13th Age - It's D&D with Modern Mechanics, True Ways and Moar Owlbears

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > 13th Age - It's D&D with Modern Mechanics, True Ways and Moar Owlbears

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Just Burgs: Jan 15, 2011; Gravy Boat 2k

It certainly needs a lot of work, yeah.

# ? Dec 2, 2014 06:13

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# ? Jun 6, 2024 11:01

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Basically, the Alchemist is a turkish chemist and occultist who focuses on buffing and explosives and does gunsmithing on the side (I'm just refluffing the various ranged weapons as 18th century firearms, won't change their mechanics) and the Summoner is a french enlightenment mathematician who accidentally picked up a strange robot thing that he studies the multiverse with. I think the Summoner can be done with a refluffed Druid, and I'll suggest the Sorc to the Alchemist player.

# ? Dec 2, 2014 06:15

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

Loki_XLII posted:

I am not an expert on Pathfinder, so take this with a grain of salt. I figure Summoner could be any class that gets a companion character, heavily reskinned of course.

This is true, you could mess with the druid or ranger elements, either on their own or as a multiclass, to get a similar effect.

# ? Dec 2, 2014 06:16

01011001: Dec 26, 2012

Night10194 posted:

Basically, the Alchemist is a turkish chemist and occultist who focuses on buffing and explosives and does gunsmithing on the side (I'm just refluffing the various ranged weapons as 18th century firearms, won't change their mechanics) and the Summoner is a french enlightenment mathematician who accidentally picked up a strange robot thing that he studies the multiverse with. I think the Summoner can be done with a refluffed Druid, and I'll suggest the Sorc to the Alchemist player.

I really wouldn't suggest Druid to, uh, anyone. Not the 13 true ways one as-is, anyhow, it's a hot mess. If Necromancer isn't in the cards, Ranger will probably do better for the purpose of taking Animal Companion (note that Ranger was given access to the Druid version) because at least you get ok defenses and base attacks and more talents in later levels instead of spending 2/3 of your class features to do the same thing and gaining not much in return.

# ? Dec 2, 2014 06:24

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Hmm, he was actually fairly fighty, so that might do best, yes. I thought the Druid looked a little off with its 'eight different classes, pick two to be to be this class' thing, but this will be my first time ever using this system.

# ? Dec 2, 2014 06:26

Rannos22: Mar 30, 2011; Everything's the same as it always is.

I'd suggest trying to start a new campaign rather than try to jam a square peg into a round hole. Plus your players might be interested in trying something new in this new system as well.

# ? Dec 2, 2014 06:30

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

We specifically picked up this system to try to save our campaign from dying due to Pathfinder being a piece of poo poo, is the thing. Like, this is what they asked me to pick up 13th Age for, to see if we could find a D&D-esque system that isn't...well, D&D.

# ? Dec 2, 2014 06:32

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

Reskinning a sorcerer seems like it would be perfect for an alchemist. There are lots of different energy types and weird effects.

A crazier alchemist might want to check out Chaos Mage, though.

# ? Dec 2, 2014 06:34

Rannos22: Mar 30, 2011; Everything's the same as it always is.

Well in that case I think it'd probably be easier to have people try to work their character ideas into the class that fits it best rather than trying to see which PF class translates into what 13a class.

# ? Dec 2, 2014 06:38

01011001: Dec 26, 2012

Night10194 posted:

Hmm, he was actually fairly fighty, so that might do best, yes. I thought the Druid looked a little off with its 'eight different classes, pick two to be to be this class' thing, but this will be my first time ever using this system.

As bad as it may have seemed on first read, it's worse.

# ? Dec 2, 2014 06:41

CaptCommy: Aug 13, 2012; The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a goat.

01011001 posted:

As bad as it may have seemed on first read, it's worse.

