Escalation Die and Recharge Time

  I have crazy ideas all the time, here's another one inspired by 13th Age. In that game you use an Escalation Die, a d6 that does not start in play, but at the beginning of each subsequent turn increases by 1. The value of the die is added to the players' to-hit rolls.
  I like this mechanic a lot. It speeds up combat, something any d20 based system could use, and it tracks the length of the fight (to a point) and you can play off it in all sorts of ways.
  Something I hate in 13th Age is recharging effects. All abilities are either at-will, require a recharge roll after the battle (so maybe your ring feels like protecting you again, maybe not), can be used once every battle or used once every day. It is a wonky system that has no basis in "fictional reality" just a timing mechanic inherited from D&D 4th edition.
  But what if there were two dice? The Escalation Die goes up every turn, but the second Recharge Die goes down every turn? The catch, recharging magic items (and maybe some spells and abilities) spends recharge points after the fight?
  Now we have a nicely conflicted resource. High escalation die helps you take on the bigger monsters - but you have no recharge points to re-power your magic items and abilities. Quicker fights usually mean taking more risks though. And if you could always use recharge points- say, no recoveries, instead reach recharge point can heal 1d4 HP (you catch your breath and treat your wounds)- now everybody can benefit from having them. A short rest could be something like 10 recharge points. A low powered magic effect might need 2-3 recharge, bigger ones 4-5.
  This could even be associated - say that magic items store magic energy and discharge it to produce the item's effect. So you have to rest and meditate to channel energy back into the item (being inanimate it can't recharge itself)?
  I could kind of see this in non-combat too. The faster you persuade the guard or travel the more time you have to look around or the fewer enemies to face. Resource points could also be a counter for the pacing of the story - reinforcing how important time is (and it should be).
  Not sure about the nuts and bolts to implement this, but it sounds like a neat idea to me.

13th Age (and others?) House Rule - Combat Tactics

    Okay, I have to give props, again, to the great work done on Large Polyhedron Collider about adding tactics to RPG combat.  That series of posts kind of influenced this 13th Age idea, and while I have linked to them before I think they are worth mentioning again.
    That out of the way, let me ask you a question: what do you spend the most time thinking about in combat?

    Rolling dice, adding up modifiers, those certainly take up a chunk of the combat turn.  Deciding what spell to cast, or limited-use power, might take a little time too - assuming your class has those.  In Pathfinder we had all the combat maneuvers, you could try to disarm or trip or stuff - but I found they rarely took a lot of time to contemplate, since they generally sucked.  In Pathfinder if you didn't build a character specifically for maneuvers then they were very hard to pull off.  Even if you did take a feat or class good at them, a lot of times they were hard to do (unless you wanted to grapple the mage) - generally you would have better odds of success by stabbing something with your sword.
    13th Age seems even worse.  They don't have any maneuvers.  The flexible attacks trigger on die rolls, so you don't need to think about them at all.  1/Battle and Daily abilities you think about, but once you actually use them then you have nothing to think about again.  From my limited playing and watching my players as GM, there is not a heck of a lot you really have to focus on.  At least, not much that the rules help you with - sure, you could concoct some wild scheme, but without a rule or guideline you have no idea if that might be possible or even helpful.  Rules give you a degree of understanding - this might work, that probably won't - and you can't make a choice without some knowledge.  New players, I think, really have a hard time trying to pull some hair-brained scheme out of their back pocket.
    So, tactics.  Tactics are specific maneuvers to accomplish some kind of goal.  Strategy is a broad framework, I'm the Ranger- good in the wilderness and with a bow.  Tactics are specific, I'm going to shoot that guy.  Strategy is pretty well represented in most RPGs, it's all the character creation stuff.  The character you built (or rolled) defines your general strategy.  But every fight is not at 30 feet on a flat field at noon (or, well, hopefully it isn't) - so you need tactics for how you change your fighting style to accommodate the environment or the opponent.  Sadly few games have tactics, mostly tactical choices instead are strategic abilities when you build your character.  Pathfinder was pretty bad about that (again, if you didn't specifically build for maneuvers you had slim chance of pulling them off successfully, and who cares about an option that doesn't work?).  13th Age really seems to suck at that, since the flexible attacks that should be tactical are instead taken out of your control and there are no maneuvers, fighting defensively or aid another.

    Okay, all that complaining out of my system- here's a house rule to add some tactics to your 13th Age game, that shouldn't imbalance things too badly (actually, given that combat is generally against the players, this might really help them avoid the TPK).  Fair warning, I haven't implemented this system in my own game yet, so use at your own risk.
    My 13th Age game is a mashup with some Fate elements, but you don't need that for this house rule.  I am going to present the tactics tied to the Fate Approaches, but that's just flavor text in this case (though, honestly, I love them a lot better than the default 13th Age "skills").  So this is something you can actually drop on top of your vanilla game despite the strange wording.
    So, tactics are about choices.  I want these to be choices that anybody can make - so these tactics are available to every character (and monster, if you want).  The best choices are conflicted, they have elements that are good and bad, so I'm going to try to make these both positive and negative (in different ways).  I'm going to say that a character can change tactics at will, but the post above has a good point that once you start fighting a certain way it can be hard to stop (given the focus on staying alive) so you could say that you have to disengage to switch tactics.  You could also say that the lowest initiative has to declare what tactic they are using first, then they are resolved from highest initiative to lowest.  This lets the characters/ monsters with good initiative try to pick the best tactic for the situation, which might be worth the extra time (and means some monsters at least need to use tactics, like the "elites" and/or normals - mooks don't seem like they should be skilled enough to use tactics).  Basically, there are a lot of ways to play with this system that I will leave up to your imagination.

    On to the actual tactics.  I have two sets of them, you can use some or all.  First, let's look at the active tactics, the ways a character can modify how they attack.  These were mostly designed for melee combat, but might work well enough for ranged combat too (this is a work in progress).  There is one tactic for every Approach.  With every tactic you have to set an Approach Die (AD)- which is just a d6, you choose what number, before rolling or resolving the tactic:

• Forceful- add the AD to the damage you do and also to the damage you take.  This could be to only one opponent, or to everybody (up to your GM (or how crazy you're feeling?)).  This is like the "power attack" from Pathfinder, better damage at the risk of taking extra damage.
• Clever- roll your attack normally, without any modifier from this tactic.  If you hit subtract your AD from your opponent's AD for any positive elements.  For example, if your opponent does a forceful tactic subtract your AD from their AD damage bonus - but do not change the extra damage they take from the tactic. (this could go only on hit, or weather you hit or not depending on how hard you want to make combat)  This is only good if monsters (by which I mean any bad guy, including humans and humanoids) can also use tactics, but hey- you only need to be clever against damgerous opponents.  I guess you could re-work this as a penalty to a foe's special ability (like spells, spell-like abilities and such) depending on your system and how you want it to work.
• Quick- add the AD to your to-hit roll, but subtract it from your damage.  This is a fast attack (or series of attacks?), but that means not well aimed or very strong.  Good for when you have a hard time hitting anyways (I'd say a minimum of 1 damage after the AD mod) and to make weaker monsters a little dangerous.
• Deliberate- roll your attack normally, without any modifier from this tactic.  If you hit your maximum damage is the AD (or, each die rolled maxes at the AD).  However, if you get hit the maximum damage you can take is the AD.  This is "fighting defensively," looking to protect yourself, at the cost of doing less damage.  Good if you need to buy time for an ally to come to your aid.  Exactly how to convert the damage depends on your system (I'm actually moving to a different, simplified HP system myself which I'll describe later).
• Noticeable- roll your attack normally, without any modifier from this tactic.  On your next turn only, add this action's AD to your next action in a positive way (for example, to the bonus damage done with forceful, but not the extra damage taken).  Noticeable is about being seen, so this is where you create a false opening to lure in your opponent.  It's planning for the future, watching the fight unfold.
• Sneaky- choose weather to add the AD to hit or damage or armor class/defense.  After the action, lower the AD by 1.  If the AD is still in play (above 0) then the next time you use a Sneaky tactic in this battle you re-use the die.  You can still choose what to apply it to, and again lower by 1 after until it is out of play.  Being sneaky is very powerful, and flexible, the feint or backstab kind of maneuvers.  But, once you've stabbed someone in the posterior the odds are that they are going to pay more attention to you to avoid that happening again.  So I designed sneaky to stick around and lose effectiveness over time, keeping that "burst damage" feel I think.

    With those 6 tactics, players now have ways to modify how they act in combat, hopefully giving them something interesting to think about and a meaningful choice to make.  But after working out the above system I noticed that something was still lacking. There wasn't really a way to do that "aid another" like in Pathfinder.  I debated adding it as another tactic/approach, then had a really crazy thought- what if each tactic could be used either for oneself, or to aid an ally?  Now, there would be 6 different ways to help your teammates, which again hopefully you could customize to the situation.  So here is a list of six more tactics, when used to help an ally instead of yourself.  You still roll a normal attack/action - but instead of adding the Approach Die somehow, instead the AD is used for your ally.  If you hit, or no matter what if your GM is generous (since something that you know will work is worth doing as opposed to trying something that may or may not work).

