possible ritual "seeds" (which is really what spells provide in the 13A ritual system) for a non-spellcaster who really want to use the ritual system. A rogue with 3 dice for the Price of Shadows should certainly be able to work some invisibility or divination rituals if he invests in the Ritual Caster feat.

Also, I think the Disease Track mechanism could be an excellent replacement for the "last gasp" save system, which I'm not particularly enamored with.

Also, I think I really need the multiclass rules from 13 True Ways to feel truly comfortable with the classes. I want just a little more granularity in the class builds to be able to customize the complexity level. Barbarians or paladins with maneuvers, for example. Something that isn't trivial to do like a talent swap currently is in the system. That's what I need to see before 13th Age becomes my go-to system, although it's already very close.

Hey TwoSix. Thank you. I agree with all of your points here.

However, as great of a system as it is , the inherent mobility of 4e combat + Forced Movement specifically coupled with the interraction of battlefield features/terrain/hazards + the ease of adjudication of stunting within that framework + the extraordinary depth and robust functionality of battlefield control is a very large draw for my group. We love all of those "fiddly" bits and all of that tactical depth. Its fun, it emulates how battlefields are dynamically mobile and, IME, martial forced movement is probably the single greatest element ever introduced to skirmish TTRPG combat (from both a genre and fun perspective). My life has been spent in athletics and martial combat sports, IME martial forced movement does more to accurately simulate the dyanamics of the two than anything we've seen to date. The full time loss of it would be hard to overcome so I'm uncertain at this point that 13th age could be a full time system for my particular group.
However, what I think we will likely end up doing is trying to have concurrent versions of the characters and their respective level in each system. Depending on the week, we may choose one mirror or the other to play out the session. Going between each system (and rendering character mirros) would be extremely easy IME. I think on weeks where we want to play out a dynamic, climactic BBEG fight, we would always use the 4e mirror, while every other week we could just as easily use either/or.

Or, we may just try play out our current 4e game and start a new 13th Age game after it resolves itself. I will likely playtest here and there and maybe grab some folks online (given that its fully TotM compatible) to play out a short campaign and estimate if there is enough crunch there for my home game players' tastes.

Regardless, great system and the 5e devs should be concerned about further segmenting of the pulp D&D userbase after its release. I can see a whole lot of 4e folks and folks who liked 4e but didn't like its forced movements and "fiddly bits" flooding this system with praise, dollars, and all-in support.

 

[Imaro]

Great review, MBC. Re: rituals, I think Icon relationships and the OUT can be used to flesh out possible ritual "seeds" (which is really what spells provide in the 13A ritual system) for a non-spellcaster who really want to use the ritual system. A rogue with 3 dice for the Price of Shadows should certainly be able to work some invisibility or divination rituals if he invests in the Ritual Caster feat.

Cool idea, I like it... another possible solution would be to modify the ritual caster feat so that it provides a certain amount of spells "known" for the sole purpose of non-casters casting ritual magic. Then maybe a second feat that allows a ritual caster to purchase a set number of spells as ritual seeds (in case he wanted to expand his known spells)... of course I'm not sure what would be correct from a balance perspective, and this might be a little too involved. The other option is to use the suggestions above... but also open it up to casters as well so that they wouldn't be restricted only to ritual magic based on their spells.

Also, I think I really need the multiclass rules from 13 True Ways to feel truly comfortable with the classes. I want just a little more granularity in the class builds to be able to customize the complexity level. Barbarians or paladins with maneuvers, for example. Something that isn't trivial to do like a talent swap currently is in the system. That's what I need to see before 13th Age becomes my go-to system, although it's already very close.

I'm looking forward to 13 True Ways myself. One solution which I think is even suggested in the book is to let some classes swap out class talents for those from other classes... maybe let the paladin or barbarian swap out with the fighter or ranger for more complexity... I guess I'd implement the swaps on a trial-basis and see how it works, with the DM being able to veto obviously overpowered combos.

 

[NinjaPaladin]

I'm hoping we get some rules on multiclassing, just so people don't keep asking for things that are overpowered. Ranger dual-wielding, for example, is (I think) a ranger-specific ability for a reason. If you gave the ability to a fighter or a barbarian or a rogue, I would worry that it'd be overpowered.

