13A:Rules

THIS PAGE IS NOT COMPLETE, AND PARTS MAY CHANGE, BUT FEEL FREE TO BEGIN READING.

Links

Official 13th Age site

http://site.pelgranepress.com/index.php/category/products/13th-age/

Sadly, not very good. Official forums are terrible.

https://www.reddit.com/r/13thage/

Reasonably used, for a not-very-widespread system.

Official SRD

http://site.pelgranepress.com/index.php/the-archmage-engine-13th-age-srd/

(I recommend you just get Single PDF File).

As a d20 derivative, 13th Age rules are wholely open source. It can take them a while (if ever) to add it to the 'official SRD' though. Jonathan Reyst's unofficial web presense for it (http://www.13thagesrd.com) isn't so great (as ugly as unfriendly as d20pfsrd, but not complete like it is). The SRD contains the Core Rulebook, 13 True Ways, and the Bestiary, with a few items from the adventures. It notably does not include the Book of Loot yet.

Now, the books are BEAUTIFULLY written with a very strong authorial voice, with plenty of designer sidebars. All of that is missing from the SRD. But sufficient is there for you to work with.

Material Available

13th Age isn't an "Where's Waldo" of option finding like 3e/Pathfinder became. Basically all player options are in Core Rulebook and 13 True Ways. Nearly all feats are class-specific and listed with the class (feats generally improving class features). The classes are split between those two books. The Book of Loot has a few consumables in it. (Note: nearly all "loot" in 13th Age is just gold pieces, and consumables. True Magic Items are pretty much "not available for purchase".) [nb: fitting, for those of you who know me as a GM!]

As a note, there's currently one large 3rd party publication (Nocturne) out, and a few more forthcoming (Glorantha, Midgard, Primeval Thule). While I plan to purchase these, and, after doing so, may mine from them for myself, they will not, for this game, be added as player material.

Again, less prosaically

• Anything from the "rulebooks" is available. Also, since the SRD doesn't mark sources, anything that is in the SRD from the adventures is also available, but may need to be pointed out to me since I've yet to read the adventures. (But please don't go hunting for it; that defeats one of the "points" of 13th Age as a system.)
  • But I strongly encourage the party to restrict class composition to majority-core, as those contained in 13 True Ways are more "niche" or "complicated" classes.
• I reserve the right to use and alter anything anything from anywhere, including 3rd Party and custom content. Which doesn't mean it's canon. (That is, giving you a "Potion of Foo" doesn't mean "Potion of Foo" is readily available always.)
• The multiclassing rules will not be used.

Learning

None of us have played this before. Not even me. (I tried to find locals to try first, but there were none.) So it's a learning experience before. While you can largely learn from the SRD, I will be providing everyone a PDF of a few key chapters from the Core book to read, so they can get the author's voice.

Icon Relationship Dice

• There are many uses for the Icon Relationship Dice. I will be trying different ones as we go to see what works best, and what's most fun. The authors themselves admit (Core Book, and GM Resource) they weren't sure what the community would come up with, that we should try them out to find which one(s) we prefer.

Reading List

Core:

• Introduction: required. Sets some tones.
• Icons: required. Not in the SRD.
• Character Rules: required. Twice. (Notice: there are a few 'general' feats here.)
• Races: optional. For fluff that's not in the SRD.
• Running the Game: required. The parts I left here are important. Incremental advances will be used to some degree. This expands upon the icon use rules from Character Rules chapter. See "Screen" for more of that. Rituals are an important rule. Then there's some optional setting fluff.
• Monsters: optional. Gives you some general knowledge of a couple recurring mechanics.
• The Dragon Empire: optional. This chapter's entirely fluff (and not part of the SRD).
• Magic Items: optional.
• Appendices: optional. But useful.

Core or SRD (not included in PDFs shared):

• Combat Rules: required.

