As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/

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

1235712

Posts

  • ToxTox I kill threads he/himRegistered User regular
    To be fair, if things like this are the exception and not the rule, it's a lot easier to deal with. If everything requires special rules and math, it becomes quite a bit more bothersome. Plus in this situation you can say "well these monsters are a pain to homebrew so I just won't" and there's little to nothing lost.

    Also:
    Joshmvii wrote: »
    begin monster design by completing this sentence: "Players will hate and fear this monster because..."

    Is just fucking ace.

    Twitter! | Dilige, et quod vis fac
  • OptimusZedOptimusZed Registered User regular
    Can Wreckers then be approximated by adding a couple of levels to another monster? Or are they something completely different.

    I ask this as someone who has spent a lot more time looking at character options than anything else in 13th age.

    We're reading Rifts. You should too. You know you want to. Now With Ninjas!

    They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
  • ToxTox I kill threads he/himRegistered User regular
    OptimusZed wrote: »
    Can Wreckers then be approximated by adding a couple of levels to another monster? Or are they something completely different.

    I ask this as someone who has spent a lot more time looking at character options than anything else in 13th age.

    Basically take an existing monster, increase attack and damage, decrease defenses and/or HP. Potentially add some sort of debilitating effect.

    Twitter! | Dilige, et quod vis fac
  • JoshmviiJoshmvii Registered User regular
    edited June 2016
    It's not as simple as reducing their defenses and pumping up their offenses. Like the Bulette I mentioned before, is just a large 5th level monster who hits more, does more damage, has higher AC, and has more HP than other large 5th level monsters. It's purely a better and scarier 5th level monster. Wreckers just break the rules to be scarier monsters to keep the party on their toes.

    I've come to realize their approach was "If you use all the monster roles except wrecker, your fights will be balanced but probably not deadly to a party. If you want to use a fearsome monster, just make a monster that is the same level as the others you're using but just straight make it scarier and tougher, without levelling it up and that's a wrecker." Like a Bulette is not meant to be part of a balanced encounter. It's supposed to be a scary ass land shark that could potentially kill a character even though it's there to throw against level 5 characters.

    And I'm totally cool with that. It's like you said @Tox, when it's the exception and not the rule life is still much easier. And now that I understand the reasoning, I totally get it. Wreckers are there when you want to show a deadly fight without necessarily looking to higher level monsters. It's okay for Wreckers to be the exception to how tough level X monsters typically are. They're there to strike fear into the hearts of adventurers.

    And I agree that Tweet's tweet(heh again) about how you should create a monster by thinking about what about it the players will fear or hate is fantastic. It's kind of one of those things that sounds like common sense, but it really isn't and it's a great reminder of where your mind should be when making stuff.

    Joshmvii on
  • JoshmviiJoshmvii Registered User regular
    So @Tox, I decided that as long as my players are on board, I'm going to use your idea for icon rolls as part of building story arcs, in a two pronged icon method that I think is going to work great for what I want.

    1) At the beginning of the campaign and then before each new story arc begins(some arcs are shorter, some longer, not going to tie it directly to a level or anything) everybody rolls their icon dice. Depending on what the players want, this will either be known to them or unknown where only I know which ones came up. The story arc that comes after will feature whichever icons were rolled on 5s and 6s with the expected complications for 5s.

    2) Also, as we play the game, when the players interact with NPCs related to the icons with whom they have relationships, they will get chances to roll their dice for that specific relationship in the moment, allowing them to spend 6s and 5s to get the benefits of the relationship in the moment.

    I feel like this way it kind of gives me the best of both worlds that I want. Rolling them and featuring the results in the story arcs means that the story of the campaign is being determined in part by the relationships the players chose which is great. And then letting them roll and potentially spend them like star wars destiny points mid session when a good moment comes up adds another fun element. I'm imagining interacting with an icon you're friendly with and asking for help, and rolling and getting a 6 to spend, allowing them to get the help without making a skill check that might've resulted in not getting what they wanted. That sort of stuff.

