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And in the [13th Age] things began to ... Escalate!

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  • ToxTox I kill threads he/himRegistered User regular
    I'm both ways on the matter. I want both the super simple straightforward, and I want the slightly more complex with options and choices in every fight. And I want it for every class.

    Gimme a Ranger that has three major talents (one- and two-point versions), and like three to five regular talents. They can take the simple stuff, or they can take the talents that give them spells and flexible attacks and the ability to do trick shots and other random fun stuff.

    Then gimme a chaos sorc that rolls an energy affinity and an Icon affinity whenever they take a full heal-up, and that determines their energy type and something extra they do on, say, an odd hit.

    And gimme Paladins with the ability to swap out Smite for some sort of Cleric spell. And Clerics who just get one at-will and one daily from each of their Domains.

    Options, mang. Gimme them sweet, sweet options.

    That said I do love the way 13th Age is done. I just sort of fell in love with how the Druid was built and was like "oh my god gimme a d20 sword and sorcery game with nothing but class archetypes that have access to different groups of talents"

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  • JoshmviiJoshmvii Registered User regular
    Yeah, I think in a perfect game every class would have different optional playstyles built in with varying degrees of complexity.

    I do think 13th Age's multiclass rules do a pretty good job offering up new options for people.

    I could easily see multiclassing Ranger with a spellcaster if you wanted a Ranger who can cast spells, etc. Unfortunately some of them definitely don't play well with each other.

  • Grunt's GhostsGrunt's Ghosts Registered User regular
    I wouldn't mind looking at the option of adding complexity to rangers. I think Barbarians get a lot of options with Page XX and don't need to be looked at.

    I cracked my copy of 4E and am now looking for some ideas on powers and stuff.

  • ToxTox I kill threads he/himRegistered User regular
    I feel like barbarians get a lot of Talent options, but that only gives them so much to do. At best they get to make a 1/battle decision, and while they may invoke different options in different battles...from a design standpoint, I think they could have done better (although not without sacrificing the simplicity of what they have, so there is that).

    For Rangers I feel like it's just too easy to go "Okay so there's already this one Druid Talent set that Rangers get, and oh hey look at these other druid Talents that also thematically work super well for what Rangers have been able to do in other games."

    But for the Paladin man I just don't fucking know.

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  • JoshmviiJoshmvii Registered User regular
    I don't know how to get there, but I'd like to see the Paladin be able to go 3 ways:

    Striker style - This would be more like the 5E Paladin where you get to smite a lot of damage but sacrifice something to do so.
    Defender style - You can already do this one with Bastion and the Challenge thing, but I want to double down even further.
    Party support - This one would really focus on this aspect. You can kind of get there with lay on hands, the talent that gives +1 to ally saves, taking the cleric domain/invocation talents and stealing the cleric melee spell attack that lets allies make a save, stealing the invocation that gives allies +1 to hit when you attack things, etc., but I'd like to see even more.

    I've thought about ways I would multiclass the Paladin, but ideally you wouldn't have to go that route.

    Paladin/Fighter - Get flexible maneuvers and some of their fun talents.
    Paladin/Wizard - Just cast buff spells so you don't worry about the attack penalty for heavy armor, also take the counterspell talent because being able to counterspell is sweet.
    Paladin/Cleric - I feel like this one is kind of pointless because you can just be a Cleric who is specced for and good in melee, but I guess you might do this if you wanted Cleric buff/heal spells but still wanted the Paladin's challenge for enemy lockdown.

