BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
Yeah, I hadn't honestly looked that far, just assumed it was there because I never a "DMG" for it, but I lent my book to my friend who will be GMing, and he just noticed there is only one book, and was asking if I had the "DMG" and other stuff, so then I had to stop and think about it.
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
Yeah, it's just one book. Now there is more stuff for GMs in 13 True Ways, plus two different Bestiaries (Normal 13th Age Bestiary and the Midgard Bestiary which is a conversion of Pathfinder stuff by ASH LAW) but for running the game, the core is all you need.
There's also a very small amount of online content, but honestly if you have 13th Age, 13 True Ways, and 13th Age Bestiary you have well more than plenty to run a game
Man, our 13th Age campaign just keeps getting better and better. Finished the 9th session this past Friday, the party having wiped out the demons from a newly formed hellhole, our Druid meeting his nemesis who gave him a demonic taint before the nemesis fled. The party tank contracted a super gnarly disease from one of the enemies that's going to be a problem for him, and I pre-rolled the potential random encounters for the trip back to the town they're working out of now for the beginning of the next session and our level 3 party is about to get jumped on by a Bulette.
Gonna be so fun to see if they have to flee for the first time or if they'll pull it off.
The best part about 13th Age is that it managed to make a fleshed out character creation system ala 3.x that's fairly balanced, and then managed to not fuck it up with dozens of books filled with garbage. Pathfinder managed to do the first bit, but now it's practically unplayable.
It's unfortunate that there's not much content for 13th Age, but it's also a blessing. I wonder if they'll make a 14th Age with a renaissance setting...
I could do with, like, one book a year, in the style of 13 True Ways. Maybe a couple new races, couple new classes, a bunch of lore/fluff, and some new monsters and gear.
Or instead of new classes some new feats and options for existing stuff would be fine.
One a year seems enough to keep generating revenue and slowly expanding the brand
I mean, they've been working on the HeroQuest/13th Age book for a couple years now. The publishing content thing isn't exactly an aversion to it so much as there are like two of them working on the main books among other projects.
Yeah, it's Rob Heinsoo and Jonathan Tweet, sometimes ASH LAW (although he's doing Pathfinder stuff mostly). and once and a while some one else. They were doing a monthly thing, which I've been told has been cancelled, and there was a fanazine called ICONs that had two free issues that wasn't bad. The Bestiary has a few races added to the game, I think the Midgard did too. And there are a few among the monthly series.
Edit: But looking at the latest post for the monthly, the last one got posted in Jan 31, 2017, so I might have heard wrong.
13th Age has gotten more content than just the 3 core rulebooks, it's just not more splats. They've put out a couple of the battle scenes books that have battle ideas and maps related to like 4 or 5 icons each, and those things are meaty. They also put out Eyes of the Stone Thief, the living megadungeon adventure which is a huge book.
13th Age in Glorantha is not a pelgrane book but it's definitely eating up a lot of Rob Heinsoo's time overseeing the art and stuff to get it finished.
Also, Rob is working on the beginning steps for the Bestiary 2 which is going to be coming to Kickstarter hopefully this year. But yeah, they stopped 13th Age monthly so Rob can focus on finishing the aforementioned two things.
Yeah, we live in a great time where basically a 2 man team with some extra contributors can put out 3 really book core books(with a 4th coming) basically just using kickstarter to raise some money to help them become a reality, but it obviously takes them a lot longer to create something.
And honestly, I don't want my games to put out splats the way 3.5/4e did. FFG Star Wars is like that, and while their supplements are high quality no doubt, there are already so damn many of them and more coming that it's insanely expensive and cumbersome to try to keep up with them all, especially when it feels like must-have rules are included in those supplements.
13th Age has 15 classes, all of which can be played differently with different talent selections and customization with power choices and feats, and an interesting multiclass system. I won't ever be upset if we get more content for it, but I can play the game as long as I want with just what we have now.
Hey, I want to crowdsource some creativity here. Last session my Bard sang a ballad to get a positive relationship with The Three(specifically the Black) and got cursed dice with The Great Gold Wyrm. When he rolled those cursed dice with the Great Gold Wyrm, he got a 1 and a 2, so bad stuff needs to happen.
What's going on around them: An order of monks tied to the Great Gold Wyrm is taking meetings with an organization that works for The Black. The Black's agents already corrupted the master of one of the monk orders in the setting, destroying our Monk PC's order and leaving him as the only survivor prior to the game starting. So obviously the Monk intends to get involved to prevent the corruption of another monk order. Right now the front is at the point where the Claw(the Black's agents) and the Order of the Golden Wyrm have just had preliminary meetings.