  • ToxTox I kill threads he/himRegistered User regular
    edited June 2016
    Noice

    e: for in-session rolls it just occurred to me that you could use a variation of the Dungeon World model, where they roll 2d6 and add their Icon points. Maybe adjust it down a point or two, so like a 9 is an unmitigated success, while 6-8 is success with a complication.

    Tox on
    Twitter! | Dilige, et quod vis fac
  • JoshmviiJoshmvii Registered User regular
    Cool idea. I'm not sure off the top of my head how that would change the probability of success/success with complication compared to just looking at the individual d6s, but I like it. Plus I love dungeon world so imitating it is definitely not something I'm averse to.

  • JoshmviiJoshmvii Registered User regular
    edited July 2016
    Hey, so I've heard that if you want to do your 13th Age Aang cosplay you are going to mix elemental caster druid and monk.

    Do they play well together in the opinions of ye more knowledgeable 13th Agers?

    I feel like the monk's "flow through your styles" playstyle doesn't leave room for casting spells. Is it "sometimes you use your ranged at will elemental attacks then gap close and start monking it up," or "blow elemental dailies sometimes and flavor them up to be cool bending style stuff?"

    Just trying to figure out what that playstyle looks like.

    Joshmvii on
  • Grunt's GhostsGrunt's Ghosts Registered User regular
    I did this! Or I did a Firebender Ryo the Burning Monk. If you do this, you must take Diamond Focus so you can use your spells without losing your place in your Forms. It's a lot easier to make Aang doing that than it is to just do a Bender, unless the DM lets you reflavor some of the spells.

  • JoshmviiJoshmvii Registered User regular
    Thanks! I knew I saw somebody on this forum mention doing so, but I couldn't remember where I read it. I didn't realize diamond focus lets you break up your forms with other actions. Very cool. I could see using some of the forms that do thunder/water/lightning damage to simulate more of the bending type stuff too.

  • Grunt's GhostsGrunt's Ghosts Registered User regular
    Honestly, I think the Sorcerer or Wizard might be better than the Elemental Druid, because of the way the Elemental Druid is. You don't have a lot of spells for each element, and if you are trying to make a pure Firebender, you get like three or four spells from level 1-10. That's boring. But with a Sorcerer or Wizard, you get a lot of spells to play with, which makes you feel more like a Firebender than before. Personally, I'd like to design a Bender class from the ground up over the cross class but I've got no time lately.

  • ToxTox I kill threads he/himRegistered User regular
    Twitter! | Dilige, et quod vis fac
  • JoshmviiJoshmvii Registered User regular
    I know it's on their website, but is there any playtesting done on stuff that gets posted like that? I don't really need anything mechanical right now because none of my players are going to play that type of character, I'm just fleshing out various different monastic traditions and one of them is going to be a way of the elements type thing.

  • JoshmviiJoshmvii Registered User regular
    So we had a terrific worldbuilding session for my upcoming 13th Age game. Getting more and more excited for it. Everybody was really enthusiastic about building stuff out. We ended up with 17 icons.

    Does anybody have any house rules they use for 13th Age they think are useful? I don't feel like 13A has anything in it I need to fix out of the box, but I am thinking about a couple small things, including adding an unobtrusive token economy to reward fun roleplaying.

  • ToxTox I kill threads he/himRegistered User regular
    None I haven't already expressed ad nauseum

    Twitter! | Dilige, et quod vis fac
  • JoshmviiJoshmvii Registered User regular
    edited July 2016
    Here are what I have for the house rules I'm going to use in my game, though using icon relationships in different ways isn't really much of a house rule so much as it is expected I think.

    Battlefield extras - When we roll initiative, all players also roll a single d6 for battlefield extras. Players who roll a 6 on this extra die get to add a feature to the battlefield for that combat. You can get as creative as you want within reason. This is for creative collaboration, not for raw mechanical benefit, so think about what would be interesting to add, not what you can create to improve your battle math.