  • doomybeardoomybear Hi People Registered User regular
    Paladin / fighter is one of those 'why wouldn't you do that' options, since you basically lose nothing by going that route. Unless I'm misunderstanding the multiclass rules.

    what a happy day it is
  • FuselageFuselage Oosik Jumpship LoungeRegistered User regular
    I really want to play the best of RPGs I like but I'm afraid the process will turn into this.

    https://youtu.be/E6hr7MU6wR0

    o4n72w5h9b5y.png
  • ElvenshaeElvenshae Registered User regular
    edited June 2016
    Joshmvii wrote: »
    I don't know how to get there, but I'd like to see the Paladin be able to go 3 ways:

    Striker style - This would be more like the 5E Paladin where you get to smite a lot of damage but sacrifice something to do so.
    Defender style - You can already do this one with Bastion and the Challenge thing, but I want to double down even further.
    Party support - This one would really focus on this aspect. You can kind of get there with lay on hands, the talent that gives +1 to ally saves, taking the cleric domain/invocation talents and stealing the cleric melee spell attack that lets allies make a save, stealing the invocation that gives allies +1 to hit when you attack things, etc., but I'd like to see even more.

    So, uh, Ret, Prot, or Holy?

    Look out - you're turning 13th Age into a WOW videogame!!!!!

    Elvenshae on
  • ToxTox I kill threads he/himRegistered User regular
    edited June 2016
    doomybear wrote: »
    Paladin / fighter is one of those 'why wouldn't you do that' options, since you basically lose nothing by going that route. Unless I'm misunderstanding the multiclass rules.

    You'd have to declare before you roll your attack whether you're going to make a Fighter attack or a Paladin attack. Even though they would be identical, it matters because if you're making a Paladin attack, you can't use Flexible attacks, or talents like Cleave, or Comeback Strike (or Power Attack, which you'd have to declare before attacking anyway), whereas if it's a Fighter attack, you can't use Smite (which you'd have to declare when you make the attack anyway), or Paladin's Challenge.

    But in general it certainly is one of the better options, and you could just not take Paladin's Challenge, and just tell the GM that unless you declare a Smite, you're understood to be using a Fighter attack. Then you just use your Paladin talents to load up on Domains

    e: the other major drawback is that you'd need a decent score in both Str and Cha, as you'll use the lower of the two any time either class calls for either stat (aka the Key Ability Modifier rule). So it makes it a bit harder to have particularly good defenses, but you do start with the Paladin's baseline defense stats (which are at least as good as the Fighter's, and better in the case of Mental Defense).

    Tox on
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  • doomybeardoomybear Hi People Registered User regular
    Tox wrote: »
    doomybear wrote: »
    Paladin / fighter is one of those 'why wouldn't you do that' options, since you basically lose nothing by going that route. Unless I'm misunderstanding the multiclass rules.

    You'd have to declare before you roll your attack whether you're going to make a Fighter attack or a Paladin attack. Even though they would be identical, it matters because if you're making a Paladin attack, you can't use Flexible attacks, or talents like Cleave, or Comeback Strike (or Power Attack, which you'd have to declare before attacking anyway), whereas if it's a Fighter attack, you can't use Smite (which you'd have to declare when you make the attack anyway), or Paladin's Challenge.

    But in general it certainly is one of the better options, and you could just not take Paladin's Challenge, and just tell the GM that unless you declare a Smite, you're understood to be using a Fighter attack. Then you just use your Paladin talents to load up on Domains

    e: the other major drawback is that you'd need a decent score in both Str and Cha, as you'll use the lower of the two any time either class calls for either stat (aka the Key Ability Modifier rule). So it makes it a bit harder to have particularly good defenses, but you do start with the Paladin's baseline defense stats (which are at least as good as the Fighter's, and better in the case of Mental Defense).

    Oh, I forgot about the key ability modifier thing. Yeah, that's a little bit of a bummer, but only a little bit. Both fighter and paladin have options to make a bit less accuracy less painful to deal with.

    what a happy day it is
  • ToxTox I kill threads he/himRegistered User regular
    Okay so apparently there's a 13th Age FAQ that has a lot of really interesting information and is regularly updated.

    It can be found here (link added to OP)

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  • ToxTox I kill threads he/himRegistered User regular
    edited June 2016
    doomybear wrote: »
    Tox wrote: »
    doomybear wrote: »
    Paladin / fighter is one of those 'why wouldn't you do that' options, since you basically lose nothing by going that route. Unless I'm misunderstanding the multiclass rules.

