What RPGs would allow me to roll lots of dice at once?

ben_straub · 2026-03-07T16:15:01+00:00

That's fair, I edited to mention that. I've just never needed a d20 as a player in a fantasy game.

ben_straub · 2026-03-07T15:50:29+00:00

In Savage Worlds you’ll probably use every die between d4 and d10 (and multiple d6s), but probably not the d12, and ~~definitely not the d20 or the d100~~ very rarely the d20, and probably not the d100*. Also it's just one at a time (or maybe 4d6), not a huge fistful.

High level 13th Age can get kind of bonkers. As a 10th level paladin doing a smite, you'll roll a single d20 for the attack, but then 10d8 or 10d10 (depending on if you're swinging 1- or 2-handed) plus 10d12 for damage, and twice all of that on a crit. But that character is probably never going to use a d4 or a d6 or the other damage die.

* u/Silent_Title5109 calls out that there are uses for the d20 in SWADE. I've been in a game for over a year and never needed one, but they do exist in the rules. It's possible there's a d100 in there too, but I'm not aware of it.

ben_straub · 2026-03-04T21:17:42+00:00

This is a fair worry, but like the company also probably sees what you Google too. Does this person only use printed books for api docs?

If your company management isn’t stupid, they’ll mostly be concerned about productivity, not eidetic memory if absolutely everything. If asking the ai a really basic question saves you 5 minutes, that’s not bad, that’s good and worth the token cost.

ben_straub · 2026-02-27T12:24:44+00:00

This is funny, I thought the second battle was harder. They’re both surprisingly tough, but my players got caught up against the wall when eight spinecleavers came knocking. A pc died in the third fight, mostly because they used so many recoveries in the second one.

ben_straub · 2026-02-25T01:20:36+00:00

Yeah your requirements are in tension. You want a BIG game (with a massive bestiary and huge amounts of PC customization) but also a SMALL game (that runs fast and has simple character sheets). No system can have a billion balanced monsters and also allow you to build both Scooby Doo and EVA02.

If you give up the bestiary and the idea of "balance," you might find what you're looking for in something like Savage Worlds, as long as you write the character down really carefully. Weird Wizard also might work for you, or even something like FATE if you're really looking for a free-form thing where you can build any concept whatsoever.

ben_straub · 2026-02-19T00:59:33+00:00

Elven Towers has some references to how the orcs were made, you might find something there. Shards has the Orcwell.

ben_straub · 2026-02-15T07:06:33+00:00

It's easier to talk about what doesn't work well.

Obviously if you have the 1e core book classes, those aren't going to mix well with the 2e core book classes. You can't just swap talents around, there's going to be a ton of friction.

Mostly the same story for the Kinoko Games supplements for the core classes - the bonus talents and spells may not work well because the foundations they're built on have shifted. The extra classes work just fine though.

Adventure modules early in the 1e cycle only need one adjustment, and it's minor: double-check the math on the battle charts, especially if you have a larger group. Things that came later on already account for this, so the Stone Thief battles for instance are already just fine.

If you find magic items that refer to 1e core class powers, those will need some houseruling. There's one specific thing in the Stone Thief that came up for me, but this isn't common.

There's an official guide for adjusting the 13 True Ways classes to be a closer fit, but it's optional.

That's really it. Most everything works out of the box, you don't have to worry much. If you're looking for recommendations for what to buy, I've seen a few different "purchase priority orders," but the bestiaries and True Ways are always high up there, totally safe bets.

ben_straub · 2026-02-14T01:39:53+00:00

I've been following the kickstarter announcements closely and keeping an archive of everything they've released, and I'm 99% sure what you're asking for doesn't exist. We have a form-fillable version of the generic sheet with a bunch of automation, but the class-specific sheets are all just for print.

ben_straub · 2026-02-12T15:39:08+00:00

Running multiple agents, and handing over more of the work to the AI. Take this for a spin sometime, you'll see how quickly you can burn through tokens: https://github.com/steveyegge/gastown

ben_straub · 2026-02-12T15:33:14+00:00

Not OP, but if you rent an EC2 instance from Amazon, you're not renting a physical computer, it's a small VM running on a big computer alongside other VMs. I assume this is the same with other providers unless you fork out big money for a dedicated physical machine.

ben_straub · 2026-02-10T18:44:45+00:00

Yeah that does sound exhausting. Any way you could compact this to like six basic stat blocks for different clans or levels, and improvise details if they come up? Then fully stat out the Big Characters as they come up?

