Difference between revisions of "13A:Rules"

Latest revision as of 13:29, 14 October 2016

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 entirely open source. It can take them a while (if ever) to add it to the 'official SRD' though. Jonathan Reyst's unofficial web presence for it (http://www.13thagesrd.com) isn't so great (as ugly as unfriendly as d20pfsrd, but not complete like that 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 1st party rulebooks (Core, 13 True Ways, Book of Loot) 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. (Please don't go hunting for it; that defeats one of the "points" of 13th Age as a system.)
- I haven't yet read the 13th Age Monthly content, so it's not available. (Mainly: Summoning and Mounted Combat.)
- 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.
The multiclassing rules will not be used.
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.)

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 have provided everyone (on Facebook) 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.
Fail Forward (ch2): As a GM, I'm going to need help with this for at least a while, too.
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 (p166): Fight in Spirit, Flee, Rally; 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

Montages: Used.
Races: Discussion: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1249511075100202/permalink/1253797848004858/; Resolution: Used. But see #House Rules
Meaningful Death & Lasting Wound: Discussion: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1249511075100202/permalink/1256242217760421/; Resolution: Used.
Alignment: Discussion: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1249511075100202/permalink/1257459660972010/; Not used. But see #Fluff Content
Religion: Discussion: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1249511075100202/permalink/1267521729965803/; Poll: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1249511075100202/permalink/1268598773191432/; Solution: See #Religion

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.

Religion

While Icons fill the role that gods do in most fantasy RPGs, it still is an important part of the default setting (with some Icons revolving around them). The way we will be doing religion is as follows:

There are uncountable, unnamed gods. Gods are instead referred to by their portfolios (D&D term...), which is always a pair. This allows for plenty of ambiguity, plenty of movement, and lay worship. It lets the Icons have their religion, and the people can be as religious (or irreligious) as they care to be. Most are relatively polytheistic, but plenty of people narrow it down. The "God of Good and Love" probably has a lot more lip service than "The God of Froglegs and Tomatoes", where "The Goddess of Magic and Death" (c.f. Greyhawk's Wee Jas) would be somewhere in between. Yes, this does reduce religion to a relatively minor part of the game.

Expectations/Policies

Campaign charter: http://drinkinganddragons.com/wiki/13th_Fate_Group_Charter

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 Sheet

Please use the character sheet template at LOCATION and keep it up-to-date. You may change the formats, but make sure at least the full lot of information (including commented-out information) is preserved.

Naming Conventions

All pages for this campaign should be in the FOO: namespace, and should have the category tag [[Category:FOO]] at the top of the page. The following sub-categories of FOO will be used:

{{13A|pc=PC}}. PC pages should be named 13A:PC/Name (first ASCII only please; easier typing for future linking)
{{13A|face=Face}}. Faces (i.e., NPCs) should be named 13A:/Face/Name
{{13A|place=Place}}. Places should be named 13A:Place/Name
{{13A|play=Play}}. Play sessions should be named 13A:Play/#
Other pages (such as this one) should be just {{13A}} and 13A:Name
Additional categories can be added as appropriate (such as by icon), but all restricted to the top of the page source.
Images should also be tagged with category.

Character Generation

You did read chapter 2 twice already, right? Read it again to make sure. Then do the following steps, roughly in this order:

Start with plotting your icon relationships.
Then settle on your One Unique Thing (OUT).
Decide on a race and class.
- Class: As a group, no more than 2 of the 6 should be from 13 True Ways.
Pick your statistics.
- Select and use one of the Stat Arrays from p309 of the Core Rulebook (PDFp91 in the extract). No hand-adjusting of point buy, nor rolling.
Choose your class talents/powers/etc.
Select a feat (or two, if applicable).
Decide backgrounds.
Calculate combat stats (HP, etc).
Gear up.
- This is largely "meaningful fluff".
Write fluff content.
Fill out character sheet on the wiki.

Fluff Content

The following items are asked for in your character sheet. PLEASE do not find/make an image/drawing/artwork of the character. Maybe later, but let's let the character settle down in our imaginations before we solidify a look.