    You'd have to declare before you roll your attack whether you're going to make a Fighter attack or a Paladin attack. Even though they would be identical, it matters because if you're making a Paladin attack, you can't use Flexible attacks, or talents like Cleave, or Comeback Strike (or Power Attack, which you'd have to declare before attacking anyway), whereas if it's a Fighter attack, you can't use Smite (which you'd have to declare when you make the attack anyway), or Paladin's Challenge.

    But in general it certainly is one of the better options, and you could just not take Paladin's Challenge, and just tell the GM that unless you declare a Smite, you're understood to be using a Fighter attack. Then you just use your Paladin talents to load up on Domains

    e: the other major drawback is that you'd need a decent score in both Str and Cha, as you'll use the lower of the two any time either class calls for either stat (aka the Key Ability Modifier rule). So it makes it a bit harder to have particularly good defenses, but you do start with the Paladin's baseline defense stats (which are at least as good as the Fighter's, and better in the case of Mental Defense).

    Oh, I forgot about the key ability modifier thing. Yeah, that's a little bit of a bummer, but only a little bit. Both fighter and paladin have options to make a bit less accuracy less painful to deal with.

    Also wrt: Multiclassing and grabbing Cleric stuff from the Divine Domains talent, Domain: Strength is worthless (you already get heavy/martial weapons without a penalty), Domain: Sun or Anti-Undead, and Domain: War or Leadership are somewhat useless, as they modify an attack you make. Since they are abilities gained through a Paladin talent, a strict reading of RAW would imply they would only work with Paladin attacks, so again you'd be losing out the Fighter options. That said, the Invocations for all 3 Domains are still legit and potentially worth looking into anyway.

    But I'm now thinking I may go this route with my Half-orc Paladin. Do an MC Paladin/Fighter. Use Divine Domain to pick up Domain: Love or Beauty. He ain't called Sir Fabilus the Beautiful for nothing!

    Tox on
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  • AmiguAmigu Registered User regular
    Maybe I'm just a simple guy but I feel like between Terrain Stunt, Elven Grace and my animal companion, my ranger has enough options in combat.

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  • JoshmviiJoshmvii Registered User regular
    I think if I did Paladin/Fighter multiclass, I'd probably take the challenge, bastion, and then either take skilled intercept or the once per fight half damage talent fighter gets. Then you just fight using flexible attacks from Fighter.

    The only real downside to the build it you're never going to have as good offensive accuracy as a single class because of the key modifier.

  • Jam WarriorJam Warrior Registered User regular
    I didn't realise they'd SRDed stuff from outside the core book. That's very generous of them!

    MhCw7nZ.gif
  • ToxTox I kill threads he/himRegistered User regular
    Amigu wrote: »
    Maybe I'm just a simple guy but I feel like between Terrain Stunt, Elven Grace and my animal companion, my ranger has enough options in combat.

    That's good that you're able to play the character you want to play! Although, I will point out that if you are using the new rules for Animal Companion from 13 True Ways you are literally using a Druid talent, which is the basis for the "fix" I've been suggesting for the Ranger all along :P

    But the most important part is that you have character you enjoy! :)

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  • AmiguAmigu Registered User regular
    Haha yes that's a very valid point.

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  • ToxTox I kill threads he/himRegistered User regular
    Seriously, though. "Terrain Caster" is something that just screams Ranger to me. I mean, yeah Druid also, but....damn I wish more classes worked like the Druid.

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  • Grunt's GhostsGrunt's Ghosts Registered User regular
    Not to me. Rangers aren't magical, they are martial. Sure, they know the wilds through knowledge and training, but they aren't truly connected to the land no more than a Redneck out deer hunting is "connected" to the woods. I'd like to see Rangers be more Green Arrow/Hawkeye with special arrows and trick shots.

  • OptimusZedOptimusZed Registered User regular
    In the ancient mists of the late eighties, Ranger was defined as "all the stuff that Aragorn does."