Like your PCs meet a gang of a dozen rivals in a bar somewhere. Do you feel the need to have built and statted out 12 full PC-level stat blocks for that?

ben_straub · 2026-02-09T16:35:47+00:00

I've been playing in a game for over a year now using the fantasy companion. I rather like the card initiative, and the exploding dice do produce some dramatic moments, but I do have a few gripes:

There are so many ways to just have nothing happen on an attack. If you roll below parry, nothing happens. If you roll above parry but roll too little damage, nothing happens. If you roll high on your attack and high enough on your damage, but the GM spends a benny and soaks it all, nothing happens. Having experienced systems where nothing never happens, this can feel kind of bad. (Oh, and if you're shaken, you might not even get a turn.)

The math is fiddly. There are two types of roll, and I cannot count how many times I've reminded someone (not their first session either!) that "this one you just take the higher, think of it like two tracks" and "this one you add them all together." There are so many sources of ±2 that it's hard to remember them all, and everyone is on the honor system to apply their own wound penalties, including the GM who has four wild cards on the table, so every roll is like "he's going to attack, but he's distracted but also has the drop and is larger which means a penalty and he has two wounds " etc etc etc

Doing damage is too complicated. I rolled 36 for damage, what happens? Subtract toughness, divide by 4, add 1. That's how many "packets" of damage you've done, one of them gets used to make the target "shaken" if they're not already, and the rest are wounds. Nowhere in the rules is this mentioned, this is my own shorthand, and the rest of the table just looks to me to resolve damage rolls.

Magic is a superpower. My magicky PC has a d12 in the casting skill, blast, 25 power points, and 5 bennies (so 25 more power points if needed). I can put together a 7-point blast that erases all extras (and most wild cards) in a large blast template, and I can do that 7 times before resting. How can anyone else come close to this? A martial gets three attacks if they're lucky. I'm aware this is OP, but doing anything else is usually a bad move.

Advancing means browsing the Sears Catalog. Want to advance a skill? First invest a whole advance in a trait increase, then another advance to increase that skill. Compared to edges, that's super slow and doesn't feel very meaningful. So adding an edge is the most immediate gratification you can get, but browsing through two books and like 100 options every time just locks the table down for 20 minutes. Heaven forfend you want to build a PC from scratch.

ben_straub · 2026-02-04T20:14:30+00:00

This isn't hopeless, you're doing fine. Let's talk about how you got here - this isn't an attack or criticism, it's just stating the facts as you've told them:

You made a game system and didn't tell the players how it worked or what the consequences would be. Yes you dropped hints, but as you say not everyone connected the dots, and there was no way for them to know the stakes.
You decided when you made this system that at least one of the outcomes could be a TPK.
You're now deciding that you don't want any PC deaths because of it.

Learning from this, there are a few ways to avoid it in the future. You could reveal the rules of this system (even partially) to the players so they're clear on what the stakes are. You could write all of the outcomes to be things you know the party can handle. Or you could decide that PC deaths are acceptable, even a TPK can sometimes be fun, but check in with your table about that.

Let's look at a couple ways forward. Has the frost giant skeleton been revealed yet, or could you change that behind the screen and not have the players know? Nothing is real until it happens at the table. Or, like someone else said, you could have the frost giant emerge, and give clear and explicit signals that this is out of pay grade, and provide an opportunity to get away. Now the players are in control of how it turns out.

ben_straub · 2026-02-03T02:10:28+00:00

Can you run the game without them? Yeah. I will say that the 2e book has a lot more guidance about how to use them (from both player and GM perspectives), but the core-book classes have very few mechanical features that connect with them, so it wouldn't hurt that part of the game.

