CaptCommy posted:

Using the setting in book, with maybe some minor adjustments. You'll probably be the last spot for now, just so this doesn't get too insane, since we're now looking at potentially eight players. Doesn't bother me though, I've done big groups before. As above, email me to get in on the discussion.

Undead Unicorn posted:

Does anyone have any links on how to convert monsters from Pathfinder or 4 edition to 13th Age? I'm going to pre-order the Bestiary but I want to throw my players something uniqueish at them for a bit.

Kerzoro posted:

... Quick question. The character creation gives you some stats that you calculate via "add these three stats and get the median". Would I be correct that what they pretty much mean is to divide by three and round up? At least, that's what I got from the character creation example, and its how I've been doing it.

Undead Unicorn posted:

Does anyone have any links on how to convert monsters from Pathfinder or 4 edition to 13th Age? I'm going to pre-order the Bestiary but I want to throw my players something uniqueish at them for a bit.

Kerzoro posted:

... Quick question. The character creation gives you some stats that you calculate via "add these three stats and get the median". Would I be correct that what they pretty much mean is to divide by three and round up? At least, that's what I got from the character creation example, and its how I've been doing it.

OmniDesol posted:

UrbanLabyrinth posted:

Indeed it isn't. How might people go about fixing it?

Quadratic_Wizard posted:

First, 13th Age. In the game, a character’s Class gives them access to some core stats like HP and base defenses, class features that every member of the class gets, class talents that let you customize your character at first level, and then maybe something special like the fighter’s maneuvers or the cleric’s spellcasting. Let’s go one by one through these.

For base stats, it goes like this.

Fighter
Base HP: 8
Armor Class: 15
Physical Defense: 10
Mental Defense: 10
One Handed Weapon Die: 1d8
Recover Die: 1d10

Cleric
Base HP: 7
Armor Class: 14
Physical Defense: 11
Mental Defense: 11
One Handed Weapon Die: 1d6
Recover Die: 1d8

As you can see, the fighter has the better HP, AC, weapon die, and recovery die. However, the cleric has the better physical and mental defense. These differences are all rather minor. An enemy that hits the fighter on a 11 or higher needs only to roll a 10 to hit the cleric. That means that the cleric takes 10% more hits than the fighter, while the fighter is affected by 10% more PD and MD targeting attacks. The jump from d6 to d8 means an average of a total of +1 damage per die.

These are pretty marginal differences, but still significant. All else being equal, the fighter has an advantage over the cleric at this point. So you’d think that the class features, talents, and spells/maneuvers would balance the two out. Let’s have a look.

Let’s have a look. The Fighter has Threatening, while the Cleric has Heal. Threatening gives a penalty equal to your secondary stat to any enemy’s attempt to Disengage with you. It’s how the fighter stays sticky. What it means in this context is that when an enemy rolls to try and move out of melee, they have to roll a 13 or 14 instead of an 11 on their d20 to do so. Their chances drop from 50% to 40% or 35%. It’s not bad. Heal is the same leader mechanic from 4e. Twice per battle as a quick/minor action, you heal a huge chunk of someone’s HP. It’s better than threatening. Why? Because it always works. Healing is something you only apply when it’s needed, to shore up a weak spot. The amount of the healing is significant, more than half the fighter’s maximum HP. Threatening on the other hand doesn’t always work. With a 16 in your secondary stat, it works 15% of the time when an enemy disengages from you.

That is, 50% of the time they roll a 10 or lower and fail anyways. 35% of the time, they roll a 14 or higher and succeed. It’s only in that 12 to 14 range on the d20 that Threatening is actually doing anything. And an ability that works 15% of the time isn’t all that great, especially when the bestiary is already more tuned towards melee monsters who aren’t going to be very tempted to try and disengage with a fighter in the first place. Still, it’s not that big of a problem. Healing in battle is something you need, and that’s just the way they chose to implement it. But let’s put it in perspective. If you gave the Fighter a choice of two Features, Threatening or Second Wind--Twice per battle as a quick action, you can spend a recovery to heal yourself--which do you think most Fighters would choose? Cleric’s got a buffed version of their Heal from 4e, while the Fighter’s core sticky mechanic is a shadow of what it was in 4e.