    Token economy - Whenever a player does something the GM/rest of the players enjoys with roleplay, especially when they are playing to their character's motivations and instincts, they are given a minor token. The minor tokens can be spent to get a +2 bonus to any d20 roll. Or the player can save them up, and once they have three minor tokens, they can trade them in to the GM for a major token. A major token can be spent to re-roll any d20 roll.

    Icon relationship rolls - This one isn't really a house rule so much as an explanation of how we're using the Icon relationship dice.

    1) Before the campaign starts, as well as periodically in the game at the end of natural story arcs, players will roll their icon relationship dice. 5s and 6s will be used by the GM to determine which icons will have their hands in the various upcoming fronts and goings on in the region in which the players are playing. Players will also get benefits from the 5s and 6s as expected, which can range from minor assistance, narrative benefits, items, etc.

    2) At moments during the story when the players are interacting with NPCs, the icons those NPCs represent will come into play. The GM will call for players who have relevant icon relationships to make rolls, and 5s and 6s will grant benefits if the players choose to spend them, though 5s will of course come with complications.
    Updated lower.

    My intent with these uses is that players icon relationship rolls will help create the meta-plot of the campaign because they help determine which icons have a hand in each region we play in, for good or bad. And then to give you as players plenty of opportunities to roll the dice and create benefits for yourselves mid-session as well.

    I may call for icon rolls for no obvious reason, which I will do if I feel like they haven't been coming into play enough and I want to give you more chances to bring your relationships into the story.

    Joshmvii on
  • JoshmviiJoshmvii Registered User regular
    One of my players GMed a one shot using the adventure in the back of the 13A book which was pretty fun since I got to play. I think everybody really liked how the system simultaneously streamlines and throws out some granular stuff, but maintains interesting character customization and a fun combat system. Their eyes were really lighting up when they were thinking about how you get to spend feats to improve your talents/racial ability/spells, etc. to really dig deeper into the things you love about your character.

  • AmiguAmigu Registered User regular
    Nice. Looking forward to hearing how your game rolls out.

    I've been GMing a roll20 game with mixed results. The combat has been really great and smooth. It feels like all the best parts of 4th ed. without any of the lag.

    The out of combat gameplay has been a bit boring tbh. I think it's partially because we're strangers playing with voice only. But I do also think that even though 13th Age has a bit of story mechanics, it's not its strongest feature. A lot comes down to the GM's interest in creating an interesting Dungeon/social setting and the players willingness to participate.

    BitD PbP Character Volstrom
    QEz1Jw1.png
  • JoshmviiJoshmvii Registered User regular
    As with all "story mechanics," I think it requires buy in from the players and a GM who is interested in really making it the character's story.

    But I think 13th Age excels in a couple ways:

    1) OUTs, backgrounds as skills, and relationships with the icons who are movers and shakers of the setting really make players get invested in how their character belongs in the world organically. Also, icon relationships if used well let the players basically create the meta plot important players with their choices. The guy who has 3 positive Dwarf King is telling you that he wants the Dwarf King and Dwarves in general to be a factor in the campaign, and unless they're super unlucky, the dice will drive that to happen.

    2) Conversely, it takes work out of the GMs hands, because if you let the icon relationship rolls drive the metaplot of the campaign story, then the players like it because the icon relationships they chose will matter, and the GM has to do less deciding who is behind the conspiracy or who is going to show up as a friendly ally to the PCs.

    I'm overhyped for the game. We're probably still about 4 or 5 months away from starting it because we have to wrap the current D&D campaign we're in. I'm so fatigued with that game, and so are some of my players, but I think we all want to see it through and end the campaign on a good note.

  • AmiguAmigu Registered User regular
    True. Something like Monsterhearts has far more concrete ways of building the plot outside of combat though. I'm thinking of playing around with some of those Apocalypse World mechanics in the future to give non-combat bits more structure.

    BitD PbP Character Volstrom
    QEz1Jw1.png
  • JoshmviiJoshmvii Registered User regular
    Oh yeah, no doubt. 13th Age is streamlined D&D rubbed up against story games. It definitely isn't as codified story based as games that really focus on it, but it at least does some cool things to that end.