Other:

• True: required. Just a couple pages of rules clarifications over the Core Rulebook.
• Screen: required. Montages will be used.
• Screen: optional. The other portions are insight into the game.
• Loot: optional. The consumables part (2 pages) is here to quell your curiosity.

Rules To Pay Attention To

13th Age is a d20-derived game, but there are certain things to pay extra attention to these differences:

One Unique Thing (ch2)

Paints your character in a broad stroke. Not necessarily "unique" as in "one of a kind" but more in the modern parlance of "special".

Icon Relationships (ch2)

This defines your characters relationship to the movers and shakers of the game world.

Backgrounds (ch2)

These replace fixed skills.

Advice for Players (p60)

Read.

Customization (p75)

Tinker away with the skinning/theming of your abilities!

Weapon damage (p55, p75, p159)

Class determines weapon damage. Weapon damage multiplies by level.

Escalation Die (p162)

The as the combat goes on, it gets more in the player's favor as momentum increases.

Relational Combat (p160, 162-164)

Combat in 13th Age is not played on a rigid grid. It's relational. Fate's "Zones" may be incorporated.

Disengaging/Intercepting (p164)

You take an opportunity attack if you don't disengage but move. Characters may intercept foes moving to attack an ally.

Special actions

Fight in Spirit, Flee, Rally (p166)

All three are uniquely handled in 13th Age.

Death and Dying (p169)

Death saves. Die at negative-half-maximum. If healed while negative, start from zero.

Conditions (p172)

These come up a lot more often than they used to. Recall that only the biggest penalty of a given type stays; no stacking.

Saves (p173)

These are fixed, not typically varying. Recall that saves always are rolled at the end of your turn (after the effect of whatever you'd be saving against).

Rituals (p192-194)

Non-combat spells in 13th Age are usually handled this way.

True Magic Items (p284-285)

Magic items are all intelligent and give you quirks and bind to a chakra.

There are more differences, but these are ones to be extra-cognizant of. Either they greatly differ from 3e/4e, or they go a long way in setting the feeling of the game.

Optional Rules

• Races: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1249511075100202/permalink/1253797848004858/
• Meaningful Death: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1249511075100202/permalink/1256242217760421/
• Lasting Wound: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1249511075100202/permalink/1256242217760421/
• Alignment: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1249511075100202/permalink/1257459660972010/

Setting

Though one of the common selling points of 13th Age is "It's a RPG world toolkit!", we'll be using the standard Dragon Empire from the book. Fortunately, the way they carefully write everything (much like Planescape was written) means it's wide-open to a lot of interpretation. We are using the map, cities, religion, etc, as given in the book. I'd be nice if you could at least skim the chapter.

Icons

One of the first things that always screams, "customize me!" is the set of icons. We will not. The book Icon set will be used. It has a ton of play testing behind it, a good chunk of class features written for it, and so on. It's a pretty big thing to change, and we don't have deep enough knowledge of the system to tweak it lightly.

Make sure you become intimate with all of the icons.

Expectations/Policies

We will discuss others.

Wiki

As a lot of the story will evolve as we play it, it's quite important to maintain the campaign log on the wiki. While I will not make wiki participation mandatory via a stick, here's a pretty hefty carrot: satisfactory participation in the wiki will open up the Incremental Advance rules to you, allowing you to level-up your character in stages. Eventually non-participants will catch up at the next level-up point, but you'll get there more smoothly.

"Satisfactory" participation includes regularly writing session recaps and maintaining your character sheet. Endeavors with other pages (such as NPC pages) may yield additional boons, such as icon relationship results, consumables, or even just rerolls.

Unlike in previous/other games, I do not want wiki rewards to be large or get out of hand. Wiki participation is expected (and was an important part of our choosing you as a player).

Character Generation

Statistics

Select and use one of the Stat Arrays from page 309 of the Core Rulebook (PDFp91 in the extract). No hand-adjusting of point buy, nor rolling.

Progression

Incremental Advances

If you've been keeping up with the wiki, take an incremental advance after every session