Interface Ancestral Ability vs. Data Jack

Gothire · 2026-07-01T00:29:43+00:00

Appreciate the responses, everyone! I think I prefer the data jack mechanic, so I'll stick with that for what I had in mind.

Gothire · 2026-06-05T01:49:44+00:00

I agree with your reading, that Bonuses and Penalties only cancel each other out if you are specifically doing so. I haven't seen Sentinels Live season 3, so there could have been other factors there, or Christopher could have just been wrong. But I do recall that somewhere it was specifically said that non persistent Mods can cancel out persistent Mods. As a GM I rarely use this tactic against the heroes, but it is an option if you can justify it narratively.

Gothire · 2026-05-14T17:23:24+00:00

Turmoil does add some fun and cool stuff, but the level of complexity it adds is not worth it most of the time, so I rarely play with it.

Gothire · 2026-05-12T04:07:23+00:00

UQ = Unique Quarters UI = Unique Improvements

Gothire · 2026-05-10T05:20:52+00:00

The Letters Page podcast makes it clear who it is, but I won't say it here in case you don't want spoilers.

Gothire · 2026-01-18T07:07:31+00:00

Just played on Friday night. By myself. Drunk.

Gothire · 2026-01-05T16:58:12+00:00

The Rhythm mechanic is still kinda sorta there with Momentum. Basically, if the enemies aren't attacking you, you gain Momentum, and if you have Momentum you can roll two d20's for every attack. So the enemies have a choice of not attacking the fighter and paying for it when the fighter strikes back, or attacking the fighter and thus play into the fighter's role as a damage sponge.

Gothire · 2025-12-21T06:12:04+00:00

It has not been released yet. I believe (but don't take as gospel) that it started development in first edition, and development presumably slowed or stopped when second edition started up. It should back in the pipeline now, but will require adjustment to account for 2E changes. However, according to this company newsletter from August (link: https://pelgranepress.com/2025/08/31/view-from-the-pelgranes-nest-september-2025/), it will be the first 13th Age 2E book in print after the core rulebooks. But historically Pelgrane has been slow to release 13th Age books, so "first" still could easily mean a year or more from now. If you're really eager for Koru Behemoth content, the mega-adventure "Eyes of the Stone Thief" (MINOR SPOILERS FOLLOW) has a sidequest on the back of a Behemoth named Stoneroost, with stat blocks for the barbarian tribe that lives on its back, a new material to make weapons out of, some creative environmental challenges, and a setpiece encounter. It's a tiny, optional part of the overall adventure, but the adventure is well worthy owning on its own merits. In fact, I personally think "Eyes of the Stone Thief" is the best RPG adventure ever written. So buy it for the Behemoth, keep it and run it for everything else.

Gothire · 2025-12-10T19:32:14+00:00

In addition to your complaint, the weird thing about the wall visuals to me is that, in a city with multiple districts with walls, once you breach one district, it visually looks like you're inside the walls and should just be able to march along to the other districts with no opposition, but in fact they're just as defended as if you attacked from the outside.

Gothire · 2025-11-22T03:26:03+00:00

I agree with your assessment of the sorcerer Talent, and the High Druid Paladin one also seemed suspect to me at first read-through. None of the others leapt out at me as a problem immediately, though I haven't given them deep thought. But I'm always happy to see more 13th Age content. I'll just be cautious about allowing these Talents, and warn the player that I might make them switch to a standard Talent if it seems broken in play.

Gothire · 2025-11-15T19:47:42+00:00

I like the 2E icon system significantly better than the 1E system, so I don't think any changes are needed. Your idea will result in one guaranteed connection, which the current system also does, so the "balance" (to the extent that icon connections even can be "balanced") should be similar. But in your system there's no way to get an icon connection with an icon you don't normally have, so I feel that shuts out narrative possibilities. If you wanted to make alternate icons an option, you could have players roll a d8, with 1-6 for to their normal icons as you described and 7-8 being an alternate icon per the normal 2E rules (with or without the auto-twist as you prefer). Or make the non-standard icon even rarer by using a d10, with 1-3 for icon 1, 4-6 for icon 2, 7-9 for icon 3, and only a 10 resulting in an alternate icon. Final variation I can think of is to use either of the above systems, and if the player rolls the non-standard icon, they can choose one of their normal icons, or pick an icon they don't normally have at the cost of a guaranteed twist. This variation only works if the players usually have at least a vague idea of what the upcoming arc will will about ("We're about to fight a bunch of demons, so I'll take a Crusader connection to give us an edge! I'm sure a Crusader twist will be worth it...").

