tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58917317475157620732024-03-13T11:10:01.814-07:00The Chamber of Mazarbul: Dungeons and DragonsThe title of this blog refers to the hall of records where the Fellowship of the Ring discovers Balin's tomb in Moria. As for the content of this blog, it will serve as a "hall of records" of sorts for my various thoughts on Tabletop RPGs. Brian Slabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05333048710667620592noreply@blogger.comBlogger266125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5891731747515762073.post-9111404901222704552017-12-09T09:12:00.003-08:002017-12-09T09:12:43.403-08:00Genesys Science ExperimentLast night I got together with the Saturday night group for a bonus RPG session - a playtest of Genesys, with the specific intention of comparing magic users to weapon users. While the game itself was fun, the comparison itself left me pretty unsatisfied, in that I don't think I got any more insight into the relative power differences. This was because we weren't recording the session or tracking any data quantitatively. <br />
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There were a lot of spellcaster attack rolls that failed, and there were players that voiced their apprehension at the higher difficulties necessary in order to use magic. I will say that the "Strain Tax" for casting spells was less dire than I thought it had been - sort of. I did have a string of "spammy" healing rolls where I racked up strain REALLY fast for no benefit (out of 3 rolls, I had 1 total advantage that I used to heal 1 Strain). But I don't think that the other spellcasters felt strapped for Strain, although they also tended to use fewer second maneuvers compared with the melee characters.<br />
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Ultimately, I didn't think that the playtest really contributed as evidence in any arguments I was making, either for or against my hypothesis that Genesys magic is too punishing. Unsatisfied with the anecdotal experience that we had, as soon as I got hope I started randomly generating some rolls. I finished that experiment tonight.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Methods</span><br />
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I wanted to compare a magic attack vs a weapon attack in as equal a way as possible. I gave both characters a 4 in their relevant attack characteristic, and 2 ranks in their attack skill. This resulted in a YYGG dice pool for both characters. For the purposes of extra abilities, I assumed that the mage had 2 ranks in Knowledge.<br />
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I wanted to use a spell that replicated the function of a Greataxe as closely as possible. For this purpose, I used the Attack spell to roll Disintegrate (a classic!). I assumed the mage was wielding a Staff for maximum base damage (and a free range upgrade; this is a ranged beam of destructo-force, after all). I added the Deadly and Destructive additional effects, which bumped the total difficulty of my check up to 4 purple dice. The difficulty of melee checks are set at 2 purple dice. I also assumed that the hypothetical enemy had one rank in Adversary, just so I could put a red die in the mix. So here's what we've got:<br />
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<b>Greataxe</b>: base damage 8, crit 3, engaged range, Pierce 2, Vicious 1.<br />
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<b>Disintegrate</b>: base damage 8, crit 2, medium range, Pierce 2, Vicious 2, Sunder.<br />
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Both of these attacks are designed to do decent damage, have nasty crits, and Pierce through soak. Disintegrate is the slightly more powerful attack, in that it crits with one fewer Advantage, goes out to medium range, has one more point in Vicious, and has Sunder. I would argue that the range is roughly a wash, though. Sure, the Greataxe wielder needs to spend maneuvers to engage the enemy, but they also have higher soak to make up for that, and on the flip side of an enemy engages with the mage, the mage has to either add another purple die to make Disintegrate close combat, or spend a maneuver to back up. So really, we're looking at slightly better Vicious and Crit rating, and Sunder. Is that worth spending 2 strain every time you use the spell, <i>and</i> the higher difficulty, <i>and</i> worse threat results? Probably not. But at this point, the question is almost rhetorical. How do these weapons actually <i>perform</i>?<br />
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I made <b>100 random rolls</b>, and entered the results into a spreadsheet. I'd recommend taking a peek at the <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Z1OlATmDg8_d-7teJdNbyUkp-KVj3A-YcKEw0c_-YK8/edit?usp=sharing">Genesys Magic Test Rolls data</a> if you're interested in the specific results.<br />
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Because I wanted this comparison to be as direct as possible, I rolled the Greataxe attack first. After recording the results, I then simply rolled two extra purple dice for Disintegrate. This way, <b>both attacks are effectively using the same roll</b>. In this way I was able to track <i>exactly</i> which rolls would have hit with a Greataxe and missed with Disintegrate, and which rolls generated enough advantage to crit with the Greataxe vs. Disintegrate. <br />
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After the results columns, I tabulated how much damage each attack did and what their Threat/Advantage Factor was. For T/A factor I recorded a positive number if there were net Advantages, and a negative number if there were net Threat. I didn't worry about comparing Triumph/Despair between rolls because they'll never be affected. Both characters were rolling the same number of yellow and red dice, and these symbols never cancel. <br />
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Finally, I calculated Mean, Median, and Mode for both damage and T/A Factor, and I highlighted all of the rows in which the Greataxe succeeded and Disintegrate failed in yellow. Then, I highlighted cells in the Triumph column and/or T/A Factor column that allowed each attack to crit. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Results</span><br />
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The Greataxe had an <b>average damage of 8.5</b> and averaged just over <b>1 Advantage.</b><br />
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Disintegrate had an <b>average damage of 6.36</b> and averaged <b>0.5 Threat</b>.<br />
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I don't think that the median really tells us much, and I basically just calculated it for shits and giggles. Not surprisingly, median damage is lower for Disintegrate (9 vs. the Greataxes's 10), and median T/A Factor is straight up 0, compared with 1 for the Greataxe. <br />
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The results for Mode really surprised me. In case you don't remember this infrequently used statistic from math class, the Mode is the value in a set of numbers that occurs most often. I think this is actually really valuable information for roll results in an RPG. This might arguably be a more significant representation of actual play experience than average.<br />
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<b>The mode for Greataxe damage was 10</b>. So the most likely result of any given die roll with this weapon is that you're doing 10 damage. <b>The mode for Disintegrate was 0</b>. I honestly went back and double checked that I did the formula correctly when I saw this. As much as I've been skeptical of the balance for magic in this system, I didn't expect that the most likely result of any given die roll would be a flat out miss. But it actually makes sense when you track how many individual rolls were a hit with the Greataxe but a miss with Disintegrate. These rows are highlighted in yellow in the spreadsheet, and there are 18 such rows. Because I made 100 random rolls, this means that <b>18% of my sample rolls generated a hit with the Greataxe and a miss with Disintegrate</b>. I'd recommend going into the spreadsheet and looking at the specific results for those highlighted rolls. You might be surprised at how few of those rolls are tempered with high amounts of Advantage. In fact, a lot of those generated <i>Threat</i>. <br />
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As a visual exercise also pay attention to the Threat/Advantage columns for the two attacks as you're scrolling down. Predictably the Greataxe generates more Advantage and Disintegrate more Threat, but I was actually pretty surprised at how stark that difference was. For anyone who thinks that mages can reliably heal Strain with Advantages, you might be in for a rude awakening. And for any GMs who adhere strongly to the enhanced Threat/Despair table specific to magic users...ouch. <b>In terms of the mode for T/A Factor, it was 1 for the Greataxe and 0 for Disintegrate</b>. So the Greataxe typically nets Advantage, while the most common result for Disintegrate is a wash on this axis. <br />
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Alright, let's close out this analysis by looking at crits. Both of these attacks are designed with crits in mind. First, we'll take a look at Triumphs. The results for Triumphs were more equitable between the two attacks, and we expect exactly that. They're never cancelled out, and both attacks roll the same number of Yellow Dice. Indeed, since I used the same rolls, the two attacks got the same exact Triumph results. <b>However, the Greataxe can generate 13 crits from Triumphs in my sample, whereas Disintegrate can only generate 11</b>. You have to hit to activate a crit, and there were two rows highlighted in yellow that had Triumph results. Still, not a huge difference here.<br />
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This actually surprised me considering Disintegrate crits with 2 Advantage whereas the Greataxe crits with 3 Advantage, but the Greataxe generated a lot more crits through Advantage. This is simply because that weapon <i>generated</i> a lot more Advantage to begin with. <b>Out of 100 rolls, only 1 roll resulted in a crit using Advantage with Disintegrate</b>. Let that sink in for a second. Meanwhile, <b>the Greataxe was able to crit 9 times out of 100 rolls using Advantage</b>. I think those results speak for themselves.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Closing Thoughts</span><br />
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This is a comparison between 1 spell, with 1 specific set of extra effects, vs 1 weapon. I've observed that the balance between certain spell effects can vary (i.e. Blast being useless and Ice being much better than Paralyzed, once difficulties are factored in). Therefore, your mileage may vary when using different spells with different effects! I chose Disintegrate because I personally think those extra effects are pretty middle-of-the-road, and most importantly because it allowed my spell to mimic the function of the Greataxe as closely as possible. <br />
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The argument that the versatility of magic is a strength I haven't been valuing enough is a valid one, to be sure. However, much of that versatility comes from extra effects that can be added onto spells, and many of these extra effects require Advantage to activate (Burn, Blast, Ensnare, etc.). My test rolls demonstrated that Advantage was even <i>harder</i> to obtain than I had assumed. Also, the relative scarcity of Advantage and the fact that you'll be using any Advantage you get to fuel those effects you increased your difficulty for means that you'll be less likely to recover Strain than non-mages. This is on top of the "Strain Tax" that you spend every time you cast a spell! <br />
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Sure, you can opt to add fewer effects and bring down your difficulty. But Disintegrate was as comparable a spell I could get to a weapon's statistics, and in order to get to that level you're rolling against 4 purples. There may be some exceptions, but by and large if you cast less impressive spells you'll be underperforming compared with weapon users, and you'll be spending Strain to do it. Consider if I'd opted to leave off the Destructive quality to Disintegrate. Using my 100 sample rolls, you can consider the Greataxe rolls to be equivalent to a roll with this de-powered Disintegrate, since the difficulty would be 2 purples. In fact, in that instance Disintegrate would crit <i>more</i> than the Greataxe. A <i>lot</i> more, actually. TWELVE additional times, for a total of 21 crits generated through Advantage! However, you're giving up Pierce 2 to lower that difficulty, so the Greataxe effectively has two extra damage on you. And crits are more for their debuff effects (unless you're dealing with minions, or roll high enough) than they are about killing things. It's hard to say which version of Disintegrate is "better," but that alone makes me scratch my head. It's not very intuitive to "upgrade" you spell to get something worse. <br />
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Ultimately, I think the magic system is a little more nitty gritty than what I would have preferred, partially because of the obscurity of your statistical likelihood of success when you pick up a dice pool. The "good" options and "bad" options seem difficult to assess, since difficulty adds another variable and will adjust your odds of not only succeeding, but rolling Advantage/Threat. I guess this is just a complicated way for me to say that I'm not claiming my sample rolls are representative of the <i>entire</i> magic system. But I think it was a useful exercise, with a suitably large sample size, that illustrates why I'm apprehensive about the drawbacks that magic users suffer in this system.<br />
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<br />Brian Slabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05333048710667620592noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5891731747515762073.post-52065861578809806722017-12-06T18:28:00.003-08:002017-12-06T18:28:36.079-08:00Common D&D Spells Converted to GenesysIf you haven't already read my <a href="http://thechamberofmazarbuldnd.blogspot.com/2017/12/genesys-magic-first-impressions.html">first impressions of magic in Genesys</a>, I recommend doing so for some context. In short, I'm not happy with the magic rules of Genesys because the drawbacks are too harsh for what you get. I think it might be instructive to convert some basic D&D spells to Genesys to showcase exactly how the extra effects adjust difficulty, and what you're getting for your trouble.<br />
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I'll be a little more generous to the magic users this time, and assume that they have a 4 in their relevant spellcasting characteristic. In the years I've been playing Star Wars, I've personally only created a couple of characters that started with a 4. I'd much rather have 3 in half of my characteristics, but that's personal preference and I tend to enjoy well rounded characters more. But mages need all the help they can get, and a 4 will help achieve that. <br /><br />Also, I'll assume that the magic user is using a Staff, for simplicity. You can game the system a little bit by swapping out implements to suit your spell, but since the same is true for weapon users (everyone will ultimately be limited by how much gold they have) I don't consider it an inherent advantage of mages.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Fireball</span><br />
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To start with, a classic. Arguably the most iconic D&D spell. You're obviously going to use the Attack spell, and we're going to add Fire to it (duh) for +1 purple. I'll also add Blast for another +1 purple, even though Blast sucks and probably isn't worth using. The problem is, you can't really have a fireball without Blast, so the fact that it sucks just shows that Genesys doesn't do a great job at replicating fireball. Finally, I think we need to add +2 purple dice for Empowered. Fireball is about damage, and it's about a BIG blast. A blast that only hits things engaged with the target isn't really Fireball, it's more like a puny little Scorching Burst. <br /><br />Fireball winds up being a 5 Purple check (Formidable). It's worth mentioning that even high level Star Wars characters rarely have to make a Formidable check. Thanks to the Staff, we can cast Fireball at medium range for free. In D&D it's typically a longer-ranged spell, but I don't think adding a 6th purple die to the difficulty is remotely worth it. You could also argue that since Fireball targets Reflex (or, in Dungeon World, ignores Armor) that it might be worthwhile to add Destructive to it. But that's another +2 purple and no character can really handle that. It's not as integral to the spell as Fire, Blast, and Empowered.<br /><br />You end up with Base Damage of 12, Medium Range, no crit rating, Blast (probably 2-4, depending on ranks in Knowledge), and Burn (2-4). Keep in mind that Blast and Burn both require 2 Advantage each to activate.<br /><br />For fun, I'm going to do some test rolls to see how our hypothetical, Fireball flinging Wizard fares. Two ranks in Arcana are assumed. I'll assume the main target has Adversary 1. Our dice pool is thus YYGG RPPPP.<br /><br /><b>Roll 1</b>: 1 Failure, 3 Advantage. We can activate Blast! It will probably only be 2 or 3 damage though, and only the the primary target. An Adversary 1 enemy probably has more soak than that.<br />
<b>Roll 2</b>: 1 Success, 3 Threat, and 1 Triumph. 13 damage isn't too shabby, and with the Triumph we'll activate Burn or Blast (Burn is better). In a couple of rounds, our primary target is probably toast. But with 3 Threat, the GM can decide that an ally was caught in the Fireball, too! 13 damage to a friend. Ooops. Or the GM can be a real dick and cause the Wizard to lose 6 more Strain (on top of the 2 spent to cast the spell), or take 3 Wounds (maybe the Wizard got a little singed). <br />
<b>Roll 3</b>: 1 Failure, 0 net Advantage/Threat, 1 Despair. Cool, Mr. Wizard just spent 2 strain to either fry a friend (and just a friend), or become unable to cast spells for the rest of the encounter. Great.<br />
<b>Roll 4</b>: 2 Failure, 0 net Advantage/Threat, 1 Triumph. Well, I guess we're triggering Blast again, but unless the enemy is a glass cannon we won't penetrate soak. Better to come up with something creative.<br />
<b>Roll 5</b>: 2 Success, 3 Threat, 2 Triumph. Holy dice luck, Batman! This is probably the best we could have hoped for! Those 3 Threat are REALLY nasty, though. Ok, so you hit the primary target for 14 damage, and we're DEFINITELY going to Burn that guy. He probably won't last another 2 rounds, even if everyone else ignores him. And we're going to Blast everyone else (but for a measly 4-5 damage). Depending on your enemies, the Blast might ACTUALLY do something! But keep in mind that Stormtrooper equivalent mooks will have 5 soak. Let's mix it up and spend 1 of those Threats to deal 2 Strain (for a total of 4 this turn), and then we can either crack Mr. Wizard's Staff, or say the Fireball takes an extra round to go off. Neither option is particularly appealing, but it's worth mentioning that the GM can be a REAL dick here and if the blast is delayed, have the mooks clear short range so Blast does nothing. <br />
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So out of 5 rolls, 3 were failures. One of the failures was tempered with Advantage and one with Triumph, but nothing inherent about the Fireball could be triggered to useful effect (shame about Blast sucking). Just come up with something cool and creative. One of those failures had a Despair, and what a garbage roll it was. Adversary is a dangerous thing (so are Story Points). Of the 2 successful rolls, one was actually pretty awesome! The other wasn't terrible, but that nastier Threat/Despair table reared its ugly head, and proved to be one cost too steep for magic users.<br /><br />I won't do sample rolls for every spell, because I think I've made my point. You end up failing a lot, despite the fact that you had to spend 2 Strain to cast the dumb spell, and hopefully you didn't make 2 maneuvers that round for a grand total of 4 Strain (before Threat) to do nothing. Also because of the large number of negative dice in your pool, you end up getting a lot of Threat! Which is worse for mages. And along those same lines, you DON'T generate much Advantage (so good luck recovering Strain from your rolls). I did roll a lot of Triumphs, which is great, but it would be even better if Blast were more useful.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Hold Person</span><br />
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Ok, I used this example in my last post. I'll be quick. You use the Curse spell (one of those pesky 2 purple base effects) and add Paralyzed for +3 purple. It's a good thing we can already cast at Medium range with the Staff, because we can't really afford to add anything else to the spell (nor do we really need to). <br /><br />This is a 5 purple check, and for 1 turn the target loses 1 point from one of their Characteristics and can't take actions. It's in your best interest to spend several turns Concentrating (even if you have to pop strain for a second maneuver) to keep this effect sustained! <br /><br />Ultimately, if you're trading your turn to make an enemy lose theirs, the enemy should be stronger than you for it to be worthwhile. Expect at least a couple ranks of Adversary if you're using this strategically.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Wild Shape</span><br />
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The only spell that can make this work is Augment. You want to be a bear? I know you do! The base effect is 2 purples, and we're going to use it to increase our Brawn. Probably from 2 to 3, or maybe we built a Druid focused on combat shapeshifting, in which case we're going from 3 to 4 Brawn. Magic isn't necessarily reliant on just 1 super stat. <br /><br />Primal Fury is the obligatory add-on to this, for +1 purple. You get a halfway decent crit rating (3), and can add damage to unarmed attacks equal to your ranks in Knowledge (2-4 probably, we'll use 3 as our average). I honestly wouldn't both adding any other effects to this, to keep it at a hard (3 purple) check. But think to yourself, are the enemies you're engaged with likely to try to run from you, or face you head on? Haste might be worthwhile if you think they'll run, because you're going to be spending a maneuver Concentrating to maintain your form each turn. You'll burn through a lot of Strain if you have to chase people down. If there are nasty terrain effects in place, you might also want to consider Swift, and fluff it as the bear just powering through everything. But again, these are situational. Are the benefits worth adding more purple dice, and possibly failing the check? You're already spending 1 turn just casting the spell even if you succeed, while Mr. Greataxe Guy can wade right in. I'd suggest that if you roll 1 or 2 Triumphs (depending on how generous your GM is) saying that you cast the spell quick enough to go maul stuff this turn. Also, if you're planning on playing a Druid who specializes in shapeshifting, you should probably create a custom implement that lets you not have to Concentrate every turn. You could even tweak the Druidic Circlet to support Augment instead of Conjure. <br /><br />What you end up with is a 3 purple check that lets you be a bear, so next turn you can use your claws to deal Brawl damage that's worth a damn. With the upgraded 4 Brawn that's 7 base damage (with Knowledge 3), and you should probably make sure you have ranks is Brawl in order to get yellow dice when you do this. You can crit with 3 Advantage, and don't forget that Brawl attacks have Knockdown by default! Flavorful for a bear, too! <br />
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Augment works ok for Wild Shape. It can pretty easily replicate turning into a wolf or a bear, but what if you want to do the cool, creative stuff with Wild Shape? You know, turning into a hawk to be able to fly, or an octopus so you can latch onto someone's face in the middle of combat and ink the crap out of them, or something like a crocodile or panther that is useful in combat, but also has some utility (can swim or climb well). I guess you can use Swift as a baseline to get swim or climb speed. And flight is probably not going to be a combat form anyways, so go with the suggested Hard difficulty for flight or invisibility in the base description. Not sure about that octopus thing, though. I did that in Dungeon World and it was REALLY cool, but at best if I tried it in Genesys it would stall the game as the player and GM try to figure out how to represent it. <br /><br />Overall, it's a strain-heavy way to turn yourself into a brawler, that costs you a turn. Tough to say if it's actually worth it, but I would say that if the player were really creative about narrating Advantage/Triumph rolled while fighting in animal form, it could be a lot of fun. And Threat could be a cool way of having inconvenient animal instincts kick in. I'm cautiously neutral on whether Genesys could make a Druid both fun and effective.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Lightning Bolt</span><br />
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Fireball's cousin. It was VERY similar to Fireball in D&D (blast vs a line), but in Genesys it'll work pretty differently. Attack is our spell, obviously. Let's keep this simple and just add Lightning to the basic attack for +1 purple. If you really need to, you can add another +1 purple to bump the range out, or I can even see someone wanting to add Deadly, Impact, and/or Destructive to emulate some possible consequences of getting hit by lightning. I'd recommend against Destructive since it's +2 more purple. <br />
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Our difficulty is actually a little deceptive here, because Lightning gets us Autofire. If you're not going to use it, you might as well not even be adding the Lightning quality, so right off the bat the difficulty gets increased by 1. That brings us up to a hard (3 purple) check to cast this thing at Medium range. That's actually not too shabby.<br />
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Base damage is 8. We didn't take Empowered like we did with Fireball, because we don't care about Blast, and the extra 4 damage probably isn't worth making this a 5 purple check. Remember how many sample rolls failed for Fireball? Anyways, 8 damage, no crit, medium range, Autofire, and Stun 3 (for our assumed average 3 ranks in Knowledge). <br />
