13th Age

Huh, that's not art I would have associated with this game.

>>54189277
That's an edit I used to try and pick up the attention of my group, but the game fell flat a few sessions in.

>>54189319
your group sounds like shit you shitter

Oh, someday I'd like to play.

A few people in my group play it. Pelgrane Press doesn't seem to care for it anymore, since the 13th Age vault is down.

>>54189460
That explains why I don't get more approvation comment mails from bots.

>>54189262
It's pretty crappy.

>>54189262
The only reason I have heard of this game is because it comes first alphabetically on every list of tabletop games I have ever seen, assuming they start with numbers in front of letters which they usually do.

What is it?

>>54189509
D&D 3.5 + 4e with indie rules and focus on "narrative".

>>54189509
To expand on >>54189542, the narrative rules include the Icon system (a bunch of meta-NPCs to build stories and plots off, think of them like factions) and condensing skills into backgrounds. There's also the escalation die mechanic that enables player characters to start gaining an edge the longer combat goes on, but also gives foes nastier special abilities depending on the escalation die.
There's a few problems with the system (like the extensively-discussed underpowered ranger and barbarian) but I personally really like the Icons system and quite a bit of the lore.

In a campaign of it as a warforged fighter. Shit's pretty good. The Escalation Die should be in all d20 games.

>>54189262

What is the deal with 13th age? I skimmed through it briefly and I only seen more health points and more dmg on basic attacks.

What makes it good?

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13th Age has some fairly major problems with class scaling.

Most of the classes are fairly balanced with one another (except for absolute messes of classes like the barbarian)... at levels 1 to 2. From that point, character classes diverge wildly in how well they scale. The paladin is a prime example of this, given its absolutely terrible scaling, whereas the bard becomes terrifyingly strong and versatile as the levels go on.

I explain and address some of these issues in this archived thread:
https://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/47191606/#47197158

This is an insidious issue because it is nearly invisible at levels 1-2, then grows more and more pronounced. A level 10 paladin is completely and utterly laughable in the face of a level 10 bard, in the most extreme of cases.

It was basically the Pathfinder of 4e.

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>>54189829

Apart from this, other issues you might have to watch out for are:

• The barbarian being a completely worthless class even from level 1: https://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/47191606/#47197304

• The druid also being rather awful from level 1, even if it does scale better than the barbarian, the paladin, and the ranger: https://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/47191606/#47197639

• The AC, PD, and MD subsystem being a wholly contrived and nonsensical mess that muddles up character balance and forces all characters to have two dump scores: https://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/47191606/#47198933

• The wizard's Evocation talent being overpowered: https://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/47191606/#47211978

There are a number of minor issues I did not cover in that thread, such as spellcasters being inexplicably allowed to retrain all of their powers at the start of each day while non-spellcasters are left in the dust (why does it even work this way?), the necromancer class being saddled with a Constitution-based penalty despite the class being perfectly fine otherwise (which makes the class weak compared to other spellcasters), the icon relationship system being clunky in many cases, and host of other minor to moderate grievances.

Fortunately, the 13th Age in Glorantha book seems to be trying to solve some of these issues: https://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/47191606/#47201802

13th Age in Glorantha is still somewhat hit-or-miss. Well-scaling classes like the Humakti sit alongside abortions like the trickster ( https://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/47191606/#47201872 ) and the awful, awful barbarian clones.

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>>54189845

An older thread in which I go over my issues with 13th Age can be found here:
https://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/43530325/#43533070

I do not think I was able to articulate myself as well as I did in this more recent thread, however:
https://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/47191606/#47197158

Tiers in 13th Age are probably less "tier 1 to tier 6" and more "tier 3 to tier 5," to borrow 3.X/Pathfinder parlance, but that is still a non-negligible disparity.

>>54189841

13th Age's combat absolutely, positively does *not* play like 4e's combat in the slightest. There is a world of difference between 13th Age's loosey-goosey theater of the mind combat and 4e's more concrete-positioning-dependent tactical combat.

>>54189706
No.

>>54192845
Why not? It fixes one of the most obnoxious things about combat.

>>54189873
>2hu dislikes it

It must be great then

>>54189262
IDK man, 13th age does most of the things that 4e does, but not as well, and not as tactially deep, and more rando.

HOWEVER, I unashamedly stole the Icons system almost word-for-word and never looked back.

>>54194198
>IDK man, 13th age does most of the things that 4e does, but not as well, and not as tactially deep, and more rando.

It's not trying to be tactically deep though. The point is for combat to be much less fiddly than 4e, and I think it achieves that.

Anyway, to address OP's question, I am also still playing this, but not really. i.e. I'm not specifically NOT playing it, but my group are a bunch of flakes and so I've just been playing one-shots using other non-fantasy systems with whoever can show up most of the time all year.

13th Age is probably still my favorite version of D&D (that, or Barbarians of Lemuria).

>>54194198
>HOWEVER, I unashamedly stole the Icons system almost word-for-word and never looked back.
I think one of the neater aspects of the game is that most of its systems can be inserted as houserules into other games.

Also, Eyes of the Stone Thief is a really cool campaign.

The organized play adventures mostly suck, but the published scenarios not written by ASH LAW are generally pretty good.

>>54189873
Thanks for the heads up. Honestly, this is a good write up, and I would legitimately subscribe to your blog if you had one considering how useful your critique of Birthright was for my group.