Let’s move onto Talents.

Luckily, here we can have a side by side comparison. Two of the talents of the Fighter and Cleric are very similar. The Fighter’s Power Attack and the Cleric’s Strength Domain. Both have three feats, and when you’ve acquired all three, they read like this.

Power Attack
Once per battle before you roll an attack, you can declare you’re using Power Attack to deal additional damage with that attack roll. You deal 1d6 damage per level, even if the attack misses. Once per day, you can use Power Attack twice in the same battle.

Strength Domain
Once per battle when you hit with an attack, you can declare you are using the Strength Domain. You deal 1d8 damage per level. Once per day per day, you can use d20s instead of d8s. Also, bump your damage die with all weapon attacks from a d6 to a d8. Also, once per day you can have everyone’s crits deal triple instead of double damage.

Neither can be wasted on a miss. At level 10, the extra damage from power attack averages to 35 points, with the daily feature raising that to 70. To compare, the extra damage from the strength domain averages to 45, or 105 once per day. Over the course of a 4-battle adventuring day, Power Attack will contribute an extra 175 points of damage, while the cleric’s Strength Domain provides 240. Put another way, the Strength Domain gives you 37% more damage than Power Attack. And that’s before you factor in that it’s bumping the cleric’s weapon die to be the same size as the fighter’s or it’s ability to give the entire party extra powerful critical hits once per day.

The only advantage Power Attack has is that it works even when you miss. In theory, the cleric could get into a fight and miss with every attack, or every attack that does hit does enough base damage to kill the enemy. That doesn’t seem very likely. So yeah, Strength Domain > Power Attack. So far, the Cleric’s class features and talents are making it a more powerful martial warrior than the Fighter. That’s not good. Well, there’s still the last ingredient. Maneuvers and Spells. Spells might be good, but surely Maneuvers are good enough that a Fighter can reign supreme as the top dog of martial combat. Right? No.

Again, let’s look for a side by side comparison. Luckily, we have one, with the Combat Boon at-will spell and the Never Surrender maneuver.

Combat Boon is an At-will spell that let’s you make a basic attack. If the attack hits, a nearby ally gets to roll a save against an effect they’re suffering. Never Surrender is similar, but instead of triggering on a hit, it triggers on an natural even roll. Both have some feats. Never Surrender’s Epic Feat--and remember, you’ll only ever have 3 epic feats--is that the save you roll gets a +2 bonus. With Combat Boon, the Adventurer Feat is that when you crit with your attack, the save they make automatically succeeds. It’s Champion feat is that even if you miss with your attack, your ally still gets to save.

Wait, what? Combat Boon can be made to just ALWAYS work? That seems good. Hell, the fact that you can use Combat Boon on the round that someone, anyone in the party needs to make a save, can target any ally, is good. The fighter is stuck only being able to target himself, and only half the time. Again, say you’re building a fighter. Which of those would you rather take? The one that works all the time and can target everyone, or the one that works half the time and only targets yourself?

But wait, not finished yet. Combat Boon is a spell. A 3rd level spell. That means that every time you level up, not only is it doing more damage--all basic attacks scale in damage with level--it’s gaining utility. At level 5, your Combat Boon gives a +1 save bonus. At level 7--which is the level that Fighters finally get access to Never Surrender--you can target TWO allies instead of just one. At level 9, the save bonus increases again, to +2.

Again, our hypothetical warrior has the choice between the two. Which will they take, given the chance? Is there really any decision making going on here? The spell is better than the maneuver, and any argument otherwise is disingenuous or misguided.

But it’s not just the case of one spell being better than one maneuver. The problem is more fundamental than that.

A daily spell is a concrete increase in power. Generally, using a daily spell is always going to be a more powerful option for that turn than using something at-will. Managing that resource is the key strategy.

The same is not true of maneuvers. That’s because rather than a resource to be managed, maneuvers work as a random roll, where you always pick the best option. If you have two maneuvers that both trigger on a Natural Even hit and both are equally powerful, you haven’t increased in power, just versatility. After a point, Extra Maneuvers aren’t making you any more powerful.