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Pro tip - unless you're fighting a mage who is also burning through Strain (just like you!), don't bother using Stun. Actually, even then it's probably not worth it. Why? Because it costs you two Advantage to use. And if you have two Advantage, you should be triggering the extra hit from Autofire. Which can trigger multiple times. Assuming you have enough Advantage for it.<br /><br />Here's the rub. Compare Lightning Bolt to an Assault Rifle from the Modern setting. Same base damage of 8, but it crits on a 3, goes out to long range, and only has Autofire, no Stun. But we already decided Stun wasn't worth triggering when you have Autofire. Ok, so technically it MIGHT be worthwhile if your opponent has 8 or 9 soak, but that probably won't be the case. The Assault Rifle is better (because of its crit and long range) and doesn't cost strain to use! Interestingly, the difficulty in this example is the same (3 purples at medium range, both can opt to add a purple to shoot at long range). <br />
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I guess if you're playing fantasy it might be tougher to find weapons with Autofire, but you'll also probably have more melee guys getting up in your face (requiring you to add a purple for close combat or spending a maneuver to disengage), and magic weapons tend to go along with fantasy settings. The only magic item in the core book is plate armor, but I'm sure we'll get magic weapons in future splatbooks, and GMs can probably make them pretty easily. Point being, one of the tropes of fantasy is that the basic equipment isn't what you're going to stick with, so I can imagine bows or even melee weapons being enchanted with Haste spells to gain Autofire.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Cone of Cold / Ray of Frost</span><br />
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Hmm, I realized after typing "Cone of Cold" that the Attack spell doesn't have an option for multiple targets. You have to make due with Blast or Lightning, or if you're really into the idea of multi-target/AoE spells you can just use an Orb instead of a Staff. Although it's unclear if the orb allows you to affect multiple targets when it's not on your list of additional effects. Basically, talk to your GM to see if they'll allow it. <br />
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Ray of Frost really just needs Ice, and potentially Ranged. The whole point is to get melee fighters stuck away from anyone they can attack. You can do that pretty easily with a 2 purple check (or 3 for long range), if you're willing to deal only 8 damage, not have a crit rating, etc. But this seems like a great way to hold off a melee guy. Technically, even if they have a ranged weapon they can't draw it, because Ensnare prevents you from using maneuvers. They'll waste at least one turn trying to break free of the ice with an Athletics check. You can also use this on ranged guys to get them stuck next to your melee friends. <br /><br />Ray of Frost functions similarly to Hold Person, but the difficulty is so much lower. Sure, it's a little more situational and takes a little more thought to use, but I'd say it's worth it to have a lower difficulty. There's really no reason for these two effects to have such a large difficulty differential.<br />
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As a bonus, I'll suggest another ice themed spell. Something called Blizzard, Icy Wind, Icy Terrain, or something. Basically, you can add the Manipulative effect onto your spell for +1 purple and, if you get enough Advantage, you can move your target before freezing them in place! That's really awesome for when they're already engaged with your ally, but your ally is hurt and just can't stand to take another hit. You could theoretically also add Close Combat for +1 purple and push targets engaged with you away before freezing, but it's probably not a good idea. It's a cool concept, but Close Combat is another one of those effects that's probably not worth it. Better to just spend a maneuver to move away instead of adding a purple die into your pool. It is, however, situationally useful for those times when you, yourself, are Ensnared. Or maybe you just have other things to do with your maneuvers.<br />
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<br />Brian Slabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05333048710667620592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5891731747515762073.post-54570700978771707722017-12-03T12:49:00.000-08:002017-12-03T19:15:10.598-08:00Genesys Magic: First ImpressionsWow! It's been over two years since I've posted anything! Time sure does fly. I could spend a ton of time discussing what I've been up to and the things I haven't been posting about, but it's going to be a long post. Suffice to say I've been co-hosting a <a href="http://splitthepartypod.com/">podcast</a> about (mostly) RPGs, so if you're interested check that out (we're also <a class="ProfileCard-screennameLink u-linkComplex js-nav" data-aria-label-part="" href="https://twitter.com/SplitPartyPod" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #66757f; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration-line: none !important;"><span class="username u-dir" dir="ltr" style="direction: ltr !important; unicode-bidi: embed;">@<span class="u-linkComplex-target">SplitPartyPod</span></span> </a><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">on Twitter).</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">I'll state up front that I'm not thrilled with the magic system in <a href="https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/genesys/products/genesys-core-rulebook/">Genesys</a>, at least not on paper. That said, I think it has some neat potential but the mechanics are kind of all over the place, balance-wise, and in general magic seems to have too many drawbacks that aren't justified by (some) of their effects.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">The way that magic works is pretty straightforward, and doesn't really borrow anything from the Force powers of FFG's <a href="https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/star-wars-force-and-destiny/">Star Wars</a> RPG. Other than the differences between magic and the Force, Genesys is pretty much a universal version of Star Wars. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Magic in the Genesys core book is split up into three different skills: Arcana, Divine, and Primal. Many of the specific effects also make use of the spellcaster's ranks in the Knowledge skill (which, depending on your setting, may be a single skill or broken up into different types of knowledge). While this works for most characters, it doesn't really fit the fluff of something like a Sorcerer or a Warlock that well. However, I see this as a really easy fix (which is NOT addressed in the core book, because the core book seems like a somewhat incomplete toolkit in general). Obviously the intent of the designers is to prevent magic users from having one, single "super skill" that does everything. So swapping ranks in Knowledge with ranks in another appropriate skill doesn't alter the balance. I imagine Sorcerers using their ranks in Resilience to determine how powerful their extra effects are (their bodies are fonts of magic), and Warlocks might use Charm or Negotiation (how much extra power were they able to talk their patron into giving them?). I think this is really cool and flavorful, and the designers missed a chance to include suggestions like these in the core book. Not all mages are bookish, after all.</span><br />
<span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"><br />So what does a magic skill roll actually look like? The book suggests that using magic narratively will require a skill roll, with the GM determining the difficulty based on whatever the outcome of the task would normally be. However, they recommend stepping up the difficulty by one purple die compared to the difficulty for a mundane roll. This is a theme in Genesys, that magic should be more difficult. It's a valid drawback to having flexible, magical powers, but it's FAR from the only drawback. I'll get to that later, though. Other than just general narrative results, the book provides eight "spells," which are not really distinct spells at all. Rather, each "spell" is a general category of magic that the player can use to construct a specific effect. These "spells" are Attack, Augment, Barrier, Conjure, Curse, Dispel, Heal, and Utility. Each of these has a base effect, and then a table of specific supplemental effects. The supplemental effects each will increase the difficulty when tacked onto the basic effect. It's also worth noting that not all "spells" are available to every magic skill; for example, you can only Dispel using Arcana, but Healing can only be done by Divine and Primal. Finally, magical implements function essentially like weapons for spellcasters, often enhancing the damage of your spells and also allowing you to incorporate one or more supplemental effects without increasing the difficulty (these vary depending on which implement you're using).</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">Before getting into a commentary of the individual spells, I just want to say that in general I think the designers went too far in trying to "reign in" magic. Maybe they had bad experiences in 3rd edition D&D? So what exactly are the drawbacks to magic in this system?</span></span><br />
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<li><span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Any time you make a skill roll using a Magic Skill (Arcana, Divine, or Primal), it costs you 2 strain. Not every little thing requires a skill roll (one example in the book is magically lighting a torch), but any time you cast a "spell" you're losing 2 strain, no exceptions.</span></span></li>
<li><span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">There's a table of Threat/Despair results that are specific to magic users, with harsher penalties than the typical results. No, there's no corresponding Advantage/Triumph table with better effects for magic users. Magic is supposed to be dangerous. To give you an idea of what this looks like, 1 threat will cause you to lose 2 strain (instead of the usual 1 strain), or suffer 1 wound. Coupled with the strain cost that you're ALREADY taking just for casting the spell, it's obvious that mages will burn through strain, FAST. And sure, you can recover strain with Advantage, but it's an uphill battle since Threat will drain your strain twice as fast as Advantage will recover it.</span></span></li>
<li><span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">As a corollary to how strain-heavy casting spells is, you're obviously going to be much more limited in terms of spending strain to use talents or take a second maneuver. It'll be that much harder for you to use Dodge or Sidestep, or even duck behind cover. It's also worth noting that spellcasters have a maneuver called "Concentration." Many of the spells require you to use a Concentration maneuver in order to keep the effect going. You probably won't be aiming, aiding, moving around, or interacting with the environment very much.</span></span></li>
<li><span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Spellcasting is difficult! Actually, the base effects usually start out as an easy or average check, but considering their effects are lackluster (the base effect for the Attack spell is weaker than a comparable weapon) AND that they'll cost strain to use...you might as well modify them with as many additional effects as you're willing to risk. I'll go into this more when I discuss the individual spells, but overall in order to exceed what weapon users are doing you're going to be rolling harder checks, taking strain (even if you fail! And remember, your checks are harder...), risking worse threat/despair results (which you'll be getting more of...because your checks are harder), and you won't be able to utilize extra maneuvers or talents as often. </span></span></li>
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<span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Now, I've already been voicing these concerns on social media, and I've already gotten back the response of "magic is more versatile!" While this is true to an extent, I don't think the versatility is worth the steep costs, for two reasons. The first is that the narrative dice system is really awesome in that it gives ALL characters a lot of versatility. How is spending advantage to shoot a steam pipe with your pistol any worse than casting a fog cloud spell? Second, compared with other more narrative systems like Fate, Dungeon World, or Masks, Genesys magic is fairly crunchy. You get versatility in that you have a bunch of mechanical bits that you can tack onto your spells, but they're still defined mechanical bits for the most part. You just happen to get a lot of them. With crunch comes inherent limits, especially considering the escalating difficulty.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Commentary on Magic Spells</span></div>
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<span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b><u>Attack</u></b>: This is a straightforward spell that allows you, as an easy check, to deal Brawl-level damage (base damage equal to your spellcasting attribute) to a target at short range (but not engaged). Brawl attacks, however, get a critical rating of 5 and the knockdown quality. The attack spell has no crit rating (but you can still crit on a Triumph), and no additional effects. But it sure will cost you 2 strain to use! See why you're going to want to modify your spells? </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Implements definitely help here. The staff is the implement that increases damage the most (+4), and allows you to bump the range band up by one for free. But you're still underpowered compared with someone using a weapon. Assuming your spellcasting characteristic is 3, you're looking at 7 damage, no crit rating, medium range, and no additional effects. Compare that to a carbine, if you're familiar with Star Wars, which does 9 damage, crits with 3 advantage, shoots to medium range, and has a stun setting. And doesn't cost 2 strain to shoot. If you want to replicate that carbine more, increase your difficulty by two purples to bump the damage up to 10 (double your spellcasting characteristic, plus your staff), and you can increase the difficulty by another purple to either do stun damage, or maybe you'd rather have an actual crit rating of two instead (each one of these effects would increase the difficulty by 1). Say you went with crit rating, because that's probably more useful (unless you're fighting another mage!). Your check is now 4 purples (ouch!) to deal 10 damage (only 1 more than the carbine), at medium range, and you can crit on 2 advantage (one less than the carbine). Your damage and crit are slightly better than the carbine (by 1 each), but your check is twice as hard (shooting a carbine into medium range is two purples), you're taking 2 strain just to use the spell, and you're risking worse threat/despair results. Oh, and since you're so strapped for strain, it's probably worth mentioning that you're going to want to use any advantage you gain on critting, because you increased the difficulty of your check to do that, and so you probably won't be recovering strain through advantage. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">It's worth pointing out at this point that I chose the highest-damage implement (staff) for this comparison, and a relatively low-damage ranged heavy weapon (the carbine). Heavier blaster rifles will EASILY outperform a mage. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">If we want to stick with fantasy, a non-magical greatsword does 7 base damage (assuming you have a Brawn of 3), crits on a two, has the Defensive 1 and Pierce 1 qualities, and won't cost you strain to use. Oh, and you're only rolling 2 purples. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">My assessment is that the designers didn't want the Attack spell to be outperforming weapons. In doing so, I'd recommend mages not even bother using it at all, unless you have a magic orb (you'll be doing less damage than with a staff, but can affect more targets) or a magic wand (depending on the type). </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">I've also heard arguments on social media amounting to "hey, you always have your magic, but a gun or sword can be taken away!" Not only is this highly situational, but your implement can also be taken away! Now you're dealing brawl-level damage, but so can the melee fighters. They can also grab an improvised weapon and probably still outperform you, unless you really ramp up your difficulty for some extra effects. But they're not burning strain. Seeing a pattern here?</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b><u>Augment</u></b>: Make an average check to increase a target's characteristic by 1, for 1 turn (unless you pump maneuvers into Concentration every turn). Considering there's a whole magic skill devoted to making Druids (Primal), THIS is what we're getting for shapeshifting?!?! If you want to go a little further on that front, add a purple for Primal Fury (Primal Only), which lets you add damage equal to your ranks in Knowledge to unarmed combat checks, and gives them a crit rating of 3. Cool, you're spending a turn making a hard check to get slightly better brass knuckles? And spending two strain to do so? Actually, you might as well make that a 4 purple check to tack "Haste" onto yourself (you can always spend 2 maneuvers without using strain). Because one of those maneuvers is going to be sucked up by concentrating on maintaining your shapeshift. Yep, this sucks.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">The base effect is pretty similar to the control upgrade of the Enhance Force power, but with Enhance you need only commit a Force die. With Augment you take two strain, have a risk of failure, and then need to spend a Concentration maneuver EACH TURN to maintain your increased characteristic. Given the choice, I think I'd rather play a Jedi than a Genesys mage...</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">There's also a passing mention of using this spell to grant invisibility or flight, but this should be "at least a hard check." Presumably instead of the normal base effect. I guess that's alright for an Invisibility or Fly spell, but fairly useless for tacking flight onto the base effect to shapeshift into something that flies. Again, I'm focusing on Druid stuff here because they built a whole skill around having a Druid. And yet, the main schtick of the Druid (shapeshifting), is not really supported in a useable way. Augment is worse than the Enhance Force power in every way, and while it's more flexible, it's still not flexible enough to do Wild Shape well.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b><u>Barrier</u></b>: This spell basically sucks unless you apply Reflection (Arcana only) to it for 2 extra purple dice. It reduces incoming damage by 1, for 1 turn (unless you keep using Concentrate maneuvers), and it takes TWO extra uncancelled successes to bump up the extra soak. You better hope you get lucky with a huge difficulty after applying extra targets/range to make this worthwhile (base power only works on one engaged target). Empowering this spell (every ONE uncancelled success adds to the extra soak) might be worthwhile, but increases the difficulty by 2 purples (reducing your likelihood of actually getting uncancelled successes). </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><u><b>Conjure</b></u>: Depending on how your GM runs it, this spell might actually be overpowered. This is another Concentration spell, so you're spending a maneuver each turn that you want your creature/object to stick around. The base effect is an easy difficulty and can summon a silhouette 0 creature. Adding purples can obviously increase the size of the creature and/or how many you summon, but it's also worth mentioning that they're NOT automatically your allies! You can add a purple die to make them your allies, and if you succeed you can use a maneuver to direct them in combat. Notice something interesting there? You're spending a maneuver to concentrate, AND a maneuver to direct allied summons. That's pretty harsh, and I said this spell could be overpowered, right? </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">The thing is, there aren't suggested stat blocks which means that the GM is probably going to have to make something up on the spot, until a greater variety of adversaries is published. The potency of this spell will likely depend on which creature(s) you summon, and how your GM chooses to represent those stat blocks. Also, it might be worthwhile to NOT make the creatures your allies. Depending on who/what they are, they may start attacking your enemies anyways. Injecting a little bit of chaos into the battlefield might not be a bad thing! </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Here's where this spell really shines, though. The Druidic Circlet is an implement that allows you to make your summoned creatures allies without increasing the difficulty. Boom, done. The creature also lasts the rest of the encounter without requiring you to Concentrate. Oh, baby! So now you only need to spend one maneuver to direct them, but even if you decide you can't do that they're still your allies, and while they might not do exactly what you want them to, they'll probably at least protect you, if not outright attack the enemies (and they certainly won't be attacking <i>you</i>!).</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">One more noteworthy detail is that until the summoned creature dies, it can attack (probably better than your base attack spell) without an absurd difficulty and without requiring you to spend strain. Cool, you've gained some offensive firepower, but remember how the Barrier spell increases the effective soak of target(s)? Wouldn't it be better to have the PCs not get attacked in the first place? Any damage that a summoned creature takes is damage avoided, and it might end up being more damage than the Barrier spell would have prevented.<br /><br />If there's a potent spellcaster in this game, it's a summoning Druid.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Or, you could have players who haven't thought about the rules well enough fumbling around, using two maneuvers each turn, and depleting their strain really fast. Just because this spell can be powerful doesn't mean I'm calling it well designed.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b><u>Curse</u></b>: This is the opposite of Augment, and likewise the base effect is 2 purple dice. As you might expect, it reduces one of the target's characteristics by 1. This spell actually has some neat additional effects. However, it also has a pretty egregious example of how the designers seem to just hate magic.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Hold Person is a pretty staple spell in D&D (and fantasy in general, though it might not be called that in every setting). It's not even a particularly high level spell in D&D. After all, the magic user is spending their turn to potentially cause an enemy to lose their turn (and maybe future turns). Considering there's a chance for this to fail, in order to make this spell worth your turn it should always be cast on enemies that are significantly MORE powerful than you. Otherwise you're trading your turn for an equal (or lesser!) enemy's turn, and you might as well just do something else at that point. D&D Wizarding 101, right? </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Perhaps it's because status effects are less common in Genesys than in D&D, but the designers seem to REALLY value this effect. You have to add THREE purple dice to stagger a target with the paralyze effect, and you're not allowed to combine it with the additional target effect. That's a FIVE purple check to stun ONE target at short range. And you're taking strain, risking enhanced Threat, yada yada yada. If the opponent has ranks in Adversary (remember when I said spells like this are really only useful when the target is stronger than you?), it's even tougher. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">I fail to see how this spell will EVER be worth the risk, unless you're rolling 5 positive dice and most of them are yellows. The only silver lining is that IF you manage to succeed at this formidable (literally) task, you can use the Concentrate maneuver to ensure that the enemy stays paralyzed for more than one turn. In fact, it's pretty much mandatory to sustain this. Otherwise you're just trading turns with an enemy. But is the ability to stun-lock really worth such a high difficulty? Couldn't the difficulty have been lowered but while giving the enemy an opportunity to shrug off the paralysis on their turn? That's what D&D does. It works fine. This doesn't. I know you can always house rule, but aren't I paying for this book to get well-designed rules? </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">I feel really bad for the newb who tries to use this on a low powered rival, or even a minion...</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b><u>Dispel</u></b>: Super straightforward, you can make a Hard check to end a magical effect. There are range and additional target upgrade options, and that's about it. I have no problem with this spell, but obviously you're only going to want to spend your turn doing this when the spell effect is pretty nasty.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b><u>Heal</u></b>: This spell is actually pretty good. It's basically like making a medicine check, but the base difficulty is easy. Sweet. It doesn't work on incapacitated targets unless you increase the difficulty by 2 purples, but Medicine checks are also Hard if the target is above their wound threshold. This is balanced out by the fact that healing critical injuries is ALWAYS at least Hard with this spell (regardless of the injury rating). However, the spell can affect additional targets and cure status effects (by adding purples), which I think makes this a great example of magic done well. The added flexibility compared with a Medicine check (and in some cases lower difficulty, i.e. current wounds > 1/2 WT) actually seems to be more or less worth the 2 strain it costs to cast. I'm still a little wary of that nasty increased Threat/Despair table for this spell, but overall I don't think it makes or breaks anything in this case. Easily the most balanced, well-designed spell in the game.