Yearning for the 13th Age: or, get to the gorram point.

A week ago I played with a new group in what was supposed to be a beginner game (5th edition). It was ok, but left me yearning for the DM to use a few techniques I've learned from 13th Age to get things moving faster.

First, he wanted us to describe our characters, but after one of the experienced players balked, he abandoned that plan just as I was working up to it. Kinda hard when you've got a pre-gen.

But the big thing was we never actually got to an adventure. I think we had one or two combats, one of them seemed to be a random encounter overnight. So we actually accomplished nothing and had no story at all. Now, I'm fine with no story if we're accomplishing stuff (i.e. sandbox exploration). But... really. Come on. Give us a dungeon to explore, NPCs to interact with, or an otherwise meaningful combat. Something quick to wear us down works great for a longer story arc, not a one-shot.

It wouldn't have been difficult to just have that star-wipe and skip past the journey portion of the quest. Or we could have done a montage (13th age style, I should really look to see if they stole that from Fate or Savage Worlds or something) to get past it. Even a 4th edition style skill challenge (trek through the wilderness, everyone has to contribute) might have worked.

Instead we spend our while time in what appeared to be two pointless combats for what should have been a one-shot. The guy really wants to do an ongoing campaign, so I wouldn't be surprised if he tries to have us continue in a couple weeks. But maybe I'll have to herd the cats and see if I can't run something on Sundays too.

Al-Qadim 5th Edition Patch: Ghul Lord (First Draft)

Reading over the recent Unearthed Arcana article on modifying classes, it inspired me to finish up a first draft of some of the Al-Qadim patch material I've been thinking about. The 2nd Edition Ghul Lord was from the Complete Sha'ir's Handbook, and has stuck with me as a pretty unique spellcaster from 2nd Edition. From multiple readings, its still not clear to me how this kit was intended to work (I think you get necromancy spells plus manipulations..?), but I like the idea of being innately tied to necromantic energy and manipulating it in a way different from mages who study their spells carefully. That's pretty sorcerer to me, so here's the first draft of the build:

Ghul Lord (Sorcerous Origin)

Death Master

At first level you add all necromancy spells to the sorcerer list (but not your spells known). Each necromancy spell you know adds one to your maximum hit points. All of your spells which do not normally deal necrotic damage do half of their damage as necrotic. You resist necrotic damage, and your spells which deal necrotic damage bypass necrotic resistance. You gain proficiency with the short sword, long sword, and scimitar. When you cast a spell, there is often a subtle sensory effect that reveals your spells are not normal (tears of blood, flickering or sickly light, whispers or moans of the dead, etc.).

The idea is I'm giving the ability to cast lots of necromancy, and an incentive to take those spells. At maximum it would be 15-20 bonus hp (depending on more necromancy cantrips being released), which is what the Dragon origin gets. In practice, I doubt anyone would take only necromancy spells, but two hp/spell seems high and I haven't thought of another good bonus other than duplicating the wizard necromancer benefits. Non-necromancy spells are restricted to the sorcerer list still, and get necromancy flavored. The resistance stuff just seems like a minor fix for a character that will be doing necrotic damage constantly. I considered a limited ritual casting which would allow the ghoul lord to cast necromancy rituals but that hardly seems potent given that its only feign death and gentle repose.

Disrupting Manipulations

At 6th level, you may regain one sorcery point by expending a hit die and subtracting the roll from your hit point total. This damage cannot be reduced in any way. In addition, you know the spells dispel magic and counterspell which do not count against your number of spells known. When you successfully cast either of these spells, any creature or object from which you dispelled a spell or the creature whose spell you countered takes necrotic damage equal to 1d12 plus your sorcerer level.

This is legacy stuff. Gaining a few bonus sorcery points for sacrificing hit dice is thematically appropriate, as well as the Ghul Lord's magic disrupting normal magic. While the first feature could belong to any death-themed sorcerer, here we are firmly in the domain of the ghul lord.