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  • JoshmviiJoshmvii Registered User regular
    edited June 2016
    I actually like that the default 13th Age Ranger doesn't have spells. I know they have the Cleric/Sorcerer talents to get spells that way, but I like them being the martial character at least by default. I do agree with Tox on principle though, that a perfect Ranger design would have some core aspects, then you could focus in on adding spells, adding more complex attack mechanics, etc. if you wanted.

    I like the core of what's there. The Archery talent letting you reroll one and later two attacks per fight is cool, the double shot talent letting you shoot twice often is cool and relatively unique in 13A, I love the tracker talent because not only does it give you that nice 5 point background to fill a party role, you get the terrain stunt too which is a fun per battle thing you get to be creative with.

    And it's not like they don't have dice to roll. If you had double shot plus an animal companion you'd be rolling 3 different attack rolls a lot of turns. It's just not going to satisfy people who want flexible attacks and such.

    Really, if the Fighter had enough flexible ranged attacks to support a full ranged playstyle, I would just multiclass Fighter/Ranger to grab the Tracker background from Ranger or animal companion, then just shoot flexible ranged attacks all day.

    Joshmvii on
  • Grunt's GhostsGrunt's Ghosts Registered User regular
    OptimusZed wrote: »
    In the ancient mists of the late eighties, Ranger was defined as "all the stuff that Aragorn does."

    And now it's Legolas.

  • Grunt's GhostsGrunt's Ghosts Registered User regular
    I'd like to give the Rangers a Talent:

    Trick Shot
    Once per encounter, you may add one of the following effects to a basic range attack;
    • Shoot the leg- Target can not move or disengaged this turn.
    • Flasharrow- Target is dazed (-4 to attack rolls) until the end of your next turn.
    • Bounce an Arrow- You may attack one target that you normally couldn't hit.

    Callshot
    Once per encounter, you can take -4 to this ranged attack. If you hit, the attack is considered a critical hit.

  • JoshmviiJoshmvii Registered User regular
    Question: Just to be sure, even if a spell adds an ability score mod to damage, that's not increased to 2x and 3x with levels, right? I think that's only for the classes who have it listed in their level table, and only for weapon attacks. Just making sure I'm right on that.

  • DevoutlyApatheticDevoutlyApathetic Registered User regular
    Actually I just read something that implies the ability score only does get the 2x and 3x thing. Trying to remember where.

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  • JoshmviiJoshmvii Registered User regular
    Alright, n/m. It was just the wizard that doesn't have the 2x abi/3x abi on their levelling chart, because none of their spells add ability scores to damage at all. The sorcerer and others do still have it on their tables.

  • jdarksunjdarksun Struggler VARegistered User regular
    Tox wrote: »
    Okay so apparently there's a 13th Age FAQ that has a lot of really interesting information and is regularly updated.

    It can be found here (link added to OP)
    Can I just say that this FAQ is amazing?
    Could a player put the maximum number of points into a background like “Good at Everything” and get a bonus to every skill check?

    A GM might not allow it, because backgrounds are things any normal person could achieve with enough time and opportunity. But a more fun way to handle it could be to dig deep into why that character is good at everything (“I’m the result of secret experiments by the High Druid to produce a superhuman”) and what the consequences are (“Agents of the High Druid are trying to capture me. Also, all of my fellow escaped superhumans are evil and insane and want to turn me to the dark side”) and use that to make the character’s life extremely interesting. Check out this article.

    ...but I'm still really struggling to find any hook to run this system on.

  • DevoutlyApatheticDevoutlyApathetic Registered User regular
    jdarksun wrote: »
    Tox wrote: »
    Okay so apparently there's a 13th Age FAQ that has a lot of really interesting information and is regularly updated.

    It can be found here (link added to OP)
    Can I just say that this FAQ is amazing?
    Could a player put the maximum number of points into a background like “Good at Everything” and get a bonus to every skill check?