And that’s really, really a problem when the maneuvers themselves are so lovely.

Take Deadly Assault. On an Even Hit, you can reroll any 1s when you roll for damage. If you roll a 1 again, you’re stuck though. If you’re a fighter using a big, meaty d10 weapon, using Deadly Assault boosts the average damage from a 5.5 to 5.95. More importantly, it just doesn’t do anything most of the time. For Deadly Assault to get off its rear end and actually do something, you first need to hit. Then, your hit needs to have been Even. Then, you need to roll a 1 on the damage. At level 1, the chances of that are simply 1 in 10. A special ability should not fail to do anything 90% of the time.

And that’s par for the course. Let’s look at another one. Defense Fighting. Evocative name, just like Deadly Assault. Surely that means that it makes you extra tough, right? Well, what does it do. It gives you a +2 bonus to AC till the end of your next turn. That’s...lovely. That’s really lovely.

In order for this one to work, first you need to actually be attacked. Then, you have to be attacked against your AC. And even then, that attack needs to fall into that sweet spot, that 10% range of “Because of this +2 bonus, that attack that would have hit, instead misses.” So again, 90% of the time, the ability does absolutely nothing.

Never Surrender, that really crappy version of a 3rd level spell? That’s a 7th level maneuver. Even the admittedly powerful 9th level maneuvers are, you know...9th level, at the very end of the game.

Back to the Cleric. Back to spells. Remember our hypothetical player who wants a super tough marital warrior? Well, let’s look at what they have for him. Hammer of Faith. That sounds promising. It’s only first level, so what does it do? Raises your damage die from d6-8 to d12. Well, that’s impressive. Oh wait. Unlike fighter maneuvers, which suck even if you pour epic feats into them, spells automatically scale with level. What does Hammer of Faith do at 9th level?

Still does the d12s. But now it’s only a Quick Action to cast it. Oh, and you deal half damage on a miss. Wow, that’s strong. That’s really loving strong. Oh, it also gives you a free reroll once per battle. That’s pretty strong too. And it also boosts your minimum damage based on the escalation die. That’s pretty meh, honestly.

But the main point is, the Cleric gets these Nice Things at no extra cost. Unlike DnD Next, spells automatically scale with level. At level 10, you have 1 7th level slot and 8 9th level ones.

Spellcasters in 13th Age get both more spells per day as they level up AND every spell they do have increases dramatically in power. Meanwhile, the Fighter is stuck with a tiny list of maneuvers that they need to swap out as they level up, to end up with features that just aren’t that exciting or good.

In 13th Age, the Cleric makes a better warrior than the Fighter. The cleric can reliably deal more damage, take more punishment, and give more support to the party than the Fighter. That starts at level 1, and it gets worse with every level after that.

One more thing before going on to Next. Ritual Casting. Ritual Casting is an extra thing that every cleric gets. It lets them cast any of their spells as a Ritual instead of its normal combat version. The example effects are putting a group of guards to sleep, destroying a magical artifact, blasting a tower to smithereens, etc. The guidelines are such that you can use the spells to do...well, whatever the hell you want, really. You can cast Spirits of the Righteous to summon up a ghost for advice. Shield of Faith to erect a magical shield around the church to ward off the zombie invasion. Cure Wounds to heal the incurable disease whatshisface is suffering from. Sure, a ritual might need some elaborate preparation and work to set up...but that just means that the ritual user gets to be in the spotlight for that much longer. And while every magic user has access to these extremely powerful effects that hand them tons of narrative control, others--fighter included--have to rely only on their mundane backgrounds, their non-mechanical OUTs, and the stupid Icons.

CaptCommy posted:

One extra bit of stickiness that gets overlooked is the general intercept rule. If you move past someone not engaged, they have the option to engage you and end your movement (p. 164). I don't think it's quite enough to really get the feel of the 4e fighter, but it does help any of the beefy classes tank a bit more.

Edit: One thing I think worth mentioning is that while the fighter certainly needs a small boost, it's not super obvious in play. Both fighters I've had in my games have enjoyed their play as much as anyone else. But I'm also super generous with my background applicability to even out narrative control some.