Necrotic Manipulations

At 14th level, as an action, you may temporarily add one evocation or necromancy spell from the sorcerer spell list to your spells known by expending sorcery points equal to the spell’s level. If that spell deals damage, half of the damage is considered necrotic damage. You lose access to the spell once you cast it or when you take a short or long rest. If the spell is an evocation spell that does not normally deal damage, it deals 1d12 plus your sorcerer level in necrotic damage to any living creature which comes into contact with the effect.

More legacy material. The idea is the ghoul lord can manipulate raw necrotic energy to cast spells. This lets them get a blasting spell they need easily, and a few utilities though they may be costly. Again, this makes this ghul lord specific, rather than just death sorcerer.

Rotting Strength

At 17^th level, you can be targeted by effects that target undead, and whenever you are subject to an effect that only affects undead you may choose whether or not you are affected. You are immune to necrotic and poison damage, and your spells that deal necrotic or poison damage deal extra damage equal to your charisma modifier.

This is obviously the "you are dead" capstone. Not sure its quite enough yet, a bit of a random grab bag of weaker effects. This feels a little less like ghul lord, but is thematically related to the ongoign loss of strength/constitution/charisma the ghul lord suffers by turning more death-like.

All in all, I'm not unhappy with this but not quite happy either. I need to go back and see if I'm missing something from the original (defensive, informative, and translocative manipulations?) or what I've got here (the grab bag of powers and all) that isn't necessarily thematic and could be simplified. For example, if the ghoul lord can only learn necromancy spells (If you draw from all lists, I think there's enough in the Player's Handbook) rather than from the sorcerer list, then the manipulation ability could be expanded and given at 6th level (i.e. Abjuration, Conjuration, Divination or Evocation spells from the sorcerer list, or any spell from the sorcerer list..? Illusions might not be bad, but Enchantments and Transmutations aren't thematic). Also I should re-compare things to the normal sorcerer options (and the new Favored Soul) to check the relative power levels, but its a start.

Al-Qadim: Elemental Provinces

Just a little proof of concept for adapting elemental provinces to a 5e Al-Qadim game. The Elemental Evil spells combined with Book of Lost Spells has added a good number of options to the game. Enough, I think, where one could easily start playing at low levels.

I obviously pillaged spells from all over the Player's Handbook. There's a few levels in which a given province doesn't have a spell, which is a slight problem. These could be filled in, however. There's also possibly a controversial assignment or two (Mage armor and sleep being only available in the Sand province). I also don't like ice magic as sea spells, but I left a couple in from the PHB as they flesh the sea province out a bit more. I'm tempted to consider lightening as flame spells, but that gives a whole lot to the Brotherhood of True Flame. If you give those all to wind though, you end up with wind sorcerers using primarily lightening spells to attack instead of the thematic windy spells...

I'm keen on exploring a few broader or thematic application of the elemental provinces as well. For example, Air is the element associated with thought, so detect thoughts and telepathy could fill out that list, as well as invisibility which seems to fit the wind province more than others. Water might get intuitive and emotional spells. Sand could get some other defensive spells along with things like hold person as earth is the element of rigid stability. Flame might get aggressive, inspiring, and charming spells. That sort of thing. Some provinces might share spells, such as the hold spells being shared by sand and wind, or charm being shared by flame and water.

Spells marked with a * are Elemental Evil and I'd say commonly available. Spells marked † are Book of Lost Spells and the DM might provide those as treasure rather than just including all of them on a big list (other than the cantrips, I'd make those freely available to choose). I'm mostly going off of spell names for Book of Lost Spells entries. There's probably a few I missed and a couple that'd be best left off these lists. Also I wasn't sure what to do with a few spells which might be of two provinces (e.g. Air Forge† as wind and flame or Steam Bolt† as sea and flame, etc.), so I just made an arbitrary decision. I could see them as only being available to "sorcereres" who specialize in two provinces, or just dual-listing some as I've done below.

In terms of classes, I imagine giving each "arcane" class (Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard) access to one province. Wizards might have a tradition that gives them access to a second province. Arcane Tricksters and Eldritch Knights choose spells from one province instead of their usual school restrictions (this might lead to lots of sand eldritch knights and sea/wind arcane tricksters). This basically means a new spell list for most every class, as I'd try to remove most of the elemental spells from everyone (even Clerics/Paladins/Rangers maybe).