• Forceful- knock your foe off-balance, giving your ally your AD as a bonus to hit.
• Clever- create an opening, giving one ally a free attack (with or without tactic modifiers?) against your opponent.
• Quick- interrupt your foe, subtracting your AD from their positive tactic bonuses against one ally.
• Deliberate- interpose yourself between your foe and an ally, taking the foe's attack against yourself instead.  You can intercept 1 attack for every point of your AD, but you also take your AD as a penalty to your defense.
• Noticeable- attract a foe's attention, giving that foe your AD as a penalty to hit any allies.
• Sneaky- set up your foe for an ally to finish off, adding your AD to your ally's positive tactic modifiers.

    Combat is important, life is on the line after all.  So we want it to be meaningful, to be engaging.  Which I think a lot of games have a hard time doing well.  Too much combat seems to be crunching numbers or adding dice, and not enough thinking about the situation and trying to find the best actions.  You should ideally be thinking about the fight from your character's boots, not juggling standard/move/quick/free actions, attacks of opportunity/reactions and 5 foot squares.  I think this tactic system might help add some meaningful choices to the player's list of things to think about.  I'm still polishing it to use in my current campaign, so I'll let you know after I have a chance to use it.  If any of you are brave enough to try, please throw me a comment below.  Theoretically you could use this in any game, Pathfinder or D&D 5th say, that had similar mechanics for resolving a fight.


Random Note- in Fate Accelerated the approaches have slightly different names.  What I call Deliberate is called Cautious.  And my Noticeable is called Flashy.  I kind of like my names better, for reasons, but I wanted to point it out to clarify any possible confusion.

Just How Dangerous Is Combat?

    A question for you dear reader: how many hits does it take to kill someone on average (both median and mean) in Pathfinder?
    If you're like me, odds are you never really thought about it much.  "Not many" at the lower levels to "a whole lot" at the higher levels might be your reply.  While combat starts very deadly it seems to take a million swings-and-misses by the teens, and ironically very deadly again at the highest levels with all the save-or-die effects.
    You also might be asking, so what?  Well, as both player and GM it is very important to know how deadly combat is, because you need to know what is effective.  Let's say weapons only do 1 HP of damage per hit.  Imagine this: two fighters circle, looking for an opening, and they only have 1 HP each - so the first hit will be the last.  Let's look at another example: two demigods circle, looking for an opening, each has 1,000,000,000 HP - so it's going to take a whole lot of hits to end the fight.  In the first case, with only 1 hit to kill, getting that hit becomes all-important.  You would want to take Improved Initiative for sure, and a really high Dex, to make sure you get off that first shot (and it lands).  But with a billion hits to kill, well, that's a more leisurely pace.  You have breathing room, you can try different combat maneuvers and options, since even if you fail and get hit in return, well, no big deal - lots more HP where that came from.  A low hit to kill system has a different focus from a high hit to kill one.  And as a GM, you never want to put the one HP opponent against the billion HP opponent, the lower side has no chance at all of winning, and is going to be a boring fight (well, unless you make it a very bad idea to kill the lower side, but that's another post).
    In our Pathfinder example, at low levels you pick fights very carefully, even bypass them when possible, because combat is deadly.  But by the teens you are wading into the middle of a horde of goblins, slaying them with gay abandon.  At the higher levels you stop worrying so much about armor class and start taking a hard look at your saves.  The different pacing leads to different priorities and behavior.
    But while knowing the hits to kill of Pathfinder is nice, again it is kind of unimportant - well, let's say once you know it you don't really have to think about it.  But there is a time when you have to think a lot about how dangerous your game's combat system is: when you switch to playing another game.

    If you've read the blog you know I've been making house rules for 13th Age, and digging into the structure of the system in some depth.  I started by looking at how the abilities worked, and then moved on to spells, since I want to make sure the house rules I created work within the framework of the game.  As a part of that, I have had to look at spells - specifically how spell damage compares to weapon damage.  From there I ended up taking apart the whole combat system.  And what I found explained something about the system I had felt but been unable to articulate.
    There is sort of a staple in D&D gaming, the goblin.  Virtually every 1st level player will fight the 1st level goblin as a beginning step on the road to bigger and better monsters.  When we ended our Pathfinder campaign and started the 13th Age one, I decided to keep the tradition alive and so the first encounter was between my 4 characters (my 2 friends, me as both GM and player, and the Bear animal companion who I upgraded to 1st level instead of the book 0th level) and 4 goblins.  From my Pathfinder experience I thought this would be a somewhat challenging but predictable win for the party.  Instead the bear went down and everybody was injured and glad to be alive at the end.  Which was when I noticed something, 13th Age combat is a lot more deadly than Pathfinder's was.  But until I pulled apart the numbers, I didn't really know why.  What I did know was that I was going to have to be careful, I've put in fewer monsters and played them kind of dumb (and fudged more than a few dice rolls, my players were just as surprised as me, so I didn't want to punish them for not knowing a system that I couldn't prepare them for).
    The thing is, every game is built on assumptions.  How hard should the players be compared to the monsters, how many hits should an average fight last, what options are available to both sides and how often can they use them and how big an impact do they have?  These are all decisions made by the game designers and usually hidden under all the numbers and feats and attributes and progressions and stuff that makes it hard to see the forest for the trees.
    Let's look at Pathfinder again.  The default attack in Pathfinder is the naked man.  A naked man has a base armor class of 10.  With no other modifiers, the base attacker has a zero modifier and a d20 roll.  You have to roll over, so the odds of rolling 11 - 20 is 50%.  So all attacks, at the most basic level, have a 50% to hit.  Armor and Dex make that lower for the defender, BAB progression and Str make that higher for the attacker, and there are a millions feats and spells that can change that equation.
    Okay, so once we hit, how many hits to kill?  Well, that's a bit harder to track but again, the middle-of-the-road combatant gets a d8 for hit points, and they get those every level.  While the middle-of-the-road weapon is the trusty long sword, which also does d8 damage.  So, about 2 hits on average sounds right.  Well, at first level.  See, while HP increases by a d8 every level, weapon damage doesn't.  Weapons can get an extra d6 or two, from flaming or frost or shock abilities, but mostly weapons get +1 increments (from both weapon abilities and a lot of feats).  So while it may take 2 hits to kill at level 1, by level 10 it's more like 5-8 (I'm going off the top of my head, it's a pain to try to actually calculate given all the variables).  Only spells tend to do the caster's level in damage, making them much more deadly (even without the save-of-die stuff).
    So, base 50% chance to hit, with low then higher hits to kill.

    Thing is, that's not 13th Age.
    I'm not going to go into a fully detailed breakdown, I can if anybody cares and is curious but I want to keep this post kind of short.  In 13th Age our default is still the naked guy, since he is the base chance to hit that we will be modifying.  And there, the odds are a lot different.  It looks the same, naked guy has an AC of 11 (10 plus 1 for first level and no attribute modifiers).  Thing is, the generic first level monster (mook or normal) has a base/default +6 to hit.  And, 13th Age is roll equal-or-over (Pathfinder is over), which means our monster has a base 75% to hit, a bit higher than the 50% of Pathfinder.  Also, there are very few ways in increase Armor Class in 13th Age, it mostly goes up by one point each level - but so does the base monster attack bonus.  So for all levels from 1 to 10, in an on-level fight the average monster has a good chance to hit the average player.
    It gets more fun from the player's perspective.  The average 1st level monster has a base AC of 16.  Again, with no attribute modifiers, the average player gets a +1 for being first level, which means he only has a 30% chance to hit in return.  So things are in the monster's favor by default.  And again, everything goes up by 1 point per level on both sides, so this is a common ratio from level 1 to 10.
    What about hits to kill?  Well this is pretty interesting.  The 13th Age designers seemed to really want a stable system, because even though you add one die of damage per level, even though 5 different spells have 5 different damage progressions, even though there are all these numbers to confuse things - it actually boils down to all monsters and players taking about 3 to 5 hits to kill.  No matter the attack, no matter the level, no matter the circumstances - 3 to 5 hits is about how long somebody is going to be around.
    So, monsters base 75% chance to hit and players base 30% chance to hit, 3 to 5 hits to kill throughout all levels.

    Yes, 13th Age combat is a lot more deadly than Pathfinder.  My gut feeling was right.
    Now, I am not saying that one or the other is better - let me make that clear up front.  There is no "better" or "worse" to this sort of thing.  Either you like your combat deadly or you like it leisurely, it's a matter of personal taste.  But, one thing that is important and indisputable - you have to know which one your system is.  And frankly, games suck at this.  There should be a section in every GM book or chapter on the "combat assumptions" about how hard things should be to hit and how many hits to kill and what kind of fights and player behavior the game expects.  This is vitally important information for both the GM and the players to know up front, when planning characters and gear and teamwork.  And pretty much no game actually does this.  You have to play it, or get a calculator and the book, and figure it out yourself - which is pretty darn stupid when you think that the designers had to answer those same questions and could just write down what the hell they were thinking instead of making you work for it yourself.  And like I discovered, when you switch games, try something new, if its combat assumptions are very different from your experience then you're going to have a hard time playing on either side of the screen.