Physical Description: Describe your character's physical description in detail. Sight, sound, smell, taste, touch?
Mannerisms Description: Describe your character's mannerisms.
Personal (non-Icon) Goals: What are your character's goals, beyond those that align with the Icons?
Action Heuristic (c.f., alignment): Beyond your icon relationships, what's a quick way to determine how your character would act in a situation and/or how someone else would size him up? Compare this to the traditional alignment system (which may be your heuristic).
Religion: What is your character's religion?
Family, hometown, city/region of origin?: Say a few words about your character's previous relation to the world.
Catchphrase, theme song, etc: Something flavorful about the character, like a regular catch phrase, a theme song, or what would be his favorite novel.
Graphic Representation (icon for maps): Find an icon to act as your character's "virtual miniature". This should NOT be a picture OF the character (face, etc), but instead a representation.

Languages

Languages will be played loosely. However, once we determine someone does or does not have a language (based on OUT/backgrounds), we will note it in the description portion of the character sheet.

Progression

As the book (p189).
Level-up Story Rule Optional: at tier change.
Don't forget:
- Racial Power Feats at Champion Tier
- Icon Relationship improvement at tier change
- New talent (some classes only)
- HP doesn't increase linearly

Incremental Advances

If you've been keeping up with the wiki, I'll be granting incremental advances. This may be as frequently as every session. If, by some happenstance, you have taken all of the available incremental advances for your current level, you'll just have to wait. The list of incremental advances are:

Ability Score Bonus (4, 7, 10)
Icon Relationship (5, 8)
Talent (some classes only)
Feat
Hit Points
Extra Magic Item slot/Chakra
Skills
Spell/Power (may be taken multiple times if there are multiple to gain).

Changing Choices

The rules are liberal with shifting choices as you go on. See p76, p43, p39. We'll be letting it go like this. In short:

Talents shift as plot needs, or maybe more liberally at a tier shift (level 5, 8). Might be more liberal for a character class that's all talent.
Spells shift at each full heal-up, unless the class suggests otherwise.
Powers shift at each level up.
Feats shift one per session; and shift up to half of them (round up) at level up. This also means that if you're shifting spells/powers around a lot, you might not always be able to have the feats stick with them.
Backgrounds shift 1 point per level up.
Icon Relationships do not change, except once per new tier, with a story.
Incremental Advances do not change. But you can drop them all and choose something else altogether when you actually level up. EXCEPT Icon Relationship..

For all of the above, I will freely allow changes through the second or third (or so) session played; even race and class at that point, so long as it doesn't disrupt the composition/story so far.

House Rules

Retheming your content (p75 of core rulebook) is A-OK, as long as it doesn't alter it mechanically.

Races

The four optional races are available.

Dragonic: As written, this name used.; These are children of dragons that they choose (or may happen naturally?), during incubation, to lead the life as men, and not "half-dragons". Few ever know their parents, and even fewer maintain any connection with them other than remaining as part of a "dragon/dragonic" community. Sometimes a dragon will just drop an egg off to humanoid parents and a dragonic will come out when it hatches. (Side note: Has a full dragon ever hatched out of a captured dragon egg? History is inconclusive.); Must have an icon relationship of some sort with the Great Gold Wyrm or The Three. (If you've followed the lore, I might let you stretch to one with the Elf Queen if your OUT jives with it.)

Demontouched: As written, this name used.; These are the children of foul beasts and men. The coupling need not have been physical; it could have been a grand act of evil committed by the mother in the name of a demon while she was with child. And when I say "men", I mean any of the standard races (can be elf, dwarf, etc.). They don't always follow their parents' footsteps, but social pressure makes it hard for them to overcome them. (Make sure your description states your base race.); Must have an icon relationship of some sort with the Diabloist or Crusader.

Holy One: As written, this name used.; Must have and follow a specific religion on the brighter side of things, though this need-not (but may be) be part of the OUT.; Always a virgin birth of a race of man. And not always from a woman (cesarean section from a man?). Most happen as a reward for grand services to a "good" deity. They don't always live up to their parents' standards and expectations. (Make sure your description states your base race.); It's recommended, but not required, you have a icon relationship of some sort with the Priestess.

Dhampir (neé Forgeborn): Rules/powers written as Forgeborn, but named "Dhampir".; I am using this race to allow for some civilized influence of the Lich King. Dhampirs are offspring of undead in some way, not necessarily a born child of a human and vampire. It could instead be: a ghoul that didn't raise fully a ghoul, or a lichdom ritual that didn't quite work, or a follower of the Lich King that was rewarded with partial undeath (or someone who was poisoned with it), or just a gutter punk that was left dead to all rights but woke up a few days later due to not getting funerary rights and being too close to a graveyard. The OUT should probably reflect this in some way. The fluff should cover the rest.; Must have an icon relationship of some sort with the Lich King.

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