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Of note is the fact that you can resurrect a dead character by adding 4 purples to your check. It's unclear whether a dead character also counts as "incapacitated." If so you'll have to add 2 more purples for a total of SEVEN. Considering the designers took strides in reducing the size of dice pools though, I'm guessing that's not the case. Still, if you want to make resurrection REALLY difficult in your campaign, that's an easy thing to add to make it so.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Now, compare the resurrection spell difficulty (1 purple base plus 4 additional purple equals 5 total) to our Paralyze effect in Curse (Hold Person). It's the frickin' same! They're both 5 purples! How on earth is raising the dead even remotely equivalent to temporarily paralyzing a person? </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><u><b>Utility</b></u>: This is a catchall, "minor magic" spell. Apparently the difficulty should always be easy, and there aren't options for upgrading it in combat. I suppose that's cool and all, but there isn't really any guidance on where to draw the line between this, and narrative magic so minor that it doesn't require a skill check. Magically lighting a torch is given as an example of not requiring a roll, but some of the utility spell examples are levitating a book or transmuting a pebble into a butterfly (among other, more useful examples). How are those two things more useful than magically lighting a torch though? Why are they worth two strain? In a wet, dark dungeon I think lighting the torch might be more useful! Though in adverse conditions, I'd probably say it falls under the umbrella of utility magic anyways. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">I think this "spell" is largely redundant. The general rules for magic already say that you can do narrative stuff and if it's worth a roll, it'll require a roll. This spell is quite literally pointless as far as I can see. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Other than that, the only thing I haven't really covered is the Counterspell maneuver, which upgrades the difficulty of all spells within medium range of the caster for a turn. A neat addition, I suppose. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">What struck me as I was going through the magic rules is that they take up a total of 10 pages in this 256 page rule book. Not that I'm pining for most D&D Players Handbooks, where magic is often around 1/3 of the page count, but I can't help but feel the Genesys magic treatment is pretty sparse. And while it's sparse and touted as narrative, it sure is composed of a lot of crunchy bits! Which isn't a bad thing, by itself. It just feels like the crunch is limiting for the sake of balance, while at the same time seeming pretty imbalanced. This magic doesn't feel particularly magical, although that might change in play when players are combining these pieces together in a way that represents the spell they're describing. Of course, they'll most likely fail the roll.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">There are a lot of ways to represent magic in an RPG. D&D gives you hard limits on the number of spells you can cast per day. I don't think that's ideal, especially considering how low that number is at low levels, and how unmanageably high it gets at high levels. 13th Age gives you a mix of spells you can cast once per day, once per encounter, at-will, or on a random recharge system where if you roll a certain number or higher on a d20 after the encounter, you get your spell back. That system has variety, and accounts for varying power levels between spells really well. Dungeon World balances the fact that you can use magic as often as you want by the consequences that happen when you fail (or partially succeed). When the GM makes a move, it can be harder or softer depending on how potent the magic was. Using the Force in Star Wars depends on the roll of your Force dice, and you can always choose to pay the consequences of using the Dark Side if you <i>really</i> want to succeed. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Genesys magic taps into a resource that characters already depend heavily on: strain. It's not a hard limit on the number of spells you can cast, because there are multiple ways of recovering strain. But Genesys also uses escalating difficulty to represent riskier magic use. In theory, I actually like both of these solutions! However, I don't think they're implemented well. I don't think ALL spells should cost strain. Most games post-3E D&D have given magic users some form of at-will spellcasting (even Pathfinder!), so that they can always feel at least somewhat magical and don't have to carry around backup weapons for when their juice runs out. And these at-will options are usually less powerful than weapons, because the mage obviously has the option to "go nova" when necessary. It seems to me like it wouldn't be unbalanced to have Genesys mages not spend strain for unaugmented spells which, as I discussed, are less powerful than using weapons or other mundane means of solving problems. Most other games are doing it these days.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Consider also how frequently strain is already used. Most of the time when I'm playing Star Wars, my characters are taxing their strain pretty heavily simply through the use of second maneuvers, talents, and rolling Threat. If mages in Genesys are less able to make use of second maneuvers and talents, then that's a hidden cost that they're paying for having magic. And they already have so many <i>obvious</i> costs, like more dangerous Threat/Despair results. Imagine a hypothetical turn where a mage dives into cover, decides that his enemies are dangerous enough that he should pop his two ranks in Side Step for some extra defense (that's 2 strain for the second maneuver, and 2 to fuel the talent), and then casts a spell (now we're up to 6 strain). Uh-oh, he got a Threat on his roll. Most characters aren't too concerned about a measly one Threat, but the GM decides to give the mage 2 strain for it (because that's the first option on the table). In one turn our poor mage has burned through 8 strain, which is likely more than half of his threshold! How many more spells can he afford to cast? How many Concentration maneuvers will he be able to make? This isn't that extreme of an example. My Star Wars characters do stuff like this all the time (minus the spellcasting), but receive less strain for it and generally roll more advantages (due to lower difficulties) that can be used to recover that strain.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">I'll almost certainly have to house rule some of the drawbacks of magic, but there are just so many of them that it'll take some experience with the system to see which ones are best to ignore, and to what degree. And this entire post obviously has the caveat that these are my initial impressions. I've read the magic rules, but have not actually played Genesys yet. So take everything I've said with a grain of salt. That said, the numbers on the paper are pretty telling...</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span>Brian Slabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05333048710667620592noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5891731747515762073.post-58268792555071238492015-08-15T21:13:00.002-07:002015-08-15T21:13:31.373-07:00Firefly ReduxThe title of this post might not make much sense since I haven't really posted about the Firefly RPG before. Well, that's not because I haven't played it, I just never got around to posting about it. Sometimes it sucks being really busy because there's always something you don't have time for. I have a lot of hobbies so there's already too much competition there, and when it comes to RPGs I'd rather my blog suffer as opposed to my play time or GM prep time.<br />
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But I digress. I first ran a couple of Firefly sessions when the book first came out. I'm just now getting to running a second mini-campaign. One of my players recently posted about it <a href="http://www.fenngineer.com/2015/08/firefly-rpg-bug-in-system.html">here</a>. We actually talked about the very topic of his post after playing through our second session (after finishing up "Thieves in Heaven" from <a href="http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/138256/Firefly-Things-Dont-Go-Smooth?term=Things+Don%27t+go+Smoo&affiliate_id=384646">Things Don't Go Smooth</a>). It was a really interesting discussion, so I figured I'd throw in my two cents regarding that topic, and some other general thoughts.<br />
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A huge thing that Firefly players should keep in mind is that <u>Complications shouldn't be scary</u>. The characters don't want to deal with Complications, but the <i>players</i> should have fun with them. Complications are a major design goal of the system, which is meant to emulate an episode of the TV show. Shit goes wrong from the crew of <i>Serenity</i> all the time, and that's part of what makes it interesting to watch. <br />
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When you think about it, it's really not all that different from most RPGs. On the one hand players generally try to avoid bad stuff happening to their character, but on the other hand the game would be really boring if nothing bad ever happened. Firefly is just really up front about it, and gives players a lot of narrative control outside of simply roleplaying their character. It's a trend in modern RPGs to give players more narrative power, but it isn't always so blatant. <br />
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A Firefly player shouldn't think of Plot Points as having net zero effect when you earn one to roll a jinx just to have to spend one to later to step it down when the GM rolls an Opportunity. A player will earn a Plot Point for every Complication the GM buys, but shouldn't feel the need to buy every Opportunity that the GM rolls. The game has more drama if some of those Complications stick around, but that's not to say that Opportunities are useless, either. They should be bought when there's a Complication with a high die value that risks forcing a PC to be Taken Out, or when the Complication is especially tough to deal with (whether it affects a lot of actions, has the potential to stick around, or will require a Recovery Roll using a skill nobody is great at). <br />
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In other words, with regard to rolling 1's the PCs should be getting a net positive amount of Plot Points. Characters are hindered in some way now with the possibility of being more awesome in the future. It's up to the player to decide when the best time for their character to shine is, making concessions to earn Plot Points which they can use at critical moments. Big Damn Heroes will stumble and fall, but they'll get back up, too.<br />
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The same principle applies to Distinctions as well. The Plot Point economy assumes you'll step your Distinctions down to a d4 to earn Plot Points early on in the episode when the stakes are lower, so you'll have a big pool of them to work with when the stakes are higher. <br />
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That said, I understand where my player is coming from regarding Complications being generated by "positive dice." It's a little jarring in particular because we play a lot of FFG's Star Wars, where Threat and Despair (the best analogue to Firefly's Complications) are possible results on the negative dice. But in Firefly it makes a little less sense to do things that way. You could theoretically house rule that Complications are generated when the opposing dice pool rolls 1's, but that makes even less sense to me personally. First of all, they're often opposed rolls so why should things get tougher for you when your enemy rolls especially low? Second, it creates a disconnect when you want the GM to roll low, but not <i>too</i> low.<br />
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Another thing to keep in mind is that the way GM dice pools are built the PCs often have the advantage of a bigger dice pool. In that way Complications are an interesting pacing tool because a bigger dice pool means players will have a greater chance of success (in other words, it's less challenging). But if you're awesome at something you generally want to showcase that by overcoming more challenging obstacles. Complications let that happen naturally, without the GM having to tinker with the difficulty of NPCs and scenarios. Later on you're going to have to face a bigger GM dice pool, and in some cases it might make narrative sense that showing off your prowess might attract more trouble than you'd have otherwise. What's a better story, shooting the bandit trying to get away with your hard earned cash, or limping forward on your sprained ankle, coughing as you try to see through the cloud of steam you just vented out when you shot that pipe, and <i>still</i> managing to make the shot? And even if you don't buy the argument that more drama and challenge makes for a better game (maybe you're a power gamer?), there's still the fact that from a pure mechanical standpoint rolling 1's is good for your Plot Point economy. Most players should find Plot Points more valuable than Complications are detrimental, so increasing your chances of rolling a 1 (by virtue of a larger dice pool) can be thought of as a good thing.<br />
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Maybe Obi Wan was right about that "certain point of view" crap.Brian Slabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05333048710667620592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5891731747515762073.post-88200973861768131422015-05-17T18:58:00.000-07:002015-05-17T18:58:08.874-07:00Roll Under/Over Micro SystemsWe recently had a session where one player didn't show up for an Edge of the Empire game, and the previous session had ended on an important scene right before a combat encounter. So the GM surprised us by showing up, tossing some gum on the table, and announcing that we'd be playing a quick one-shot of a game called <a href="http://trollsmyth.blogspot.com/2010/11/all-outta-bubblegum-is-always-right.html">All Outta Bubblegum</a> (a quick search couldn't locate the rules, but follow the link to a relevant blog post). This turned out to only last about an hour and a half, leaving us time to test out another simple game I'd been interested in, <a href="http://onesevendesign.com/lasers_and_feelings_rpg.pdf">Lasers and Feelings</a>.<br />
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Both of these are extremely simple RPG systems less than a page in length. Both have a binary mechanic where you roll a single die and in certain situations you want to roll over a certain number, whereas in others you want to roll under. In All Outta Bubblegum that number changes over the course of the session creating an interesting pacing mechanism. In Lasers and Feelings it stays the same, defining your main "stat."<br />
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All Outta Bubblegum starts you with 8 pieces of gum and you roll under (on a d10) to do something mundane, roll over to do something kickass. You can spend a piece of gum for an autosuccess. Once you're out of gum you can only succeed at kickass tasks. Check out the blog post linked above for the nuance this provides. We didn't really see that in play, but we did emphasize the resource-management aspect of it, and the game did tend toward an arc that made it easier and easier to be kickass. There was an interesting meta-game wherein you try to make sure you have some pieces of gum left at the end just in case, but you still want it to be relatively easy to kickass. It creates a tension unique to this system, and it was an interesting change of pace. If you're intrigued, I'd suggest playing it as a beer-and-pretzels game. Yeah, I know I didn't link the rules, but based on my experience that blog post is really all you need to play. There's also an episode of the <a href="http://www.oneshotpodcast.com/">One Shot Podcast</a> (episodes 20-21) that inspired my GM to choose this system (I also listen to this podcast, but I haven't personally listened to that episode).<br />
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Lasers and Feelings has one mechanical stat for each PC, which is their number. The number ranges from 2-5, with 2 being slanted heavily towards "Feelings" and 5 being slanted heavily towards "Lasers." 3 and 4 are for more balanced PCs. Basically, if an action falls under the broad category of Feelings then you want to roll over your number on a d6. If Lasers is more appropriate to the action, you want to roll under your number. You can get more dice by being prepared, being an expert, or having someone assist you. If your exact number is rolled then you have Laser-Feelings, which doesn't count as a success but does allow you to ask a question about the situation to gain some more insight. Since you'll often be rolling multiple dice you can also get multiple successes (1 success has complications, 2 is great, and 3 is a critical success). For our session we played a Futurama game, where I played Professor Farnsworth (number 5), and the other two PCs were Dr. Zoidberg (number 3) and Fry (number 2). The system supported that setting thematically, and resulted in a lot of slapstick, ridiculous humor. We ended up shrinking Fry down to enter the bottom end of Kiff's digestive tract where he battled worms who were trying to mind control Kiff into destroying the Professor's latest doomsday device, destroying the quantum tunnel in the process. <br />
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Whereas All Outta Bubblegum's core mechanic created an interesting pacing and resource management meta-game, Lasers and Feelings offers a really simple but surprisingly flexible party-game that self-generates character development, more strongly emphasizing the "roll-playing" part of a Roll Playing Game. All in all, both were interesting experiences. <br />
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In the back of my mind I'm often thinking about what would be a good RPG to play while backpacking (I have yet to actually <i>play</i> an RPG while backpacking, but it's still something I'd like to have in my back pocket). Either of these would make strong candidates, and seem far more practical than any other alternative I've thought of so far. Especially Lasers and Feelings, considering those mini D6s that are pretty easy to find, and weigh almost nothing...Brian Slabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05333048710667620592noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5891731747515762073.post-38745993964437520832015-05-03T08:30:00.001-07:002015-05-03T08:35:14.377-07:00Brief UpdateYes, it's been a good long while since I've posted anything. No, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. I haven't stopped playing/running tabletop RPGs either. In fact, with 3 weekly games and an online PbP, I'd say I'm still going pretty strong. But this combined with a more time-intensive job and various other hobbies means that the one aspect of gaming I've had to cut down on is writing about it and reading about it. I really should try to at least get some short posts in every now and then, though. <br />
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I've been playing Star Wars Edge of the Empire a LOT lately. I'm running a game that will probably start winding down here soon (most of the players have long since maxed out their build concepts), but despite the larger-than-I-prefer party it has a good outer rim feel to it. It seems like every time the PCs make some progress some complications sends them off on a new adventure. But it's getting time that I bring home their personal arcs and let them retire on some moisture farm on Tatooine. They probably won't do that. Tatooine hasn't been kind to them. Kinder than Nar Shaddaa, though.<br />
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I've been having an absolute blast as a player in another Edge game playing a Gand findsman. He hasn't acquired enough notoriety to earn the use of his real name, so like any humble Gand he refers to himself as Gand, in the third person. But when two Gands talk to each other they can <i>of course</i> tell the difference between these (proper?) nouns. Playing a subtle, non-Jedi Force Sensitive has been a lot of fun. Gand has Foresee and Enhance, the two force powers that I see findsmen using to augment their bounty hunting ability (I'm staying away from Seek until Force and Destiny is officially released; of course this campaign will have ended by then). This campaign has developed its own brand of slapstick humor as well, and hilarity ensued when two of the regular players couldn't make it to several sessions in a row, and we took a third on temporarily. This turned the party into this: Gand (Bounty Hunter: Survivalist, Force Sensitive Exile), Khan (Sullustan Bounty Hunter: Gadgeteer), and newcomer Mara (Bounty Hunter: Assassin). And those sessions mostly entailed buying pants, bribing police chiefs with nerf steaks, and getting the autograph of Jorje Lu'cas, producer of the Star Wars holiday special (the reel was destroyed by Khan, but fortunately Gand has a pirated copy on his ship....which was stolen by his rival, whose kids were just murdered in the custody of an NPC companion of Gand's....Gand doesn't think he'll ever see his favorite movie again). Go figure.<br />
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Finally, I just finished running my Saturday group through Tales from Wilderland, the first adventure compilation for The One Ring. This system didn't click with my other group, but these guys had a great time with it. I started them off with Kinstrife and Dark Tidings (I wasn't sure if it would be a two-shot test of the system or if we'd play longer, and that was my favorite adventure just from reading it). Then we went back to Of Leaves and Stewed Hobbit, we skipped Don't Leave the Path (we were already on this side of Mirkwood) and Those Who Tarry No Longer (it's an interesting <i>story</i> but I'm skeptical of how it would <i>play</i>), and played the remaining adventures pretty much in order. And the PCs (just three of them) survived (although poor Peter Lochlan, formerly bland Hobbit, went back to the Shire with four permanent shadow points and flaws). <br />
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The One Ring was the first non-D&D system I introduced to my gaming circle, and I suppose I didn't have enough experience with a variety of systems to make it work really well the first time several years ago. The one group still doesn't like it despite being weaned off of Pathfinder by this point, but I'm glad I got this opportunity to actually run it well for a group of fairly new, narrative-focused gamers. I was quite pleased with how the system ran when it was run and played well, and hopefully we'll play it again in the future.Brian Slabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05333048710667620592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5891731747515762073.post-23284326235019544622014-12-13T11:34:00.002-08:002014-12-13T11:43:03.432-08:00Epic Tier 13th AgeThis past week my Tuesday group finished our 1-10th level campaign of 13th Age. I've talked about this before, but for this campaign we rotated GMs every adventure (3-4 sessions) and allowed a roster of multiple characters per player, choosing PCs at the beginning of each adventure. Our goals for this campaign were threefold: 1) to give more of our group a feel for GMing 13th Age, 2) to play around with different combinations of characters (particularly the new stuff in 13 True Ways), and 3) to see how Epic Tier plays out. <br />
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For what it's worth, I've never liked Epic Tier in D&D. In 3rd and 4th Edition once a character got into the teens, which wasn't even Epic Tier yet, things got too complicated and/or balance suffered. On paper 13th Age seems like it might avoid the worst of this. Most notably, balance suffers a LOT less than in D&D, but it still wasn't perfect. <br />
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The 13th Age encounter building chart is a nifty thing, though it does have its quirks. It didn't take me long to realize that "fair fights" weren't particularly dangerous. Last year in my campaign that ran from 1st to 5th level I got into the habit of starting with double-strength encounters, but I'd go up to triple-strength and the PCs managed to win those. "Fair" fights would end up being handily dispatched before the Escalation Die even hit 3.<br />
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But a strange thing happened as we started gaining levels. The encounter building chart says that in Champion Tier a "fair" fight is an equal number of normal monsters of character level +1 (instead of character level). In epic, this becomes character level +2. Odd, to be sure, but certainly this accounts for the fact that while PC numbers and monster numbers keep pace, PCs get more toys with more synergy, which give them an edge. Except that's not quite how I've found things to work. A lot of higher level monsters ALSO get improved nastier abilities, and it's explicitly stated that the encounter-building math only takes into account raw numbers and NOT special abilities. It's what makes a 4th level dragon better than a 4th level hobgoblin. <br />
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Using the Champion tier guidelines as-is, I noticed things getting a lot tougher. My double-strength fights, which were baseline in adventurer tier, really put the party through the ringer. Encounters of 1.5 strength were more reasonable. Then came Epic. One of the first Epic encounters that I put the PCs up against was a pair of leveled-up Frost Giants from the Bestiary (all damage was scaled exactly using the monster's percent damage compared with the baseline stat chart). It was a "fair" fight exactly, and less than what I'd planned on having them face (they bypassed a lot of potential enemies and didn't raise any alarms). Within one round the wizard was dead. The (optimized, animal companion) ranger didn't last much longer. That's half the party down, and only the chaos mage's Unsummoning spell allowed the rest to actually win. I was pretty shocked, to say the least.<br />