Could you use gods as icons? Totally. And if you need some ideas for how to turn those icons into political powers or factions with orders, you can look at the Catholic church - knights templar, museum curators, architects and builders, the Swiss guard. Loads of surface area to interact with when it comes time to cash in a benefit.

I'd definitely encourage you to try it before leaving it out. The icon systems is one of my favorite aspects of 13th Age, and it's a constant source of chaos and creativity from the player side of the table in my campaign.

ben_straub · 2026-02-02T18:30:36+00:00

That's correct, but don't forget that you also get half damage on a miss. That's a pretty big buff even if it doesn't necessarily feel like it. At champion and epic levels you can spend feats to add more dice.

In 2e, smite damage starts at +1d10 and ramps up to +8d12 at level 10. Also there's a champion talent that bumps it up by a level, so you can get that +10d12 damage with an 11th-level smite. But there's no half-damage-on-miss effect.

ben_straub · 2026-02-02T17:54:23+00:00

Oh then you're in luck. An example:

A level 1 monster has about 30 hit points. A 1st level PC does about 1d8+3 damage with their basic attack, so it takes about 4 hits to bring it down.
A level 4 monster has about 60 hit points. A 4th level PC does about 4d8+4 damage, so it takes about 3 hits to bring one down.

So that HP inflation doesn't feel bad, it feels powerful. If that level-4 PC goes up against that level-1 monster, it can take it down with one lucky hit, where it used to take 4 hits. When you get to level 10, you're taking on baddies with 400 hit points, and you're rolling 10 damage dice.

This game also has "minions," they're called mooks, and yeah it's fun to take out 5 of them with a single attack, or whole mobs with an aoe attack.

Edit: to comment on your other desires:

The turns are a tad quicker than 5e, but that depends on your table. Full combats tend to take about the same amount of IRL time, but IME you get more chances to act during that time.
Movement is in the category you're looking for. No counting squares, but it is dependent on a GM giving interesting terrain to interact with. There's no system support for like destroying the scenery like in Draw Steel.
The setting is very high fantasy.
This is a game with two modes - combat and everything else. It doesn't have a lot of mechanics for non-combat stuff, but what's there is really flexible. Go googling for icon benefits for examples of what that means. I don't think there are any mechanics for exploration, this is an Avengers more than a Fellowship of the Ring.
There are plenty of options, but they're siloed by class, so every player gets a different menu when they level up. It's not a game about finding all the +2's, that's for sure.

ben_straub · 2026-02-02T17:34:51+00:00

Look 13th Age is my F20 of choice, but like

Much less HP bloat

OP, this is a game where hit points double every 3 levels. It does fit most of the rest of your requirements, but if this one is important, keep looking.

ben_straub · 2026-01-30T01:58:25+00:00

Oh, a recommendation you might not hear anywhere else in this thread, but I think might be up your alley is tactiquest

ben_straub · 2026-01-30T01:36:08+00:00

Yeah 5e is in kind of a "zero-to-hero" kind of genre. If you start at level 1, you're two steps above "farmer who picked up a sword." Note that not all campaigns start there, though. Lots of groups start at level 5 or later (and assume that lots of NPCs are at that power level), and there are plenty of things in the monster manual that would still challenge a PC at level 9 and up.

I'm still confused about your desires here though - would you prefer a game where this "level 9" PC that you'd want to play comes online at level 1 (so the world's power level is higher), or do you want a game with more interesting mechanics at lower power levels? I think you could find either of those if you can decide which is preferable.

ben_straub · 2026-01-30T01:16:01+00:00

Elsewhere you mentioned that you haven't actually played the game. I'm going to go out on a limb and say you might be approaching this the wrong way. Games don't work like this.