Lists after the break:

A failure of 5e: Cleric and Druid spell lists

I was (perhaps foolishly) reading some forum posts about the new Elemental Evil materials for D&D. Besides the usual gripes which amount to wanting more material, I've been thinking about how the new spells affect clerics (not at all) and druids (uncertain).

See, what they did was provide about 40 new mostly-elemental spells. They provided lists saying which spells can be taken by which classes, and one of those is the druid (cleric and paladin were left out). But there's an interesting caveat:

"Your DM might add only a few of these spells to your druid’s spell list. For example, if your druid is from a coastal region, the druid might have access only to the new water-themed spells." (Elemental Evil, p12).

Now, what has historically happened is every new spell in the game is available to the proper class. But everyone other than Clerics and Druids has a mechanic for how they "know" that spell. Wizards have to get a copy in their book (now you get a couple free when you gain a level, otherwise you have to seek it out) and other classes simply gain a new spell at each level (or thereabouts). Clerics and druids know every spell on their list, so when their list is expanded the classes just get that much more versatile.

This, I think, is a problem. But is there a solution?

Obviously for Elemental Evil they say: its the DM's choice if your druid can use all or only some of these. A reasonable thing to do at this point. As a DM, I think I'd simply ask the player to suggest which of those spells she would want access to and remove a few from the druid list that seemed less appropriate (i.e. a coastal druid might gain more water spells and lose fire ones).

But this is ultimately a little unsatisfying big-picture-wise. What you want is a good mechanism to allow all clerics/druids to have a universal set of core spells, and then provide additional ones based on their domain/circle/what-have-you. They did this, to an extent, with the bonus domain/circle spells. So its easy to instead customise those bonus spells instead of the list as a whole. But then we've still kinda got two different lists of bonus spells.

I'm not sure what the solution is here. With at most 40 or so spells, a little customization isn't bad. If they add another 20-40 spells in 6 months though... and another 50-100 spells a year after that... the problem balloons into an outrageous bloated system.

It sounds like the Cleric/Druid need a slight redesign that they don't want to do. A cleric might "know" a number of spells at each level equal to his wisdom score, or perhaps 10 + wisdom modifier. You pick them from the Cleric list and you or the DM can select a few which are thematic but don't fit the general Cleric list. Fairly elegant, but shitty for new players (i.e. time-consuming and difficult).

My beloved 2nd edition wasn't necessarily better in this respect. Cleric spells were divided into spheres of influence, but still the more spells published the bigger your list got, though it was at least thematically coherent still (by and large).

A different, but not quite as elegant solution, would be to similarly divide the spells up into paths of power, a la the old Dragon Magazine article (#216). That divided up wizard spells into a number of paths, and wizards could only pursue a few thematic paths until they mastered them. I think, in theory, it meant high-level wizards were still crazy-potent, but it forced wizards to be thematic in their spells. I can see this being useful for both clerics/druids and sorcerers in particular, who ought to have maybe one or two thematic spells at each level but you don't want people to be making constant choices (i.e. choose once to get the Flame path and you've got a set spells with one flame spell at each level, rather than choosing from a large group of spells at each level to add or wholly customizing your spell list).

The problem with this "paths" approach is it doesn't jive with the current domains/circles, because both are mechanics to add new spells to the spell list. The classes still need a rewrite to prevent bloat in the long term.

Wizards are a bit of a concern as well, but the DM can (and should) limit which spells are available to some extent. So you don't have to let all the extra spells in as scrolls or through NPC spellbooks found as treasure. Sorcerers and Bards and Warlocks pick from the list, so even a bloated list isn't really increasing their power/utility unless bad spells are created for the game. But clerics and druids... I wonder if they'll actually do anything about this.

Al-Qadim 5th Edition Patch: Races

I thought I was taking over running a game here, but it turns out I was out of town and two opportunistic DMs who are already running games have decided to run additional games on alternating Thursdays. So... Al-Qadim prep wasted. Oh well. I figure I'll maybe post some of my thoughts at least. Also, since getting Necromancer's Book of Lost Spells and the release of the Elemental Evil Players' Companion, Al-Qadim seems much more viable in terms of the spells.