    13A is the perfect combo of meaty combat mechanics and player-driven story mechanics for my table.

  • AmiguAmigu Registered User regular
    That's awesome. I'm also really into some of the later monsters. There are some fricking gems in there. Like the monster that gets a free interrupt attack every time the players say a (DM determined) word.

    I'm pretty keen to host a mini dungeon collaboration on here. Each DM gets to run a mini adventure via a play by play. And the characters stay the same.

    BitD PbP Character Volstrom
    QEz1Jw1.png
  • JoshmviiJoshmvii Registered User regular
    edited July 2016
    Yeah, 13A monster design is freaking aces. The way they use the flexible dice mechanic and triggers to give monsters lots of interesting things they can do but without putting the onus on the GM to decide which thing to use each turn out of a list of 6 attacks is genius.

    So I realized that my house ruled token economy was redundant and I'm just a dummy. I realized what I really want is something the icon relationship dice already give me. So I'm going to still be using what I call "story guide" icon rolls, where the players roll periodically and their outcomes determine which icons have their hands/forces in the next upcoming fronts/areas, because I think that's great.

    But instead of tacking on a token economy, I'm just going to also roll icon dice at the beginning of each session. 5s and 6s become tokens for the players(and GM in the case of 6s) to spend. I know this isn't a new idea, but for some reason I was overcomplicating things for myself. My players are a big fan of the destiny points in Star Wars, so I think they'll dive in here for both narrative and mechanical fun. Decided I'm going to let them roll each session and they don't expire, but they can only hold tokens equal to their maximum relationship points. So at level 1, they can only have up to 3 tokens at a time. If they get new ones the next session, they can discard 5s to replace with new 6s, but they won't be able to stock up like 15 tokens.

    Joshmvii on
  • wildwoodwildwood Registered User regular
    So, I messed up the encounter design for my group this week. Don't be like me.

    To start with, I made some D&D 4e-ish assumptions, and just added up the character levels in my party, and went monster shopping. Four first-level characters, look for a monster around level 4... hmm, a gelatinous tetrahedron sounded fun. Old-school, with a twist. It seemed like it hit kind of hard, but maybe I was just mis-remembering the characters' hp levels.

    Once game night started, and I compared damage levels to the characters' hp... holy crap. I had to scale back all the damages and play up the monster's lack of intelligence so the party could all make it through the battle.

    Afterward, I took a closer look at the "Monster Equivalents" chart in the rulebook. A level 4 monster counts as 3 "standard monsters" for a level 1 party, and a huge monster also counts as 3 standard monsters. So I guess a huge level 4 monster counts as... 9 standard monsters? And when the party's level 2, it will count as 6?

    Notes to self: no more monsters that can drop a full-health wizard with their standard attack. Also, no more monsters that can perma-kill full-health anyone with their strongest attack.

  • JoshmviiJoshmvii Registered User regular
    edited July 2016
    A huge level 4 counts as 8 for a 1st level party. So it's basically double a standard fight. For 4 level 2s, it'd count as 6.

    Here's a link to a wonderful excel combat tracker tool someone made. I found it linked on the 13th Age subreddit a while back. It's really amazing. Does all the encounter math for you, handles initiative, has I think every monster from core, true ways, and bestiary in it with all their attacks and everything. It was a godsend for somebody like me who likes digital tools to use at the table for this kind of stuff.

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/ekgw7fid5dntunj/13th Age Battle Builder v.4.0.xlsm?dl=0

    Joshmvii on
  • Grunt's GhostsGrunt's Ghosts Registered User regular
    I stick to level vs. level. Now, I might do a level 1 Double strenght monster and 5 level 1 mooks vs. 2 level 1 charters but I know its 3.25 vs 2. One thing I disliked in 4E was exp budgets.