    A GM might not allow it, because backgrounds are things any normal person could achieve with enough time and opportunity. But a more fun way to handle it could be to dig deep into why that character is good at everything (“I’m the result of secret experiments by the High Druid to produce a superhuman”) and what the consequences are (“Agents of the High Druid are trying to capture me. Also, all of my fellow escaped superhumans are evil and insane and want to turn me to the dark side”) and use that to make the character’s life extremely interesting. Check out this article.

    ...but I'm still really struggling to find any hook to run this system on.

    I sympathize with ya. The base setting has interesting things going on but none scream out to me as campaign centers. I really think a better idea might be to pick a short early story and then let the players Icons/OUTs carry it from there.

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  • admanbadmanb unionize your workplace Seattle, WARegistered User regular
    13th Age feels to me like it's doing what other narrative games do: rather than providing a fully-fleshed out world, it gives you an interesting skeleton for you to build your world into. And like other narrative games it might be most interesting to define that world with your players.

  • OptimusZedOptimusZed Registered User regular
    I think you just run with the D&D hooks that used to be really frustrating because of the old systems.

    It's not some revolutionary setting, but it is pretty explicitly vanilla D&D.

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  • Grunt's GhostsGrunt's Ghosts Registered User regular
    Yeah. It's a frame for you to work with. More stuff than Points of Light, Less than Eberron, Neverwinter, Forgotten Realms, ect.

  • JoshmviiJoshmvii Registered User regular
    For me 13A is kind of what they describe it in the core rulebook. It's a d20 D&D game married to an indie story game. It's meant for people exactly like me, who like the collaborative storytelling aspects of stuff like Dungeon World or whatever, but want a game with more meat to the character customization and combat. It's basically a perfect game for what I want out of my campaigns.

    I'm not using the default setting myself, but the games at my table never do. I am taking a lot of the fun parts of the base setting modular style, another thing they recommend doing in the book.

  • JoshmviiJoshmvii Registered User regular
    I'm not sure how up to date that FAQ is, since it refers to the battle scenes products as upcoming, when the first one of them has been out for a while. It's definitely a good read though.

  • jdarksunjdarksun Struggler VARegistered User regular
    OptimusZed wrote: »
    I think you just run with the D&D hooks that used to be really frustrating because of the old systems.

    It's not some revolutionary setting, but it is pretty explicitly vanilla D&D.
    What hooks? I've only ever run D&D from modules, then adapted them to fit the narrative. Or in a setting where the settings start the hooks. Dark Sun, Ravenloft, etc.

    I sit down to flesh some stuff out and boom I'm writing a setting from scratch.

  • OatsOats Registered User regular
    When I make a 13th Age campaign I tend to ask people for a rough idea of what they want to play.

    At least one or two people have a OUT already figured out which tends to offer some colour to the bland landscape.

    Last campaign I started actually I said "give me a reason you're at the funeral of a powerful wizard".

    Had a washed-up dwarf archaeologist, a catburglar, the 'dead' wizard (who had managed to cast a body-swapping spell and was stuck inside one of his familiars), and a mute cleric (not a great character idea to allow for a first timer in retrospect).

    Everything else fell out of generic fantasy land and their interactions with it.

    You don't need a huge amount of texture it turns out, since people interested in playing the game subconsciously fill it in.

    There are adventure modules if you want a jumping off point. I dunno. I tend to try to think of a singular event that could bring a bunch of people together, generally ask them how they know at least one other party member, and then let them drive the story.

    In my example above, I established the first scene and the dwarf immediately did a check to determine the whereabouts of a magical artefact, and got a 20. He beelines for a part of the manor that was out of bounds, followed by the thief who wanted to steal the goods for herself.

    Turns out it was a bunch of stuff, including a book that contained knowledge Man Was Not Meant To Know, and they were immediately pursued by a few factions (devils, the undead, the crusader's crusade) and the campaign was afoot.

  • DevoutlyApatheticDevoutlyApathetic Registered User regular
    jdarksun wrote: »
    OptimusZed wrote: »
    I think you just run with the D&D hooks that used to be really frustrating because of the old systems.