So I talked before about modifying skills, kits as backgrounds, and the hakima and sha'ir. Here's races. I'm still going through the spell stuff, but I think the 2nd edition approach will work with few problems: assign spells to provinces, spellcasters get 1-2 provinces. This does mean some classes will lose access to a few spells, but we'll see.

Basically everything should work just fine. Al-Qadim was always more human-centric, but racial differences didn't matter in the setting. All the basic races seem to work just fine. I like the interpretation of Genasi as half-genies or genie-blooded. I might consider Goliaths to be Ogres though, since I like the idea of racial tolerance leading to ogres or goblins being integrated in society. It's not in the main Al-Qadim book, but suggested in City of Delights.

Common Races

• Human
• Dwarf
• Elf
• Halfling
• Ogre (Goliath, EE)

Uncommon Races

• Aarakocra (EE)
• Genasi (EE)


• Gnome
• Half-Demon (Tiefling)
• Half-Elf
• Half-Orc

Rare Races

• Half-Dragon (Dragonborn)
• Half-Angel (Aasimar, DMG)

If I had the gumption, I might also create a goblin race or steal a homebrew version from somewhere. Just because I like the idea that Ogres and Goblins mix with the other races equally in the setting. I've reflavored Tieflings and Dragonborn and Aasimar as mixed races, but  that's maybe something to collaborate with the players on since it could have zero impact on the setting or a whole bunch of impact. Easier to play with one character of fiendish heritage (Tiefling) though than be forced to integrate a whole community of them. Then again, the Tiefling story in the Players' Handbook might fit will with Al-Qadim, though they'd almost certainly list them as related to the Ruined Kingdoms of Nog and Kadar which I have other plans for.

Reflections on Running 13th Age Online

I've learned a bit from running 13th Age. This is a bit of a grab-bag summary, but I wanted to write up some thoughts while they're fresh(er) in my brainpan.

You can do a lot with minimal prep. I ran a couple 13th Age modules/adventures, the first from the basic book and I steamrolled my players through good portions of Crown of the Lich King (a 13th Age organized play adventure). Now, the Crown stuff was a bit odd in that the thing was organized into 2 hour play chunks, and I totally skipped one completely, but it all worked out fairly well. A few skeletons of encounters, with notes on how many creatures and which creatures to shove at the players worked wonders, and the simple stat-block format of the monsters really helped that. When I was running 4e, I could actually construct or modify the next encounter from the printouts I had during the downtime in players' turns, but this was a bit nicer.

I could have prepped a bit more. There were some things I should have expected to happen, and prepped those. Magic items are one example. When the modules recommended magic items, they also recommended rolling relationship dice and whoever gets the highest roll gets an item, or whichever icon comes up highest per player gets an appropriate item. With only 6 icons in play between the 2 players, it would have been easy to decide in advance 1-2 items for each icon, and to have the text ready to give to the players.

Montage scenes can be good ways to speed a few things up. I recall doing this explicitly with some Fading Suns games long ago (even describing the star-wipes), but a montage scene can be a good way to help keep the players involved and also move past some parts that could be a bit cumbersome. Obviously more important in story-based games. When I plowed through the last 3-4 portions of Crown on Sunday, we hit the montage button a couple times though, and it definitely got to be a bit much. So a montage once in a while seems reasonable to me, but not every game. Despite the fact that the collaborative montages came out of the Crown adventure, they seemed like they could have been in the 13th Age main book. Ultimately I did end up doing a bit of montaging (there were some odd trap sections of Crown that I'm not sure I understood) with dice rolls, and that worked out fine. It made the montage a bit less focused on heroic awesomeness, but I got the sense the the PCs were spending resources based on how they handled obstacles.

Tell your players the numbers they need. If players are rolling dice, why hide the difficulty? I think this goes hand-in-hand with not require superfluous rolls. But towards the end of my 13th Age time, I realized it was just easier to tell people what they need to hit. I think this notion mostly came out of my last session where I found myself spilling the beans on the DCs more. Even if its general "Nothing under a 18 will hit these guys" or whatnot. And for skill checks too. I tried to follow some of the difficulties recommended in the books/adventures, but if they need a 20 or even 25 to succeed, why not tell them? I think it gives a bit more suspense to the roll. Fail forward can really help here. Telling the player the difficulty of an action also lets them judge for their character how difficult an action is going to be. That said, if you don't want players to know how well they did, make the roll for them or just use an average roll (like the "passive" perception of later edition D&D).