Like, the Druid has some issues, but this thread has become an echo chamber making it out to be the worst class ever put to print. It's not that bad. I've played one a few times now, and it's certainly not the greatest, but as long as you decide if you want to hit things or cast spells and pick talents accordingly, it's just as good as any other class. The issues only really come in when you try and mix and match to build an actual hybrid.

Edit:

Fiend Computer posted:

Really, the main problem is that druid should have been like three classes instead. Fighter/Shifter, summoner/companion and caster/healer. Then they could have had them all be balanced out for their focus, instead of being the weird hybrid class that does a lot but not well.

100% agree here. I've even considered doing the worlds easiest home-brew to break up the book Druid into Warden (fighter/shifter), Shaman (summoner), and Druid (caster/healer) to crib some 4e names. Like, this is the same book that introduced pretty decent multiclassing rules, so even if you still wanted to mix the three, just use those rules instead!

CaptCommy fucked around with this message at 08:11 on Dec 2, 2014

# ? Dec 2, 2014 07:01

STANKBALLS TASTYLEGS: Oct 12, 2012

Really, the main problem is that druid should have been like three classes instead. Fighter/Shifter, summoner/companion and caster/healer. Then they could have had them all be balanced out for their focus, instead of being the weird hybrid class that does a lot but not well.

# ? Dec 2, 2014 07:12

Rannos22: Mar 30, 2011; Everything's the same as it always is.

CaptCommy posted:

Like, the Druid has some issues, but this thread has become an echo chamber making it out to be the worst class ever put to print. It's not that bad. I've played one a few times now, and it's certainly not the greatest, but as long as you decide if you want to hit things or cast spells and pick talents accordingly, it's just as good as any other class. The issues only really come in when you try and mix and match to build an actual hybrid.

I think the class would get less flak if it wasn't such a mess and didn't take up half the classes section of true ways.

# ? Dec 2, 2014 07:29

djw175: Apr 23, 2012; by zen death robot

I've said this before, but purely frontline druids and purely caster druids work just fine. It's when you start trying to cross them together that you have issues. Also Wild Healer is hot garbage.

# ? Dec 2, 2014 11:32

Just Burgs: Jan 15, 2011; Gravy Boat 2k

djw175 posted:

I've said this before, but purely frontline druids and purely caster druids work just fine. It's when you start trying to cross them together that you have issues. Also Wild Healer is hot garbage.

Wild healer was such a disappointment. I may actually house-rule it to be a class feature.

# ? Dec 2, 2014 11:50

lenoon: Jan 7, 2010

Has anyone tried running the Druid with four talents? It seems from a read through that the major:minor system just produces a character who is average at one thing and bad at another, wouldn't a Druid being average at two things be a quick and dirty fix or is there some math problem I'm missing (usually is when I try and think of a fix to a class).

With the pathfinder reskin, necromancer sounds perfect for the summoner, it's a really fun class and you could easily rework some of the spells to be "things I've learned from studying the universe with my minon".

# ? Dec 2, 2014 13:12

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

The Alchemist player looked everything over and decided he can get at the core of what he wanted his PC to be originally better with Bard, actually, just fluffed as the buffs being potions and phials and keen advice about the weaknesses of monsters; after talking it over with them, most of them are finding it's actually easier to get at their core concepts with the 13th Age classes and that it was kind of PF that was the square peg, round hole.

Their former jewish mystic Bard, for instance, took that solely because of Bardic knowledge crossed with minor magic in Pathfinder being the only real way to do her thing, but the second she saw Occultist she was like 'This is everything Yael was supposed to be from the beginning.' The Inquisitor is just a Cleric with the Inquisitor background, and their Paladin wants to shift herself over to a Barbarian because she thinks it gets at her core brand of polite fanaticism with a giant axe a little better. Everyone found something they'd really like to play, thanks for all the advice and the warning about Druid.

