Guns In 13th Age

13th Age doesn't offer up any rules on firearms in its core books, and those might not even be welcome....but some fantasy settings have firearms, or assume a more renaissance level of technology in their fantasy not-Europes and not-East Asias.

Since 13th Age tends to make a bigger deal out of what the character is doing with the weapon as a class than what the weapon itself actually does, firearms are actually kind of simple. The rule rule of thumb for base damage is like this:

Classes and Firearms: Barbarians, Rogues, Rangers, Paladins and Fighters suffer no penalties to using firearms. Sorcerers, Clerics, and Wizards suffer a -4 penalty to attacks, and Bards suffer a -2 penalty to attacks.

Small Holdout Pistols, Derringers: 1D6 base damage.

Flintlock Pistols, Six-Shooters, Blunderbusses: 1D8 base damage.

Rifles, Muskets, Shotguns, Arquebus: 1D10 base damage.

Special Qualities of Firearms: Since firearms are a bit more revolutionary than the rest of your average medieval warrior's armaments, it's only fair to provide some additional special rules. Think of them as being a bit like magic items, but without the persnality quirks or chakra/attunement issues.

Loading Times: GMs will need to establish whether they are allowing old tapped-gunpowder-and-ball style musketry, breech loaded weapons or faster advanced weaponry such as six-shooters and chambered/clipped rounds. It's fantasy so nothing says firearm technology has to progress at the same rate as the real world. That said, loading a ball and powder for five to ten rounds can make firearms very undesirable to those who haven't considered the purpose of a brace or bandolier full of pistols, and a powder monkey to follow them around with the onerous task of reloading the weapons. My suggestion is that after each round a flintlock, wheellock or other ball-and-powder weapon is fired it will take a minimum of one standard action to reload, and that reload takes a save with a modifier equal to the character's level (base 11+ to succeed). So a level 7 pistoleer warrior can roll 1D20+7 on his standard action to reload the musket, which happens on an 11 or better. This simulates that loading weapons is not quick, while also making them potentially take more than one round to ready.

If you opt for more advanced firearms, assume they take one standard action to load after firing. Assume that most such advanced firearms can hold six to eight rounds in the cylinder, or two rounds in each barrell (such as for breech-loaded shotguns).

Misfire/Jam: Any time a firearm is used in an attack, a roll of 1 means the gun misfired or jammed. When this happens, make a save (11+) for the weapon. On a successful save the gun is merely jammed and each round the character can use a standard action to try and unjam it (success on a save if 11+, but let backgrounds of appropriate nature apply to the roll). If this save fails the gun remains jammed for that round. If on the save you rolled another natural 1 then the gun misfires, and the user rolls an attack from the weapon against himself. One final save is made to see if the gun is still in working condition after it blows up in the PC's face or not...failure means its been junked.

Critical Hits: Firearms do a lot of damage potentially. All firearms have a crit range of 18-20, and deal double the total damage dice rolled (i.e. a level 5 ranger with a musket dealing base 1D10 normally rolls 4D10+Dex mod in damage on a basic attack, so now he rolls 8D10+double dex mod). However, if a firearm rolls a natural 20 on the attack it triples the damage instead. What offsets this? The fact that in most games your characters are using one-shot flintlocks or wheellocks, which means a ranger can't dual-shot with a musket.

Pistols: Pistols are best at short range, so they suffer double the usual penalties for firing far away; they suffer no penalty for nearby or engaged targets. Anyone trying to reload while engaged is open to an opportunity attack.

For powers such as the ranger has where you can get off two ranged attacks, carrying a brace of pistols is a must!

Muskets/Rifles and Bayonets: These weapons are good at both nearby and far away although muskets suffer an additional -2 to hit targets at far away range, but rifles (with their fancy rifling) suffer no such additional penalties. These weapons also suffer a -2 penalty to shoot someone who is engaged with you, and if you try reloading them while engaged your opponents get an opportunity attack. It is popular to stick a bayonet on the end of muskets and rifles to turn them into melee weapons (1D6 base damage in melee). Using a bayonet is no penalty for fighters, rogues, rangers, paladins, bards and barbarians but incurs a -4 attack penalty to clerics, wizards and sorcerers.

13th Age Review this RPG delivers an incredible fantasy storytelling experience which me and my payers love

It would be easy to dismiss 13th Age as another D20-based fantasy role-playing game, albeit one with gorgeous art. But underneath that deceptively simple surface there are elegant storytelling gears that move in surprising ways. 