So how do I use these cursed dice results? One thought I had was that the spread of his ballad praising the Black and crapping on the Great Gold Wyrm means that this particular front progresses as the Claw is able to use it as leverage to convince this order of monks that they're seen as weak and need to prove their strength. The next step of the front is that the monks invite the agents of the Black to stay at the monastery as guests for some time, so that part would just be accelerated, putting slightly more pressure on the Monk to convince the party to prioritize this thing he wants to do over other things.
I need another way to bring some heat on the Bard specifically for the 1 he rolled on the cursed dice. I haven't been able to come up with something good yet.
First thought is that the Wyrm knows something about the Bard that would he would not like revealed and that happens to undermine the negative influence he just had on the monk order. "Oh yeah, you should totally listen to the guy who kicked a puppy!" Wyrm reveals it to try and stop the order from making a mistake and undermines the parties ability to effectively intervene.
BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
edited March 2017
Maybe one of the monks of the order is resisting the influence of the Black, and challenges the Bard to single combat? Edit: This would also give the party monk a solid contact in the order.
I'm not sure what sort of penalty you are looking for, mechanical or story or maybe one of his fronts goes south because he is known to have associations with that front, but he was throwing shade at the Gold who is all about saving everyone from a fiery death?
Brody on
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
I like both those ideas, thanks guys. The last time he got a cursed die with an icon, a way more powerful than him knight of the villainous icon he had crapped on showed up and demanded he duel him and smashed him without even using a weapon, just a gauntleted fist. The Bard player loved it, btw. He's a great player, loves interesting complications even when they're not good for him.
The Bard's relationships are conflicted prince of shadows and negative The Three(The Black) too. So his ballad is good for him because the temporary positive relationship can allow him to get close to agents of the Black(another arm of their agents is also working to make a deal to take control of the Bardic Institute which he definitely doesn't want).
What I'd love to see is him use the temporary positive relationship to get close to and undermine the agents of the Black who are messing with the Monks to help out his ally, but also have to deal with the fallout from the cursed dice rolls. I'm definitely going to push the "monk corruption" front forward a step towards bad news, now I just have to figure out what other piece I want to use.
I think I probably want to shy away from the single combat thing since I used a version of that his last cursed die roll, but it is a good idea that makes sense here. The idea about the Wyrm's agents knowing something about him that he wouldn't want revealed is a great one because this Bard tries to keep his identity quiet, and he also recently found out that his daughter who he had been trying to keep safe and under the radar has disappeared and he has no idea where she went.
Now I'm having an idea about an agent of the wyrm who deals in information showing up and telling him that he has a lead on his daughter, but that his disrespect to the wyrm means he's not going to give him the info, and in fact might just sell it to the highest bidder, who might be his enemies.
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BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
Rejoice! I have successfully influenced the party to go with 13th Age!
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
- use Icon rolls in session 0 and when folks level (and other drama-appropriate times) to determine which Icons influence the events of the campaign in what ways.
- use Icon relationships as a sort of de facto "reputation" system, so if you have a +2 positive relationship with the Emperor, then organizations loyal to the Empire will view you with a bit more favor
- use Icon rolls as a sort of "luck" roll (gonna let @Joshmvii fill in the details on this one since he's where I've seen it used best).
These are the rules I'm using for my West Marches game that Joshmvii made:
Session rolls - At the beginning of each session, players will roll all of their icon relationship dice. 5s and 6s become tokens for the players to spend as they see fit. They do not expire, but you can only hold a maximum number of tokens equal to the number of relationship dice you have. If a talent or feature grants you extra temporary icon relationship dice mid-session, you will be allowed to roll them when they're obtained.
The following is a list of the types of things you can get by spending your tokens.
If you spend a 6, you can:
• Succeed at a skill check.
• Re-roll an attack roll and take the better result.
• Let an ally re-roll an attack and take the better result.
• Force an opponent to re-roll and take the worse result. (does not apply to critical hits)
• Redistribute recoveries among the party.
• Restore two recoveries for yourself or an ally.
• (Spend 3 tokens) Gain a true magic item, you get to choose the type. (Limit one per adventuring tier).
• Influence the story, conjure a resource, etc. E.g.
If you spend a 5 token, you can do all of the above things except gain a true magic item. In addition, spending a 5 comes with a complication or cost. This is a sort of negotiation. You tell the GM what you want, they tell you what they think it'll cost, and you can suggest tweaks or changes and come to an agreement. There is one more use for 5 tokens and only 5 tokens, listed below:
• Save someone from death
○ A PC can spend a 5 token to save an ally from death(but cannot spend one for themselves)
○ A hard bargain will be offered, and the dying PC either chooses to accept it and live, or go on to die.