Looking Under The Hood Of 13th Age

    A little while ago I posted some old work I did looking at the character creation options in Pathfinder.  That got me thinking, what if I took the same look at my current game, 13th Age?  So, here goes...

    13th Age has a much simpler mechanical structure than Pathfinder, one of the things I really like about the game.  I expected that there would be fewer choices and disjointed options than in Pathfinder (which had 3 BAB progressions, 2 save progressions, 4 skill point per level progressions and 8 different numbers of class skills).  In a way I was right, but I was also surprised at how strange some things got.  So let's look at what is nice and simple:

• All characters get 8 Background (ie, skill) points, max of 5 in any one, and they never get any more (instead the character level and an attribute are added to all checks)
• All characters get 3 points for Icon Relationships and an extra point at Champion and Epic tiers
• All characters have 8 Recoveries per day (the fighter gets 9, but through a special Class Feature)
• All characters get 1 Feat per level, which is primarily used to increase the power/options of an existing Class Talent
• All Classes give a +2 bonus to one Attribute, but not the same that is increased by the character's Race
• All characters get 3 Class Talent points to buy extra abilities (though the number of starting ones, and cost, varies)

   
    This is a good foundation, in my opinion.  I like when all the characters are built on a similar scale, with each having meaningful options, instead of some classes having a lot more to do than others.  I don't think that there needs to be a ton of different progressions, I think it's totally possible that every character chooses 5 things for example, as long as they choose from different useful pools of options and each available choice is meaningful, then there's no reason in my mind that shouldn't work.

    Then it starts getting a little weird.
    Let's look at Armor Class.  In 13th Age your class determines what your AC will be for each type of armor (being either None, Light or Heavy).  So instead of the armor itself having a modifier, the class determines the armor modifier - which seems totally backwards to me, but okay.  Out of the 9 starting classes in the core rulebook, there are 7 different armor values:
    None / Light / Heavy-
        10 / 10 / 11    Sorcerer & Wizard
        10 / 12 / 13    Barbarian & Bard
        11 / 12 / 13    Rogue
        10 / 12 / 14    Cleric
        10 / 12 / 16    Paladin
        10 / 13 / 15    Fighter
        10 / 14 / 15    Ranger
    This baffles me.  None of these progressions seem so distinct that they add anything in their complexity.  I mean, there isn't such a huge jump in the numbers that one class will seem totally different from another class, and thus worth taking (except between the very highest and lowest of course).  And the classes that are best/worst get a little weird too.  The Rogue has the highest AC with no armor, a whole 11 instead of everyone else's 10 - wow, what a big difference.  The best Light Armor classes are the Ranger (at 14) and the Fighter (at 13) - neither of which is that much higher than the norm of 12, or even the default of 10.  The highest Heavy Armor AC is the Paladin (16) with the Fighter (15). 
    Also with AC there is weather or not you take an attack penalty from wearing Heavy armor (and only heavy, nobody has a Light Armor penalty).  6 Classes have a -2 to attack in Heavy armor, including the Ranger who has the 15 AC but loses to the Fighter for second place due to the -2 hit penalty.  Now, if you are a Wizard or Sorcerer, both of whom get an 11 Heavy Armor AC, then taking a -2 to hit is totally not worth it - and even the pathetic +1 AC is not worth it without a penalty.  So why would you ever do so?  Why is it even an option?  This is not a meaningful decision.  The -2 hit for +1 AC (since for everybody the Heavy AC is only 1 higher than the Light AC)(the 12/14 Cleric and 13/15 Fighter and 12/16 Paladin do not have any attack penalties, and thus zero reason to ever wear Light armor) is a crappy trade-off that drops your damage output by a lot for a pathetic increase in survivability.
    Finally we have Shields, which are a +1 AC for every class (so no shield specialists) and every class that takes a Heavy Armor -2 penalty also has a -2 to hit with a shield (making it +2 AC for -4 to hit), except for the Bard, who only has a -1 to hit (why, exactly?).
    Now my question is, what do we gain from this complexity?  What do the players get and what does the GM get from having so many different numbers?  With 7 progressions for 9 classes only the Sorcerer/Wizard duplicate, and the Barbarian/Bard almost duplicate (except the Bard is -1 hit with shields and the Barbarian has no penalty), and everybody else has their own thing.  Do the 1 or 2 point differences really make any meaningful difference in the feel or play-style of each class?  Do we really get any better storytelling from the class having the AC instead of the armor type being the same AC for everybody (a la Pathfinder/D&D)?  Because if so I must be the one strange guy who isn't feeling it.  This is a muddle of numbers that do not seem to make any sense, and do not seem to have any worthwhile choices.  Every class should just have their one best armor type, and wearing anything higher gives a +2 (+4 would be better) AC but a -2 to hit and skill checks (so the extra combat survivability means being less useful across the board).  Or, say that No Armor and Light Armor give your Dex bonus + 1 to AC and Heavy armor gives your Con bonus +1 to AC.  That way light, quick fighters will go lightly armored and brawny fighters will go armored.  You could add a little DR, which 13th Age does not have, into the mix saying that Light Armor is DR 2 and Heavy Armor DR 4 - but again each class takes a -2 to rolls in higher armor than they are meant for.  [Normal 13th Age adds the middle of your Con / Dex / Wis, which means having one really good ability score is not much help for your AC - a fine idea to reduce the min/max'ers out there, but also makes everybody feel the same and means having one noteworthy score that should define your character instead has limited usefulness.]  With DR any tradeoff in reduced hit or skills or whatever means a guaranteed reduction in the damage you take, which is a more worthwhile choice (you may be less effective, but you will live longer).  Really, whatever the means, it seems like there has to be a better way to distinguish the classes - these progressions are all so close that they don't feel very meaningful, and they don't scale so even a +1 AC that might be something at first level will be totally inconsequential at 10th level, and they don't seem to ever offer a reason to choose to wear armor that is not the best for your class.  That looks like a bad design to me.

    In addition to armor, 13th Age adds 2 other defenses, Physical Defense (PD) and Mental Defense (MD).  These are like the Fortitude save and Will save of Pathfinder/D&D, and I am glad to see the 13th Age guys choose to make them act just like armor class (roll over by attacker to hit) instead of the strange extra mechanic Pathfinder/D&D used (roll over with different progression to resist).  Here for the 9 classes we have really 4 different progressions:
    10 / 10    Fighter
    11 / 10 or 10 / 11    Barbarian, Bard, Ranger, Sorcerer
    11 / 11    Cleric
    12 / 10 or 10 / 12    Paladin, Rogue, Wizard
    Now, I'm counting the 11 and 10 or 12 and 10 as one line, because weather you have PD higher or MD higher really doesn't matter, you're resistant to one thing more than another.  Again though, is the 1 point difference between the Fighter and the Barbarian/Bard/Ranger/Sorcerer really enough to make an edge case out of them?  And don't Fighters normally get portrayed as being tougher than smart?  Or if you want to say they are tough all over why not make them 11/11's like the Cleric?  Again, with a non-scaling defense do we really get anything out of splitting it this fine?  I'd love to see someone write a computer program to simulate a thousand fights and see if the 1 point difference made a statistically significant difference in the outcome.

    Weapons are a whole 'nother kettle of fish.  On the one had, weapons almost follow a perfect even progression: there are 5 types of weapons, 1-Handed Melee, 2-Handed Melee, Thrown, Crossbows and Bows.  Within each type there are Small, Light/Simple, Heavy/Martial.  Then we get to the exceptions.  Except there are no Heavy/Martial Thrown weapons, and there are no Small Bows (personally, what makes a Small 2-Handed weapon I have a hard time wrapping my head around, but I'll roll with it).
    Now, 1-Handed Melee weapons all do:
        Small:  d4 damage
        Light/Simple:  d6 damage
        Heavy/Martial:  d8 damage
    Except for the Rogue, who gets to do d8 damage with all 1-Handed Melee weapons, and should really have that as a special class talent/feature instead of repeating the weapon table for every class.
    2-Handed Melee weapons all do:
        Small:  d6 damage
        Light/Simple:  d8 damage
        Heavy/Martial:  d10 damage
    These are the same for every class, nice and consistent.  Now, the potentially 2-point difference is not much, again, but damage dice do scale - you roll your level in dice for each hit, so that's a 2 point spread at level 1 but a 20 point spread at level 10, so it might just barely clear the hurdle of being significant.  Barely (since the HP of the monsters also scale, hard to say if it matters much).
    The differences come with that attack penalty, just like with Armor, each class may have a penalty to hit with different weapon types:
        4 classes have no penalties to hit with anything (Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin, Ranger)
        1 class has a -2 hit with Heavy/Martial 2-Handed weapons only (Bard)
        3 classes have -2 hit with Heavy/Martial 1- and 2-Handed weapons (Cleric, Rogue, Sorcerer)
        1 class has -2 hit with Light/Simple and -5 hit with Heavy/Martial 1- and 2-Handed weapons (Wizard)
    Does the Bard really need to be an edge case?  Do Sorcerer's really need to be better with weapons than the Wizard, given that they have the same AC progression (and Hit Points)?