For the love of all that's holy, make rolls important (or at least not trivial). If the players are willing to spend a resource on overcoming an obstacle, they probably don't need to make rolls. I let the PCs scale a cliff and bypass some crazy undead magic obelisks because the sorcerer said he'd just use a flight spell to get himself plus a rope up. No need to make the pretty athletic thief roll a DC 5 or even 15 check to climb that rope. No dramatic tension, resource already expended, no real need for a roll. I'da probably asked for a roll if they were tossing the rope up just to see if they ended up taking a little damage (or, more likely, losing a recovery) if their gamble didn't work out. But all sorts of knowledge rolls or perception checks... generally unneeded. Also, don't let the PCs re-try things too many times. You failed the check to figure out how to open the secret door, you're going to need things to dramatically change (or maybe come at it with another skill) before you get another roll. But I also know that because there were multiple routes: the PCs didn't need to get that secret door open in order to make progress.

13th Age style backgrounds rock. I really like the notion that you should put a few skills into sentence form. One idea I'm floating for a 5e game is that simply for each skill you have, you need to put it into a sentence form to solidify how your character acquired the skill and what it really means. That's a bit of a different middle-ground, but I think I might really like that. A couple times it wasn't always clear why a players' background should have benefited a roll, but I think I only disallowed a couple. I could have put some more pressure on the players to be creative though: "What crimes did you commit as Heir to the Prince of Shadows that were similar to sneaking into a Lich Baron's house?" Or: "How did your blue dragon tutor teach you about necromantic magic?"

Online tabletops are odd. Roll20 worked fairly well, we didn't have too many audio problems after the second and third sessions. If I'm going to keep doing that I'd like to figure out some of the bells and whistles to get creatures into the system easier, and organize my play spaces. But overall it worked better than I had expected. I can imagine doing some other games with it, though because all you have to work with are the little map and tiny head-shots of the players, I think it might be a bit more suited to actually using gridded combat. The abstract distances were occasionally a bit hard to judge when we do have all the little tokens on the board. But, it wasn't a real problem.

Story games can be fun despite the railroad. I didn't feel like I necessarily left my players a lot of choices, but because I was adapting some of what I did to what they were doing, I think they got the impression that their choices mattered. Obviously I was going to use the Crown adventure regardless of which deceased icon they were trying to steal/resurrect, so it wasn't hard to reskin it for the Leviathon instead of the White [dragon]. I even reskinned the Lich King's vaults as Baron Voth's mansion because I didn't take enough notes and that's where the players thought they were going. No problem though. I think this is a real difference between story games and old-school sandbox games: in one the players choices are a bit illusory and the journey is more important. In the other, the players choices matter, but there's so much to explore its often quite moot.

Take notes. I liked starting each session off with a recap, rolling relationship dice, and having a few notes on things to try to add in (even if I didn't really get around to adding in graffiti much or describing lots of non-visual sensory info). But, damn, having a couple weeks (or months!) between sessions means I should have kept better notes. Notes of all the items I gave out, where players were going and why... All would have been useful. Reminds me a bit, however, of the journals I tried to have players do for an old Fading Suns game. We didn't keep those reliably, but its cool to go back and look through what we did do. And I think they did help keep people more aware of what had happened before and what their plans were for their characters.

Non-tactical combats are fairly fast. While I actually did enjoy the tactical combats of 4e (best part of the system, right?) they did start to grind on. Most 13th Age combats were pretty quick (though it was only 2-3 players). 5e combats can be similarly quick. I wonder about higher-level 13th age combats though. The virual dice took us a while to get used to, but they mathed everything out for us and it didn't take a minute for someone to collect enough dice, shake them an unreasonably long time, then roll and count. And you still got to see the dice explode on the virtual tabletop (like 15d6 on an empowered critical hit). Add to that the 13th Age "articifial intelligence" of monsters (their tactics are largely based on dice rolls, so the DM choices are easy to make. So a smaller number of players, the electronic dice, and 13th Age monster tactics might have really helped speed up combat, but I don't think it was just that. Tracking conditions definitely slowed me down as I was using the table top too. But its a refreshing change of pace from some previous editions still. And even small/quick combats have a chance to go awry or eat up the players' resources.