01011001 posted:

I was under the impression that the barbarian was already effective, if a tad boring? I mean I'm fairly sure the idea was to keep them swingy with poo poo like Unstoppable and Barbarian Cleave keeping you afloat instead of having a giant HP buffer, and they're not even that bad on the max HP front anyway. Some talents that have a bit more to them would be appreciated though.

CaptCommy posted:

One extra bit of stickiness that gets overlooked is the general intercept rule. If you move past someone not engaged, they have the option to engage you and end your movement (p. 164). I don't think it's quite enough to really get the feel of the 4e fighter, but it does help any of the beefy classes tank a bit more.

Edit: One thing I think worth mentioning is that while the fighter certainly needs a small boost, it's not super obvious in play. Both fighters I've had in my games have enjoyed their play as much as anyone else. But I'm also super generous with my background applicability to even out narrative control some.

S.J. posted:

I usually find myself wondering why the Fighter, Ranger, Rogue, and Paladin aren't all just rolled up into one big pile of awesome poo poo as a single class and then I remember why. D&D.

Quadratic_Wizard posted:

Might as well post this here, but a while back I was in a 13th Age game and had the crazy urge to go through, analyze each class, and balance them all in one frantic day.

The Fighter was the most work, because I went with rewriting all of the flexible attacks, including the way they worked, making some of them 1/battle and having only 2 triggers, but also making sure that each one was competitive with the stuff other classes were getting at the same level.

Paladin is really close to the Cleric, so it wasn't that hard. Just give the Paladin 4 more talents and a few extra uses of smite.

Rogue needed a rewrite of the Momentum mechanic so that it didn't get worse the higher in level you went.

For the Ranger, I went with the 5e style and changed Favored Enemy into the "I either hunt lots of little dudes or really big monsters", ie new Monster Hunter and Bounty Hunter talents. Then, made it so you can pick two of the double and hunter talents or an animal companion, and then two extra normal talents.

The rest of the classes were all surprisingly well balanced when using the Cleric as a baseline.

The whole thing is here.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lJ4XVKdGDv8dhrssM_7V5niO8JxCpvm-BeSsFejitXA/edit

Pvt.Scott posted:

Well, the class would be a little too broad to cover ranged, melee, pet, sneaky stabby and tank. Maybe two classes.

Quadratic_Wizard posted:

Might as well post this here, but a while back I was in a 13th Age game and had the crazy urge to go through, analyze each class, and balance them all in one frantic day.

The Fighter was the most work, because I went with rewriting all of the flexible attacks, including the way they worked, making some of them 1/battle and having only 2 triggers, but also making sure that each one was competitive with the stuff other classes were getting at the same level.

Paladin is really close to the Cleric, so it wasn't that hard. Just give the Paladin 4 more talents and a few extra uses of smite.

Rogue needed a rewrite of the Momentum mechanic so that it didn't get worse the higher in level you went.

For the Ranger, I went with the 5e style and changed Favored Enemy into the "I either hunt lots of little dudes or really big monsters", ie new Monster Hunter and Bounty Hunter talents. Then, made it so you can pick two of the double and hunter talents or an animal companion, and then two extra normal talents.

The rest of the classes were all surprisingly well balanced when using the Cleric as a baseline.

The whole thing is here.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lJ4XVKdGDv8dhrssM_7V5niO8JxCpvm-BeSsFejitXA/edit

S.J. posted:

Huh, I really enjoyed reading through this. It looks like the other classes honestly weren't that far off in terms of power level, generally speaking

Undead Unicorn posted:

Yeah, once again alot more balanced then 3.5, but not as balanced or tactical as 4E. It looks pretty easy to fix a lot of the classes though.

Quadratic_Wizard posted:

Strong Recovery lets you reroll a few dice when you use Recoveries, Strength Domain lets you upgrade your damage die one size and boost crits. They aren't 1:1 things, but approximations.

Quadratic_Wizard posted:

Disagree. Lots more balanced than 4e. Because 4e goes with character optimization as a minigame. The gap between first timer building his fighter out of the player's hand book and one using a polearm momentum or whatever bullshit build is huge, bigger than the gap between fighter and cleric.