    It's not some revolutionary setting, but it is pretty explicitly vanilla D&D.
    What hooks? I've only ever run D&D from modules, then adapted them to fit the narrative. Or in a setting where the settings start the hooks. Dark Sun, Ravenloft, etc.

    I sit down to flesh some stuff out and boom I'm writing a setting from scratch.

    Most of the location descriptions contain hooks in them. They toss them around like candy on Halloween. I don't remember any that I really liked as the core of a campaign but there were plenty that would drive an adventure. Just tossing in Icon dice from the players could likely drive the campaign for a good long while if your PCs show even a little initiative.

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  • JoshmviiJoshmvii Registered User regular
    Yeah, that's one of the things that's so cool about 13A, is that if you want to play it full improv style with icon relationships you can, but you can also just use the icon relationships your players choose to structure a campaign.

    13A style backgrounds, One Unique Things and Icon Relationships are basically the players telling you what kind of story they want to play in without even having to realize they're doing it.

  • OptimusZedOptimusZed Registered User regular
    jdarksun wrote: »
    OptimusZed wrote: »
    I think you just run with the D&D hooks that used to be really frustrating because of the old systems.

    It's not some revolutionary setting, but it is pretty explicitly vanilla D&D.
    What hooks? I've only ever run D&D from modules, then adapted them to fit the narrative. Or in a setting where the settings start the hooks. Dark Sun, Ravenloft, etc.

    I sit down to flesh some stuff out and boom I'm writing a setting from scratch.

    Well, for me the things that D&D never did very well that I always wished it did were political intrigue and the like. Stuff we'd now compare to Game of Thrones, I guess, if I watched it.

    OD&D had absolutely no means of doing anything but combat and exploration. AD&D added proficiencies and some rules for how the characters fit into the world, but you still had to basically make everything up on the fly. 3rd got better in terms of allowing character skills, but there was no real framework to use them in that wasn't deeply dissatisfying. 4th gave us Skill Challenges, which weren't perfect by any means but at least they were something that could be applied to non-combat situations to make skills and choices matter on some level. 13th Age makes a bit of a leap from that with character backgrounds and Icon relationships that can be leveraged to encourage that kind of play. On a roll-by-roll mechanical level it's not much better than 4E or even 3E in terms of the system, but there's a larger framework assumed to be in place that can really help make that stuff feel real.

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  • DevoutlyApatheticDevoutlyApathetic Registered User regular
    The political/social stuff feels lacking in binary resolution systems to me. It is one thing FFG deals with really well since you have three axis of resolution which gives more "textured" results than pass/fail.

    How to kit bash that into a d20 system is questionable. I do think I'd steal the "Hard Choice" concept and offer a PC who gets within [Some Number] of the DC but fails to accept a complication in order to resolve the check successfully. How big [Some Number] should be is undecided.

    I also realize I am violating sacred d20 rules here by using the d20 as a "how well" instead of "yes/no" but idgaf on that anymore.

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  • DelduwathDelduwath Registered User regular
    This thread has inspired me to finally start reading through the 13th Age Core rule book (of which I bought a physical copy a year ago, and a digital copy via Bundle of Holding half a year ago). I just got to the part talking about using backgrounds for skill tests, and was kind of surprised by one bit of wisdom there, which they refer to as "Failing Forward". Failing a test in battle is one thing, and is generally fine, but failing one outside of battle (climbing a wall, picking a lock, etc etc) just means dragging out the game in a boring way; therefore, they suggest that a "failed" skill test could really mean "succeeded, but with complications". So, like, failing to impersonate a new dishwasher when sneaking into a castle could mean the guard lets you pass, but gets suspicious and tails you as you sneak about, that kind of thing.

    I thought that was a pretty novel way to look at things, but then I haven't really looked at any new RPGs in many years; maybe all the indies are filled to the brim with this kind of thinking.

    Anyway, the talk about the binary resolution system made me think of this. They account for the "succeed, but at a price" outcome right there in there rules, which I think is more than D&D has ever done for me.

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