# ? Dec 2, 2014 16:54

Myrmidongs: Oct 26, 2010

01011001 posted:

I don't know why ranger doesn't have an actual core class feature

I just separated the Terrain Stunt part of the Tracker talent and gave it to Rangers as a feature, and gave it a more concrete mechanical effect.

code:

Once per battle as an interrupt action, perform a terrain stunt. Ask for a cinematic description of the Ranger taking advantage of the environment (knocking a bee hive down on an enemy head),
or something unfortunate happening to the target (twisting their ankle in a hole).

Choose one of the following bonuses:

* Subtract one from an attack-roll you or an ally makes against the target. This is the new natural roll. This may not be used with another ability which modifies the natural roll.
* Add one to the natural roll of one attack an enemy makes. This is the new natural roll. This may not be used with another ability which modifies the natural roll. The GM must disclose if doing this changes an enemy attack.
* You or an ally may pop free from the target

# ? Dec 2, 2014 17:22

Rannos22: Mar 30, 2011; Everything's the same as it always is.

Night10194 posted:

The Alchemist player looked everything over and decided he can get at the core of what he wanted his PC to be originally better with Bard, actually, just fluffed as the buffs being potions and phials and keen advice about the weaknesses of monsters; after talking it over with them, most of them are finding it's actually easier to get at their core concepts with the 13th Age classes and that it was kind of PF that was the square peg, round hole.

Their former jewish mystic Bard, for instance, took that solely because of Bardic knowledge crossed with minor magic in Pathfinder being the only real way to do her thing, but the second she saw Occultist she was like 'This is everything Yael was supposed to be from the beginning.' The Inquisitor is just a Cleric with the Inquisitor background, and their Paladin wants to shift herself over to a Barbarian because she thinks it gets at her core brand of polite fanaticism with a giant axe a little better. Everyone found something they'd really like to play, thanks for all the advice and the warning about Druid.

That's kinda exactly what I meant and I'm glad everyone found a class that fit their character idea (though I hope the barbarian character is aware that they're gonna spend every combat just basic attacking forever).

# ? Dec 2, 2014 20:36

Myrmidongs: Oct 26, 2010

So over Thanksgiving week I did some stuff.

I was browsing through 13 True Ways and for some reasons Azer's seemed really badass to me, and I reskinned some monsters to give them more variants.
Bat Rider
Berserker
Pyromancer

I also updated my other monsters on the Vault (Anubis and Cockatrice) to use the 13TW leveling table, instead of the crazy rear end formula stuff I had.

.... and because I'm idiot, and I really really want to get this "right", theres some more edits and changes to the Statless document!

# ? Dec 2, 2014 21:06

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Rannos22 posted:

That's kinda exactly what I meant and I'm glad everyone found a class that fit their character idea (though I hope the barbarian character is aware that they're gonna spend every combat just basic attacking forever).

That's what she did as a Paladin and what she likes to do. As long as she's got a ton of dice and gets to gently caress up big dudes with a huge axe, she mostly just cares about the description rather than mechanics.

# ? Dec 2, 2014 21:26

Rannos22: Mar 30, 2011; Everything's the same as it always is.

Night10194 posted:

That's what she did as a Paladin and what she likes to do. As long as she's got a ton of dice and gets to gently caress up big dudes with a huge axe, she mostly just cares about the description rather than mechanics.

Hey if it works for her it works. I just found it boring as heck and this was after playing a fighter in 2e and a rogue in pf. Though maybe I was just getting sick of boring one note martial classes to begin with.

# ? Dec 2, 2014 21:34

MelvinBison: Nov 17, 2012; "Is this the ideal world that you envisioned?"
"I guess you could say that."; Pillbug

Myrmidongs posted:

So over Thanksgiving week I did some stuff.

I was browsing through 13 True Ways and for some reasons Azer's seemed really badass to me, and I reskinned some monsters to give them more variants.
Bat Rider
Berserker
Pyromancer

Neat. Definitely using these.