  • JoshmviiJoshmvii Registered User regular
    I love the 13A style of the encounter building. I'll definitely be using some higher level fights and wreckers and what not to bring the pain to my players though, because they love those knock down drag out fights once in a while, and 13A is pretty open about its standard encounter rules giving "fair fights."

    Last weekend we ran the little adventure out of the back of the core book and it throws you up against some higher stuff, and it was a blast. Like that dragon whose wing is clipped(they basically took a level 8 dragon and nerfed it down to about level 4 stats) was so fun to fight, and it hurt bad when it hit us.

    By the time we finished the adventure our Commander player had 0 recoveries left as he had eaten more damage than anybody else. Was a lot of fun.

    My intention is that most combats I run plus most random encounters will be average fights, fair stuff. But the setpiece type fights, or when I roll low on the old bell curve on the random encounter table, I'm going to bring out some nasty stuff. They can always flee if they need to.

  • astrobstrdastrobstrd So full of mercy... Registered User regular
    If your players flee a over-powered battle, I'd make sure to kind of hand-wave the "campaign loss" stuff. Especially if it is a random encounter.

    Selling the Scream Podcast: https://anchor.fm/jeremy-donaldson
  • JoshmviiJoshmvii Registered User regular
    That's a good point, and one that I've considered.

    My campaign will have fights that go like this:

    Regular fights - Standard fight rules, should be fairly balanced.
    Boss/Setpiece fights - These will be higher level/tougher but will still be balanced based on how long its been since the last long rest, etc. They shouldn't have to flee this, but fleeing here would involve a campaign setback.

    My random encounter table has 3 types of random encounters

    67% of random encounters are standard fights, some will probably be easier than standard, a chance for the party to just flex on some random mooks.

    14% of random encounters will be tougher than normal, but still shouldn't be imbalanced to the point of causing the party to flee.

    Just under 3% of random encounters will be really bad. Like, "it's obvious you should flee from this right when you see it, or at least when it attacks you once" bad. "It's a scary unpredictable world" and all that. There will be no campaign setback for fleeing these. If the enemy I decided to use is interesting I'll use something like a campaign sideways development, heh. If the high level dragon is what randomly attacks you on that ~3% chance on a random encounter, then I'm probably going to develop that dragon into the fronts in that area and it's going to start affecting the area around over time, and you'll probably need to take care of it at some point unless you're going to let its minions run over the towns and villages in the area.

    The rest of the random encounter table in case you're wondering where the other ~16% is, is all good stuff for the party.

  • DevoutlyApatheticDevoutlyApathetic Registered User regular
    Gonna note two things:

    1) Running from a battle doesn't incur a Campaign Loss. The only way I recall getting one is by forcing a full heal up before the required number of battles.

    2) The rules for heal ups say "battles fought" and not "battles won".

    3) The rule of four for healing discusses a bunch about grading the encounters difficulty as part of that four.

    Basically if they significantly engage in a fight and then retreat I'd probably count that as a battle towards the heal up. If they see an ultra beholder or something and nope right out, I wouldn't count that but it wouldn't inflict any sort of loss on them. Exceptions for story specific villains in each case, though they are almost always going to be the 4th fight anyways. Fighting the bad guy and getting stomped is probably enough punishment story wise.

    Also, yes, the three weapons of the spanish inquisition are...

    Nod. Get treat. PSN: Quippish
  • astrobstrdastrobstrd So full of mercy... Registered User regular
    Pg. 166 states that fleeing = a campaign loss. I think they meant fleeing a standard or tough battle though and didn't consider impossible or nearly impossible battles. There is a particular encounter in Eyes of the Stone Thief where players are highly encouraged to run (at least at first) and nothing about a loss pops up there.

    Selling the Scream Podcast: https://anchor.fm/jeremy-donaldson
  • Grunt's GhostsGrunt's Ghosts Registered User regular
    If the fight isn't important to the main story, then why fight?

  • DevoutlyApatheticDevoutlyApathetic Registered User regular
    Well now I'm gonna grumble about "campaign loss" not being in the index. That's also potentially super harsh if the fleeing and forced healing losses stack.