13th Age is published by Pelgrane Press and was co-designed by Rob Heinsoo and Jonathan Tweet, both alumni of various Dungeons & Dragons editions. While it is based on the venerable D20 fantasy RPGs that came before it, the designers of 13th Age Have stripped away shopworn gaming elements (like lengthy spell lists and combat based on counting squares on a grid) while bringing many of the fantasy genre's tropes to the surface.

The world of 13th Age is populated by 13 powerful NPCs called Icons who represent common archetypes found in virtually all fantasy fiction and gaming. There's the High Druid, the Elf Queen, the Archmage, the Lich King, and more. They also roughly represent factions that players can join, tying them immediately to a web of alliances and ancient grudges.

The goal of 13th Age is to take that familiar D20 system and infuse it with the idea that each session or campaign should be a collaborative storytelling effort between the players and the GM. For instance, you don't select from a menu of skills. Instead, you create background elements for your character, and you derive skills from that background when each situation arises. So if you gave your character a background as a captain of a fishing boat, you could argue that you get a bonus on skill checks involving navigation, tying or untying knots, identifying aquatic species, and leading small groups.

Perhaps the most distinctive part of 13th Age character creation is the "One Unique Thing." You're not playing just any dwarf who goes out on adventures. You're playing the only dwarf in the world with a clockwork heart. Or a warrior with the soul of a dragon. Or a wizards who hears the singing of the stars. Again, there's no list to choose from. You make up your own Unique Thing. The fantastic story that emerges from it is the whole point of 13th Age.

13th Age feels like to me the spiritual successor of 3.5 Edition Dungeons & Dragons mixed with the storytelling mechanics of games I like similar to Greg Stafford’s Pendragon and Gray Gygax’s 1st edition D&D. I think Rob Heinsoo and Jonathan Tweet give us a fully refined RPG mixed with a pile of house rules we can drop into any d20 game. While it’s great fun to run, 13th Age’s storytelling system demands much of a GM’s improvisation skills. At $45 plus shipping for the hardcover and PDF package or $19.99 for the PDF alone, 13th Age isn’t cheap, but you get a whole lot of game in a single beautiful package. If you’re looking for the evolution of D&D mixed with the storytelling of RPGs then look no further.

I was so impressed with 13th age I started rewriting my own homebrew campaign using the OGL Document this is still a work in progress to figure out what would be Relevant and not be Relevant in Urland today! (more on Urland will becoming later on down the road)

I also signed up for their Organizedplay campaign found here  and free downloads found here! and running a very successful campaign of 13th age on Tuesday Nights starting at 5pm at Isle of games 7747 E Broadway Ave Tucson, Arizona 85710

Concerning Urland Universe

It saddens me that it's been 6 years sense we closed down our web site however a piece of it still lives I recently started a new page on Facebook called Star trek Voyage Earl if you want more upto date information about me and what I am doing you can check it out here!

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Star-Trek-Voyage-Earl/1610016235942371

We also have a new website up and running found here so click here for new website

enjoy

Good Morning Every one it will soon be after noon as I am working on this month's updates for the blog where switching over to September mode and I know It's been awhile since I was able to post anything on here. Yes I do need to keep up with this blog more.

However I have become very busy since I have moved out of the Primavera Foundations Housing and into a two bedroom two bath Condo! 

I am between unpacking boxes and doing other stuff. I am only writing updates and have a lot of partial drafts on here I dem not worthy of being published as of yet. Like this one I started when i moved and still find myself changing it up so this is yet another attempt at trying finish this post.

I have gotten into and been playing alot of RPG games as of late too the point where my gaming schedule looks like this now!

Sundays I use for my whatever day though I think I should get more active in going back to church!

Mondays I use to prep my upcomming games for the week!

Tuesday 13th age 5pm to close at Isle of Games 7747 E. Broadway Ave Tucson Az Stores Phone # is (520) 866-4263

Wednesday's is D&D Encounters 5pm to close at Isle of Games 7747 E. Broadway Ave Tucson Az Stores Phone # is (520) 866-4263

Thursday's is D&D Expeditions 6pm to 2am located at 3921 E. 29th Street Tucson Az Store Phone # (520) 514-2960

Friday's I am Working on my on line Pendragon campgain found here https://king-arthur-pendragon-rpg.obsidianportal.com/

Saturday's Varies for me as far as gaming goes!

If I don't get my other drafts dune today I will try and post tommarrow have fun and Live Long and Prosper!