    Thrown weapons are a bit easier:
        Small: d4 damage
        Light/Simple: d6 damage
    And nobody has a penalty to hit, oh, no, wait a minute - Wizards, and only Wizards, have a -2 to hit with only Light/Simple Thrown weapons - really?  "Wizards throw like girls," how mature guys.

    Crossbows are supposed to be easier to use than bows, the book says at one point that while they shoot slower they have lower to-hit penalties (though really Heavy Crossbows take a move action to reload, so you have to stand still, and Small and Light Crossbows take a Quick action, which is essentially free, so they are not that much slower):
        Small:  d4 damage
        Light/Simple:  d6 damage
        Heavy/Martial:  d8 damage
    Bows do the same damage, minus the Small category:
        Light/Simple:  d6 damage
        Heavy/Martial:  d8 damage

    When it comes to penalties:
        4 classes have no to hit penalties for any Bow (Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin, Ranger)
        3 classes have no to hit penalties for any Crossbow (Fighter, Paladin, Ranger)
    Wait, I hear you ask, what happened to the Barbarian?  Well, being a backwards and primitive fool the Barbarian has the highest to hit penalties for any class with a newfangled Crossbow, a -5 to hit with all sizes.  I'm sorry, that's stupid.  The great thing about the crossbow was that it was so easy to use.  Sure, a Barbarian who's never seen one might have a -5 to hit on his or her first shot, but then would realize it is a stupidly simple weapon to operate compared to the bow, and quickly lose that penalty.  Really, guys?

        2 classes have a -2 to hit with a Heavy Bow  (Bard, Rogue)
        3 classes have a -1 to hit with a Heavy Crossbow  (Bard, Cleric, Rogue)

        1 class has a -2 hit with Light and -4 hit with Heavy Bows  (Sorcerer)
        while 2 classes have a -2 hit with Light and -5 hit with Heavy Bows  (Cleric, Wizard)
    Again, do we really need the Sorcerer to be one whole point better with one type of bow?  Why not make him a -2 Light or Heavy and make him significantly better?  Or, the same as the Wizard (again, same AC and HP between them)?

        1 class is -1 hit with Light and -3 hit with Heavy Crossbows  (Sorcerer)
        while 1 class is -1 hit with Light and -4 hit with Heavy Crossbows  (Wizard)
    See comment above.

    Again I ask, are these really that different that they are meaningful?  The Barbarian's whopping -5 to all crossbows is a very meaningful penalty (stupid, but meaningful), but a lot of the others seem to be pretty close to each other.  And is the extra 2 points of damage per level a meaningful trade-off for the +1 AC of a shield?  Or having nothing in the off-hand?  These just feel so close, while they kind of add color they don't really seem to make a lot of difference, or feel from the player's perspective that they are building towards a certain style of fighting.  There doesn't seem to be a lot of reason to take a sub-optimal choice, so why not just print the best choice for each class and forget the rest?  For that one edge case where the party loses all their gear and has to fight with scavenged weapons?  Why not make that situation the default numbers but a -2 hit and damage then?  Two lines instead of a dozen for basically the same thing.


    I'm going to run through the Hit Points since this post is getting long.
    There are 2 parts to Hit Points, the base multiplier that calculates your maximum HP and the size of your Recovery Dice that you roll when you heal, and there are 5 different progressions:
        x6 and d6  (Sorcerer, Wizard)
        x6 and d8  (Rogue)
        x7 and d8  (Bard, Cleric, Ranger)
        x7 and d10  (Barbarian)
        x8 and d10  (Fighter, Paladin)
    Why not drop the Rogue with the Sorc/Wiz and raise the Barb with the Ftr/Pally ?  Let's look at some level 10 characters (no Con mods, raw numbers):
        Fighter and Paladin have 8 x 24 = 192 HP, healing for 10d10 or an average 55 HP (or about 34% of max)
        Barbarian has 7 x 24 = 168 HP, healing for 10d10 or an average of 55 HP (or about 30% of max)
so they heal for about the same and the extra 24 HP might be one more hit, but might not make a difference when the base strike damage in the generic monster table is 135 (the 10th level Iron Golem does 50 damage per attack, and 5d10 damage on a miss, and makes 2 attacks).
    This is what I mean when I ask if there is any statistical difference in the numbers.  Sure, the Fighter and Paladin have bigger raw stats than the Barbarian, but does it really make a difference in play?  Are the players going to feel like they act and react differently from each other?  If not, then why not just use the same numbers for simplicity's sake?


    Lastly, the same thing that was hardest to compare in Pathfinder is the hardest thing to compare in 13th Age: the Class Features, fixed for each class, and the Class Talents, which are purchased with the 3 points every character gets.  Just a few observations:
    The default idea seemed to be that each class would have 3 Class Features and 3 Class Talents.  Personally, I like that idea.  The Bard and Rogue follow that pattern.  The Wizard has 4 Class Features listed, but one is a definition of how a type of spells work, and so shouldn't be in the Class Features section, they should be in the Spells section, and so the Wizard follows that pattern even though he doesn't seem to.  The Sorcerer is the same, he has 6 Class Features listed but really 3 are spell types in the wrong place and so only has 3 real Class Features, thus on the default.  So we end up with 4 classes that follow this pattern, the Bard, Rogue, Sorcerer and Wizard.
    The Fighter only has 2 Class Features, but gains a bonus Class Talent at 6th level, so ends up with the default 3/3 but in a delayed fashion.  Why?  How the hell should I know?  Looks like stupid design to me, but YMMV.  Likewise, and doubling down on the concept, the Barbarian and Paladin only get 1 Class Feature, but get 2 bonus Class Talents at levels 5 and 8, delaying them even more than the Fighter and other classes.
    The Cleric gets dumped on, only getting 2 Class Features and never gaining a bonus Talent, leaving him a little under-powered (in a sense, I know it is hard to compare these Features and Talents directly, which I consider to be another sign of bad design).  The Ranger however, gets hosed with no Class Features and but at least the 2 delayed bonus Talents, and so is the weakest overall character class, hands down.

    Now, complicating the above factors is the fact that some Features/Talents increase and some are fixed abilities.  For example, Cleric/ Sorcerer/ Wizard spells all increase in power at 3rd, 5th, 7th and 9th levels.  So do the Cries and Spells of the Bard, the Flexible Attacks of the Fighter and the Momentum powers of the Rogue.  This makes things worse though.  While the Fighter, Bard, Rogue, Sorcerer and Wizard all end up with their 6 Features/Talents eventually, they are also gaining power at 4 other levels.  Meanwhile the Barbarian and Paladin eventually gain the 6 Feature/Talents that are fixed, at only 2 levels (5th and 8th), but nothing else increases.  And the Ranger gets next to nothing, 2 delayed levels of advancement, and only gets any kind of increasing ability if they choose to take an Animal Companion (which has a minor, incremental advancement each level).
    Talk about imbalance.


    So, looking over this really long post, what do I want you, gentle reader, to take away from this?
    Well, first off that even though something is simpler than something else, does not make it simple.  13th Age is a simpler system than the Pathfinder we played before, but due to similar structures they are equally hard to modify if you don't agree with the choices they were built upon.
    Second, this is a good example of just how crazy I am and why you don't want to know me in real life.  The hours I've spent looking at these numbers (for Pathfinder and 13th Age) have been enjoyable, quite fun really, and the kind of thing my mind constantly works on.  I like this stuff.  I like pulling apart systems and debating design choices and asking myself, how would I do that differently?  I am a sad and strange little man, give thanks to the deity of your choice (or random chance) that you are not like me.
    Honestly, I don't expect anyone to take anything away from this.  Like I said, this is the kind of stuff I like to think about, and I know that very few other people feel the same way.  In fact, if you've made it through this post diligently reading the whole mess then you should get up and go get yourself a cookie for being dedicated enough to parse my madness.  I'm not sure if there is a point.  Now granted I complain about some choices in the descriptions above, but those are just my opinions.  Given the lack of 13th Age house rules on the 'net (do a Google search of the term) it seems that most people who are playing the game like it just fine.  Again, this is my own madness, shared with very few others.  It does mean trying to house rule the system is difficult, since I want to change things in fundamentally different ways, and eventually house rules become a completely different game from the original if taken too far.
    Which is the hardest thing for me.  No other game out there is quite my game, the way I would do it - and while I've tried writing my own games, and have a few times, I still have not found that particular combination of rules and mechanics that really feel right to me.  That I can embrace.  I'm very apathetic in the edition wars or the old school vs new school because neither of them does what I want in quite the way I want.  I guess on top of being crazy I'm also very hard to please ;)

