Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
13A takes too much from 4th ed to really work for me, but I read it and its a great game if you buy into the design philosophy (just like 4e).If one is ever tempted to say "RAW be damned," that's...pretty clearly an indication that there's something wrong with the rules, no? Even if I disagree with you about this specific choice, we seem to be of the same mind that some kind of problem is found here.
It's perfectly balanced in 13th Age though! I genuinely love the design of the 13A Druid. They actually managed to solve the problem of the class trying to be 7 things all at once, half of them stupidly overpowered!