# ? Dec 2, 2014 21:36

Earthorn: Jul 18, 2012

lenoon posted:

Has anyone tried running the Druid with four talents? It seems from a read through that the major:minor system just produces a character who is average at one thing and bad at another, wouldn't a Druid being average at two things be a quick and dirty fix or is there some math problem I'm missing (usually is when I try and think of a fix to a class).

Our druid actually has 5 talents at heroic tier (and is one the occultist talent track). so far, the character is not over(or under)powered.

# ? Dec 3, 2014 00:31

everythingWasBees: Jan 9, 2013

Old Dirty Cumburgs posted:

Any player that takes favored enemy: plant is my hero, and it gives you an excuse to just run amok with treants and mushroom men.

I'm pretty sure you're prone to doing that anyway.

# ? Dec 3, 2014 00:44

Just Burgs: Jan 15, 2011; Gravy Boat 2k

everythingWasBees posted:

I'm pretty sure you're prone to doing that anyway.

What else would you possibly fight on a druid assassination mission?

# ? Dec 3, 2014 03:46

Rannos22: Mar 30, 2011; Everything's the same as it always is.

Old Dirty Cumburgs posted:

What else would you possibly fight on a druid assassination mission?

Druids, bears, owls, owlbears, druid owlbears...

# ? Dec 3, 2014 03:47

everythingWasBees: Jan 9, 2013

Rannos22 posted:

Druids, bears, owls, owlbears, druid owlbears...

The rest of the party...

# ? Dec 3, 2014 04:11

Myrmidongs: Oct 26, 2010

I was looking through the extra classes Ryven did, and had a question about the Theurge's Conjurer talent.... namely what does this actually do?

quote:

Describe your MAGIC attack as being a summoned creature (still subject to your normal abilities and limitations) and spend a quick action. If you hit, the target must make a normal save if it moves from its current location on its next turn. A failed save results in the target taking 5 damage per tier of the conjuration�s type. If you combine this Talent with Mass Enchantment, each hit creature can have a separate summoned being attacking it if you like

Tier is referring to the campaign tier, right? (Adventurer, Champion, Epic?) So you can spend a quick action, describe an attack. If the attack hits (do you do damage too or is it just an attack-roll check?), and the target tries to move on its next turn it takes Tier X 5 Damage.

Is that right?

# ? Dec 3, 2014 08:10

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

Myrmidongs posted:

I was looking through the extra classes Ryven did, and had a question about the Theurge's Conjurer talent.... namely what does this actually do?

Tier is referring to the campaign tier, right? (Adventurer, Champion, Epic?) So you can spend a quick action, describe an attack. If the attack hits (do you do damage too or is it just an attack-roll check?), and the target tries to move on its next turn it takes Tier X 5 Damage.

Is that right?

It sounds like you add this to your basic MAGIC attack by spending a quick action in addition to the normal standard action needed to perform the basic MAGIC attack.

# ? Dec 3, 2014 08:22

-Fish-: Oct 10, 2005; Glub glub.
Glub glub.

The goal of the ability is to emulate summoning a critter that is engaged with the target and can make opportunity attacks on it without bogging the class down with stats for said critter.

# ? Dec 3, 2014 15:50

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

Looks sort of like a magical 3.5 Full Attack except it's standard+quick instead of standard+move.

# ? Dec 3, 2014 16:05

Myrmidongs: Oct 26, 2010

Covok posted:

It sounds like you add this to your basic MAGIC attack by spending a quick action in addition to the normal standard action needed to perform the basic MAGIC attack.

Ok that makes more sense, I just couldn't figure out from the wording what was actually happening.

# ? Dec 3, 2014 17:26

Captain Walker: Apr 7, 2009; Mother knows best
Listen to your mother
It's a scary world out there

Myrmidongs, if you're looking for new classes, I will take any excuse to plug my Seeker, on the grounds that it's not Mkill levels of terrible, and I guess actually somewhat popular. It doesn't have a fancy PDF but Ryven/Fish offered to make it one at some point.