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I talked this over with the group and we agreed that whoever was GMing would use the Adventurer-tier challenge levels from the chart. That is to say, a "fair" fight at 9th level would be a number of normal 9th level enemies equal to the PCs, instead of 11th level monsters. For the most part things worked pretty much as they had in Adventurer tier. The "fair" fights usually weren't too much of a problem, but double-strength encounters were pretty challenging. Anything over that was potentially campaign-loss-worthy. <br />
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In other words, the Epic tier math still works great from a balance standpoint; it's just the encounter building guidelines that are off. And I can live with that.<br />
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That said, I still don't like Epic tier. Number inflation is a huge problem for me (<a href="http://thechamberofmazarbuldnd.blogspot.com/2014/06/number-inflation-in-13th-age.html">I've written about this from a GM's perspective before</a>), with the disclaimer that most of my group doesn't have a problem with it. Everyone's turns simply take a lot longer to resolve, with the end result being fights that last about as long as they did in 4E. No, really, we've had 2 hour long fights in 13th Age, and a lot of the PCs are playing "simple" classes.<br />
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I'll use my own archer ranger as an example. Her baseline attack damage with double ranged attack is 10d6+18. I've simplified it further to 4d10+39 (ever since Champion tier I've been rolling 4 dice at even levels, 5 at odd levels). There's more than a trivial pause to add everything up, especially when damage starts to get added from improvisational stunts, crits, or other PC abilities, not to mention the fact that most of the time she gets a 2nd attack off. It simply takes longer than adding 2d6+4. I can do that almost instantaneously, and then add some narrative description to boot. <br />
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Worse is that almost everyone else in my group refuses to use dice conventions. They'd rather roll 10 (or more, for certain abilities and spells) dice and that takes even longer to add up. That might be a problem specific to my group, but it's still something that kills Epic for me. <br />
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In some ways I'd rather run a campaign from 1st to 5th level, awarding incremental advances every OTHER session and having it run the same amount of real time. But on the other hand, I really like a lot of the higher-level abilities that PCs get without being an unbalanced mess. Characters have enough options to feel like they can deal with almost anything, but the choice-paralysis and never-ending interrupts and minor actions of 4E are nowhere in sight. I suppose it's fair to say that I have a conflicted relationship with Epic level 13th Age.Brian Slabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05333048710667620592noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5891731747515762073.post-80973888308432523382014-11-29T08:01:00.000-08:002014-11-29T08:01:36.608-08:00"Plot Points" in 13th AgeWow, this may have been my longest hiatus from writing in this blog. Not much to say about that other than I've been busy, and that's included doing a whole lot of gaming. Gaming to the point where I'm not in the mood to think about it at my leisure. I suspect that as long as I keep up with all of my weekly games my posting rate will probably remain sparse, alas.<br />
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My Saturday group has been playing through the D&D 5e beginner box, and we've actually been having a blast so far. While the point of this post isn't to review 5e, I mention it because of the Inspiration mechanic, which we're quite fond of. Half of this group hasn't played 13th Age yet, and that's what we're going to be playing next. While considering character options I couldn't help but think how much I'd miss Inspiration, and then the gears started turning about how I might be able to implement it in 13th Age without introducing 5e's Traits (which are largely redundant with Backgrounds, OUT, and Icons). <br />
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Ultimately Inspiration is a narrative carrot that serves the same purpose as Fate Points, or Plot Points in Cortex+. While I get why Inspiration isn't cumulative, I think everyone in the group agreed that we prefer being able to bank 'points.' The question still remains of how to earn those points, though. I'm getting close to running Firefly with the Tuesday group, and I think Cortex+ really nailed it with Plot Points. In that game characters have three Distinctions which can have up to 3 triggers. Think of Distinctions like Aspects in Fate, or Traits in 5e. It's a narrative phrase or concept that can either work to your benefit or detriment. Whenever you roll a dice pool and a Distinction would be a boon for the action you can add a d8 to the pool. The first trigger for all distinctions (which starts automatically unlocked) is that if the Distinction <i>hinders</i> you, you add a d4 to the pool instead of a d8, and you earn a Plot Point. It's important to note that rolling a 1 has detrimental consequences in this game, and that d4 is going to make that really likely to occur. That's why it gets added to your pool (possibly helping you a little) instead of the opposing pool. <br />
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This provides for interesting, dramatic stories because the <i><b>player</b></i> is self-handicapping their character with certain rolls in order to bank a benefit for later. A character needs flaws in order to be interesting, and this mechanic provides a narrative incentive for players to play up their characters' flaws. I think that it simply works better than the 5e and Fate versions (at least on paper). <br />
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So here's how I'd make it work in 13th Age. <u>Any time a Background would be a disadvantage for a given action, the player can opt to apply its negative value to the roll as a penalty. Doing so grants the player a plot point, which can be spent later to re-roll any d20 roll.</u> Optionally if your OUT would be a hindrance you can take a -4 penalty in order to earn a plot point. Brian Slabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05333048710667620592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5891731747515762073.post-10060582053751339742014-09-03T14:10:00.001-07:002014-09-03T14:10:13.846-07:0013th Age Options: The RogueI've always really liked Rogues, and so it's a bit odd that it's one of the 13th Age classes I have the least experience with. I've had three different players play one for just one (or a few) session(s) each, and two of them were dissatisfied. Granted one of those players had a string of terrible dice luck for the few session he played (he went through multiple combats without hitting a single time), but that only highlighted one of the issues with the Rogue. The other big three popular damage-dealing classes at my table who target AC (which is higher than PD/MD commonly targeted by spellcasters) all have ways to increase accuracy: the Barbarian rolls 2d20s while raging, the Ranger typically has either double attack and/or an animal companion, and the (shifter) Druid re-rolls the first missed beast form attack (and can also have an animal companion). I'm not sure if I'd necessarily call the Monk a raw damage class, but even if you threw him in there Flurry grants more attacks and some of the Forms offer multi-attacks (or attacks at increased accuracy). The Rogue, which was probably the most accurate of the weapon classes in 4E, depends on a single d20 roll. The meager tricks able to ameliorate this either require a staggered enemy (Murderous with a feat, or Deadly Thrust), momentum (Sure Cut) which requires you to have hit already in the first place, or being engaged with more than one enemy (Slick Feint). So a power that allows re-rolls was a priority for me to design. <div>
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The even bigger glaring hole in the class as-written is more thematic than mechanical - the popular "sniper Rogue" is unsupported. If the 13th Age designers set out to make a dashing melee swashbuckler they succeeded, but a lot of players expect Rogues to be pretty good at range as well, or at least have the option to go that route. Thus the majority of this article supports that build. </div>
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Finally, I thought a feat to enhance Swashbuckle was appropriate. Despite being extremely cool, my players and I consider it the weakest of the improvisational talents since it not only requires momentum, but requires you to <i>spend</i> it. We've found momentum to be extremely valuable in play, and sometimes tough to gain. The costs associated with Vance's Polysyllabic Verbalizations, Tracker, Cackling Soliloquist, and Improbable Stunt are not as severe, and the one with the steepest limitation (Tracker) comes with a hefty background bonus to make up for it. Swashbuckle can use some love. My player who adored Improbable Stunt on his playtest Monk specifically avoided Swashbuckle because of its cost, despite liking the concept.</div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9ead3;"><b>Swashbuckle Adventurer Feat</b>: When you use Swashbuckle roll a normal save. If you succeed you regain momentum after completing the stunt*.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">*Now that I'm re-reading the talent, it's unclear whether the suggested attack you make as part of the stunt can regain momentum if it hits. I had initially thought no since it's part of the same action, but if you interpret it differently then this feat isn't really needed. The more I'm thinking about it the more I like that interpretation of Swashbuckle, though, since it puts it at much more even footing with the others. I'll leave the feat up nevertheless for instructive purposes. </span> </div>
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<b><u>New Rogue Talent</u></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cfe2f3;"><b>Sniper</b>: You can now deal sneak attack damage with ranged attacks, provided you are hidden from the target. To become hidden you need appropriate cover or concealment and you need to succeed at a skill check based on the environment (normal for low light and/or lots of hiding places, hard or even very hard for brightly lit areas with sparse cover). Make this check as part of your move action. When you attack from hidden, whether you hit or miss, you give away your position.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9ead3;"><b>Adventurer</b>: Once per battle you can use sneak attack without being hidden provided the target is engaged with one of your allies.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9ead3;"><b>Champion</b>: Once per battle you can attempt to hide using a quick action. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9ead3;"><b>Epic</b>: Once per battle when you crit with a ranged attack it deals triple damage instead of double damage.</span></div>
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<b><u>3rd Level Rogue Powers</u></b></div>
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<b style="background-color: #cfe2f3;">Distracting Shot</b></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cfe2f3;">Ranged attack</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cfe2f3;">at-will</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cfe2f3;">Target: one enemy engaged with an ally</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cfe2f3;">Attack: Dexterity + level vs AC</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cfe2f3;">Hit: WEAPON + Dexterity damage, and if your natural attack roll was even the target is Dazed.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cfe2f3;">Miss: damage equal to your level.</span></div>
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<b style="background-color: #cfe2f3;">Covering Fire</b></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cfe2f3;">Ranged Attack</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cfe2f3;">at-will</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cfe2f3;">Target: one enemy engaged with an ally</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cfe2f3;">Attack: Dexterity + level vs AC</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cfe2f3;">Hit: WEAPON + Dexterity damage and an engaged ally can either immediately pop free as a free action or gain a +2 bonus to their next melee attack against the target.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cfe2f3;">Miss: damage equal to your level.</span></div>
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<b><u>5th Level Rogue Powers</u></b></div>
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<b style="background-color: #cfe2f3;">Snap Shot</b></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cfe2f3;">Momentum Power</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cfe2f3;">At-will (once per round)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cfe2f3;">Interrupt action; you must <i>spend your momentum</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cfe2f3;">Trigger: an enemy moves to engage you in melee</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cfe2f3;">Effect: make a basic ranged attack against the triggering enemy. The attack deals half damage if it hits.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cfe2f3;">Special: you can't gain momentum from hitting with Snap Shot.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9ead3;"><b>Champion</b>: if the attack hits the triggering enemy is also Dazed.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9ead3;"><b>Epic</b>: The Snap Shot attack deals full damage.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cfe2f3;"><b>I'm Quicker Than You</b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cfe2f3;">Momentum Power</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cfe2f3;">at-will</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cfe2f3;">Trigger: you miss with an attack</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cfe2f3;">Effect: <i>spend your momentum</i> to re-roll the attack, but without sneak attack damage even if you qualified for it with the original attack.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9ead3;"><b>Champion</b>: you get your sneak attack damage with the re-rolled attack.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9ead3;"><b>Epic</b>: If the re-rolled attack was a natural even hit, regain momentum.</span></div>
Brian Slabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05333048710667620592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5891731747515762073.post-28044788479431632442014-08-27T16:16:00.000-07:002014-09-03T14:24:10.590-07:0013th Age Options: The DruidIt's been a while since I've written a 13th Age Options article (or, uh, posted much in general), so I thought I'd kick off the 13 True Ways classes with the Druid. Not surprising since it's one of my favorite fantasy classes, especially the shapeshifter archetype. Back in my <a href="http://thechamberofmazarbuldnd.blogspot.com/2014/07/13-true-ways-initial-thoughts-part-1.html">initial review of 13 True Ways</a> I hinted that I'd be doing an in-depth breakdown of the Druid class. This is not that article, because quite frankly the class is complicated enough that I don't yet feel that I've fully digested everything yet. This is despite playing a Druid in one of my current games. In brief though, the sense that I've gotten from that experience so far (at least for the build I'm using, which is Shifter Adept and Terrain Caster Initiate) is that the Druid looks slightly weak on paper but in practice seems to perform about average. I've got to watch my recoveries a bit more than most, but overall I feel pretty competent.<br />
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Shifter is interesting because it allows you to take the chassis of a spellcaster (no joke; instead of having decent defenses, HP, and recoveries like the Cleric, the Druid is at Wizard/Sorcerer level) and turn it into a melee fighter. The only intrinsic bonus you get is the fact that Beast Form Attack offers really great damage per round (DPR). So you're basically a glass cannon, particularly at low levels. But that's where Aspects come in. Aspects are limited-use (recharge for Adepts) and give you various mechanical bonuses while in beast form to model the differences between various animal forms. Bear form makes you tougher and lets you mow through mooks, leopard form makes you quick and opportunistic, etc. The key is that almost every form provides access to a stackable bonus to AC and PD (and sometimes MD). Pop one aspect and now you've at least got Bard/Rogue level AC. Take the feat(s) that let you stack aspects and you can even be somewhat tanky with the right ones. While this was my hunch upon reading them, play experience has confirmed that a defense bonus is pretty much a necessity when designing Aspects. Anything you transform into should have baseline toughness better than a spellcaster.<br />
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The existing Aspects are all really cool. There were a couple that I initially considered underpowered and didn't think I'd take, but on a whim I used them with my character and found them to be really fun. There's a nice mix of standard beasts like bears, tigers, and wolverines as well as more magical stuff like giant mantises, owlbears, and behemoths. The one glaring hole is the lack of the obvious Wolf Aspect, and mechanically there's a paucity of control and mobility. Basically, the published Aspects are very focused on boosting raw damage, durability, or both. I figured I'd fix that by making Wolf Aspect more control-heavy (as well as making natural odd rolls a little more exciting). It naturally rewards "pack tactics" as well. I imagine it would be quite fun to combine with Animal Companion Initiate (sidebar: while Shifter Adept is really cool, I'm convinced that Shifter Initiate is the weakest of the initiate options, to the point where it's probably not worth taking). As a counterpoint to Wolf Aspect I've added another magical beast, the Blink Dog (mostly because they're underrated). This one's very focused on both mobility and defenses, making it the ideal "striker" Aspect. It'll be quite effective at getting behind enemy lines to the priority target(s) and dealing with them. It can also zip around the battlefield giving it a similar feel to a Monk or Rogue (or a 4E Predator Druid). <br />
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<strike>Aside from the new Aspects I also felt the need to add a general feat for boosting AC in beast form. This will reduce the guilt for not choosing the Warrior Druid talent just to keep up with melee defenses, and it will give Shifters an easier time at low levels when they only have a couple of Aspects. It should also let players feel like they don't have to pick up the more defensive Aspects just to keep up, missing out on offensive Aspects that they might rather take. It might verge onto "must have" territory just a little bit, but the published Shifter feats aren't really very high-impact at low levels anyways because you'll need to stretch few Aspects out over a full day instead of stacking them. If you're spending two Talents on Shifter, you should have some decent low-level feat choices. Balance-wise, it's functionally identical to the Warrior Druid adventurer feat except that it only applies in beast form (as opposed to always), so I certainly wouldn't call it "overpowered."</strike><br />
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After analyzing the Druid a bit more in-depth, comparing it to other classes, and some <a href="https://plus.google.com/103845149076077169384/posts/2ChDGALzSRC">discussion online</a> I've decided that a "Natural Armor" feat isn't quite what the class needs. In fact, I think a reversion to the playtest Druid's base defensive stats is in order. Thus, I've decided on the following suggested house rule to bring the 13th Age Druid up to consistency with tradition as a physically tougher spellcaster, if not one that's armored as well as a Cleric.<br />
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<b><u>House Rule Revisions to Base Class</u></b><br />
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<b>Revised Druid Armor Table</b><br />
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<span style="background-color: #f4cccc;"><b>Type</b> <b>Base AC</b> <b>Attack Penalty</b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f4cccc;">None 10 -</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f4cccc;">Light 12* -</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f4cccc;">Heavy 14 -2</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f4cccc;">Shield +1 -2*</span><br />
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<b>Revised Druid Hit Points</b><br />
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<span style="background-color: #f4cccc;">Change from 6 + Con mod to <u>7 + Con mod</u>.</span><br />
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<b>Revisions to Warrior Druid</b><br />
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<span style="background-color: #f4cccc;">Your AC in light armor is 14 instead of 12 like most other Druids.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f4cccc;">Your base hit points are 8 + Con mod instead of 7 + Con mod.</span><br />
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<b><u>New Shifter Aspects</u></b><br />
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<b style="background-color: #cfe2f3;">Wolf Aspect</b><br />
<span style="background-color: #cfe2f3;"><u>Initiate Effect</u>: Gain a +2 bonus to PD. If the target is engaged with one of your allies, your natural odd beast form attacks deal an extra die of damage.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #cfe2f3;"><u>Adept Effect</u>: As initiate effect, plus you can choose to make the target of your natural odd beast form attacks Vulnerable or Hampered. Also, the bonus to PD applies to AC as well.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #d9ead3;">A: Allies gain a +2 bonus to melee attacks against enemies engaged with you that you hit on your previous turn.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #d9ead3;">C: Once per battle you can make the target of a natural even beast form attack Vulnerable or Hampered.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #d9ead3;">E: Until the first time it recharges each day, Wolf Aspect is Recharge 11+ for Adepts instead of Recharge 16+. </span><br />
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<b style="background-color: #cfe2f3;">Blink Dog Aspect</b><br />
<span style="background-color: #cfe2f3;"><u>Initiate Effect</u>: Gain a +5 bonus to Disengage checks and when you hit with a natural 18+ the target is Dazed until the end of your next turn.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #cfe2f3;"><u>Adept Effect</u>: Gain a +2 bonus to AC and PD and once per battle you can teleport anywhere nearby as a free action. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #d9ead3;">A: Gain a +2 bonus to beast form attack if you moved to engage the target this turn. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #d9ead3;">C: Once per battle roll a save when you're hit with an attack. On a success you take only half damage.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #d9ead3;">E: Until the first time it recharges each day, Blink Dog Aspect is Recharge 11+ for Adepts instead of Recharge 16+.</span><br />
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<b style="background-color: #d9ead3;"><strike>Natural Armor</strike></b><br />
<span style="background-color: #d9ead3;"><strike>Adventurer Feat: While in Beast Form you gain a +2 bonus to your AC.</strike></span>Brian Slabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05333048710667620592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5891731747515762073.post-27719367415172056292014-08-24T07:02:00.003-07:002014-08-24T07:02:24.124-07:00D&D 5th Edition First Play ExperiencesThere are a LOT of reviews of 5th Edition up by now so I'll try to keep this concise. My Saturday night group tried out the Starter Set + Basic Rules (I'm not sure if the Basic rules are included in the Starter Set; I'm not the one who bought the box). Of the 4 of us, myself and the DM are the only "experienced" gamers, and that includes being the only ones who have played D&D before. We started this group because the DM's fiance and brother were messing around with FFG's Star Wars dice one night, asked him what the rolls meant, and were intrigued enough to want to actually play. So we played Age of Rebellion (with Edge of the Empire material) for several months, then moved onto short "campaigns" of Fate Accelerated, Fate Core, and now 5th Edition D&D. <br />
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This isn't the first time I've taught new players how to play D&D, but it's especially interesting teaching people who have played other games (especially more narrative games) a bit before vs teaching people who are completely new to roleplaying. As streamlined as 5th Edition is, there are some inherently unintuitive concepts ("what are these ability scores for when I always just used the modifier?") and the layout of the pregen sheet also posed some problems (skills, saves, and raw ability scores being in different places meant that a few times the players referenced the wrong number when a check was being made). That said, things went much more smoothly than they probably would have if we'd been using a grid and/or playing 3.x/PF, so 5th Edition is pretty newbie friendly compared with other editions of D&D.<br />
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The pregens we used were the Rogue (that was me), the Dex Fighter, and the Wizard. Arguably this is probably the most "hard mode" combination of pregens that we could have selected, but I think we've already bypassed the first big hurdle, which was that frightening first encounter. I'll try not to provide too many spoilers, but needless to say I think the only reason we survived was because the Fighter rolled a natural 20 on his Survival check to determine the direction that some horses had been shot from, and so the DM denied the archers the surprise round that they were supposed to get. The Wizard's Shield spell was a literal life saver, too. Of course also worth mentioning is that the DM has decided not to scale encounters back just so we can see how it'll play out, and the fact that we were able to survive (albeit barely) is a good sign. <br />