    Not sure I like the combination of random encounters and that fleeing rule at all.

    Nod. Get treat. PSN: Quippish
  • JoshmviiJoshmvii Registered User regular
    Fleeing definitely gets you a campaign loss, as well it should. If you reach the fight with the bad guys and then flee mid way through the fight, they're just going to finish doing whatever thing you were trying to stop them from doing by the time you come back.

    I think any reasonable GM would not be trying to "stack" campaign losses on the party. Fleeing from a battle because you couldn't handle it and then taking a forced heal up to lick your wounds to me is the same campaign loss. It's not a punitive measure. It's the heroes getting knocked down, and having to get back up again, with the person they were trying to rescue now dead. =P
    If the fight isn't important to the main story, then why fight?

    This question assumes your campaign is about a "main story," which implies a certain type of game. If your game is a linear plot game, and I don't mean that derisively, I just mean if it's a game where the players are going through a "main story" to get to the end, then sure, it might feel like why use random encounters or ever have a fight that isn't directly tied to the main story? It's a valid question for that type of game. That's the kind of D&D game I'm currently running in fact, and I don't use any random encounters in that game. In fact the only fights are the ones that are tied to that "main story."

    But in my upcoming 13th Age game, it's very much going to be starting out as a sort of "leaning towards sandbox" experience where there are fronts moving out in the world with or without player intervention, and it's up to them whether they want to pursue those things, convince the group to help them pursue their character's personal goals, etc.

    And in that kind of game where part of the fun is creating a living and dangerous world, you might do what I am doing, which is have random encounters that may or may not happen while travelling through the wilderness and such.

    It creates verisimilitude when you might actually get attacked during your night's watch or while you're going through the creepy forest by something that doesn't need to be related to some sort of overarching plot.

    When the Bulette land sharks its way up out the ground to attack you unexpectedly, it doesn't need to be sent by the BBEG to be fun.

  • JoshmviiJoshmvii Registered User regular
    edited July 2016
    Well now I'm gonna grumble about "campaign loss" not being in the index. That's also potentially super harsh if the fleeing and forced healing losses stack.

    Not sure I like the combination of random encounters and that fleeing rule at all.

    I think it's 100% worth mentioning that 13th Age has no mention of random encounters anywhere in it. I'm using them in my upcoming game because I want them. I'm sure if Heinsoo and Tweet had included them in 13A they would've probably said something like "if you're going to use random encounters and potentially have the players run into something they're going to need to flee, don't give them a campaign loss for it."

    I would never give my players a campaign loss for having to flee the 2.7% chance encounter with an overwhelmingly powerful enemy. Of course, I'm also just as likely to make that horrible encounter not be a fight at all, and instead be them seeing an army headed toward the same destination as they're going to with no idea why, etc.

    To be honest, random encounters in 13A create a sort of weird situation where it'll probably throw off the pacing of heal-ups. If my players are headed for the orc cave, I might be thinking they'll fight 4 fights and get a heal up in there. But if they get a random encounter on the way, now am I going to give them a heal up right before the final battle of the orc cave? Or am I now making it 3 battles in the orc cave to preserve the heal up timing? More likely the random encounter is considered extra and it forces them to decide if they can handle the entire Orc Cave without a forced heal-up.

    The truth is, I'll wing it and see what works best, because my 13A game is going to be using a much more improvisational style. That old glorious AW GM principle "Play to see what happens" is going to be in full force in this game.

    Joshmvii on
  • Grunt's GhostsGrunt's Ghosts Registered User regular
    Joshmvii wrote: »
    If the fight isn't important to the main story, then why fight?

    This question assumes your campaign is about a "main story," which implies a certain type of game. If your game is a linear plot game, and I don't mean that derisively, I just mean if it's a game where the players are going through a "main story" to get to the end, then sure, it might feel like why use random encounters or ever have a fight that isn't directly tied to the main story? It's a valid question for that type of game. That's the kind of D&D game I'm currently running in fact, and I don't use any random encounters in that game. In fact the only fights are the ones that are tied to that "main story."