 

[Manbearcat]

Cool idea, I like it... another possible solution would be to modify the ritual caster feat so that it provides a certain amount of spells "known" for the sole purpose of non-casters casting ritual magic. Then maybe a second feat that allows a ritual caster to purchase a set number of spells as ritual seeds (in case he wanted to expand his known spells)... of course I'm not sure what would be correct from a balance perspective, and this might be a little too involved. The other option is to use the suggestions above... but also open it up to casters as well so that they wouldn't be restricted only to ritual magic based on their spells.

I'm looking forward to 13 True Ways myself. One solution which I think is even suggested in the book is to let some classes swap out class talents for those from other classes... maybe let the paladin or barbarian swap out with the fighter or ranger for more complexity... I guess I'd implement the swaps on a trial-basis and see how it works, with the DM being able to veto obviously overpowered combos.

Those are my thoughts on both of those as well. You would really just want to make sure that the mundane character that invests in Ritual Casting has as much variety in the ways to "skin a cat" as the caster would when they invest in/use Ritual Casting.

It would be pretty simple to make a F/M Gish type just by doing the above with the Fighter/Wizard, finding a comfy mean for base stats and taking the Abjuration talent in the stead of a Fighter talent. You could restrict armor to light, take the classic defense spells like Shield/Blur, etc and have a feat-line that lets you use an MBA as a Quick Action after casting a spell, initially on a Recharge schedule and then later feat investment would let you use it more often contingent upon to hit rolls (even numbers, etc) and the escalation die. You could do the same with an Arcane Archer type.

Alternatively, for ease-of-use, you could just use the Ranger chassis but give them access to Wizardry instead of Sorcery or Divine spellcasting. Change out some Features/talents/feats and you may be close.

 

[Imaro]

I'm hoping we get some rules on multiclassing, just so people don't keep asking for things that are overpowered. Ranger dual-wielding, for example, is (I think) a ranger-specific ability for a reason. If you gave the ability to a fighter or a barbarian or a rogue, I would worry that it'd be overpowered.

Yeah I would like official rules as well.

I don't think the Ranger's dual wielding talent is really all that powerful as a singular ability since it drops the weapon damage to one die lower (so generally d6 as opposed to d8), and you only get to make the second attack if your first attack is a natural even number... I think one of the important things to take note of is that many of the class features state that they can only be used with attacks from that class. That said I would probably keep them silo-ed entirely until I was sure there would be no shenanigans in combining effects from 2 different sources. So yes you can dual wield, but you can't use Paladin talents, feats, or powers on top of using that ability. I think I would also limit the number of talents that could be swapped out to maybe one per tier... maybe even less than that.

 

[NinjaPaladin]

Yeah I would like official rules as well.

I don't think the Ranger's dual wielding talent is really all that powerful as a singular ability since it drops the weapon damage to one die lower (so generally d6 as opposed to d8), and you only get to make the second attack if your first attack is a natural even number... I think one of the important things to take note of is that many of the class features state that they can only be used with attacks from that class. That said I would probably keep them silo-ed entirely until I was sure there would be no shenanigans in combining effects from 2 different sources. So yes you can dual wield, but you can't use Paladin talents, feats, or powers on top of using that ability. I think I would also limit the number of talents that could be swapped out to maybe one per tier... maybe even less than that.

That sounds reasonable. My concern would be letting a fighter make all his flexible attacks on top of a ranger's dual-wielding attacks. At that point, he's a better ranger than the ranger. Same for a raging barbarian. ("Hey, turns out that rage bonus applies to both primary and secondary attacks!")

I'd still be worried that it adds enough damage or core ability to another class to be stealing the coolest part of the ranger for a very low price, but I'm old now, and I don't care enough to go through average damage per round calculations. I also figure that this is a game to be played with friends, not competitively, and if someone came to me with an awesome character concept that required dual-wielding as a rogue or barbarian or whatever, I'd probably allow it.

 

[Imaro]

Alternatively, for ease-of-use, you could just use the Ranger chassis but give them access to Wizardry instead of Sorcery or Divine spellcasting. Change out some Features/talents/feats and you may be close.

Looking over it now... I think I would go with this method. I'd probably create a general feat for melee characters that worked like the Ranger's "Fey Queen's Enchantments" talent that allowed one to pick the spellcasting class but otherwise functioned in the same way. I wonder if this is also meant to be the way that non-spellcasters get spells for rituals as well...

 

[NinjaPaladin]

I had a character concept for a ranger with Fey Queen's Enchantment and Ritual Magic. I was going to have him use rituals to affect the weather -- a ritualized Lightning Fork to call down a thunderstorm and either hide the heroes' approach or ease a village's drought, for example.