Things I Love About 13th Age

    So recently I've been posting and working on a lot of house rules to 13th Age, and taking a look at some of the game's structure (which I'll post soon).  This might lead my gentle reader into thinking that I don't like the game.  Which is partially correct, there are most definitely things that I don't like about the game.  However, there are some things that I absolutely love about the game - which I want to touch on here real quick.
    The impetus for this post came from another blogger that I follow, 1d30 had a post on "The Yin and Yang of Treasure Division."  This post, for those who you who choose not to follow the link, talks about many different ways to handle dividing up the party's loot at the end of the adventure.  Which is a part of gaming that can cause great contention.  And reading this article I said to myself, thank God I don't have to deal with that.  See, in 13th Age magic items cannot be bought, that's in the rulebook - so I decided to run with that concept and ignore the gear the monsters are using completely, instead I give all my players one magic item of their choice every level (and yes, that means they started with one at first level).  So there is no selling loot, no arguing over who gets what, everybody gets something and since they can choose hopefully they are all getting something useful (well, the magic item rules (or lack thereof) are a bit wonky, but still).  I still remember playing the whole Rise of the Runelords campaign and having to write down every item, ask who wanted what, total the costs and then the selling prices, and divide that evenly amongst everybody.  It was a colossal pain in the posterior that I had to go through at the end of every gaming session (calculating the value of spellbooks was a particular torture).  Not having to do it has been a wonderful boon for both myself and my players.
    You know another thing I'm glad I'm not calculating?  Experience.  At the end of every adventure all the players go up a level.  Period.  We don't meet very often, so a nice fast progression lets everybody develop more and more of their character's powers and awesomeness.  How much XP is the level 0 peasant worth?  None.  No XP.  Ha ha, ding dong the witch is dead.  It was another huge waste of time to track that stuff and I'm glad to be rid of it.
    Massive list of skills, class skills and skill points per level?  Gone, and good riddance.  Everybody started with the same number of points and I've been giving them an extra one every level (since we use the Expertise and Approach system, which is a little more complicated than the vanilla book's Backgrounds).  <pushes the Staples "easy button">
    While there are things that bother me a lot, and baggage that has haunted 13th Age from other D&D versions, I do have to admit that they did a nice job of simplifying things and dropping some really annoying mechanics that did not add anything meaningful to the game.  Some people may love crunching the numbers and fighting over the spoils - I sure don't, and I want my players to focus on their characters' development and the storyline, not the logistics of maintaining a "murder hobo."

13th Age House Rules - Shapeshifting

    My quest continues to re-vamp 13th Age.  The Shapeshifting Talent house rule needs some setup though.  I loved how 13th Age simplified the D20/Pathfinder mechanics, and introduced some new role-playing elements; but it felt like too much of the role-playing stuff was structureless "just make it up" like the one unique thing and background systems.  So I decided to incorporate some the the concepts and mechanics from Fate Accelerated, replacing skills with Expertises and Approaches that were dynamically combined to make a "skill check."  The Expertises were just broad areas of what the player knew how to do- Fighting, Exploring, Investigating, Working and Talking.  The Approaches were how that character went about doing the action, which determined the possibly consequences and complications.
    There are 6 Approaches, in basically 3 opposing pairs, and I re-named them recently: Forceful and Clever, Quick and Deliberate, Noticeable and Sneaky. 

• Forceful is the most direct, damn-the-torpedoes-full-speed-ahead way of tackling a problem.  It is a power attack in a fight, or an intimidate check when talking, it's crafting like a blacksmith- with direct and raw strength, climbing a mountain or a brute-force denial of service attack or password hack.
• Clever is approaching a problem from a different angle, finding a solution "outside the box."  It's using the environment against an opponent in a fight, finding a hidden door or path or trap, putting together seemingly unrelated clues, inventing or improving a device or tricking someone into saying more than they meant to.
• Quick is all about speed, moving around problems to get to the end.  It's a flurry of blows, parkour-ing through the city, running a massive database search, jury-rigging something to keep operating for a few more minutes or running a quick con on the door guard to get inside (knowing that soon he'll realize he was fooled).
• Deliberate is about caution, minimizing the risks or failure.  It's aiming carefully so you don't shoot your ally who is engaged with the monster, planning the safest route, searching a room with a magnifying glass to find every possible clue, repairing something (or someone), or slowly building rapport with someone.
• Noticeable is for when you want to be seen, when you're projecting your real self.  It might mean shouting at the monster to attract its attention (so it goes after you instead of your squishy friend), leaving a trail or signaling for help when you're lost in the wilderness, organizing a manhunt or asking for the public's help, marketing and packaging your new widget or sharing your own painful experiences to convince someone else to change their ways.
• Sneaky is when you want someone to see something other than the real you.  A feint in combat (or false opening), hiding your tracks, surveillance, hidden compartments or disguise and acting.

    So, that was just to lay the groundwork for actually talking about Shapeshifting.  In 13th Age the Talent to Shapeshift is broken into two parts, Scout (or non-combat) and Combat forms.  Scout form is a small animal, something not an effective combatant like a bird or squirrel.  Combat form is big and scary like a bear or wolf.  By default you can transform into one type an unlimited number of times and the other a limited number of times per day.  This is okay as far as an ability goes, but seemed a little flat to me.
    When I think of shapeshifting, the first thing that comes to mind is the danger of losing oneself in the mind of the animal you transformed into.  I like the stories where shapeshifting isn't just a generic change of shape, but also a change of nature - you are no longer yourself, now you have this animal spirit/nature that is going to color all your thinking.  This animal nature can make you much better at some things and the animal form can give you some extra abilities - but always at the cost of some of your humanity.
    So, in this revamp we introduce the Shapeshift Die.  I don't know why I have loved the idea of the Escalation Die so much, but I find myself incorporating something like it into all my ability revamps - including this one.  The Shapeshift Die is a d6 that does not start in play.  When the character chooses to shapeshift, they have to choose a number to set the Shapeshift die at, from 1 to 6 - and they have to choose one Approach that represent the type of animal they are shapeshifting into.  So a bear or wolf might be Forceful, while an owl could be Clever, a bird Quick, a housecat Sneaky.  The Shapeshift Die represents the degree of the shift; I have an idea to link different animal abilities (like Scent or Claws or Pounce from Pathfinder) to each number on the Shapeshift Die, but that's still a work in progress.  The Shapeshift Die is also added to all rolls using the Approach chosen - but it is subtracted from all other Approaches.  This represents how the animal nature is coloring/strengthening or interfering with the human nature.  When the character shapeshifts back into their human/normal form - they lose all animal abilities and lower the Shapeshift Die by one, but keep it's modifier to the Approaches; even after leaving the animal form, an echo of it is still going to linger.  The Shapeshift Die lowers by one on each short rest, and resets to zero on every full rest.  If the character shapeshifts again, while the Die is 1 or higher, they have to set the Shapeshift Die at least 1 point higher than it currently is at.  For example: Bob turns into a lion to survive a fight, and sets the Shapeshift Die to 4.  After the fight it drops to 3.  He manages to take a short rest which drops it to 2.  But he's been stuck in the wilderness, so he wants to shift into something that will help him survive.  His new form has to be set to 3 or higher - even if it is the same approach/form he previously used.  This is because the new form (or re-attuning an old form) has to overcome the human nature and any traces of animal nature.
    Now, eventually I want to use the Approaches in combat for all characters, in which case the Shapeshift Die will help in or out of combat.  For now though, each Approach needs some sort of combat ability:
    Forceful- add 2 x Shapeshift Die to your damage
    Clever- add the Shapeshift Die to hit
    Quick- add the Shapeshift Die to your Armor Class
    Deliberate- add 3 x Shapeshift Die temporary hit points
    Noticeable- all enemies engaged with you take the Shapeshift Die as a penalty to hit anyone other than you
    Sneaky- increase your crit range by the Shapeshift Die

  Another thing is that 13 True Ways has an option to buy Shapeshifting for 1 Talent or 2 Talents.  The 1 Talent version can only shift into one type while the 2 Talent version can shift into anything.  I'm not sure how much I like this - not many Class Talents have 1 and 2 cost versions, and I hate making specialized mechanics.  But, you could keep the same system - a 2 Talent ability can shift into anything in or out of combat.  A 1 Talent ability has to choose: either it can only shift in (or out) of combat into any Approach, or it can only shift into 3 or the 6 Approaches combat or not.  Either way should limit it's usefulness enough without making the ability useless.


    This is still very much a work in progress, like all of these house rules have been.  I feel the need to say that I do like 13th Age, it's a good game - it's just not as good of a game as I think it can be, especially when combined with the more narrative, role-playing focus of Fate.