    But in my upcoming 13th Age game, it's very much going to be starting out as a sort of "leaning towards sandbox" experience where there are fronts moving out in the world with or without player intervention, and it's up to them whether they want to pursue those things, convince the group to help them pursue their character's personal goals, etc.

    And in that kind of game where part of the fun is creating a living and dangerous world, you might do what I am doing, which is have random encounters that may or may not happen while travelling through the wilderness and such.

    It creates verisimilitude when you might actually get attacked during your night's watch or while you're going through the creepy forest by something that doesn't need to be related to some sort of overarching plot.

    When the Bulette land sharks its way up out the ground to attack you unexpectedly, it doesn't need to be sent by the BBEG to be fun.

    My thing is that I hate wasting time. I don't get to play often and when we do, I'm not going to take an hour or so out of the game so they can fight random wolves. Every fight I do has a purpose or a reason for being there. There is a story, even if the players are running off the road, I come up with something for them to find. If my players are in a dungeon, I try to slowly introduce concepts of the Final Fight of that dungeon into the game, like if I want to use Demon-Worshiping Goblins that are working on summoning an Archdemon boss at the end, the first fight might be a mix of low threat demons and a normal threat Goblin Warlock or two. Then they will find demons using crystals to power a massive ritual rune further in the dungeon that they need to destroy to weaken the ritual and then they come across a group that will try to slow them down while the ritual is nearing completion, and depending on how fast they take them down, they will either interrupt the ritual and the boss will be the Goblin Cult Leader or the Archdemon the Goblins were summoning while the Leader becomes less of a threat than before. Every fight has purpose.

  • JoshmviiJoshmvii Registered User regular
    I gotcha, and I understand. You're running a game where you only get to play infrequent sessions so there's no room for anything except the essentials. That's my D&D 5 game right now. We play once a month, and so the only things we can fit into the game are things that drive the game forward in leaps and bounds. I totally get it.

    But my 13A game is going to be playing on Friday nights, usually 3 times a month. So we won't have those constraints, and we can let the game breathe more. Being able to do something that isn't part of some overarching story but is just a complete side thing, being able to have random encounters that are both fun and don't feel like they're taking up crucial time that we need to spend driving plot forward, etc. are things we're all very much looking forward to.

    It's the difference in a game that meets 12 times a year and one that meets nearly 40 times a year.

  • JoshmviiJoshmvii Registered User regular
    So I was listening to an old interview with Rob Heinsoo and Jonathan Tweet from 2015, and they said something that really captured the thing that I think makes 13th Age monster design so outstanding.

    Tweet was talking about working on the D&D 3E Monster Manual, and said that when they were making that book, their process was basically "Okay, we need kobolds. How much HP do they have, how much damage do they do." And with 13th Age, their process for monsters starts with "What does this monster have to offer that would make a GM want to run it?"

    And you can see that in the 7 pages or whatever of amazing Kobolds in the Bestiary, and everywhere else too. The monsters are actually fun to run for a GM, and on top of that, manage to use the "what is the natural roll" and trigger system to make them easy to run too, instead of giving them 5 different powers and making the GM decide which one to use turn-by-turn.

  • astrobstrdastrobstrd So full of mercy... Registered User regular
    I ran 3 players through the intro adventure, and man is that a meat grinder. The first fight was fair, but I think more of a challenge than the PCs were expecting (they are also all new to the system), but the second fight was insane. The boss that
    deals 11 dmg and rolls three times for attacks

    forced me to fudge some rolls and pull a few punches. Didn't help that the party kept rolling under 5 on attacks, which even the escalation die can't salvage. Going to try the Tales of the 13th Age adventure Shadowport Shuffle next.

    Selling the Scream Podcast: https://anchor.fm/jeremy-donaldson
  • Grunt's GhostsGrunt's Ghosts Registered User regular
    The adventure in the back of the book is made for 5 people. I do only two attacks and lower the hit chance when I run it with less than 4 people.

Sign In or Register to comment.