I'm not sure if we'll get a chance to return to the 13th Age in the near future or not. Even if the guys and I can find a time for another game here and there, we might switch to something else. But its been a good experience, that's for sure. 

Quests of Doom: When do I doom my players?

So, I kickstarted Quests of Doom (along with Fifth Edition Foes and whatever the spell book is titled). Just got the PDFs today for Quests of Doom (two books, part 1 and 2), but there's no little summary of which levels each adventure is for. You're welcome. I organized them by heading (and mixed up the two books), rather than party level or strict order in which they appear.

Bugs & Blobs
1-Noble Rot (5th - 8th Level)
1-Hidden Oasis - Temple of Thoth (7th - 9th Level)
2-Of Ants and Men (4th - 8th, 2-3 characters, maybe solo)

Demons & Devils
1-Ra's Evil Grin (11th Level or Higher)
1-Sorcerer's Citadel (9th Level or Higher, 5 characters)
2-The Pit of Despair (13th Level or Higher)

Giants & Dragons
1-The Dead from Above (6th - 8th Level, 4-6 characters)
1-Emeralds of Highfang (High level? Some rogues...)
2-Dread Dragon Temple (5th - 7th Level, 4-6 characters)

Lycanthropes & Elementals
1-Bad Moon Rising (4th - 6th)
1-Death in Dyrgalas (6th - 8th)
2-The Darkening of Namjan Forest (4th level, 6-8 characters)

Men & Monstrosities
1-Deep in the Vale (1st level - brand new characters)
1-Irtep's Dish (6-8, trap expert, healer, fighter, wizard)
2-Perils of Ghostwind Pass (5th to 7th Level, 4-6 characters)

Vampries & Liches
1-Pyramid of Amra (12th level or higher, Cleric, wizard/sorcerer, two front-line warriors)
1-Sewers fo Underguild (11th - 15th level)
2-The Isle of Eliphaz (14th Level or Higher)

I have to say, on first pass I'm a little disappointed with this element of the kickstarter. First, I was one of the voices asking for an adventure for a smaller party. Often I might be able to do a game with 1-3 players, but getting a lot can be rough. And playing with 7+ people in modern D&D can be really slow, so I would't take more than 6 if I could handle it. The adventure for small groups turns out in the part 2 book, which I feel like they wanted to do so just did anyway but I still payed extra for it and I think that the Pathfinder version is going to include all of the quests anyway. So ugh.

Second, the fact that I had to compile this little summary is, I think, indicative of some of the old school sensibilities which should have been updated. The modern math of the game (and even some older-school math) means that there's a big gap between four 6th level characters and six 8th level characters. I'm not sure that we're getting good guidelines on when to use these adventures. Many don't specify a number of party members at all. If my summary above is unclear or inadequate, its because the adventures we're presented with are unclear. This is a bit of the "first edition feel" that I dislike. Give me a range and some ideas on making some encounters tougher or easier, but give me something. Also in table-form for easy perusal is nice: hiding things in needless paragraphs is needlessly old-school. It would have been super easy (and clear!) to have a sub-heading saying "for 4-6 PCs of 6th-8th level" or whatnot under each adventure title. Missed opportunity.

Third, a lot of these are for higher-level PCs. About 1/3 are for what I'd call "high level", about 10+. There's only one for beginning PCs, and none for PCs at second or third level (though the quest for level 1 pcs might take people to level two or even three).  It feels again like a little missed opportunity to have enough adventures of the right levels to easily use this book (these books, I guess) to actually progress through levels smoothly.

On the plus side, at first skim, these look sufficiently old-school and also good. I can imagine running one or more of these (hopefully I will, for what I paid). I just gave in and got Caverns of Thracia and Dark Tower, and they look like they might fit in with this collection. So, some good looking stuff, but I'm a little disappointed about the implementation.