I didn't get much feedback on the Battlemind, probably because it's an early WIP. Right now I'm just pinning down the talents before I make up powers. I'm thinking it'll be a class like the Dilettante, but more reliant on basic attacks, occasionally throwing out a fireball or something.

# ? Dec 3, 2014 18:30

Myrmidongs: Oct 26, 2010

Captain Walker posted:

Myrmidongs, if you're looking for new classes, I will take any excuse to plug my Seeker, on the grounds that it's not Mkill levels of terrible, and I guess actually somewhat popular. It doesn't have a fancy PDF but Ryven/Fish offered to make it one at some point.

I didn't get much feedback on the Battlemind, probably because it's an early WIP. Right now I'm just pinning down the talents before I make up powers. I'm thinking it'll be a class like the Dilettante, but more reliant on basic attacks, occasionally throwing out a fireball or something.

I'll check these out. I want to try my hand at revamping the Druid, so I was going through classes for inspiration.

In other news....

I really didn't intend to do this. It started out innocently enough. I was poking around at files and I noticed a few teeny tiny things on my character sheet that just bothered me. The skull vector for death saves was kinda icky -- it didn't have the boldness of the other lines and just wasn't quite right. For some reason Scribus also decided to randomly make a bunch of the boxes out of square. I don't think anybody noticed, but that .2 mm difference bothered the hell out of me.

So I started fixing it up, fully intending to just do a few things, and update it quietly, no fanfare, no posts.

And then something happened.... I decided to ask myself "What would happen if I laid the ability scores out completely horizontal?" The rest just fell into place.

Character Sheet 2.0

It shits on the first one.

# ? Dec 4, 2014 22:18

Doublehex: Jan 29, 2009; Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

Over the past few months I've been working on a setting called Savage Age. I got the idea from Warcraft's Draenor, of what would a world look like if there wasn't any of the "civilized" races you normally see in DND. So no Humans, no Elves, no Dwarves, none of that crap.

I have 10 races in mind, and I have gotten half of them done. For their powers I was inspired by John Wick's Wicked Fantasy - essentially, the powers should reflect the lore. I tried to make each power for each race unique and interesting - a little bit OP. There are some I am not totally satisfied with yet (Chitani) and some I need to just throw out the window and start over (the Aviase), but I would really appreciate some feedback on the rest that I have done.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-HhnLdq14qEMkZUbG5NcTk5c1k&authuser=0

# ? Dec 5, 2014 02:26

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Just to be sure I'm getting it, the basic idea of the Occultist is that they're almost kind of the PCs' advocate the DM, isn't it? That the class is about 'Well, my buddy hit, but I think he should hit harder' or 'Eh, that was a bullshit crit, didn't happen, you're okay' and stuff like that?

# ? Dec 5, 2014 02:29

Shoombo: Jan 1, 2013

Can you change around a Spelljacked spell every day like you can a normal spell, or is it stuck as what you first pick?

# ? Dec 6, 2014 04:35

PublicOpinion: Oct 21, 2010; Her style is new but the face is the same as it was so long ago...

I let my bard change it. You do spend a whole feature on it after all.

# ? Dec 6, 2014 04:41

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# ? Jun 6, 2024 11:01

PublicOpinion: Oct 21, 2010; Her style is new but the face is the same as it was so long ago...

Plant discussion was last week but I finally finished up more plant monsters (and friends)! Combined with the previous plant monsters and the Dryad Gardener I think that means that now most of the plant monsters in existence are mine, though there is a "Monsters of the Great Druid" pdf on DriveThru that I haven't looked at. Now that I've got all these plants I need to start trying to bash them into salable condition.

e: The 'Thorns' power on the Dryad Gardener is an excellent foil for Wood Elves, Commanders, and anyone else trying to get funny with the action economy.

PublicOpinion fucked around with this message at 22:53 on Dec 6, 2014

# ? Dec 6, 2014 22:44

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > 13th Age - It's D&D with Modern Mechanics, True Ways and Moar Owlbears

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