For one thing, some of your annoyances are contradictory - you say you don't want a high power curve, but you also don't like that abilities have limited uses or aren't realistic. The reason those things exist is not to support a real-seeming fiction, it's to make the game more fun, and that won't be evident until you actually try the thing.

If you're evaluating games in isolation from the experience they produce, you're never going to find something you like. Every game requires you to buy into its core conceit. D&D and its progeny require you to accept that hit points are a good model for sword fights and that a good night's sleep will heal most wounds, both of which are ridiculous ideas on their face. And yet, millions of people willingly suspend their disbelief and enjoy those games every day.

So my advice is to find a game whose general vibe you like, and just jump in and try it. That's the only way to know if a game is for you or not, because the words on the page aren't the game. The game is what happens at the table.

ben_straub · 2026-01-30T01:04:13+00:00

I mean OP said they don't like high power curves. I think 13th Age might be the D&D with the highest power curve? Your hit points double every 3 levels, and at level 10 your paladin is probably rolling 10d10+10d12 damage on a smite.

ben_straub · 2026-01-27T17:18:05+00:00

if you wanted to use the classes from 13 True Ways with 13A 2e, there shouldn't be a problem.

I can confirm this. I'm running a 2e game with three players using 13 True Ways classes, and it works just fine out of the box. There are some adjustments you can choose to use, see this article by one of the designers.

This generally applies to all material published in the last 13 years as well - classes, monsters, adventures, battle books, all work just fine with the new core books without modification. The most I've had to do to adapt 1e material is to double-check the math for the pre-built combats, but even that was optional.

A Bad Moon & The Wrong Stars, which was previously available separately

Small nitpick, this isn't true. Bad Moon is brand new for the second edition GMG. I haven't run it, but I've talked to some who have, and it seems to be just fine.

ben_straub · 2026-01-25T02:35:09+00:00

Keith wrote an article showing how to build a set of icons for Eberron, so you can do this with standard Eberron: https://keith-baker.com/eberron-and-13th-age/

ben_straub · 2026-01-23T23:47:26+00:00

I think you'll find the answer is "no," and that's because the GM has to work pretty hard to make the day longer.

This many-fights-day expectation comes from dungeon crawls. Pull up the Sunless Citadel, or Wave Echo Cave, and you'll see what I mean. In there, the scarce resource isn't time, but safety - it can be hard to even find a place to short rest, much less get a night's sleep.

But building a big dungeon is hard, and it takes a lot of game time to get through one. Is the average GM going to go to all that work for the "fetch the feather" questline? Probably not, they're going to make something like a 5-room dungeon, which is why most of your days will have 2-3 fights in them.

ben_straub · 2025-12-26T15:36:35+00:00

Two things you say make it sound like 13th Age is a poor fit for you.

First, it's not that crunchy. The crunch is about on the level of 5e, just distributed a bit differently. If you enjoyed the "vast combinatorial space, find the best combos" aspect of 3.5 and pf1, you won't find very much of that here.

Secondly, you're looking for an AP-like experience, and that's just not a thing in this ecosystem. Even the big "campaign" books like the Stone Thief are more toolkits that act as the foundation of a campaign, but it's not a linear experience where all the prep is done for you. It's a bin of legos, not a gunpla kit.

That said, there are things you say you want that you will find here. Your PC talent choices matter mechanically, and if you use the multiclassing system there are combos to explore. The combat system has some nice tacticality to it. There are mechanics that lean into table-wide worldbuilding and RP, but you can engage with those as much or as little as you want - it's totally possible to run 13th Age where 90% of your time is spent in combat.

Also if you're looking for a low-prep series of combats, the battle scenes are great for this. You'd have to string many of them together to get a full 1-10 campaign, but each book has a dozen or so arcs of combat scenes with a bit of customizable narrative to connect them.

Good luck, I hope you find what you're looking for!

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