13th Age House Rules - Rage and Momentum

    In my last post I talked about a house rule I used in my last game for non-constant Animal Companions in 13th Age.  I also touched on my love/hate relationship with the game, which has led me to contemplate some more house rules.  I have not tried either of these, if/when I do I'll post how it goes.

Momentum (Rogue)
    My friend Aaron is always the Rogue, well, close enough to always at least.  So when we first started 13th Age he made one, and the Rogue's big trick is Momentum.  When a Rogue hits an opponent he gains momentum, when he is hit he loses it.  He can also spend it to trigger a few special abilities.  We played 2 adventures, and Aaron said he was not impressed with the ability, and as GM watching him neither was I.  So we debated the following change, which we'll try next time we play those characters.
    With this variant rule, Momentum is represented by a d6.  Like the escalation die, it starts at 0 (or, not in play).  When the Rogue hits an opponent the die goes to 1, and every turn the Rogue hits that same opponent it goes up by another 1 (to the max of 6 of course).  The die advances after the hit, so it is not applied until the next turn.  For every point of Momentum, the Rogue gets a +1 to damage to that opponent (at the Champion and Epic tiers when the Rogue doubles/triples his attribute mod to damage, he also doubles/triples the momentum bonus).  The Momentum bonus is also added to miss damage.
    As with the current rules, the Rogue can still spend Momentum to activate an ability, in which case reduce the momentum die by 1 (which takes effect before the damage from the ability).  If the Rogue does not hit the opponent, the momentum die stays at the same level.  If the Rogue is hit, the momentum die does not change (or goes down by 1 if you want to be harsher).  However, if the Rogue targets a different opponent, the momentum die resets to 0 and its damage bonus is not used on the new target.
    The idea for this system is that Momentum represents the Rogue's ability to study an opponent and strike at it's weak spots.  Since the escalation die already adds to hit, and doubling that seemed a bit excessive, I decided to set this as a damage bonus instead.  Attacking a different opponent means having to start over reading their fighting style and looking for weaknesses (thus the die resets).  I wrote this so you could still use the momentum powers for the Rogue, but honestly if you wanted to ditch the whole thing you could make it the momentum die x 2 for damage (or x3 and x4 at higher tiers) and possibly even apply it to hit as well (at just the die, no multiplying) - that should be a big enough bonus to help cover the lack of momentum powers, which seemed okay but maybe not spectacular.  For some extra oomph, the momentum die might also add to all non-combat skills, representing how the rogue keeps working the problem, assuming that more then one roll is required for success (like most talking, and really complicated locks/traps or searching).  Another crazy idea, the Rogue can choose to use the momentum die as a bonus to AC instead of the damage bonus until the start of his next round (only against the targeted opponent though).
    This sounded like it might have that "Rogue feel" a bit better then the regular rules, and the momentum die would apply to both melee and ranged combat, to maybe help make that "sniper-rogue" type of character.


Rage (Barbarian)
    The Rage ability is very strange to me, coming at it from a Pathfinder background.  As written it lets the Barbarian roll 2d20 to hit and take the best.  While that is very helpful, it makes the flat distribution into a rather impressive slope, it seems very limited and does not have the feel of the 'crazed fighter.'  When I think of Rage, in any game, I think of the Berserkers, the literary ancient Norse warriors who were so consumed by battle-lust that they were a danger to friend and foe alike.  I want a game to give me some passionate Rage, not the tepid, lukewarm thing in 13th Age.
    At heart, the idea for the system is this: as with Momentum, Rage is represented by a d6 and does not begin in play.  It takes a move-action for the Barbarian to enter a Raging state, which increases the die by 1.  The Barbarian can only increase his Rage state by 1 point each turn at most.  For each point of Rage, the Barbarian gains 2 times the bonus to hit and damage (so +2 hit/damage at Rage 1, +6 hit/damage at Rage 3, up to +12 at Rage 6 max).
    However, when raging each turn the Barbarian needs to choose a target to attack.  Before rolling that attack, the Barbarian must roll a d6.  If the result of that d6 is less than the Barbaran's Rage level, then the Barbarian will instead attack a random target, chosen from all visible friends and foes.  If the new target is not within range, then the Barbarian will spend their action to move closer and end their turn.
    A Barbarian can increase their Rage level by spending the move action described above, but they can also try to lower their Rage.  This is a standard action, and requires a Hard Save (16+).  If the save is successful the Rage level is lowered by 1, if not then the action is wasted.  Trying to lower Rage must be declared before a target is chosen or rolled randomly.
    I like this idea in general, that while Rage comes with some really nice benefits it is also potentially dangerous - not just to allies, if all the opponents step out of range then the Rage may have the Barbarian running back and forth between them instead of attacking efficiently; or could make the Barb waste actions killing mooks instead of dealing with a greater threat (and it's reasonable to assume the smart bad guys would try to take advantage of any raging Barbarians if possible).
    There are several ways I've thought about modifying this system.  First, the only real downside is the potentially variable targeting, and the idea that Rage inflicts penalties to skills and defenses was in Pathfinder and also makes sense.  So maybe the to hit/damage bonus is also an AC penalty (or, maybe just the Rage level is a penalty to AC, most of my monsters have hit players pretty reliably).  And possibly while Raging the Barbarian cannot do any actions that require Int (or again, take the rage level x2 as a penalty).  On the other hand, it's reasonable to say the Barbarian gets a +2 to any non-combat actions requiring great strength or intimidation (or, any "Forceful" Approach if using my 13th Age/Fate mash-up).  It could also be possible to tie some special abilities to Rage level, since the power is pretty static, it's just a bonus to straight combat rolls and not as diverse as the Fighter's flexible attacks or a spellcaster's spells - I have not thought exactly how to do that though.


    So, there are 2 more ideas for how to tinker with the 13th Age system.  I do like the simple, for a d20 game, system - but it is possible to be too simplistic.  I want all of my players to feel like they have several meaningful options each encounter, weather combat or non-combat.  Honestly, the Barbarian, Ranger and Paladin kind of get shafted, they start with only 1 Class Feature (the other classes get 3, though the Ranger actually has 0), and while they can choose 2 extra Class Talents when they tier-up at levels 4 and 8, the other classes are getting extra options at levels 3, 5, 7 and 9.  So I've really been thinking about how to re-balance class abilities since they seem to be a little out of whack.  I'll post more thoughts later, and as always feel free to leave a comment below.

13th Age House Rule - Summoning Animal Companions

    I love the concept of 13th Age, to take the Pathfinder/d20 System and simplify it, adding some more role-playing elements.  But there is a lot of the execution of the game that I just hate.  Biggest of all, I hate the meta-gaming system of abilities that are available on an arbitrary schedule: At-Will, Once Per Battle, have a Chance to Recharge after the battle, or Once Per Day.  That breaks the player out of the character's head and hurts the immersion of the game.
    In our last adventure we decided to try something different with the Animal Companion system.  In 13th Age you can either buy an Animal Companion who is always by your side, or a limited companion who is only available every other battle.  Instead of that, because I don't understand why you would not summon aid in every battle if it was possible (and there's no good reason for why it is only possible half the time), we tried a new system.  For our Ranger who had the limited Animal Companion I had her roll a d6 at the start of every battle, her companion arrived on the turn when the escalation die equaled the number rolled.  It got the normal move and standard actions, and always started at the edge of the battlefield.
     This seemed to work pretty well, some battles were fast enough the companion didn't arrive.  At the least the companion didn't arrive until the second round, and it always needed to move into position, so it was not as convenient as having the constant companion.  It seemed to be a good comprimise between not always being there but not being completely unavailable.
    Best of all, I could easily define and describe it - the Ranger had to call for an animal, and there was no way of knowing just how close the appropriate type of animal could be to the battle (she only summoned canines, thanks to the murdered ghost of her pet- something that tied into her One Unique Thing).  That gives the delay a reasonable explanation from a role-playing standpoint, and makes it a lot better in my opinion.  We only tried it for one game, but it seemed to go well so I think we'll keep it as our new system.

13th Age and Fate Mash-up

    Well, we played another game of 13th Age with some more friends, and this time we added some elements from the Fate RPG as well.  I was quite happy with the results, so I thought I'd present here what we did.