Yeah, the token system up there that I use for my home game works great. Mostly players spend them to add narrative elements and to pass skill checks(I use a lot of high stakes skill checks so players will often use them to make sure they get what they want out of a scene that way).
The other use for them in our game is I do what I call Story Guidance icon rolls, which are there to guide the meta plot of the game. The way I like to GM is to let the players do as much of the work of telling me the kind of story they want to see as possible. So before the game started, and then periodically as we play and advance through stuff I will have everybody roll all of their icon dice, but not for tokens. Instead I track the results, and any 5s and 6s that come up tell us which icons are going to be spreading their influence/having a hand in/being responsible for upcoming fronts and what not.
So the story guidance rolls help develop the meta plot of the game. If all the PCs decided before the start of the game that they all wanted to take negative relationships with one of the villainous icons, it would be pretty much guaranteed that the game was going to involve thwarting that icon's plans and such throughout. It's a fun way for me to not have to constantly be coming up with new threats and fronts and such, and the players enjoy having their choices of icon relationships come into play this way too.
I also like letting PCs roll the relationship dice for a specific icon when they're interacting with that icon's agents in the moment if it feels interesting and they might get a useful narrative benefit out of it, to reflect them potentially(if they get 5s or 6s) getting a benefit from the relationship in that scene. They wouldn't get tokens, just to introduce benefits as a perk of having that relationship with that icon's agents.
I just think you have to supplement other things with this method because if it's your only thing, then you might go a really long time with some PCs never interacting with their icon's agents, then they feel like the relationships they chose don't matter.
I think we're settling on a 6 giving the player temporary control of the session, i.e. they tell me what they want to happen and we move along as though it does. A 5 means I add some complications to that.
We've already been treating the reputation with Icons as reputation with their followers.
I like that idea of giving over lots of narrative control with 5s or 6s. Just know that the probabilities are weird. In our 10 sessions of our 13A game we've had sessions where one or two of our five players rolled a single 6, and we've had sessions where all five of them rolled at least one 6, and in one case one of the guys roll all three 6s. Crazy.
13th Age monsters are so good, and the ones in the Bestiary are even better than the ones in core and 13TW, so I am definitely hyped for even more fun monsters.
This is good news. I like this news. Another batch of monsters, another class, fucktons more flavor text. There's probably gonna be some random stuff in the Demon book, and you just know there's gonna be lots of random goods in the "Book of Ages"
BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
Ran through character creation with the DM last night, just a couple of us, to help us get an idea of how it all fits together, and it was fun. I'm getting super hyped for when our campaign actually starts.
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
So the second conundrum for our campaign has turned up: I kept two sets of notes, one of which was a scratchpad for combat with some mook stats. That's long gone. My problem is I can't find the other set of notes that outlines the endgame for the plot arc we're in the middle of.
Yeah, I think when I get to play rather than GM in 13th Age I'm going to play a rogue just because I love shadow walk so much. When I realized that you only get triple damage from a shadow walk crit I was slightly less excited, but I get why it works that way.
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BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
Where does it specify triple damage?
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
edited April 2017
Okay, we were totally doing that wrong then, so maybe the final boss would have gotten a second action.
Edit: That reads unclearly to me. "If you manage to double your crit damage, triple it instead." Wouldn't this mean you are effectively quintupling your base damage?
Brody on
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
Okay, we were totally doing that wrong then, so maybe the final boss would have gotten a second action.
Edit: That reads unclearly to me. "If you manage to double your crit damage, triple it instead." Wouldn't this mean you are effectively quintupling your base damage?
No, it's clearly meant to show that all you do is increase the damage by one factor. So regular -> double -> triple.
Okay, we were totally doing that wrong then, so maybe the final boss would have gotten a second action.
Edit: That reads unclearly to me. "If you manage to double your crit damage, triple it instead." Wouldn't this mean you are effectively quintupling your base damage?
No, it's clearly meant to show that all you do is increase the damage by one factor. So regular -> double -> triple.
Yeah, its standard D&D wording and has been around since at least 3.0 (I never played enough 2nd to know if it existed back then). Basically, its in there to keep critical hits from doubling the damage of an attack that already does double damage (thus preventing the crit from letting you do x4 damage).
Okay, we were totally doing that wrong then, so maybe the final boss would have gotten a second action.
Edit: That reads unclearly to me. "If you manage to double your crit damage, triple it instead." Wouldn't this mean you are effectively quintupling your base damage?
The next line helps:
"If you manage to double your crit damage (through the effect of a talent, power, spell or other source), triple it instead. If you manage to double your triple damage, bump it up to quadruple, and so on."