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The adventure itself seems to be pretty well-designed so far (I'm used to WotC published settings being pretty bad, and it's good to see that they've improved in this area). There are a TON of different hooks so that we all feel we've got a pretty full array of options to pursue even after just one session, and many of these are built into the backstories of the Pregens. This means that with a party of all 5 characters there would probably be <i>too many</i> different options and I can see choice paralysis being an issue, but that's better than being heavily railroaded. <br />
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Mechanically, the system is pretty slick. I'm a huge fan of Advantage/Disadvantage, and doubly so considering my Rogue doesn't have a reliable flanking buddy. The spell system was confusing for our newbie Wizard (especially since her last character was a very free-form spellcaster in Fate Core), but I think it's loads better than the Vancian casting of old. I'd even go so far as to say I might prefer it to 4E's power system, assuming option bloat from splatbooks don't become an issue. While the Rogue didn't wow me at first level, I'm looking forward to getting Cunning Action at 2nd and really ramping up the skirmisher shenanigans. It's worth mentioning that we couldn't figure out how Stealth and attacking from Hiding worked during the session, so the DM just ruled I'd get advantage for it (after looking up the rules later, which are in 3 different sections of the Basic PDF, which also happens to lack an index, I found out that we did it correctly). I'm still not super clear on how the Halfling's ability to hide behind larger creatures works. If the enemies see be run behind my buddy and then I succeed at my Hide check, I guess they can't see me so they'll take Disadvantage against me (and I'll get Advantage against them), but they'll know where I am. That seems very cheesy to me, and I'm not sure how often I'll make use of it because it stretches my suspension of disbelief a bit too far. <br />
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My favorite mechanic was Inspiration, which seems to work pretty similarly to Fate Points and Aspects. This made it really easy for our group to latch onto, and the DM was really good about generously throwing out Inspiration. The Personality/Ideals/Bonds/Flaws were written well enough to be very broadly applicable, probably even moreso than many of our Fate Aspects. The consensus was that it was easier to get Inspiration than it was to get Fate Points in play, though this is easily balanced out by the fact that in Fate you start out a session with 3 Fate Points. I suspect that many groups (especially those who have stuck with D&D and not branched out into systems like Fate) won't make as much use out of the Inspiration mechanics as we did. Because of the way it works it will come into play about as often as the group prefers it to, because the players and DM have to be active about asking for it and awarding it. For us, Inspiration had a huge effect on how the game plays, definitely disproportionate to the treatment it was given in the rules. <br />
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So at the end of the day the most important question is does 5th edition seem like a system that will be worth playing for my group(s)? Does it have enough of a niche to set it apart from all of the other systems that we play (or want to play)? The jury's still out on that one, but I will say that having the Basic PDF helps a LOT because it's always there for us to go back to and try out just a little bit more. I imagine that if we play again outside of the starter set I'd be tempted to pick up the PHB, but only time will tell. The way I'm looking at it now though, the biggest selling point for me is probably the grittiness of the system. My go-to fantasy RPG is 13th Age, but it's really tough to make that game gritty because it's all about the PCs as Big Damn Heroes. Sometimes I get the itch to run (or play) something that's a little more Sword and Sorcery, and I think 5th Edition could be that game. I've heard a lot of people comment that there are already many retro-clones that emulate such an experience, and if that works for some people, that's great! But 5th Edition also brings to the table the superb Inspiration mechanic, as well as Advantage/Disadvantage, and perhaps other neat little bits that I haven't come across yet after just one session of play. And then there's class design in general, which is different enough in 5th Edition to be worth looking at. I'm not sure whether 5th Edition does most classes <i>better</i> at this point, but the way that spells work for the Wizard is really nifty, and the Rogue seems like it will play somewhat like a 13th Age Rogue in some aspects after a few levels, which is a HUGE plus in its favor. I don't have strong opinions on the Fighter yet, and haven't seen the Cleric (or obviously any PHB classes) in action. Overall, color me intrigued. A gritty, fast-paced (oh yeah, I did mean to comment on how quick the game runs) game with a smattering of "modern" and more narrative mechanics might have a bigger potential niche than I expected this edition to have. Based on many reviews I've read the game is largely perceived to be "more of the same," which in some ways might be true but there are enough little changes that it's not quite that simple in my opinion.Brian Slabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05333048710667620592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5891731747515762073.post-55260874670608935952014-07-27T16:41:00.000-07:002014-07-27T16:41:18.114-07:0013 True Ways Initial Thoughts (Part 2)This is the second part of my 13 True Ways overview. For part 1, which includes the first two chapters (new classes and multiclassing), <a href="http://thechamberofmazarbuldnd.blogspot.com/2014/07/13-true-ways-initial-thoughts-part-1.html">click here</a>.<br />
<br />
<b>Chapter 3: Cities and Courts</b><br />
This chapter has in-depth descriptions for Axis, the Court of Stars, Drakkenhall, Horizon, and Santa Cora. These are really flavorful descriptions and like most of the fluff in 13th Age, meant to be taken as suggestions rather than gospel. There are multiple "takes" on many elements of these places, and each section (minus the Santa Cora write-up, which is brief) has descriptions of important places, themes, NPCs, everyday details, and a list of 13 rumors about the city/court. In addition, Horizon and Drakkenhall go even further with descriptions of how each Icon is connected to the city. The best part is that there are several examples for each Icon of how a relationship die result could be used in those cities. I find these examples to be really useful for gauging how the designers intended Icon results to be used. The description in the Core Rulebook is fine and all, but using Icons is consistently something discussed in forums and on the Google+ group as being difficult for a lot of GMs and players to grasp. This chapter adds a lot of additional examples which can be used as-is, or to spark inspiration and/or serve to calibrate the effects of ideas that GMs might come up with.<br />
<br />
This chapter and obviously the chapter with all of the new classes were my favorites. I love having so much new setting information, and it's all the more pertinent since both Drakkenhall and Axis have featured prominently in both of my campaigns. Interestingly, nothing in these descriptions outright contradicted what my group has established before, but it offers a ton of new ideas that will keep these cities interesting for a long time. And while my group hasn't explored the Queen's Wood at all yet, the Court of Stars has a very "dangerous fey," fairy tale inspired feel to it which is exactly how I would run it.<br />
<br />
<b>Chapter 4: Monsters</b><br />
The monster chapter is a good chunk of the page count and offers a lot of new foes for GMs to throw at their players. The entries follow the example from the 13th Age core rulebook as opposed to the detailed, narrative entries from the Bestiary. That's ok though, because that's a bit outside the scope of the book. The stat blocks themselves are excellent and some really fun monsters are included. Besides that, a lot of space is devoted to devils, and they get their own Bestiary-style fluff chapter so it's actually a mix of the two presentations. Most devils get a very thematic power called Devil's Due. It works a bit differently for each type of devil, but the gist is that you basically have to give the devil its due if you want to use the Escalation Die. If you decide to make the deal, using the Escalation Die carries a nasty negative consequence.<br />
<br />
In addition to devils, there are higher level dire animals (boar, tiger, and giant praying mantis), azers, cloud giants, metallic dragons, elementals (which serve as both foes and summoning options for Druids), flowers of unlife (these have a nifty new resurrection mechanic), gnolls (new, nasty, high level gnolls!), mummies (there's an awesome story behind them), pixies, soul flensers (they're mind-flayer levels of nasty), specters, treants, werebeasts, and zombies (including the awesome headless zombies that break the tradition of the normal insta-death headshot crit rules for zombies).<br />
<br />
<b>Chapter 5: Deviltry</b><br />
This chapter describes many ways in which devils can fit into your campaign. There's a unique, campaign-defining story associated with each one of the Icons. Each entry includes a section on Origins and Agenda (this is the meaty part that describes what role devils will play), Hierarchy (which details the role(s) that each unique type of devil plays in this story, usually with Lemures at the bottom of the barrel and Pit Fiends ruling over everything else), and how Other Icons fit into this particular story. Finally, there's 16 more Icon-neutral (mostly) ideas for using devils. I found this chapter a bit dull to read straight through, but that's not necessarily the point. The best way to use this chapter is to pick Icons that play a prominent role in your campaign and brainstorm how devils might fit into that story. Each description isn't simultaneously true in any given campaign, but rather you'll pick one of the entries or use ideas from two or three of them. And if you want to focus on devils again in a future campaign, you'll have plenty of ideas at the ready for telling a completely different story.<br />
<br />
<b>Chapter 6: Gamemaster's Grimoire</b><br />
Whereas the other chapters each have a specific focus, this one is basically a grab bag of miscellaneous stuff. It starts out by introducing artifacts, which are unsurprisingly just really powerful true magic items. They work more or less like other magic items, except that they have multiple powers that they can unlock over time. Honestly, I've already implemented a few multi-power magic items and have also had individual items gain power over time instead of being replaced with more powerful items, so there's nothing really new here for me. They do list three example artifacts: the feathered crown, the fist wrought of blood, and the gloves of the dark path. <br />
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Next we get three lists of 13 things. There are dungeons/ruins, flying realms, and inns/taverns. Each one gets about a paragraph of description and they seem to be great for GMs who need a quick idea in a pinch, either because they didn't have much time to prepare, are having a creative block, or when the PCs go off the rails. I'm not a huge fan of flying realms that the designers seem to enjoy, but I'll admit that the entry for Big Dumb Rock was pretty awesome. The taverns in particular will be great for adding some color to what otherwise usually ends up being a generic inn just like every other inn that the PCs inevitably end up staying at. I'll admit that I don't usually think of embellishing on inns aside from a clever/funny name every now and then, but this list should change that, making inns interesting for their own sake.<br />
<br />
Next there's more magic items, including some cursed items. I'm honestly not thrilled with most of the magic items in here or in the core rulebook. They feel a little too much like 4E D&D magic items, except they're not baked into the game's math and the quirk mechanic makes them more intrinsically interesting. More than half of the items I've passed out to my players have been custom ones that fit the story, the character, or are just a weird thing I thought of at the time. In my first campaign I passed out 3 magical daggers that all did different things. One provided a bonus to rituals, one was able to cut through stone but had a certain number of charges, and the third launched its wielder into the air like a catapult when slashed through the air a certain way (this one had charges too). I prefer weird powers that PCs can use in creative ways as opposed to having just another combat bonus. <br />
<br />
Finally, there's a section on 3 monastic tournaments (which I didn't find particularly inspiring, but hey this is the book with the monk in it), 4 NPC descriptions provided by high-level kickstarter backers, and 2 living dungeons, also provided by kickstarter backers. The NPC entries don't include stat blocks, but rather advice on how they might fit into your campaign with multiple options provided (including as allies or adversaries). Each NPC also has a list of 13 rumors about them, which may or may not be true. <br />
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The living dungeons include Underkrakens (tied to the Soul Flensers in the monster chapter) and the Wild Garden (tied to the Flowers of Unlife, also in the monster chapter). There are multiple options for what Underkrakens might be (vehicles, cities, monsters, or living dungeons), most of which have a Cthulu-like flavor. There's even an optional rule for "sanity" called Terrible Enlightenment, and Call of Cthulu is straight-up referenced as an inspiration. The Wild Garden entry is a little more detailed, with a background story for where it came from and then a quick walkthrough of an adventure. The adventure is pretty bare-bones with a couple of paragraphs for each level of the dungeon and suggestions for what monsters to include (with page number references, but without repeating stat blocks). Honestly, this is probably more useful to me than a traditionally-written published adventure. I tend to be pretty bad at running prefab adventures, not least because I hate having to read a long adventure multiple times in preparation for running it, and because referencing them is usually a pain because there's so much text to wade through. I could see myself running this, though. A quick description to set the stage and provide a spark of inspiration that I can then expand and improvise upon as we play. And since it has such a small word count it can be tacked into a "grab-bag" chapter like this without taking up too much space. Too few adventures are presented this way, and while I'm sure a lot of GMs prefer the more detailed, traditional published adventures something like this works better for more improvisational GMs who like to do a lot of their own world-building and/or collaborative world-building with the players.<br />
<br />
So that's 13 True Ways in a nutshell. It's been a long wait, but it was worth it!Brian Slabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05333048710667620592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5891731747515762073.post-80425380187975060312014-07-08T14:50:00.003-07:002014-07-27T16:42:34.265-07:0013 True Ways Initial Thoughts (Part 1)The first announced supplement for 13th Age, 13 True Ways, is finally out in PDF form. If you <a href="http://www.pelgranepress.com/?p=12292">preorder</a> the book (which has a projected print release date of August), you'll get the PDF now. This book is pretty much a grab-bag of everything, with plenty of useful material for both players and GMs. And with that, I'll just dive right in.<br />
<br />
<b>Chapter 1: Classes</b><br />
This chapter contains 6 new classes for 13th Age, bringing the total for the system up to 15. This includes the Druid and Monk, both initially intended for the core rulebook. They were left out to prevent further delays of the book, because they weren't yet ready. I'm fully in favor of making sure that a class is done right even if it means getting to it later, so while the wait was agonizing it's worth it to see the classes in their polished form. Rounding out the list is the Chaos Mage (great for players with a randomness fetish), Commander (13th Age's answer to the 4E Warlord), Necromancer (finally a game gets this archetype right!), and the Occultist (a reality-bending spellcaster...no, THE reality bending spellcaster. There can be only one). <br />
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The Chaos Mage takes the wild magic flavor that's hinted at in the Sorcerer and takes it to the extreme. You get three categories of spells - attack, defense, and Iconic. When you roll initiative and at the end of each turn you randomly select a category (the default method is drawing colored "stones" from a bag, but there's an alternative that uses dice, though it's a bit clunkier). On your next turn, you get to choose which spell of that category you want to cast. You have a limited number of daily and 1/battle spell slots, so you're generally deciding whether you want to use an at-will spell or a limited use spell of some kind. If you roll Iconic there are spells associated with each Icon (the Icon you use is determined by rolling a d12; the Emperor doesn't mess around with Chaos). Some Talents allow you to randomly obtain spells from another class (Necromancer, Wizard, Cleric, or Sorcerer), and so this can give you a few extra choices (most of these will be assigned to either attack or defense, depending on what makes sense). Their other talents are Warp talents, which give you a random benefit whenever you roll a certain spell category (i.e. Attack Warp, Defensive Warp, and Iconic Warp). Finally, there's a class feature called High Weirdness (as if all of these layers of randomness weren't enough!). High Weirdness gives you a random effect by rolling on a d% table in certain situations, and the effects aren't always beneficial. I look forward to seeing this class in play because it looks like a lot of fun. Unfortunately, this class will only appeal to a subset of players, and I'm not sure if any of them are at my table. Maybe I'll take it for a spin one of these days, though admittedly I'd probably get burned out on the chaos after more than a few sessions, so I doubt I'd use it for a long-term campaign.<br />
<br />
The Commander seems to be able to do much of what a 4E Warlord could, but without using 4E's AEDU system. Instead Commanders use a mechanic called command points, which are gained during the fight. You can either gain them by hitting with a melee attack (fight from the front), or by using a standard action to automatically gain command points (weight the odds). Commanders rely on their interrupt actions, with which they spend command points to trigger Commands on their allies' turns. They can allow allies to rally, let them re-roll missed attacks, boost their damage, gain movement, etc. As a Commander, you'll really have to pay attention on everyone's turn to best make use of your abilities. Commands are at-will, and rely on the flow of command points to limit their use. Commanders also have Tactics, which are quick action recharge powers. A major "family" of Tactics lets you use your quick action to grant extra attacks to your allies. Yep, Warlord fans will enjoy this class, which along with the Monk is one of two new "martial" archetypes that join the Rogue on the complex end of the spectrum.<br />
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I'll probably end up doing a more detailed breakdown of the Druid in a future post (it's one of my favorite classes, after all). Druids have shouldered a lot of different roles in D&D (sometimes simultaneously, if you've ever heard of <a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=CoDzilla">CoDzilla</a> from 3.x/PF), and the 13th Age design goal for the Druid was to let players build their own Druidic archetype without having to wield an overpowered mess. Each of the 6 Druid talents encompasses a distinct schtick; you've got Animal Companion, Elemental Caster (which includes summoning), Shifter, Terrain Caster, Warrior Druid, and Wild Healer. If you spend a single talent slot on a given talent you're an initiate in that sphere, but you also have the option to take a talent for two talent slots, in which case you become an adept. Each talent lists its benefits for initiates and adepts separately. As an added bonus, the Ranger gets a revision that makes its Animal Companion talent the same as the Druid's (if they keep it at two talents they gain a list of animal-buffing spells, or they can choose to spend only 1 talent on it and they get the companion every other battle). Another interesting twist is that the spellcasting talents grants a mini spell list but by default only give you daily powers. Druids can spend feats to pick up at-will and (with Terrain Caster) 1/battle spells. The class design really does seem to strike a balance between covering everything that Druids have historically done without having to balance CoDzilla against the other classes.<br />
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The Monk is probably the most complex of the "martial" classes, rivaling some of the more complex spellcasters. Monks use attack forms that consist of an opening attack, a flow attack, and a finishing attack. Each form consists of a theme, but the fun of playing a Monk is mixing and matching your forms. Using the opening attack from Dance of the Mantis to quickly get into melee range, following it up with the flow attack from Claws of the Panther to hit multiple guys, and then finishing it up with Three Cunning Tricksters for some defensive retaliation goodness. You also gain a cumulative +1 bonus to AC after each step in your form, which resets back once you use another opening. It does a great job of emulating movement while using a very different mechanic than the Rogue's momentum. Monks also get a pool of Ki that they can use to modify their natural die roll by +/-1 (many forms use natural result triggers, but it's also nice for critting and triggering two weapon fighting), and in addition to that each talent grants an option for using Ki and the forms have feats that use Ki. So you've got the sequential form-based tactics to think about round-by-round as well as a daily resource in Ki to use when you really need a little extra oomph! The Monk is a lot of fun to play, and does a great job of emulating wire-fu martial arts.<br />
<br />
The Necromancer is a breath of fresh air (except, you know, in the literal sense) because D&D has never done this archetype justice. 13th Age hits it out of the park. You've got an improvisational talent (Cackling Soliloquist) that calls to mind Vance's Polysyllabic Verbalizations but with much more awesome flavor, one that lets you speak with the dead, a Redeemer talent that frees the souls of the undead you utilize (releasing a burst of holy energy when they're destroyed), you can gain a skeletal companion much like a Druid or Ranger get an animal companion (except you can set yours on fire with the right feat!), you can kill enemies that are already close to death with a quick action, and finally a talent called Sorta Dead which grants you the benefits of being Undead when it's convenient (or not, if it's not), and lets you roll a save when you die to heal instead. Largely it's a fairly meat-and-potatoes spellcaster from a mechanical standpoint, with a heavy focus on summoning. There are some surprising support spells in their list too (Necromancers can heal, but of course they do so by siphoning off someone else's life force!), and transmutation spells that offer various undead forms, and a surprising variety of plays on necromantic energy (things like unholy blasts and rotting curses). And then there's my personal favorite, a spell that targets mooks by animating their own skeletons and causing them to burst forth from their bodies, granting you a shiny (well, bloody and messy probably) new skeletal minion. <br />
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Finally, we have the Occultist. That's THE Occultist, because the default fluff is that there's only one. Basically she's a powerful spellcaster that rearranges reality to suit her whims. Like the Commander, he mostly focuses on interrupt actions. The gist is that you spend your standard action to gather your Focus, and then you'll spend your Focus on someone else's turn to either make reality more favorable to your allies or make things suck even more for your enemies. Reality also works a little differently for the Occultist, who recharges spells just a bit differently from normal people (she doesn't necessarily recharge the same spell, but rather that spell slot), and because he tends to send his intellect all manner of places that's not his physical body, he receives magical healing a turn late. The Occultist sounds like a very interesting support character, with perhaps more of a damage focus than the Commander, and to use 4E roles can be a neat mix of leader (helps allies) and controller (screws over enemies).<br />
<br />
<b>Chapter 2: Multiclassing</b><br />
As expected, 13th Age multiclassing is not as straightforward as most other mechanics for the system. The classes are just too diverse for a simple formula, and the designers are (rightly) too concerned with balance to allow a min/max focused solution that would run roughshod over other PCs. Each class has details for making 1st level multiclassed characters (the new classes have a line for it right in their level progression chart), and otherwise a multiclass character gains spells or other powers one level lower than their current level. So a 4th level Fighter/Wizard would have the maneuver pool of a 3rd level Fighter and the spells of a 3rd level Wizard. You get the base AC of whichever class is better for a given armor type (though penalties still exist if, for example, you cast Wizard spells while wearing heavy armor), and you average your base HP (rounding down AFTER you multiply for your level) and recovery die (the die type rounds up). Your weapon damage die drops UNLESS both of your classes are from a list of "skilled warriors," and the ability score you use is your "key modifier." There's a big key modifier table for each class combination that ensures each multiclass character has to care about two ability scores. Your key modifier is the lowest of the two indicated ability scores, and is used in place of either score for the purposes of making attacks and damage. The math is really well-done for the most part; for example, Fighter/Wizard and Fighter/Sorcerer key modifiers are Dex/Int and Dex/Cha, respectively. Str certainly would have been more intuitive, but that would result in a character that wants to keep two scores high, neither of which contribute to AC. As Dex is an AC boosting stat you won't get gimped for these combinations.<br />