     First off, why change 13th Age?  I have to admit that after years of playing Pathfinder I loved 13th Age as a simpler, more focused version of a d20 game.  However, while it adds a lot of D&D concepts, I think it also carries some D&D baggage and makes some less than optimal additions.  The first thing I wanted to change was the Background system.
    For anyone who might not know 13th Age, the Background part of a character is basically the character's skills.  Each character has 8 points to distribute among as many backgrounds as they want.  Each background is a title or sentence that describes what the character knows how to do.  For example, you might have the background of "Inner Sea Pirate" or "Assassin of the Black Hand."  The idea is to add some more character and details by describing instead of choosing from a dry list of skills.
    The problem I have with the system is that while it is nicely descriptive it leaves too much wiggle room.  You and the GM need to be exactly on the same page for what kinds of tasks fall under your background and which ones don't.  Also, the system is pretty broad, so it is possible to make a background that applies to a very broad group of situations, or one that is very limited.  With no objective standards it can be hard to know when to, or when not to, use a background.  It can become a "one size fits all" system.  That I don't like because I think it limits the group dynamics, in the party I like it when some people are experts at a task, and others are trying to figure out how to make the best of a bad situation.
    My solution was to incorporate a concept from Fate, or rather a Fate variant, the Pathfinder Fate Accelerated.  Basically, you split "skills" into 2 parts- I call them Expertise and Approach.
    Expertise covers what sorts of things you know how to do, there are 5 total: Fighting, Exploring, Investigating, Working and Talking.  Fighting has to do with what Pathfinder called "Combat Maneuvers"; overrun, bull rush, trip, feint, disarm, grappling and that sort of stuff.  Exploring covers anything that deals with moving through the environment, survival, navigation, stealth, and even dealing with locks and traps.  Investigating deals with knowing and discovering facts, basically a way for me the GM to give the Player some extra information.  Working is making and creating things, craft and perform and even games/sports, as well as some odd things like healing (working with other people's bodies) and sleight of hand (working with your own body).  Lastly there is Talking, which deals with interacting with other sentient creatures.
    Expertise is only one half of the equation though, the other half is Approach.  Approach covers how you go about doing things, and there are 6 total: Forceful, Quick, Clever, Cautious, Flashy, and Sneaky.  So Talking + Forceful = Intimidation, while Talking + Quick = "fast-talking" or distracting someone with words.  Exploring + Quick = moving fast, while Exploring + Cautious = covering your tracks so you can't be tracked.  There are no hard and fast rules, you have to assess each situation and think of what combination makes the most sense.  In the one adventure I ran with the system though, it was not too hard to come up with a combination or two on the spot.
    The final part of the system is the same 13th Age stuff that I didn't change.  You always add the most relevant attribute modifier and your level to a d20 roll for a total.  There are only 3 DCs to aim for, Easy, Moderate and Hard, which change depending on your level.  For levels 1 through 4 (called the "Adventurer Tier") the DCs are 15, 20 and 25.  Each Expertise and Approach defaults to 0 and can go up to 3 (you divide 8 points total any way you want among them all).
    What I like about the system is that it is flexible, each element covers a fairly broad category of actions or outcomes, so you have structure but not a straightjacket.  Also, it helps to distinguish characters a bit more, the high Talking character does most of the interrogating and such - but since you can always add an Approach, it's still possible to succeed at something that is not your main focus (my goal was to do Elliot from Leverage, he is the Hitter (Fighting and Forceful) but can still talk to people, he just does it forcefully).  And even if 2 or more characters had the same Expertise, the different Approaches let them feel more distinct from each other.
    It's kind of an odd system, but it seemed to work well.

    The last thing I did for my mash-up was to add Aspects.  In Fate an Aspect is a sentence describing some part of your character that is both good and bad.  So "World-Renowned Outlaw" could be an aspect, or "Wizard Private Eye," or even "Sucker For A Pretty Face."  This is similar to the One Unique Thing that exists in 13th Age but where your One Unique is meant to be storytelling-based, and what could literally make you unique from everyone on the planet, Aspects give actual mechanical benefits and are internal to the character.  With Aspects you also get Fate Points.  I started everybody with 2.  When you "compel" an Aspect, or use it as a reason to fail at something and get yourself in trouble, you gain a Fate Point.  You can also spend a Fate Point on an action related to one of your Aspects to get a +5 bonus to the action (the whole action, so attack and damage or the whole turn increase to AC for example).  That's a pretty darn big bonus.  You can only spend one Fate Point on one action, and you can spend them before or after you roll (I wanted to be flexible).  Players did not have to use their Aspects or Fate Points, some pretty much ignored them.  Also I only had them come up with 5 Aspects, if I remember correctly Fate uses between 7 to 10.
    If you want to know more about Aspects, they are a pretty big topic, try this link on "Writing Good Aspects" by Robert Hanz.

    The game we ran was the Shadows of Eldolan adventure for 13th Age, and as a quick side note it was well written and everybody liked it.  Two players had played 13th Age before, and Three had not - nobody had played Fate before (including me, I just liked the concepts).  Everyone seemed to pick up the system easily, for being new to it.  Overall I was happy, and I am still tinkering with some more changes I'd like to make to 13th Age (though, I'm getting close to re-writing the whole game at this point, I have a bad habit of doing that).
    I have also been making character sheets for 13th Age and the 13th Age/Fate hybrid.  Here is a link to the general sheet that I have on my Google Drive, and the Adobe Illustrator source file.  These sheets are based on the most excellent work done by Dyslexic Studeos.  Those were the best Pathfinder sheets I had ever found, so I used them as my base.

13th Age / Fate Generic Character Sheet  and Adobe Illustrator Source File

    Anyways, not sure if any other 13th Age players out there might find this useful (or consider it sacrilege), but there it is.  I'll post my more regular 13th Age character sheets sometime soon, but I need to merge some files together (I've done too many variants and I'm getting confused myself).   Also, I used a custom system for equipment which I may describe if anybody's interested.  Hope some of this is useful, as always you can leave a comment below.

13th Age Impressions After 2 Adventures

    After wrapping up our Rise of the Runelords campaign GMed by my friend Aaron we have now started a 13th Age campaign GMed by me.  This is our first time playing 13th Age, and while I will try to write a good review of it later, here are some first impressions after finishing our 2nd adventure.

Simpler Is Better
    One thing about transitioning from Pathfinder to 13th Age is how much simpler 13th is by comparison.  In 13th Age classes only go up to 10 levels instead of 20, and there are fewer mechanical bits to track.  It's a general design philosophy that we have embraced, I don't bother to hand out gold pieces, I just assume that anything reasonable my characters want they have - and my players being reasonable people that works just fine.  We also don't do XP.  We played out Rise of the Runelords in 14 sessions, going from levels 1 to 18; my friend Aaron thought it would be cool to play 13th Age in 13 sessions going from levels 1 to the cap of 10.  So we will be leveling up after about every session, which takes care of the whole XP tracking thing.  In general we have streamlined everything from the overly-bloated Pathfinder into a more manageable system, and I love it.  Personally I don't feel like we have lost anything, but we only have 3 players of different classes and nobody wanted to try some weird or unusual idea for a character concept - so we haven't needed a lot of archetypes or alternate rules.

Rangers Get Hosed
     One bad simplification though is with the Ranger class, which Sara plays in our game.  Rangers either take weapon traits and are basically fighters, or they take an animal companion.  Seeings how there are only 3 of us, Sara decided to take the companion to have a 4th character and someone who could protect the squishy Wizard (me).  Which was cool, and had that Ranger vibe.  Except, that was it.  You only get 3 Class Talents to start, and taking the Animal Companion takes up 2 - so that companion is pretty much all that's unique/cool about your character.  The problem is that they are rather boring.  Every companion has the same stats, based on level, and one power based on the type of animal (Sara's Bear gains temporary HP when it hits something) but the stats are fixed and the power never changes.  You can add a few extra powers with feats, most of which are either passive one 1/day abilities.  Companions do not have attributes, do not have any special attacks or options in combat, and are quite boring to play really.  There are very few ways that the Ranger and Companion can interact, something that should be at the heart of that character concept.  We did get 13 True Ways, which added a few 1/day spells to use on a companion, but while that is better than nothing it is not an actual fix.
    My Wizard and Aaron's Rogue are both cool enough though.

Combat Is Unexpected
    Our first fight was 3 1st-level Goblins against the 1st-level Ranger and Rogue characters plus the Bear.  Some things are just tradition in D&D or any of its derivatives.  I expected the fight to be somewhat tough but doable, since Goblins are usually pushovers.  The Bear was knocked unconscious and both players injured before the Goblins were defeated.  It was a lot harder fight than I expected.  And combat has been like that, hard for me as GM to predict weather it will be easy or a TPK.  Part of that is because it is a new system and none of us are used to it yet (including my players knowing how to use their abilities to maximum advantage).  Part of that is because with fewer levels the monsters are kind of tougher - a 1st-level 13th age Goblin feels more like a 2nd-to-3rd-level Pathfinder Goblin.  It has been good so far, but is definitely taking some getting used to and adding to the burden of being GM (I don't like to kill players, so I hate not being sure just how many of what monsters they can handle).