It's basically saying that a crit adds an additional base damage amount. Colloquially that is double but it is actually just meant to be addition. Just like 1 + 1 and 1 x 2 are the same but mean very different things as you scale upwards. They're just clarifying that it is 1+1 and then another +1 and not 1 x 2 and then another x 2.
BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
So, back of the book module we fairly waltzed through. GM builds an encounter after that experience, tpk. Two ettercap hunters, two supplicants, majority of the party is hampered/poisoned/acided the whole fight.
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
So, back of the book module we fairly waltzed through. GM builds an encounter after that experience, tpk. Two ettercap hunters, two supplicants, majority of the party is hampered/poisoned/acided the whole fight.
yeeaah you gotta be careful throwing in too many things that can debilitate or otherwise status the party
Posts
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
Gonna be so fun to see if they have to flee for the first time or if they'll pull it off.
It's unfortunate that there's not much content for 13th Age, but it's also a blessing. I wonder if they'll make a 14th Age with a renaissance setting...
Or instead of new classes some new feats and options for existing stuff would be fine.
One a year seems enough to keep generating revenue and slowly expanding the brand
Edit: But looking at the latest post for the monthly, the last one got posted in Jan 31, 2017, so I might have heard wrong.
13th Age in Glorantha is not a pelgrane book but it's definitely eating up a lot of Rob Heinsoo's time overseeing the art and stuff to get it finished.
Also, Rob is working on the beginning steps for the Bestiary 2 which is going to be coming to Kickstarter hopefully this year. But yeah, they stopped 13th Age monthly so Rob can focus on finishing the aforementioned two things.
Yeah, we live in a great time where basically a 2 man team with some extra contributors can put out 3 really book core books(with a 4th coming) basically just using kickstarter to raise some money to help them become a reality, but it obviously takes them a lot longer to create something.
And honestly, I don't want my games to put out splats the way 3.5/4e did. FFG Star Wars is like that, and while their supplements are high quality no doubt, there are already so damn many of them and more coming that it's insanely expensive and cumbersome to try to keep up with them all, especially when it feels like must-have rules are included in those supplements.
13th Age has 15 classes, all of which can be played differently with different talent selections and customization with power choices and feats, and an interesting multiclass system. I won't ever be upset if we get more content for it, but I can play the game as long as I want with just what we have now.
What's going on around them: An order of monks tied to the Great Gold Wyrm is taking meetings with an organization that works for The Black. The Black's agents already corrupted the master of one of the monk orders in the setting, destroying our Monk PC's order and leaving him as the only survivor prior to the game starting. So obviously the Monk intends to get involved to prevent the corruption of another monk order. Right now the front is at the point where the Claw(the Black's agents) and the Order of the Golden Wyrm have just had preliminary meetings.
So how do I use these cursed dice results? One thought I had was that the spread of his ballad praising the Black and crapping on the Great Gold Wyrm means that this particular front progresses as the Claw is able to use it as leverage to convince this order of monks that they're seen as weak and need to prove their strength. The next step of the front is that the monks invite the agents of the Black to stay at the monastery as guests for some time, so that part would just be accelerated, putting slightly more pressure on the Monk to convince the party to prioritize this thing he wants to do over other things.
I need another way to bring some heat on the Bard specifically for the 1 he rolled on the cursed dice. I haven't been able to come up with something good yet.
I'm not sure what sort of penalty you are looking for, mechanical or story or maybe one of his fronts goes south because he is known to have associations with that front, but he was throwing shade at the Gold who is all about saving everyone from a fiery death?
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
The Bard's relationships are conflicted prince of shadows and negative The Three(The Black) too. So his ballad is good for him because the temporary positive relationship can allow him to get close to agents of the Black(another arm of their agents is also working to make a deal to take control of the Bardic Institute which he definitely doesn't want).
What I'd love to see is him use the temporary positive relationship to get close to and undermine the agents of the Black who are messing with the Monks to help out his ally, but also have to deal with the fallout from the cursed dice rolls. I'm definitely going to push the "monk corruption" front forward a step towards bad news, now I just have to figure out what other piece I want to use.
I think I probably want to shy away from the single combat thing since I used a version of that his last cursed die roll, but it is a good idea that makes sense here. The idea about the Wyrm's agents knowing something about him that he wouldn't want revealed is a great one because this Bard tries to keep his identity quiet, and he also recently found out that his daughter who he had been trying to keep safe and under the radar has disappeared and he has no idea where she went.