<br />
Still, multiclassing generally won't get you an overpowered character. Quite the contrary; the designers flat out state that most of the time a multiclass character will probably have less raw power, but more diversity. They also advise doing the simple talent swaps from the core rulebook if that fits your concept well enough; multiclasing is mostly for those who have a concept that they just can't achieve any other way.<br />
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<br />
<a href="http://thechamberofmazarbuldnd.blogspot.com/2014/07/13-true-ways-initial-thoughts-part-2.html">Part 2</a> of my overview of 13 True Ways features chapters 3-6. Yep, that's a lot more chapters than Part 1, but the class chapters are very meaty so I'm cutting this post off here. Brian Slabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05333048710667620592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5891731747515762073.post-10872816685999737802014-07-03T19:51:00.000-07:002014-07-03T19:51:03.778-07:0013th Age Gnome Illusionist (RAW)I had a random thought the other day about the lack of illusion spells in 13th Age and the fact that of all the Wizard specialist builds Illusionist has (arguably) been the most popular historically, and yet the only one we've gotten is the Necromancer (thanks to 13 True Ways). Don't take that as a complaint against the Necromancer; it's never been well done (or even fully realized) in D&D, but 13th Age has knocked it out of the park! <br />
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Speaking of which, a review/impressions of 13 True Ways is forthcoming (as a Kickstarter backer I've had the PDF since the 27th), but I'm still reading through it. Since it doesn't include an Illusionist, and none of the popular fan-made classes have been an Illusionist, I was thinking about how one might approach the archetype in 13th Age. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that you can make one pretty much using the existing material. Here is one such approach. I'm leaving out Icons, Backgrounds, and OUT because it's more fun for a player to come up with that stuff on their own. The point of this post is more to illustrate a concept than to provide a finished character.<br />
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<b>Race: Gnome</b><br />
<b>Class: Bard</b><br />
<b>Level: 1</b><br />
<br />
Ability Scores (tinker as desired):<br />
Str 8, Dex 16 (class), Con 10, Int 18 (race), Wis 14, Cha 12<br />
<br />
AC: 15<br />
PD: 11<br />
MD: 14<br />
HP: 21<br />
<br />
Recovery: 1d8+0<br />
<br />
Talents:<br />
Loremaster (replace Cha with Int, choose either of the other two benefits)<br />
Battle Skald<br />
Jack of Spells<br />
<br />
<i>Since Illusionists are traditionally Intelligence-based, it seemed appropriate to do the same here despite using the Bard class. Conveniently, Loremaster ensures that there's no conflict here. Battle Skald might seem like an odd choice but one of the key concepts of this build is that Battle Chant is going to be flavored as your bread-and-butter at-will illusions. What exactly the illusion does will depend on the roll, and the damage can represent the loss of morale, growing frustration or fear, or simply the illusion causing the target to open their defenses such that an ally can exploit it. Part of the fun of playing an Illusionist is letting your creativity run wild; even in D&D where options are usually pretty rigidly defined, illusion spells have always been an oasis of free-form improvisation.</i><br />
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Racial Powers:<br />
Confounding<br />
Minor Illusions<br />
<br />
Powers and Spells:<br />
Battle Chant<br />
Befuddle<br />
Terror (Necromancer), Blur (Wizard), or Ways of the Dark (Druid)<br />
<br />
Stay Strong!, Move It!, We Need You!<br />
<br />
<i>So we've already established that Battle Chant will be flavored as your every day illusions. What else do illusions do mechanically? Well, they're intrinsically all about confusing your opponents and so any spell that applies the Confused condition is pure gold. Bards do a lot of this, and Befuddle is your first workhorse. You've got a few options for Jack of Spells, but Terror does a good job of emulating a terrifying illusion that causes any sane person to flee. Blur represents an illusion applied to yourself (and could provide a useful defensive boost since this build is pretty squishy), and Ways of the Dark is a good way of creating the illusion that you (the caster) aren't even there.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>As far as Battle Cries are concerned, notice that we're not taking the staple Pull It Together! Illusionists aren't really about healing, so as tempting as it is the pick this up it's not really on-theme. Illusions can, however, distract an enemy long enough to let an ally disengage or make a save, and Stay Strong! could represent a defensive illusion along the lines of Blur or Mirror Image, or it could also simply be a distracting illusion.</i><br />
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Feats: Battle Chant<br />
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<i>Even if Illusionists are more about control and misdirection, you still want to contribute to damage. HP are an abstraction anyways, so keep in mind that you're not necessarily dealing physical wounds and play that up. If you're the one to deal the "killing blow" to an enemy, try to think more along the lines of taking them out of the conflict as opposed to actually knocking them unconscious. A distracted mind could lead to physical harm, sure, but it can be just as interesting if the enemy flees out of fear, or simply because they're chasing something that's not there!</i><br />
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<b>Level 5</b><br />
<br />
So let's check in with our Gnome Illusionist now that we've achieved Champion tier. While it doesn't matter quite yet with the array I've chosen (all evens), at level 4 we've boosted INT because it's the primary attack ability of the Loremaster Bard, as well as the Wizard and Necromancer, two highly useful classes to Jack spells from. It's also probably a good idea to boost WIS (the Cleric and Druid both offer attractive options for Spell-Jacking as well, not to mention that it contributes to AC) and Dex (again, we're thinking about AC here but Initiative is also important, and besides that if you ever need to actually hit something with a melee weapon you can use Dex for that as a Bard). <br />
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Now let's see what's changed.<br />
<br />
3rd Level Spells: <br />
Befuddle<br />
Vicious Mockery<br />
Song of Spilt Blood<br />
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5th Level Spells:<br />
Battle Chant<br />
Discombobulate<br />
Terror (Necromancer)<br />
AND/OR Cause Fear (Cleric)<br />
AND/OR Ways of the Dark (Druid)<br />
AND/OR one of the following Wizard spells:<br />
<i>Color Spray</i><br />
<i>Confusion</i><br />
<i>Rebuke</i><br />
<i>Denial</i><br />
<i>Blur</i><br />
<i>Invisibility</i><br />
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Battle Cries:<br />
Take Heart!<br />
Move It!<br />
Stay Strong!<br />
It's All Yours!<br />
<br />
Feats:<br />
1. Battle Chant (A)<br />
2. Battle Skald (A)<br />
3. It's All Yours! (A)<br />
4. Befuddle (A)<br />
5. Jack of Spells (C)<br />
<br />
<i>Note that I've taken the Champion feat for Jack of Spells without first taking the Adventurer feat, as per the optional rule that GMs can allow players to take higher tier feats if they don't build off of the lower tier feat. I don't consider the "use X ability in place of Y" feats particularly useful since you'll generally only get 1 spell from another class with these Talents, and they're usually Daily options. Combined with the fact that spells are usually pretty accurate since they target PD or MD, I fail to see how a +2 1/day is that big of a deal (assuming you're trying to boost a WIS spell from the Cleric or Druid). Not to mention the fact that most Illusionists will probably pick a Necromancer or Wizard spell anyways, and so everything you've got probably uses INT. Thus, the Adventurer tier feat for Jack of Spells will either do nothing or not much (Jacking Terror from the Necromancer is probably your best bet), and so if your GM insists that you take it before the Champion feat they're just being a jerk.</i><br />
<br />
<b>Level 10</b><br />
<br />
So what does this Illusionist look like at the end game? Let's find out!<br />
<br />
Spells (all 9th Level):<br />
Battle Chant<br />
Discombobulate<br />
Befuddle<br />
Vicious Mockery<br />
Song of Spilt Blood<br />
Song of Victory<br />
Song of Destinies<br />
Terror (Necromancer)<br />
Cause Fear (Cleric)<br />
one of the previously mentioned Wizard spells<br />
OR Ways of the Dark (Druid)<br />
<br />
<i>By the time you reach Epic tier you should probably have BOTH Terror and Cause Fear because the concept of creating an illusion so frightening that your opponent wets their pants and runs for the hills is just too fun to pass up. The Wizard offers a ton of strong options that can be flavored as Illusion spells, but if you want an at-will alternative to Battle Chant you'll probably want to pick up Ways of the Dark from the Druid. Although Color Spray just might be good enough as a cyclic spell, since by now you'll have enough options to keep you pretty busy.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>The songs might come across as a bit odd on an Illusionist, but you don't have to literally sing them. Just say they're illusions that require some concentration to sustain. Some of these are a bit of a stretch, but ultimately I went with the options that fit the concept best, if not 100% perfectly. Again, I'll reiterate that even though you're using the Bard class you'll mostly be staying away from healing options. You might want to just tell your party that you're playing an Illusionist and re-name all of your spells so they don't get false expectations when they hear you say "Bard."</i><br />
<br />
Battle Cries:<br />
Take Heart!<br />
Move It!<br />
Stay Strong!<br />
It's All Yours!<br />
Victory is Ours!<br />
They Fall Before Us!<br />
The Time is Now!<br />
<br />
Feats:<br />
1. Battle Chant (A)<br />
2. Battle Skald (A)<br />
3. It's All Yours! (A)<br />
4. Befuddle (A)<br />
5. Jack of Spells (C)<br />
6. Battle Skald (C)<br />
7. It's All Yours! (C)<br />
8. Jack of Spells (E)<br />
9. They Fall Before Us! (E)<br />
10. Confounding (C)<br />
<br />
<i>Obviously feats are where an individual player has the most leeway. They're designed to allow you to specialize in certain areas, and Bards (especially those with Jack of Spells) tend to have a lot of options that can be improved via feats. The most important feats are Jack of Spells (because other classes have excellent options that can easily be flavored as Illusions, and having a bunch of stuff that fits well also serves to dilute those options (like some of the songs) that are a bit more borderline) and that first Battle Chant feat (because you'll really want to avoid swinging a melee weapon; an Illusionist is a spellcaster, and you're trying to create the feel of a Wizard more than a duelist Bard!). </i>Brian Slabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05333048710667620592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5891731747515762073.post-2033693345022974542014-06-25T14:10:00.001-07:002014-06-25T14:10:16.928-07:00The One Ring Official UpdatesAs some of you may know, several months ago Cubicle 7 announced that they were printing a revised version of the core rulebook for The One Ring. Well, <a href="http://shop.cubicle7store.com/epages/es113347.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/es113347_shop/Products/CB71009">pre-orders are now open</a> and the <a href="http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/131351/The-One-Ring-Roleplaying-Game?affiliate_id=384646">PDF is available</a> right now as well. Whereas the original printing was a boxed set with two softcover books (an Adventurer's Book and a Loremaster's Book), the new core book is a single hardback volume. It's not quite a second edition, as it's been mostly re-organized so that the two books are now combined into one, and individual topics are not split up and difficult to find anymore. Considering that the book's organization and index were the biggest criticisms of the system when it was released, this is a huge improvement. If anyone has been on the fence about getting into TOR, now is the time to jump on board.<br />
<br />
Even if it's not a second edition, there have been some errata incorporated into the new printing. A few specific player options have been re-balanced (i.e. the notoriously underpowered Beorning Cultural Blessing has been given a boost, and the even more notoriously overpowered King's Blade has been hit with the nerf bat, bringing it down to parity with other Rewards and eliminating the "Hobbit uber-swordman" issue). Preliminary rolls have been simplified into a unified mechanic between the three heroic ventures (Journeys, Combat, and Encounters), which was admittedly a houserule that the game's designer, Francesco Nepitello, had posted on his blog for a while. Now it's official. Favored skills are cheaper to upgrade, Fatigue from traveling gear has been increased, and the effects of the Intimidate Foe and Rally Comrades actions have been given a boost, making them more competitive options in combat. Hazards have been re-worked, as they now trigger when an Eye is rolled on any Fatigue test (succeed or fail), and the consequences have been streamlined into a table that you can then narrate (instead of having dozens of narrative examples scattered everywhere with sometimes similar effects). <br />
<br />
All in all, it polishes up what is one of the most well-designed licensed RPGs I've seen. If you already have the original boxed set and don't plan on purchasing the new core book, never fear! <a href="http://www.cubicle7.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/The-One-Ring-Clarifications-and-Amendments1.pdf">All of the updates have been posted as a free PDF</a>. Brian Slabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05333048710667620592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5891731747515762073.post-50893779396640290922014-06-21T08:49:00.000-07:002014-06-21T08:49:47.492-07:00Fate Accelerated Edition: Thoughts After PlayingI picked up the <a href="http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/114902/Fate-Accelerated-Edition?term=Fate+Ac&affiliate_id=384646">PDF for Fate Accelerated Edition</a> a while back, and wrote a <a href="http://thechamberofmazarbuldnd.blogspot.com/2014/01/fate-accelerated-edition-fae-first.html">"first impressions" review</a> of it. As I said in the review I couldn't see myself running the game in the near future, largely because I've got so many other things I want to run. But one of the players in my group was intrigued by it, bought it, and decided to run a three session mini campaign to test drive it. <br />
<br />
The setting was a modern day alternate universe where the Cold War never ended, and recently Russian terrorists launched nuclear warheads at many major cities across the globe. The twist is that it was combined with a bio-weapon, and the resulting disease (called RadPox) wiped out most of the global population. The PCs began in Missoula, Montana. We had an interesting array of characters, which is perhaps to be expected from a modern game without a tight thematic focus (i.e. spies, or dungeon delvers, or fringers trying to get by under the radar of the Empire/Alliance, etc.). My own character was an old man (under description I wrote "current Harrison Ford") with the aspects Retired Border Patrol Ranger - Canadian Border (high concept), I'm Getting Too Old For This Shit (trouble), Sucker For a Pretty Face, Bruce Collins Is My Oldest Friend (refers to an NPC), and My Dead Brother's Shotgun. The other PCs were a large animal veterinarian and a quirky accordion player (part of a duo with an NPC mandolin player; like I said, quirky). The premise was that we were leaving Montana because of the imminent onset of winter, headed south to pursue rumors of a "holy land."<br />
<br />
<b>Approaches</b><br />
Approaches are a great narrative "shortcut," but they definitely have their limitations. While it's easy to liken them to ability scores in D&D, they <i>feel</i> a bit more like watered down backgrounds in 13th Age. That is to say, they represent a philosophy or broad thematic archetype much more than a physical trait (and I say "watered down" in that it lacks the specificity and detail of a good 13th Age background, which isn't to say that it's "worse"). So having a high Sneaky approach doesn't just make you the stealthy (Dex) guy, but you're good at tricking people or lying to them in social situations as well. One big strength is right there in the name: it encourages players to think about different ways to <i>approach</i> a situation. Different GMs will draw the line differently insofar as how much they'll allow a PC to justify a shaky or borderline approach; it seems like too much leniency can lead to approach-spamming, whereas strict adherence to the GMs vision can stifle creativity.<br />
<br />
There are two big issues that I have with approaches in play. The first is that sometimes (at least once per session) a PC will try something that doesn't neatly fit one of the approaches. It might not even <i>kind of</i> fit one of them. At that point you just have to try to shoehorn it into a category, which can feel like fitting a square peg into a round hole. It's awkward. It also means that certain approaches (Clever, Careful, and perhaps Forceful) tend to be more useful because it's easier to justify "off" actions as being one of those. Sneaky and Flashy seemed to be noticeably more limited than the others. It's worth mentioning that my character's highest approach was Sneaky, and the accordion player's was Flashy, and we both ended up using them less frequently than we would have expected. In contrast, the vet had Clever at the top and probably used it about half the time. <br />
<br />
My second issue is unavoidable given the abstracted, streamlined nature of approaches, and it's simply that sometimes suspension of disbelief can be strained. Skill systems imply previous experience at a given task, but with approaches your potency with the same task will vary depending on which angle you're coming from. For example, I ended up using no less than 4 different approaches at different times to shoot a shotgun. Charging in guns blazing was Forceful, an ambush was Sneaky, a "quick draw" type situation was Quick, and most of the time it was assumed shots were aimed, and so Careful seemed most appropriate. Now I don't know about you, but I tend to be more accurate when I actually aim. Problem was, my PC's Careful was only rated at +1, and so I ran into this strange situation where I was more effective making more reckless shots. Fortunately the GM awarded us a milestone after session 2, and so I boosted Careful to +2. <br />
<br />
<b>Aspects and The Fate Point Meta-game</b><br />
At its heart this game is all about the Fate Point economy. Oftentimes it would be necessary to invoke multiple Aspects in order to succeed at a roll, and so having more Aspects is useful, even if they're redundant. Indeed, redundancy can be really useful if the Aspects apply to common situations! I think more ideally though is that PCs should make judicious use of the Create Advantage action to get more Aspects into play, and while we didn't do that as much as we probably should have it probably becomes habitual the more you play.<br />
<br />
The extent of the meta-game, and how players and their characters might have very different goals, really clicked for me in session 3 last night. The climactic final battle was an EPIC firefight, and I honestly thought it would end up being a TPK. Anyways, at one point I got shot at and hit for 1 shift, and decided to compel an Aspect against myself to turn it into a 3 shift hit so I could get a Fate Point out of the deal that would help me out with offense later. Yep, that's right, me as a player wanted my character to get more hurt, and the game actually rewarded me for it. <br />
<br />
While a +2 bonus might not seem like much, especially if you come from a d20 background, Aspects (and sometimes Stunts) will determine whether you succeed or fail more often than what you roll on the dice. The results for a pool of Fate dice ends up being between -2 and 2 most of the time. We calculated a result of +4 on the dice as happening 1.25% of the time, which is sobering considering a natural 20 on a d20 happens 5% of the time. Exciting rolls are the exception (such as when I rolled +4 on my attack when the enemy's defense roll was -3), and so you really have to embrace Aspects as your primary "success currency." <br />
<br />
What hit home in that third session, when I tried to get my character hurt to give him more Fate Points, is that the player's job is to orchestrate the tempo of their character's <i>story</i> as much as it is to roleplay them. The player can contribute to deciding when the character gets beat down, all so that they can come back swinging later, when the stakes are higher. It's an interesting twist, for better or worse, that can really only occur in a game with Fate Points (or Plot Points; hopefully I'll get to play Cortex+ Firefly soon!) as the game's major currency.<br />
<br />
<b>Stunts</b><br />
I wrote up my first Stunt using the guidelines in Fate Accelerated Edition, but I found that implementation really dull. Yes, a +2 bonus is a pretty big deal in Fate, but when everything of consequence boils down to "another +2!", my interest starts to wane. Sure, the game is more about how you use the elements that give you the bonus, but there's already plenty of that with Aspects. If something is called a "Stunt," I want it to feel cool. Besides that, I find the "fill in the blank" statements of the FAE stunts to be pretty clunky. And the +2 modifier makes it feel like part of a skill system tacked onto the more abstract approach-based system.<br />
<br />
The easy solution is to port in some of the ideas from <a href="http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/114903/Fate-Core-System?term=Fate+Core&affiliate_id=384646">Fate Core</a> and the <a href="http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/119385/Fate-System-Toolkit?term=Fate+System&affiliate_id=384646">Fate System Toolkit</a> when you're making your Stunts. Some of these also boil down to a situational +2 bonuses, but at least the wording is more free-form and so the stunts feel more organic. In addition to the modifier, Fate Core also outlines examples for creating rules exceptions, using balancing mechanisms like "once per session I can..." and for creating Stunt "trees" with effects that build off of each other. The Fate System Toolkit really goes into detail with Stunt costs, broader Stunts with smaller bonuses, triggered Stunts, combined Stunts, and tying Stunts to Aspects. Essentially as long as you keep in mind the refresh equivalency you have more flexibility in creating balanced Stunts. While some of these options might be considered to crunchy for FAE by some, others are just as simple (if not moreso) than the default FAE Stunts. <br />
<br />
<b>Final Thoughts</b><br />
I can see why Fate is so popular, but it definitely requires a different mindset to play than most traditional games (even traditional/narrative hybrids like 13th Age and Edge of the Empire). We had a bit of a rocky transition period that made me really glad that my GM went with a 3-session arc; the first session was a messy disaster where we struggled to fully use the system (half the group are new to RPGs, having just played one campaign of Edge of the Empire that lasted a few months), the second went fairly smoothly, and in the third session things really started to click. <br />
<br />
I don't see Fate becoming my go-to system (I prefer medium crunch, hybrid narrative/traditional games), but it was definitely an interesting change of pace and it makes me excited to try out Firefly (Cortex+ seems very similar to Fate). This also wasn't the last time I'll play it, though. In fact, I'll GM the next mini-campaign for this group, and at some point we'll probably have the main group try it out.Brian Slabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05333048710667620592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5891731747515762073.post-59263191588338268562014-06-11T17:10:00.000-07:002014-06-11T17:10:10.373-07:00Number Inflation in 13th AgeConsidering how frequently I write about it on this blog (with the exception of the past couple of months; blame a creative dry spell), it should come as no surprise that 13th Age is one of my favorite RPGs right now. My first long-term campaign went up to 5th level (barely), but it stretched each level out over a long period of time. An Incremental Advance every 2-3 sessions. For our current campaign (which features rotating GMs), we've been awarding an Incremental Advance every session, and after the 3rd one we gain a level. We've just now reached the same point at which I ended the last campaign - level 5 - but one of the explicit goals has been to experience high level play.<br />
<br />
I already dislike it. Granted I've never preferred high level play in D&D, but 13th Age is especially egregious with its number inflation. Unfortunately, it's sort of a double-edged sword because the numbers scale the way that they do precisely to maintain an even progression over the course of a PC's adventuring career. In other words, damage scales at about the same rate as HP. Since you gain a weapon die for damage every level, HP has to become pretty inflated to keep up. While I haven't crunched the numbers in detail, my experience seems to be that PCs will drop after suffering around the same number of hits from an appropriately challenging foe regardless of level. In most editions of D&D it seemed like low-level characters were quite fragile, but at higher levels they could soak up more attacks due to their increasingly-inflating HP (to the point that high-level combat skewed even further toward "rocket tag" of save or die/suck abilities to bypass HP entirely). This smooth-scaling in 13th Age is desirable to me, but I really wish it could be more tightly bounded (like, and I can't believe I'm saying this, D&D 5E). <br />