It's Fun To Be Creative
    We last played a canned adventure straight out of the book with RotR, so I've been trying to do something different with 13th Age.  Our fist adventure had some fights, but also ways to non-violently end some confrontations and a bad guy who wasn't all bad at the end.  The second adventure was a series of riddle-encounters, which turned out to be the longest and hardest since one of my players was sleepy and not at the top of his game.  It's nice as GM to be free to make up things, while there is a sketchy outline of an adventure in the core rulebook and another in 13 True Ways, there is not really any kind of solid campaign so I've had to make stuff up.  That's also been kind of tricky, since I now have the burden of making stuff up for a game system I don't really know.  Overall though it has been good so far.
    I have ended up making some character sheets though, the ones in the book are mediocre at best.  That has added a lot of time behind Adobe Illustrator on top of writing out ideas.

There's Not A Lot Of Magic Items
    Magic Items are much simpler in 13th Age, each type of item having a fixed benefit (like a weapon giving a bonus to hit and damage, armor a bonus to AC, cloaks a bonus to saves) and then having one special property on top of that.  The core rulebook has several sample properties, but it is not a great selection.  I really wish they had dropped the concrete examples for a chapter on the idea behind magic items, how powerful roughly they should be and what kinds of abilities would be game-balanced.  Sara is the bow-wielding Ranger, so she would like a magic bow, but there is only 1 example in the book - the rest are magic ammunition, and the book does not say how many shots would be appropriate (though being Pathfinder-based I'll go with 50).  Likewise there are some armor special abilities that let you use your base AC for one of your other defenses (physical or mental, non-weapon stuff) - which is useless for my Wizard since my base AC is my lowest, and was no help for Aaron's Rogue where two of the three are the same number.  It's just hard to think of a new magic ability that is not over- or under-powered from the few examples in the book and no clue as to what the designers were thinking/planning for in the system.
    Also, the default bonuses are pretty small, a +1 to +3, which while better than nothing is not exactly a game-changer for the character.  Now, Pathfinder had to opposite problem of magic items being potentially over-powered, but here they feel not quite powerful enough.

    Anyways, there are a few of the things that have stuck out so far.  Again, we have only played 2 adventures, so we don't really know the system yet.  I have to say though, if I was forced to choose between playing 13th Age or Pathfinder, I think I would go with 13th Age.  I'm not really an "old school" player who misses the days of 1st Edition D&D, but I do think that Pathfinder has just gotten too big, too bloated to be fun anymore.  13th Age is a nice middle-ground between 1st and 3rd edition D&D styles of play and I am glad we have started playing it.  As a new game it requires some GM work to fill in the blanks, and there are some things about the rules I am not super-fond of, but on the whole it is a good game.  Aaron and Sara seem to like it overall too.

    I'm still working on my write-up about Rise of the Runelords, and when I finish my 13th Age character sheets I'll post them here as well.  Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays.

1 Character, 13 Systems - Part 2: 13th Age

    I described my character, Korsanian, in a previous post here. 
    Now, let's see what he looks like in the 13th Age system:

Books Used: 13th Age core rulebook
Approximate time to create: 1 hr

Korsanian Vambrae  -  High Elf, Wizard (level 1)

Attributes:
Str  8  (-1)
Dex  8  (-1)
Con  8  (-1)
Int  20 (+4)
Wis  18 (+3)
Cha  10  (+0)

Combat Stats:
Hit Points (HP)- 15
Armor Class (AC)- 10
Physical Defense (PD)- 10
Mental Defense (MD)- 16
Initiative- +0
Recoveries- 8 (1d6-1)

One Unique Thing: carries a potent magical curse within his body, locked in his magical gift (which it has warped)

Icon Relationships:
Positive- Great Gold Wyrm (1) like the Wyrm, Korsanian has used his own body to contain an evil, which has earned him some support from the Wyrm's followers
Conflicted- Elf Queen (1) though he is an elf, he has been afflicted by the curse and left his homeland, which has led some elves to look down on him
Negative- The Diabolist (1) Korsanian believes that the curse came from The Diabolist or one of her puppets, he is currently investigating this suspicion

High Elf Racial Power:
Highblood Teleport- 1/battle with a Move-action can place himself at any nearby location he can see

Backgrounds:
High Elf Ranger +4 (tracking, land navigation, survival, identify plants and animals in a forest setting)
Student of Magic +2 (identify magic items, spells, arcane and divine)
Herbalist/Alchemist +2 (make/mix potions, poisons, special consumables)

Feats:
Abjuration increase- Abjuration class talent bonus applies to PD as well as AC

Weapons:
Staff (2H)  +0 to hit  1d6-1 dmg
Dagger (1H)  +0 to hit  1d4-1 dmg
Hand Crossbow (2H)  +0 to hit  1d4-1 dmg

Armor:
none

Gear:
Flint and tinder, Money pouch (small), Backpack, Rain cloak, 5 days Rations, Sleeping roll, Waterskin, Common lantern, 8 hrs Oil, 50' Good rope, Blanket, 10 Candles; 9 GP, 8 SP

Class Abilities:
Cantrips - at-will minor effects like Alarm, Arcane Mark, Ghost Sound, Knock, Light, Mage Hand, Mending, Prestidigitation, Spark
Cyclic Spells - spells with the Cyclic descriptor can be cast 1/battle, but are not used up for that battle when cast if the escalation die is even
Overworld Advantage - when in the Overworld all Daily spells become Recharge 16+
Ritual Magic - can cast out of combat ritual spells

Class Talents:
High Arcana - can memorize 2 daily spells, gain bonus spell "Counter-magic"
Wizard's Familiar - small animal, not normally tracked in combat; Counter-bite (1st foe to hit Korsanian in a battle takes auto 1d4 dmg); Scout (1/day can scout ahead)
Abjuration (feat-enhanced) - when casting a Daily spell gains +4 to AC and PD until the end of his next turn

Spells: (1st level slots- 5)
x2 Blur [Daily] target self or other; for rest of battle (or 5 min) all attacks have 20% miss chance against target (this is described as him absorbing some of the luck/random energy around/near the target, which is why he gets the Abjuration bonus with this spell (since the absorbed energy acts as a sort of armor))
Debilitating Field (aka Color Spray) [Cyclic] 1d4 nearby enemies in a group; Int + lvl vs MD; on hit does 2d8 psychic damage, targets with less than or equal to 10 HP after attack are Weakened until end of Korsanian's next turn (this is described as him draining the life/innate magic of anyone nearby)
Shield [Recharge 11+] free action, self; attacker must re-roll a to hit roll (this is a mild drain of life/magic, just enough to distract instead of damage)
Counter-magic [1/battle] Int + lvl vs MD of a creature casting a spell; if hits cancel the spell and creature loses the action to cast it, if the spell had a limited use subtract one charge if the natural attack roll was even (this is what holding the curse has done to his gift, he absorbs magic instead of letting it go in spell form)


    Given that this character idea came from the first 13th Age character I made, it's not surprising that the system does a pretty good job of making him.  I originally wanted him to be a Wood Elf, since they would be the ones logically patrolling the forest, but the 13th Age Wood Elf racial power did not really fit with the character, and the attribute bonus didn't work either.  Speaking of attributes, I used the point-buy method (28 pts total) to make his attributes, so that I would get exactly what I wanted and not the random luck of the dice.
    If possible, with the GM's permission, I would modify him a little bit.  The Ranger talent for an Animal Companion works better than the Wizard Familiar - the familiar does not really take part in combat, while the animal companion does/can.  Since Sovan, his pet, only fights in his defense and not as a general party warrior, I'd ask if I could swap familiar for companion.  I'd be willing to give up his feat for that exchange, the Abjuration class trait and feat is okay, it makes his Blur spell more defensive, but it's not totally within my character concept.  I would also be willing to swap the feat for Linguist if it was relevant to the campaign, since he was supposed to have studied the outside world for some time before leaving the forest.  I like the Ranger's Track class talent (and it's terrain stunt feature), it seems like something he might have (a leftover bit of his ranger training) and again I'd be willing to swap out something for it.
    I really don't like the ritual magic, the character idea is that he negates magic not actually, actively, casts it, so it doesn't quite fit.  Likewise the Cantrips class ability is not quite what I had imagined, though you could say that those minor magics are all the power he has left to actively effect the non-magical world.  I have no idea what the hell the Overworld Advantage is good for, it seems pretty limited.  Abjuration is also a throw-away ability and feat, it kind of works and I can sort of see how I described it, but I'm not sure what real use it is (except under limited circumstances).  I really wish his Counter-magic could work more often, it's the center point of the character concept, at least Cyclic would be nice instead of only once a battle (and the Abjuration effect would go a lot better with it instead of Blur).  I was proud of myself for re-defining Color Spray to be something useful, but Shield was a stretch.  There were also other spells he could have taken: the Utility spell, Acid Arrow, Charm Person, Magic Missile, Ray of Frost, and Shocking Grasp but none of them fit with his concept, so his spell selection is very, very limited (more so than the already limited spells in the book).  I wanted his Herbalism/Alchemy background to give him some other combat options, but sadly there is no list of alchemy items like with Pathfinder.
    Overall he's not bad.  Close enough to my concept that I'd like to try playing him.  Wish there were a few more spells, maybe something along the "detect" lines that I'd also like to be capable of, but oh well.