Now I'm having an idea about an agent of the wyrm who deals in information showing up and telling him that he has a lead on his daughter, but that his disrespect to the wyrm means he's not going to give him the info, and in fact might just sell it to the highest bidder, who might be his enemies.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
Apparently I'm running our guysiswearitstotallynotlordoftheringsinreverse 13th Age campaign next weekend.
- use Icon rolls in session 0 and when folks level (and other drama-appropriate times) to determine which Icons influence the events of the campaign in what ways.
- use Icon relationships as a sort of de facto "reputation" system, so if you have a +2 positive relationship with the Emperor, then organizations loyal to the Empire will view you with a bit more favor
- use Icon rolls as a sort of "luck" roll (gonna let @Joshmvii fill in the details on this one since he's where I've seen it used best).
I'm sure others have others
The following is a list of the types of things you can get by spending your tokens.
If you spend a 6, you can:
• Succeed at a skill check.
• Re-roll an attack roll and take the better result.
• Let an ally re-roll an attack and take the better result.
• Force an opponent to re-roll and take the worse result. (does not apply to critical hits)
• Redistribute recoveries among the party.
• Restore two recoveries for yourself or an ally.
• (Spend 3 tokens) Gain a true magic item, you get to choose the type. (Limit one per adventuring tier).
• Influence the story, conjure a resource, etc. E.g.
If you spend a 5 token, you can do all of the above things except gain a true magic item. In addition, spending a 5 comes with a complication or cost. This is a sort of negotiation. You tell the GM what you want, they tell you what they think it'll cost, and you can suggest tweaks or changes and come to an agreement. There is one more use for 5 tokens and only 5 tokens, listed below:
• Save someone from death
○ A PC can spend a 5 token to save an ally from death(but cannot spend one for themselves)
○ A hard bargain will be offered, and the dying PC either chooses to accept it and live, or go on to die.
The other use for them in our game is I do what I call Story Guidance icon rolls, which are there to guide the meta plot of the game. The way I like to GM is to let the players do as much of the work of telling me the kind of story they want to see as possible. So before the game started, and then periodically as we play and advance through stuff I will have everybody roll all of their icon dice, but not for tokens. Instead I track the results, and any 5s and 6s that come up tell us which icons are going to be spreading their influence/having a hand in/being responsible for upcoming fronts and what not.
So the story guidance rolls help develop the meta plot of the game. If all the PCs decided before the start of the game that they all wanted to take negative relationships with one of the villainous icons, it would be pretty much guaranteed that the game was going to involve thwarting that icon's plans and such throughout. It's a fun way for me to not have to constantly be coming up with new threats and fronts and such, and the players enjoy having their choices of icon relationships come into play this way too.
I just think you have to supplement other things with this method because if it's your only thing, then you might go a really long time with some PCs never interacting with their icon's agents, then they feel like the relationships they chose don't matter.
We've already been treating the reputation with Icons as reputation with their followers.
Thanks for the ideas, folks.
Bestiary 2, coming fall 2017: http://site.pelgranepress.com/index.php/lions-tigers-owlbears-the-13th-age-bestiary-2/
Book of Demons, including Demonologist class and lots of demon stuff: http://site.pelgranepress.com/index.php/the-book-of-demons/
Also, Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan has a book provisionally titled The Book of Ages coming, which will be a grab bag of stuff from previous ages to use in your games: http://site.pelgranepress.com/index.php/the-order-of-the-ages/
From what I've seen, Hanrahan's projects take a looooong time so I wouldn't count on that one any time soon.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
Oh well. Guess I'm winging it.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
Not sure where it lands in the book, but from the SRD:
http://www.13thagesrd.com/combat-rules/#Crit_Effects
Edit: That reads unclearly to me. "If you manage to double your crit damage, triple it instead." Wouldn't this mean you are effectively quintupling your base damage?
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
No, it's clearly meant to show that all you do is increase the damage by one factor. So regular -> double -> triple.
Yeah, its standard D&D wording and has been around since at least 3.0 (I never played enough 2nd to know if it existed back then). Basically, its in there to keep critical hits from doubling the damage of an attack that already does double damage (thus preventing the crit from letting you do x4 damage).
The next line helps:
"If you manage to double your crit damage (through the effect of a talent, power, spell or other source), triple it instead. If you manage to double your triple damage, bump it up to quadruple, and so on."
It's basically saying that a crit adds an additional base damage amount. Colloquially that is double but it is actually just meant to be addition. Just like 1 + 1 and 1 x 2 are the same but mean very different things as you scale upwards. They're just clarifying that it is 1+1 and then another +1 and not 1 x 2 and then another x 2.
Chapter Zero: Set Theory.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
yeeaah you gotta be careful throwing in too many things that can debilitate or otherwise status the party