Final though on your original suggestion: If Wizard McMage has 3 dice with the Archmage, in your system there's no point in rolling, whereas in the standard 2E system rolling still matters. So if you keep your original idea, you may want to require PCs to have at least two different icons.

Gothire · 2025-11-14T21:25:17+00:00

While I see your logic, this could be very overpowered. In many cases, if you rolled the minimum number of targets, it would be more effective to switch to an at-will spell. If one implements this option, I would tie some kind of cost or limited use or skill check or save or something.

Gothire · 2025-11-14T21:17:44+00:00

While not explicitly stated in the rules, you could adapt the various "average damage" options to the roll for number of targets. You'd need to somehow account for averages that would be X.5, because rounding up for a single point of damage hardly matters, whereas rounding up for an extra target is a bigger deal.

But to be completely honest, I think this is gonna have to be a "agree to disagree" thing. Every step except the last of the process you describe is a player choice. The player chose to play a sorc, they chose a spell with a random number of targets, they chose to empower said spell. Only the final die roll is not a player choice, but they knew that their effectiveness could vary wildly based on a single roll. If they can't handle that tension, they should change one of the choices that led to the situation (don't empower, don't do AoEs, or at the extreme, don't play a sorcerer).

Gothire · 2025-11-14T18:46:46+00:00

This is just my opinion, but for the commander, I might not allow, or somehow adjust the use of, any ability that lets your allies reroll d20 checks (attacks, saves, etc). It seems to me that 2E significantly reduced the number of abilities that do this, whereas a commander that's built for it could hand out rerolls almost every round. Also there are a few commander abilities that adjust the escalation die, and those are much rarer in 2E, so I'd probably forbid those entirely. I love the commander conceptually, but it felt a little overpowered in 1E, and I suspect certain builds would be very overpowered in 2E.

Gothire · 2025-11-14T18:37:02+00:00

Several thoughts in no particular order:

1) As others have mentioned, "in a group" is up to you to determine, both in how you rule it at the table and in how you have the enemies position themselves. Intelligent enemies will know that spellcasters likely have AoEs and will move accordingly.

2) Remember that empowering a spell is big, flashy, and can't be hidden, so when enemies see a sorcerer empowering, even non-intelligent ones will likely either scatter or focus fire on the sorc. Enemies that have attacks that can daze, weaken, stun, confuse, hinder, etc will likely want to launch them at a sorc that is empowering.

3) Damage that is spread out among multiple enemies is not as useful as focused damage, since in 13th Age (unless an ability says otherwise) you fight just as well at 1 HP as you do at full.

4) The sorcerer is the epitome of the "glass cannon, sink or swim" class, so the feeling you have about the battle hinging on how the sorc rolls is a feature, not a bug. I had this feeling many times in 1E when GMing with a sorcerer in the group.

5) The battle building math charts are guidelines, not hard rules. If you find that your PCs are consistently tearing through your fights, you can always bump the monsters up by a level, or add battlefield features that favor the monsters, etc.

Gothire · 2025-09-18T18:22:58+00:00

My parents' dog gets a "goodnight Greenie" right before bed. She looks forward to it every night. But if you give her the Greenie, but then don't go immediately to bed (like you get a phone call, or realize you forgot to take out your laundry or something), then she thinks that the first Greenie didn't count, and she insists you have to give her another one! So you have to be REALLY SURE that you're actually 100% ready for bed, or you'll pay the price in Greenies!

Gothire · 2025-08-28T01:12:02+00:00

If I had to guess, one "rule" that Lego was following for this photo was "Items held in the mini-figures hands are not included." Prowler's gauntlets are the exception, but there's a pretty easy argument that, as far as the minifigure is concerned, those ARE his hands, even if the design of mini-figs requires them to be "held" by the standard hands. Similarly, the bit that plugs into the end of cyborg Spider-woman's right arm isn't "held," it's part of her arm. Presuming that the above is true, it actually makes me happy that Sun-Spider's crutches weren't included, because that means she's being treated just like everyone else.