<br />
So why is this even a big deal? Well, mostly because when you start dealing with bigger numbers, the math gets just a tad slower. I've noticed that my PC's turns go a little slower than at low levels (though at least one player doesn't think it's a big deal), but the real annoyance has been GMing. I've got <i>at least</i> as many monsters to run as there are PCs in the party (and usually more), and I like to get through NPC turns quickly to maintain momentum. I feel like those few extra seconds per NPC (per turn) starts to add up, and I occasionally find that it distracts me from interesting tactical and narrative embellishments in combat. <br />
<br />
<b>A Possible Solution</b><br />
<br />
Obviously I'm not going to stop playing 13th Age because of this. And as much as I prefer the alternative of "bounded accuracy" espoused by D&D 5E, from what I've seen of 5E so far 13th Age simply hits way more of my other preferences in an RPG. Besides that, my group has been instictively negative toward 5E despite knowing little to nothing about it. <br />
<br />
Thus, I'd like to try to make high-level play in 13th Age more manageable. Based on the numbers that were being thrown around in last night's session (again, this is at level 5), <u>I'm considering simply rounding monster HP and player damage to the nearest 5</u>. None of this "always round down in D&D" legacy crap, either. Standard rounding rules simply make more sense because theoretically you should be rounding up about as often as you round down, and so your rounding would effectively "cancel" each other out. Obviously results will skew slightly up or down in any given combat, but is this really any different from earlier editions of D&D where monsters got variable HP by rolling Hit Dice? <br />
<br />
<u>Example</u>:<br />
<br />
Barbarian: "I crit for 94 damage" (because that literally happened last night, on the first attack, vs a 200 HP dragon)<br />
<br />
GM: <i>mentally rounds that up to 95 and notes that the dragon has 105 HP left</i><br />
<br />
Wizard: "I deal 32 damage with Ray of Frost."<br />
<br />
GM: <i>Rounds that down to 30, so the dragon's at 75 now.</i><br />
<br />
Multiples of 5 are easy, because we deal with them every single day. I have to think for a couple of seconds longer when I subtract 94 from 200, and if I'm starting from a value that's not an easy multiple it takes longer still. Like, say, subtracting 32 from that dragon that now has 106 HP if tracked by RAW. In my head I would generally do this in 2 steps by first subtracting 30 from 106, and then subtracting 2 from 76. Which is tougher if I'm dealing with odd numbers, and tougher still when one or more players is talking (especially if they're correcting their damage, whether that's from math errors or forgotten bonuses. Sometimes I have to start the mental math over from scratch when that happens). <br />
<br />
Some people might be faster at mental math than me, and others still might not be but don't mind the cumulative time lost. For me though? Rounding seems like a really promising solution, because those huge numbers are just an unnecessary amount of granularity. <br />
<br />
<b>The Gumshoe Precedent</b><br />
<br />
After coming up with this solution, I was reminded of a rule from the Gumshoe game "Night's Black Agents." To quote from page 215 which is a summary of Hit Threshold Modifiers: "<i>In games using the full range of options and tactical rules, Hit Thresholds can vary widely. Try to rebalance those values if you can: if one combatant has a Hit Threshold of 7 and one has a Hit Threshold of 9, run their combat as if they had Hit Thresholds of 3 and 5, respectively. This keeps fights shorter and more dangerous, and therefore more exciting.</i>"<br />
<br />
This is particularly useful to keep in mind in Night's Black Agents because the die that you use to resolve actions is a d6. The principle isn't as mechanically necessary in 13th Age, but it sure helps to simplify that math. You're effectively treating each increment of 5 as a value of 1, turning a 100 HP creature into one with effectively 20 HP. That 30 damage attack becomes 6 damage. 14 out of 20 is the exact same ratio as 70 out of 100. <br />
<br />
Once you get into Epic tier and the numbers get higher still, it will become practical to mentally round to the nearest 10. I'm not quite sure where the best cut off points will be (I haven't playtested this yet), but I'm thinking it will probably feel pretty intuitive once you start dealing with numbers of a certain size.<br />
<br />
Also worth noting is that you don't have to necessarily institute a sweeping house rule for this. You don't even have to <i>tell</i> your players you're doing it. Just do the conversion to simplify the math, and they may never be the wiser. It's the best of both worlds, actually: your players get to feel uber powerful by throwing around high damage attacks, but by rounding the values you don't have to deal with the mathematical challenges of quickly adding and subtracting high value numbers to the nearest one.Brian Slabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05333048710667620592noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5891731747515762073.post-81261794701635104452014-06-11T15:46:00.003-07:002014-06-11T15:46:41.729-07:00Magic Item VaultHere are a handful of magic items that I worked up for the PCs in my game.<br />
<br />
<b><u>Champion Tier Magic Items</u></b><br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Dwarven Cloak</b><br />
+2 to PD<br />
<br />
You can enter stone and walk in it as if it were a very thick fluid, but you can't "swim."<br />
<br />
Quirk: You season your food with sand and small bits of stone.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Lifedrinker</b> (sword)<br />
+2 to attack and damage<br />
<br />
Recharge 11+: When you kill the target the blade absorbs its soul, which you can use to either heal using a recovery, or you can animate a corpse* that you touch.<br />
<br />
Quirk: Your beverage of choice: blood.<br />
<br />
*When you animate a corpse you create a zombie mook of the same level as the original creature.<br />
<br />
Level Attack Damage HP AC PD MD<br />
1 +5 3 10 14 12 8<br />
2 +6 4 12 15 13 9<br />
3 +7 5 15 16 14 10<br />
4 +8 6 18 17 15 11<br />
5 +9 8 23 18 16 12<br />
6 +10 10 28 19 17 13<br />
7 +11 16 33 20 18 14<br />
8 +12 20 42 21 19 15<br />
9 +13 18 52 22 20 16<br />
10 +14 34 61 23 21 17<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Demonbane Axe </b>(axe)<br />
+2 to attack and damage<br />
<br />
Always: The axe blade glows red when demons are nearby, and its surface depicts a compass that points to the nearest hellhole.<br />
<br />
1/battle: +4 to attack and +1d12 damage (hit or miss) when attacking a demon.<br />
<br />
Quirk: You talk to fire.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Deflection Staff</b> (staff)<br />
+2 to attack and damage<br />
<br />
Recharge 16+: When you're hit with an attack, take half damage and the attacker takes half. If the attack inflicts a condition, roll a normal save; on a success, the attacker suffers it instead of you.<br />
<br />
Quirk: You constantly admire yourself in mirrors.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Coatl Ring</b><br />
<br />
Recharge 6+: At the start of your turn roll a save against one effect.<br />
<br />
Always: When falling from a great distance, you float to the ground unharmed.<br />
<br />
Quirk: You adorn yourself in bright feathers.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Iron's Will</b> (Hammer)<br />
+2 to attack and damage<br />
<br />
Recharge 11+: As a quick action you can magnetize the hammer and pull a metal weapon out of a foe's hand, or pull and enemy wearing metal armor into engagement.<br />
<br />
Quirk: you like to grab objects out of people's hands.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Captain Crow's Glaive</b> (2-handed reach weapon)<br />
+2 to attack and damage<br />
<br />
The first time you roll a natural even miss each battle make a magi's lightning chain attack: +11 vs PD - 15 lightning damage and each natural even attack lets you target an additional creature.<br />
<br />
Quirk: The glaive wants to be returned to the hands of an ogre mage...<br />
<br />
<br />Brian Slabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05333048710667620592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5891731747515762073.post-14837703037110559172014-04-27T19:51:00.002-07:002014-04-27T19:51:38.556-07:00Musings on Turning 13th Age into a 2d10 SystemI was once again thinking about how one might add more of a bell curve to a d20 system, and specifically the problems associated with doing so for 13th Age. I often mentally reference two articles from the Gaming Security Agency when I'm thinking such thoughts - <a href="http://gsa.thegamernation.org/2013/10/03/die-d20-die/">Die, d20 die!</a> and <a href="http://gsa.thegamernation.org/2013/10/12/extreme-makeover-d20-ish-edition/">Extreme Makeover, d20ish Edition</a>. If these sound familiar, it's because I referenced them in a previous post about <a href="http://thechamberofmazarbuldnd.blogspot.com/2013/10/revising-archaic-d20-system.html">revising d20</a>, a post that specifically addressed the problems associated with increasing the maximum value via large modifiers, especially in Pathfinder where such modifiers get really out of hand (and where skills you don't invest resources into don't automatically advance, increasing the "skill disparity" even more as you level).<br />
<br />
While the comments of that post did touch on whether or not this is as much of a problem in 13th Age (compared with Pathfinder, it's not), there's still a lot to be said for trading in the uniform distribution of a d20 for the bell curve of 2d10. But in 13th Age this makes characters with flexible attacks, like Fighters and Bards, problematic. Even if you don't have those classes in your game, the GM will still have to worry about this issue since most monsters have triggers based on the natural result of the d20 roll. So how can you get around this?<br />
<br />
The solution I came up with (which is very much theoretical) requires differentiated d10s. Different color dice will work, but considering that your standard set of dice already includes differentiated d10s to be used as percentile dice, it's not much of an issue. You designate one d10 as the primary die, and the other as the secondary. The primary die alone can handle a lot of the more common natural die roll triggers. A natural even or odd result works just fine with the same probability as a d20 roll. But what about a natural 16+, which has a 25% chance of occurring on a d20 roll? Or for that matter, critical hits that normally have a 5% chance of triggering (usually on a natural 20)? Critical hits are important for some classes, like Fighters (most of which pick up Carve an Opening since it's a rare odd-roll trigger) and Rangers.<br />
<br />
I <i>think</i> a viable solution for such scenarios that would preserve their relative probabilities would be to combine the result on the primary d10 with a high/low (coin flip) on the secondary die. In other words, a result of 10 on the primary die would count as a natural 20 if the secondary die is 6 or greater, or a 19 if the secondary die is less than 6. A natural 9 would count as an 18 if the secondary die is greater than 6, and so on. Of course the secondary die doesn't necessarily have to use a high/low dichotomy (evens or odds would work just fine, too). <br />
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To use another example, a natural 16+ would include a natural 9 or 10 on the primary die, but also a natural 8 if the secondary die is "high." Therefore while you're totaling 2d10 for the purposes of determining success/failure, any given roll can also generate natural result triggers in 5% increments just like a d20 roll. Granted it's not the most elegant or intuitive fix, but for those who dislike the probability of a d20 roll and would prefer a dice pool mechanic to get more of a bell curve, it might be a tradeoff worth making without changing how specific options in the system work. <br />
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The GSA articles also suggest adding dice to your pool instead of piling on static modifiers, keeping the highest 2 results for your total. This results in skilled characters tending to get results at the high end of the distribution and getting fewer low results (the bell curve shifts to the right), but without increasing their maximum results. In other words, skilled characters succeed more reliably than unskilled characters, but don't hit DCs that are unreachable for unskilled characters. One possible way to integrate this into the 13th Age background system while still allowing some flexibility when designing backgrounds would be to assign each character 4 background dice. While this results in less granularity than 8 background points distributed as you see fit, most PCs typically have between 4 and 2 unique backgrounds, with 3 being quite common. Having 4 background dice allows you to have 4 single-die backgrounds, 2 backgrounds that would add 2d10 to your pool (again, keeping only the highest 2 results to total), or 1 background with 2 dice and 2 backgrounds with 1 die. This roughly parallels having four 2 point backgrounds, two 4 point backgrounds, or three backgrounds with two at 3 points and one at 2 points (odd that a 3 background character will have 1 good background with the dice pool system vs 2 good backgrounds with the point system, but it's not a deal breaker). Further Backgrounding would give you 1 background die (as would any talent or other ability that grants you 2 background points), while the higher-valued background talents like the Ranger's "Tracker" would give you a 2d10 background.<br />
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Obviously once you start rolling more than 2d10 it becomes a lot tougher to model the natural d20 result triggers, but such triggers don't come up on skill checks. If for some reason you were to add one or more dice to an attack roll that has triggers, you'd simply need to complicate things a little more. You'd need 3 or 4 unique, individually identifiable d10s and you'd need to rank them. Then whichever two dice came up with the highest result, you'd use the higher-ranked die as the primary and the lower one as the secondary. For example, I have a light blue percentile set and a dark blue percentile set, so the dark 10s die could be ranked highest, and then in descending order would be the dark 1s die, the light 10s die, and light 1s die. For "roll twice" effects like Barbarian Rage I'd simply keep the two light dice together as equivalent to one d20 roll, and the two dark dice as the second roll.Brian Slabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05333048710667620592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5891731747515762073.post-77633283079873355502014-04-16T08:54:00.002-07:002014-04-16T09:02:33.285-07:00Improvised Chases (System Neutral)For gamers coming from a D&D background, chase scenes are often overlooked. Many D&D players simply don't run chases, or when they do they resort to speed comparisons, or counting squares while taking potshots with ranged attacks or spells. Many powerful control spells will outright end a chase by immobilizing one side or slowing them down. In other words, when chases do come up they are dry and soulless affairs.<br />
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Granted, this might not be everyone's experience, but these are the solutions that make the most obvious use of the rules of the more recent editions of D&D. I'm sure plenty of GM's ignore the square counting and go for a more skill-challenge type solution. But skill challenges (as presented in 4E D&D) have their own set of problems, namely that the strict number of failures vs number of successes doesn't necessarily match the narrative description of the scene. If a skill <i>should</i> end the challenge even if the requisite number of successes hasn't been reached, the GM will usually either fudge it and say that the players succeed, or you'll get frustrated players who don't feel like their specific actions mean anything more than "checking a box." <br />
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I know I never really had many chases in my games, but recently I've been sprinkling them in. In general, I've been using a modified version of the Thriller Chase rules of the Gumshoe game "<a href="http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/106783/Nights-Black-Agents?term=Night%5C%27s+Black+Agents&affiliate_id=384646">Night's Black Agents</a>." The framework works really well for virtually any system, ignoring of course the Gumshoe-specific rules. The result is a narrative, fast-paced system for resolving chases with skill checks.<br />
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<ul>
<li>First, create a chase track. I like to have the PCs start at a value of 0, and track lead by going up or down on the track. A good default is to cap the track at +/-5. If one or more PC gets to 5, they win. If all PCs get to -5, they lose. This works regardless of whether they're pursuing or pursued (just inject whatever narrative description fits the scene). </li>
<li>Most importantly, describe a dynamic environment and let the PCs react to it. Picture each round as a leg of the chase that takes place in a discrete scene. Running through a busy city street, a pursuing NPC might make a check to convince guards/police (or upstanding citizens) to stop the PCs. The key here is to not let the chase devolve into "I sprint," "ok, roll Athletics," etc. That's the equivalent of fighting generic orcs in a featureless 30x30 room. As a GM, you'll probably have to play the NPC as a proactive party, actively creating problems/opposition that the PCs are forced to react to. </li>
<li>Each "leg" or point of lead is a narrative unit; it doesn't have to equal a specific number of feet or squares. The chase is broken up into units of "interesting scenes," and each scene should be summarized with a single skill check for all parties involved.</li>
<li>As a baseline, a successful skill check will bring the PC up 1 step on the chase track. A failure will drop them down 1 step. Conversely, a success by the NPC (or group of NPCs) might bring all PCs down 1 step, and a failure bring all PCs up 1 step. Depending on the narrative, multiple NPCs might only effect one or some PCs. </li>
<li>If the difficulty of a check is going to be harder than typical (i.e. the action is riskier), reward that by letting a success increase the lead by 2. Don't get too generous with this option, and typically only use it if there is an easier alternative and the contrast between the options is noticeable. A failure doesn't necessarily have to drop the PC down by 2, though. Equally interesting is a penalty to their next skill check, or even a penalty to an ally's check. Feel free to adjust the "pacing" of the track if the chase stalls or seems to look like it's going to be a back-and-forth for a long time. </li>
<li>The option of increasing/decreasing lead by multiple increments could also be used if the system has a "degrees of success" mechanic, even if it's as simple as a "crit" (natural 20) in a d20 system. Things like succeeding with style in Fate, great/extraordinary successes in TOR, or getting a raise in Savage Worlds would apply here.</li>
<li>If the system uses a resource-management mechanic (like Vancian spells), feel free to grant an auto-success for the expenditure of resources, or at least force the NPC to make a difficult skill check that can benefit the party (will increase their position), but won't set them back if the NPC succeeds.</li>
</ul>
These rules/guidelines don't necessarily have to represent an obvious chase. In an Edge of the Empire game that I ran, I had the PCs racing to a base along a fortified ridge top so that they could grab a ship and escape the planet they were on. Meanwhile, moving up the canyon below them was a battalion of Imperial walkers that would surely destroy the base if they got their first. The PCs were being tracked by a large native cat-like creature, and had to contend with turrets and patrols on the way to the base (the PCs were a "third party" in this conflict; in other words, both groups were out to get them!). Then once they were inside, they had to fight their way to the hangar as the walkers got there! For some scenes (or "legs" of the chase) a quick combat encounter took the place of skill checks.<br />
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So give it a try next time you have to run a chase scene. If it's completely on-the-fly, consider dropping the chase track down to +/-4, or even 3, because that will keep the number of scenes that you'll need to come up with to a minimum. Note that a +/-3 could be resolved in as few as 2 "rounds," but if there's more back and forth it might take longer. If you need to adjust the pace, make the next scene harder if the PCs are doing better that you anticipated, or easier if they're floundering (especially the latter!). If it starts to get repetitive or you run out of scenes, better to end the chase in an exciting way (some sort of complication?) than slog through the chase track just for the sake of finishing it. This isn't meant to be a hard-and-fast resolution system; it's more of a tool for the GM to ballpark their pacing.Brian Slabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05333048710667620592noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5891731747515762073.post-13859329730328670882014-03-23T08:15:00.000-07:002014-03-23T08:15:20.071-07:00Obligation in 13th AgeI've been intrigued by the idea of porting the Obligation mechanic from EotE into other games ever since our first campaign. Since 13th Age has been the other main game that our group plays it seemed like a good candidate, but I never really pursued the notion since OUT, Backgrounds, and Icon relationships are existing narrative mechanics that <i>can</i> serve the same purpose (though not as well), and I figured adding a fourth would just be too much. <br />
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Then I came across this adaptation of the <a href="https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5k1Bo0pV5ileG5EYXQxVnZodlk/edit">Warlock</a> for 13th Age, from the <a href="http://dailylibertine.com/wordpress/mystictheurge/obligation-and-pact-magic-in-the-13th-age/#sthash.B4pezIoZ.Y8JDhFw1.dpbs">Mystic Theurge</a> blog. The genius of the Warlock is that it's not a class per-se, but rather an add-on that really gets down to the core concept for what makes it unique - the fact that you've made a pact with a powerful being. The additional class feature very simply gives you a free 1 point Icon relationship (which you can invest more points into) with whatever being you've entered into a pact with. Most likely this will not be an established Icon. Any 5 or 6 is more or less resolved as normally, but with a supernatural flair reflecting the fact that it's a magical pact boon. When you roll a 1, though, your patron has an Agenda for you. As the blog entry states, this was based on Obligation from Star Wars, but obviously re-skinned to fit into the existing paradigm for Icon rolls.<br />
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I began to think more about this idea when I was creating my Druid (playtest version) for our current 13th Age game. His OUT is that he was the only survivor of a town swallowed up by a hellhole, but in the process he was infected with the blood of a demon (he's a Tiefling). He has a 2 point negative relationship with the Crusader because they want to hunt him down, as they consider him an abomination. He's always on the run, thus creating the <i>perfect</i> set-up for Obligation! Just interpret any 1's rolled as his Obligation being triggered.<br />
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There are a few things to keep in mind when using this mechanic, though. As-is, it's adding a strictly "negative" consequence for your PC with nothing positive to compensate for it, though a certain type of player (myself included) enjoys the narrative complications that crop up even if the <i>character</i> wouldn't. Some players might not necessarily view it as fair though, especially if others in the group don't have this extra burden. There are a few different ways of handling this that I can think of off the top of my head. Like with Obligation, the PC could gain access to additional resources. This is basically how the Warlock works, since you get an extra relationship die with which 5's and 6's can be rolled. This is a good, tangible benefit for a player with "Obligation." Alternatively, you might extend the benefit of the existing dice instead of granting more dice, so that a roll of 4 counts the same way as a 5. In this way the negative results of rolling 1 are countered by the fact that you expand your chances of rolling a benefit by 1/6 as well. In both of these scenarios there is an additional burden placed on the GM, however. For some GMs who have an easy time using Icon rolls already, this might not even be considered a burden. But in our current campaign we're rotating GMs, and it's becoming clear that everyone but myself is having quite a bit of trouble actually using Icon results. The GM tends to groan when a lot of results are rolled for a session, and adding <i>even more</i> results would only exacerbate the problem. <br />
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This can be ameliorated by trying to replicate the Obligation mechanic from EotE even more faithfully. First up, in Star Wars a PC can increase Obligation for the chance to get more starting funds or some extra starting XP. Give the 13th Age character with "Obligation" some starting resources, too! A true magic item seems like a good candidate, though it might be a bit more powerful than some groups are comfortable with. A handful of runes and/or potions might work nicely, though. Another hallmark of Obligation as it works in EotE is that you can voluntarily take more on during play in order to gain some immediate benefit. The classic examples are taking on debt to get some gear you can't afford, or agreeing to some future favor that can be called in (probably at an inconvenient time). The Icon mechanic can handle this, too, since one of their suggested uses is an event-based roll for dramatic events. Simply give players with "Obligation" ample opportunity to utilize event-based rolls. Along those same lines, for groups that want to handle it in as simple a way as possible you can simply balance out the "bad things happen on a 1" mechanic by saying those good things that happen on a 5 or 6, those tend to be better than they are for players who <i>don't</i> have "Obligation." Because of your special status as a thorn in that Icon's side, the enemy's of that Icon are apt to look more favorably on you, and are willing to go that extra mile to help you out. Brian Slabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05333048710667620592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5891731747515762073.post-49709316014302971252014-03-03T11:39:00.003-08:002014-03-03T11:39:58.115-08:00Leaving Wilderland: Upcoming Supplements for TORA recent announcement by Cubicle 7 revealed the <a href="http://www.cubicle7.co.uk/coming-next-for-the-one-ring/">2014 releases for The One Ring</a>. Rivendell has been on the schedule before, and was originally slated for a 2013 release. It looks like it will be a combination of a regional sourcebook along with a decent amount of player options (including two much sought-after Cultures, and rules for magical treasure). Not much of a surprise here.<br />