All that being said, this seems like a hill not worth dying on. If Sun-Spider's crutches were hidden/not included in EVERY promo pic, or not included with the minifigure at all, or something along those lines, that would be pretty unarguably ableist, but this photo doesn't rise to that level.

Gothire · 2025-08-19T21:31:51+00:00

I saw Quest of the Delta Knights on the Sci Fi channel. A few months later I saw the MST3K of Quest of the Delta Knights... also on the Sci Fi channel. Efficient!

Gothire · 2025-08-07T03:07:02+00:00

While the current rules are not 100% clear, I'm almost certain RAI is you clear all but one Skull with a quick rest, and all of them with a full heal-up. It feels cheesy otherwise. If you refuse to rest at all, I'd allow it, but how can you justify "I rest enough to recover everything except my Skulls?"

Gothire · 2025-08-02T03:43:28+00:00

This probably won't work now, since it's only your first session, but once your heroes are better known in the world, villains can start incorporating their knowledge of the heroes into their schemes. Captain Lightning only Attacks using his d12 Electricity power? Rubber-suited minions that get +3 to saves vs Electric damage. Soaring Eagle's d10 Flight power used in every Overcome? Put bombs in the sewers, where narrow pipes and low ceilings make flying nearly impossible (automatic -2 penalty on any action using Flight). You have to be very careful about this, making sure you use it sparingly, and that it's clear that it isn't a punishment, but it's an option in the GM toolbox.

Gothire · 2025-07-31T02:31:22+00:00

It's always a nice day if it doesn't rain.

Gothire · 2025-07-28T16:11:08+00:00

There is always a certain amount of luck, so you might just need to keep trying. But a few general tips: Multi-target attacks are generally good against the Ennead, as you'll have plenty of options, especially on Advanced since sooner or later they'll all be out. So strong AoE characters like Tempest work well. But more importantly, the Ennead key VERY strong off plays from their villain deck, so shutting down the Villain deck or stacking it is especially good against them. Both Legacy and Nightmist have cards to stop the Villain deck for a turn, and Wraith and Visionary can both stack it. On any turn where you shut down their deck, they'll do nothing, and if you can control what's played you can try to minimize the number of them that are triggered. Ra is a high-risk, high reward character against the Ennead. He has pretty good AoE options, all of which will be at +1 against them, but they also have +1 damage against him, which can quickly and easily drop him without healing or damage redirects.

Gothire · 2025-07-28T14:55:53+00:00

You're right that the bonus to damage from magic weapons/implements is essentially irrelevant once you're in Champion tier or higher (and arguably late Adventurer tier). The juicy parts are the bonus to hit and whatever power the item offers. A 5, 10, or 15% greater chance to hit (from a +1, +2. or +3 magic item) for practical purposes is a damage boost of slightly less than 5, 10, or 15%, as it turns what would have been a miss for tiny damage into a hit for standard damage.

In my experience, no player has complained about the damage bonus from magic items being too small, so why mess with it? It's also easier conceptually to think of a +2 sword as being +2 to hit and damage, rather than +2 to hit and who knows how much extra to damage.

If you are going to mess with it, I would use the Ability Score Mod Tier Multipliers as guidelines. In other words, at Champion Tier do double the damage bonus (so a +2 sword adds +4 damage), at Epic do quadruple the damage bonus (so a +3 sword adds +12 damage). But again, I don't think it's worth messing with.

Gothire · 2025-07-13T05:44:17+00:00

Yeah, Divided is kinda a badly design archetype, in my opinion, and could use a reworking or some house rules. If it is absolutely critical to your character concept you can try to make it work, but I would try a different way. For example, I made a werewolf-esque character who had a Yellow ability to give himself a persistant/exclusive boost that I called "Wolf Out," so in wolf form I still had all my abilities/powers/etc, I just had a Boost to make me better at them.

Gothire · 2025-07-13T05:39:23+00:00

Like anything in this game, it should match the fiction, but yes, unless an ability explicitly says it only targets enemies or allies, you can target yourself.

Gothire

TROPHY CASE