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The revised core rulebook is an interesting twist, and I think a necessary one given the switch to hardcover for the more recent books. Even though hardcover books are a little more expensive, their durability makes them well worth it in my opinion. I suspect the list of errata will be small, but this is still worthwhile even for some that already have the slipcase set. I know that my copies have binding issues, like many, and while the pages are all attached with the string, the glue has completely failed. Functional, but not very pretty. I'm not sure if I'll personally pick this one up since I have limited funds, already own the core books, and plan on purchasing books for other games, but it would definitely be nice to have.<br />
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Ruins of the North looks absolutely phenomenal, because Cubicle 7 has set a strong precedent with <a href="http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/101038/The-One-Ring--Tales-from-Wilderland?term=tales+from+wilderland&affiliate_id=384646">Tales from Wilderland</a>. I typically don't run published adventures, though I will occasionally mine ideas from them, but this adventure anthology is top-notch. I've read through the whole thing twice already just for pleasure, without intending to actually run it. I've also run pieces of a couple of the adventures in the book, but even without running it I'd say I've gotten my money's worth. In short, these adventures do a great job of showcasing how to effectively roleplay in Middle Earth. Everything from the tone, the style of adventures, and the description. Middle Earth is a tough setting to GM for, but Tales helps get you in the right frame of mind for it. I expect Ruins will be just as good. I've never been this excited about a published adventure before.<br />
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The Adventurer's Companion will probably be the best "bang for your buck" for players. Really, TOR hasn't had any supplements that cater particularly strongly toward players, with Lake-Town being the closest but still mainly a GM resource. I expect it'll fill the niche of "PHB2" quite well, and it's probably a great way to go about adding more Cultures as opposed to handing them out piecemeal over several GM sourcebooks like the Men of the Lake and the Dunedain. It'll also be a really quick way to expand the game geographically all in one fell swoop, essentially adding most of the "missing" Cultures from all over Middle Earth. I honestly didn't expect Bree-folk to be in the same supplement as Riders of Rohan and Men of Gondor, and I didn't expect Dwarves of the Blue Mountains or Elves of Lorien at all! I'm personally holding out hope for the Druadan, and possibly the Dunlendings, as these would be little-represented Cultures from the legendarium that have a lot of potential for being fleshed out, much like the Woodmen. <br />
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The Horse Lords of Rohan will scratch an itch felt by a LOT of TOR players, as Riders of Rohan are easily the most-requested playable Culture based on online discussions. Granted the Culture itself will be in the Adventurer's Companion, but a GM-targeted regional sourcebook is arguably just as valuable. All the more so since it also covers Fangorn and Isengard. I found Heart of the Wild to be absolutely brimming with potential seeds, and I suspect this book will as well.<br />
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Overall, it's a very exciting time to be a fan of The One Ring! While many fans have felt a bit boxed in by the game's restricted support for just Wilderland, it sounds like it will be expanding to the far corners of Middle Earth pretty rapidly! I was one of those players who actually thought Wilderland was <i>perfect</i> for Middle Earth roleplaying, but I admit that recently I have been itching to explore west of the Misty Mountains lately, and I look forward to how the game handles mounted combat with the addition of the Rohirrim. I'll also be interested to see how they handle the power level of Rivendell and Lorien Elves, as I initially suspected that they wouldn't be playable Cultures.Brian Slabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05333048710667620592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5891731747515762073.post-31778096661250701232014-02-20T20:01:00.004-08:002014-02-20T20:01:54.245-08:00Icons in Action (3)My group recently started up a new 13th Age campaign, but this one's a bit unusual in that we're alternating GMing duties with each GM running a 3ish session adventure and then passing the baton over to someone else. I've done this in the past with a different group in D&D 4E (and I posted actual plays on that, using the <a href="http://thechamberofmazarbuldnd.blogspot.com/search/label/Red%20Frogs">Red Frogs</a> tag). The concept is similar, with all of the PCs belonging to an adventurer's guild (which we haven't thought of a good name for yet), and each player having the option of making multiple PCs so that they can choose one from their roster at the beginning of each adventure. All characters level up at a consistent rate (otherwise the GMs would fall behind!). These elements strongly encourage a more episodic campaign structure, which will be an interesting departure from my last campaign which was more like one long arc. The advantage of this is that I think it will be well-suited to improvisational Icon driven play.<br />
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<u><b>Oracles</b></u><br />
As the first GM in the lineup, that's definitely the route I'm going. A while back there was a random adventure design tool posted in <a href="http://www.pelgranepress.com/site/?page_id=45">See Page XX</a> (the Pelgrane Press webzine) called <a href="http://www.pelgranepress.com/?p=13639">13 Oracles</a>. Each Icon is given a list of 6 associated places, objects, people, and circumstances and by rolling randomly you can combine those elements to create a random adventure. I decided to test this premise, and so after my players finished writing up their characters during our world-building session I had everyone roll Icon dice early. Luckily I had 4 results (one for each category), but with more I could have easily doubled up on one or more categories. Rolling on the Oracles list in the order that I wrote everyone's results in, I ended up with the following:<br />
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Place - 5 with the Archmage: an enchanted lake<br />
Object - 5 with the Dwarf King: gold, gold, gold<br />
People - 6 with the Elf Queen: a bard whose songs come true<br />
Circumstance - 5 with the Elf Queen: under strange stars<br />
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To plan the adventure I simply spent 15 minutes or so using these results to come up with a basic plot outline. The summary version goes like this:<br />
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<i>Maulnar, a dwarven vaultkeeper, hires the PCs because the contents of one of his vaults (a big pile of gold owned by the Dwarf King) has gone missing. This happened the same night that a wandering bard, Quentin Kroft, passed through Forge and sang a comic song at a local tavern about the Dwarf King losing his gold. The PC's first lead is Quentin's traveling companion, a gladiator in Axis, which was his last known location. They learn from the gladiator that Quentin was headed to Lake Everfrost, which was the last place he visited before going to Forge and where his songs started coming true. The land around Lake Everfrost is forever under winter's grip, and as soon as the PCs step onto the frozen lake the day sky goes dark and the sky over the lake is a clear, starlit night, but the stars look unfamiliar. They see Quentin kicking a rock in the center of the lake, and soon figure out that the lake is a window into another plane called the Land of the Unseelie. They learn that a drow sorceress (Lithariel) in that realm cursed Quentin when he first ventured onto the lake, using mishaps from his songs for profit (when the gold disappeared from the vault, it went directly to her tower!). </i><br />
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That actually sounds doable for a single-session adventure, but instead I decided to stretch it over 3 sessions. I had some ideas for a few adversaries, locales and some set-piece encounters which I weaved into this basic plot outline to flesh it out a little more and fill in the details. <br />
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<u><b>Additional Icon Examples</b></u><br />
A few days later (but before running the first session) I decided that some of the connections to the icons weren't terribly obvious. I also wanted more practice using Icons in-play, so I decided that the rolls for the first session would do double-duty. How would I have used these results in my previous campaign if I hadn't "counted" using them for the plot outline?<br />
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<u>Session 1</u><br />
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Dwarf King 5 - Deldrak (the High Elf Wizard with the Forge prison escapee background) recognized Maulnar as an employee of the Dwarf King; a connection that the vaultkeeper originally kept secret to prevent this mishap from going public (twist - the Dwarf King doesn't even <i>know</i> his gold is missing!). This was planned before the session.<br />
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Elf Queen 5 - Farrah, the Drow Bard, noticed an obviously-stolen bracelet on the wrist of a thieves' guild leader. Unfortunately, the party couldn't (or wasn't motivated enough) to overcome the complication, and after abandoning a chase never got ahold of the bracelet. The thief will most likely make a future cameo. The general idea behind this was planned before the session, but the details were improvised on the spot (crazy PCs didn't do what I expected of them).<br />
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Elf Queen 6 - Kalder, the High Elf Sorcerer with the traveling merchant background, passed a colleague on the way to Lake Everfrost. This colleague happened to owe him some money, and paid back the debt with two healing potions and a +1 rune. This was planned before the session.<br />
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Archmage 5 - I kept this as a "floating" Icon roll, and I ended up invoking it when the PCs were in the pit barracks talking with the gladiators after being pursued by a squadron of town guards. Deldrak used Hold Portal to keep the guards off the party long enough for the conversation to take place. Unfortunately, that door was the only way out of the room (except for a sewer drain that the sorcerer opted to escape through, but nobody else did). Deldrak's One Unique Thing is that ever since his testing at the School of Imperial Wizardry, he's had to cast a spell every single round (usually he's constantly casting light as a quick action; each footstep he takes lights up the ground) or some random magical effect occurs. When the Hold Portal spell ended, he simply said he stopped casting light. I had sparks erupt from the ceiling, creating a lot of smoke that blinded everyone in the room and the incoming guards, allowing Deldrak to escape through the door (unfortunately, everyone else had to talk their way out of the situation once the smoke cleared, which they did just fine).<br />
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<u>Session 2</u><br />
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These Icon rolls were made at the beginning of the session, so none were planned ahead of time.<br />
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Archmage 5 - After looting the bodies of some redcaps, Kalder (the sorcerer) found a bundle of mushrooms and a pouch of yellow powder. I initially wasn't sure what use they'd be, but after trading a minor secret to Ungol (see The Three, below) he learned that the powder is a spider repellent. I also used the mushrooms as part of another one of Deldrak's random magical effects from his OUT, which actually ended up being a nice complication.<br />
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Emperor 5 - This is an unused roll that will carry over to the next session.<br />
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The Three 2 - This was from the cursed dice of Balladeer. The party found themselves in the lair of Ungol, an ettercap who trades in secrets. Their goal was to learn the secret of who cursed Quentin, but such information doesn't come cheap. The PCs had to tell Ungol secrets of their own first. I wasn't sure what to do with this cursed die result until the players were at somewhat of a loss when asked to divulge their secrets (eventually they came up with some juicy stuff). So I told Seamus Stonystones, the Dwarf Bard who made the Balladeer check, to come up with a secret that would anger followers of The Three. He established that he was the writer of a limerick that had gone viral throughout the land, "Three Heads; Might as Well Be One." <br />
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<u>Session 3</u><br />
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Emperor 5 (from last session) & Archmage 6 - The Emperor had sent Jeras, a former schoolmate of Deldrak, to aid the group after learning of their mission (he didn't want to compromise his alliance with the Dwarf King). Unfortunately, he got captured by redcaps and used as bait to lure the party into another battle, this time as revenge for their previous victory against redcaps (this was the complication). Point of interest, the "bad word" was literally a bad word that the group can't help but unconsciously utter when things go wrong, so even when they figured it out it still got triggered several more times. I love redcaps. In the first fight, the "bad word" was "attack," and the players never figured it out. Jeras gave the party several +1 Runes, a couple of potions, and some practical advice on the defenses of Lithariel's tower. Specifically, he told them not to touch the water in the stream that effectively acted as a moat from the side they approached. Note: I planned this general idea before the session using the Emperor 5 result, and decided to simply increase the magnitude of the benefit by combining the Archmage 6 result with Jeras (in short, he had more stuff for the party).<br />
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Dwarf King 6 - The haunted bagpipes of Seamus the Dwarven Bard warn him to steer clear of the disturbed earth around Lithariel's tower. The ghosts can sense other undead - zombies! - and the party avoids a trap/fight. While everyone loves a good zombie horde, I'm not sure how long it would take my party to realize that the zombies were effectively infinite (it was the site of a mass grave from a battle). Thus, this would have really been quite dangerous.<br />
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Great Gold Wyrm 5 - carried over to next session (see notes below).<br />
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Emperor 6 - carried over to next session but never used.<br />
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<u>Session 4</u><br />
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Bonus session! This was a short session, and just a quick wrap-up since things ran longer than anticipated. The party fought Lithariel, "killed" her (she dissipated into smoke, and a successful knowledge check revealed that she'd regenerate later since the kill shot wasn't from a cold iron weapon). I used the Great Gold Wyrm roll from Seamus' Balladeer to have the toll-collected dragon brood be off chasing some merchants who were singing his anti-Three limerick ("Three Heads; Might As Well Be One"). The complication being that they'll probably kill those merchants, but perhaps not before learning who wrote the song (wink, wink). Brian Slabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05333048710667620592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5891731747515762073.post-90190424677985936642014-02-13T13:07:00.000-08:002014-02-13T13:07:07.158-08:00Dicey Stunts Reference CardsIn an effort to remind my players about the option for <a href="http://thechamberofmazarbuldnd.blogspot.com/2014/01/dicey-stunts.html">Dicey Stunts</a> I printed out these <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/vrp3idxhry4yua2/Dicey%20Stunts%20Cards.pdf">cards</a> and taped them to the cardboard from an old cereal box with packing tape (improvised laminated cardstock). Or if you've got cardstock you can of course just print it on that. It worked! Having a physical object on the table served as a reminder, and saved time since nobody had to dig out a sheet or pull up a screen to look up examples.<br />
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If you're familiar with the sub-system then you'll probably only need the Example Stunts cards out for the players, but in this new campaign that my group has started out we're rotating GMing duties after each 3-4 session episodic adventure. I'm the only one who has actually GMed 13th Age before, so having the "Using Dicey Stunts" and "Risks" cards for the other GMs should make it easier for them to adjudicate stunts.Brian Slabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05333048710667620592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5891731747515762073.post-29447289009942039112014-02-09T14:24:00.001-08:002014-02-09T14:24:34.237-08:00Musings on Icon Rolls - Alternatives and the Default RuleThere was a <a href="https://www.pelgranepress.com/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=1497&page=1#Item_3">recent post on the Pelgrane Press forums</a> about how to best utilize Icon rolls, with one of the complaints being that despite the fail-forward philosophy of the system as a whole, why should failing a roll connected to one of the most influential PCs in the game world (the Icon system being a major innovation of 13th Age) do nothing? Two posts down Guurzak responded that he'd changed Icon rolls to a single d6 to determine <i>which</i> of your Icons is involved.<br />
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<b><u>The Single Die Icon Roll</u></b><br />
The rationale for this is pretty simple - if you're hoping for a 5 or 6 (odds are 1/3) but you're rolling 3d6, on average each PC will benefit from one Icon relationship per session. For example, your first relationship triggers on a roll of 1 or 2, with 1 being the equivalent of 5 and 2 being the equivalent of 6 (and so on). The advantage to this system is that every PC gets some benefit from one of their Icons every single session, preserving the fail-forward feel of the system. This does, however, restrict possible <i>combinations</i> since a single PC with two different relationships can never see both of them come up in a single session. Likewise, a PC with 3 points in a single Icon will force that Icon to come into play every single session. I can see this getting repetitive pretty quickly. <br />
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An extra wrinkle is the fact that some talents grant additional relationship points, and as a PC levels they gain an additional point at each tier transition. There are two possible solutions for dealing with this. One is to increase the die size, having someone with 4 relationship points rolling a d8. This keeps the number of Icons being triggered consistent, but makes each individual relationship less potent. This may be ok with some groups, especially if the GM is trying to keep from getting overwhelmed by too many Icons. It does invalidate the idea that PCs become more influential as they move up a tier, though. <br />
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The second solution is to roll the first 3 Icons with one die, but use individual dice for any additional Icons, hoping for a 5 or 6 as per RAW. While this is no longer a single-die system, it does preserve the relative strengths of each relationship point and continues to guarantee that each PC will benefit from at least one relationship per session.<br />
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Another potential problem with this system is that it messes with talents like the Bard's Storyteller. Using the Icon rules as written, this talent is valuable for re-rolling a relationship that came up dry, but using just a single die you're merely swapping out Icons. <br />
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<u><b>The New Art Sidebar</b></u><br />
I've actually seen this single-die solution offered before online (though I can't remember where or when), as well as some other alternative mechanics that I can't quite remember. Clearly this is the type of thing that the "New Art" sidebar on p. 179 of the core rulebook is talking about:<br />
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<i>Often, when an RPG introduces a new mechanic, such as our icon dice, soon enough the fans figure out how to use that mechanic better than the designers ever did. Designers are too close to their own creations to get it 100% right. Check the internet for the latest advice on using icon relationship dice.</i><br />
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But I'm not convinced such solutions are "better," or that there even really is a "better." If the published rules lack consistency session-to-session it's because they're an improvisational story tool, and stories shouldn't be repetitious from session to session. Sometimes a PC will get shoved into the spotlight by 2 or 3 Icon results, while another PC gets nothing. But being in the spotlight for story-driven reasons and being in the spotlight because you're given the opportunity to act are very different things. Bob can still make decisions and take actions in response to the current situation even if they're in the situation because of Jane. And over the course of a moderate to long campaign, everything should average out in the end. In the end, I think the published rules work really well, and in practice I think they allow for more organic results than any of the alternatives I've seen online.<br />
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An exception worth pointing out is convention games and one-shots. In such scenarios a single-die Icon roll is absolutely appropriate because there's only one session to get spotlight time in, so every PC's relationships should come up at some point.<br />
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<u><b>Mechanical Benefits</b></u><br />
Another alternative rule for Icons that I've seen posted online is for results of 5 or 6 to grant some kind of one time use mechanical benefit. The player can invoke their positive result for a re-roll, a -5 reduction to the DC of a skill check, or something of that nature. This has cropped up a few times in the inevitable "how do I use Icon results?" threads on various forums, and while there's certainly precedent for it (the suggestion that Icon rolls can grant magic items is, after all, a mechanical benefit), I'm not sure if that's necessarily a good use for the mechanic.<br />
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Essentially, such an add-on is trying to fit a plot currency device like Bennies (from Savage Worlds), Fate points (from Fate), or Destiny Points (from Edge of the Empire) into the Icon framework, but to me this seems like a square peg in a round hole. I have nothing against Fate Points, Destiny Points, etc., but they're pretty easy to add onto most systems as-is, and if you want them in your 13th Age game you should just do that. Using Icon rolls as the vehicle for "bennies" disassociates them from the fiction unless you can come up with an explanation for exactly why the PC gets a mechanical benefit from their relationship every single time, and in an interesting, unique way. Ultimately they work really well as an improvisational story tool, but they become less flexible if you have to inject story into a routine mechanical benefit, and the narrative impact is probably reduced as well. And then when you have a really good story-driven use for an Icon roll, will a player feel cheated if you use that instead of giving them a mechanical benefit like the other guy whose Icon roll you didn't have an obvious use for got? In other words, sometimes using them as a narrative tool and sometimes using them for a mechanical benefit might seem to lighten the load, but it could also mess with the expectations of the players and cause some friction.<br />
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While Icons as more of a GM's tool vs something that a player can invoke will vary from group to group, ideally the end result will be some narrative element. The location of the upcoming adventure is somehow tied to a PC's icon, NPCs that are tied to a PC will come into play, etc. A PC might be able to use a 5 or 6 as leverage during the adventure, but reducing that to something as simple as a re-roll seems like both a cop-out and forgettable. It's far less memorable than telling one of the players "ok, so these guys that outnumber and outgun you, you recognize one of their faces. You remember him from the Emperor's court; remember the Emperor giving him orders to infiltrate this group and act as a double agent. You lock eyes with the spy, and with a simple nod you see his crossbow go from pointing directly at you to pointing at his leader's throat." <i>That</i> provides the PC with a concrete link to the campaign world, and in my opinion that's the primary function of the Icon relationship dice in the first place.Brian Slabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05333048710667620592noreply@blogger.com1