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Post by jeffb on Mar 3, 2015 16:56:31 GMT -6
Anyone else pick this up? Pretty cool take on playing demi-god/legendary hero type characters. Some neat simple mechanics for taking on mobs of foes, among others. LINK TO FREEBIE PDFI have been trying to come up with something that would handle the basic premise of Exalted, without the wonky system. This may do the trick instead of me re-working 13th Age or 4e. |
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Post by Morandir on Mar 4, 2015 13:59:39 GMT -6
I just grabbed it, and immediately thought of Exalted as well. I've played in the past and really enjoyed the premise and setting, but hate hate hate the system: attacks should not be a 10-step process!!!
It might be interesting to replace the standard ability score names with the five castes/aspects of various Exalts, and have the modifiers apply in the appropriate situations. Maybe you could allow a reroll or a bonus to represent Caste/favored abilities.
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Post by makofan on Mar 4, 2015 14:52:08 GMT -6
I just read this, and it is brilliant. Reminds me of Barbarians of Lemuria in tone
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Post by machfront on Mar 4, 2015 19:27:48 GMT -6
I just wanted to say that I grabbed this and dig it because I dig old-school-style booklet games and I wish there were tons more of them. Whitehack (which seems OOP for the moment until an update at some unspecified point), Pits & Perils, Dungeon Romp and perhaps a few more. Not enough!  I love the idea/ability of grabbing a cheap or free (and easy and lite) game and printing it out easily at home. This from someone who prefers hardbacks. |
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Post by derv on Mar 4, 2015 20:14:28 GMT -6
I applaud Kevin Crawford for his limitless energy and generosity in supporting our hobby.
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Post by jeffb on Mar 5, 2015 6:30:48 GMT -6
If I can get the group together this weekend, I am going to give Tomb of Five Corners a whirl with these rules.
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Post by makofan on Mar 5, 2015 8:51:38 GMT -6
I bet a single player could solo B2 with these rules
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Post by Morandir on Mar 5, 2015 9:47:45 GMT -6
If I can get the group together this weekend, I am going to give Tomb of Five Corners a whirl with these rules. If you do, let us know how it goes! The idea to do something similar is really growing on me. |
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Post by jeffb on Mar 5, 2015 11:07:36 GMT -6
I bet a single player could solo B2 with these rules As its looking like only my son will be available this weekend, I am thinking of running an old module like B2 or B4. I am thinking though I would probably run his character above 1st level. 2nd or 3rd. |
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Post by makofan on Mar 5, 2015 13:03:21 GMT -6
B4 might be easier for him to handle - more structured. I have too many things on the go to give this a try myself right now
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Post by kesher on Mar 5, 2015 15:15:43 GMT -6
Intriguing! Downloading now...
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Post by jeffb on Mar 8, 2015 20:00:21 GMT -6
Well, we did not have a ton of time today but I ran a short session. My son played a first level warrior, he had 3 encounters. One with a water elemental guardian which quickly turned into a role-playing encounter. Then he went up against 10 skeletons (1/2 HD each) which he took out in by his second turn. Finally he managed to wail away on a group of 15 bandits working for the evil sorcerer he was chasing. His first shot he took out 2 with the one arrow, I described it as blasting through one bandits neck and sinking into the second one's chest. He loved it. His warrior did take some damage though between a pit trap and a couple of the skeletons, and he was below half his hp fairly quickly.
Overall, need more time to gauge encounters, but it was fun. I think this would work really well to model a Conan, John Carter, or Elric piling up foes in a heap type combat, and then putting up some much stronger/higher HD foes as the real fun.
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phantomtim
Level 3 Conjurer
13th Age Enthusiast
Posts: 87 
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Post by phantomtim on Aug 22, 2021 3:16:36 GMT -6
I have been trying to come up with something that would handle the basic premise of Exalted, without the wonky system. This may do the trick instead of me re-working 13th Age or 4e. Interestingly enough, after playing in an Exalted campaign for 14 months, my group recently abandoned its mechanics and converted our characters to 13th Age. It's been glorious! We struggled with Exalted's mechanics the entire time. But returning to the familiarity and relative simplicity of 13th Age, we immediately dove into more roleplaying in a given session. So far, it's been a big success. |
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bobjester0e
Level 4 Theurgist
DDO, DCC, or more Lost City map work? Oh, the hardship of making adult decisions! ;)
Posts: 195
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Post by bobjester0e on Aug 23, 2021 7:49:18 GMT -6
I have been trying to come up with something that would handle the basic premise of Exalted, without the wonky system. This may do the trick instead of me re-working 13th Age or 4e. Interestingly enough, after playing in an Exalted campaign for 14 months, my group recently abandoned its mechanics and converted our characters to 13th Age. It's been glorious! We struggled with Exalted's mechanics the entire time. But returning to the familiarity and relative simplicity of 13th Age, we immediately dove into more roleplaying in a given session. So far, it's been a big success. I just downloaded the free 13th age quickstart rules from drivethru yesterday. I haven't ahd a chance to look at them tho. Coincidentally, I had downloaded the Exemplars & Eidolons game sometime in the past. Or so Drivethru tells me. Its probably saved to my old dead laptop, so I re-dl'd it to my current laptop. Gonna give this a read sometime soon. |
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Post by jeffb on Aug 23, 2021 8:02:07 GMT -6
E&E is a bunch of fun. I ran it several more times in the years after I posted this- usually when only one or two players showed up. The only thing I don't particularly care for is the damage conversion process, but I wasn't able to come up with anything better (IOW-faster, not involving a chart). YOu do get used to it fairly quickly I guess. It's just a step I'd prefer to eliminate. Had E&E come out in 1977 I would have been a happy little SOB |
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Post by tdenmark on Aug 25, 2021 12:53:02 GMT -6
Had E&E come out in 1977 I would have been a happy little SOB In some ways E&E is a distillation of decades of RPG's, simplified, condensed, refined, and retro old-school. So if it had came out in 1977 it would truly have been revolutionary! |
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Post by jeffb on Aug 26, 2021 6:46:39 GMT -6
I have been trying to come up with something that would handle the basic premise of Exalted, without the wonky system. This may do the trick instead of me re-working 13th Age or 4e. Interestingly enough, after playing in an Exalted campaign for 14 months, my group recently abandoned its mechanics and converted our characters to 13th Age. It's been glorious! We struggled with Exalted's mechanics the entire time. But returning to the familiarity and relative simplicity of 13th Age, we immediately dove into more roleplaying in a given session. So far, it's been a big success. I was out of RPGS when White Wolf became a thing. I got back into them in the mid 90s (94?), and really the themes of most WW games didn't do anything for me, except for Hunter, Adventure! (the pulp game), and then Exalted when it came out. Exalted really appealed to me- I'm very much NOT into the Anime thing- but the idea of the return of these demi-god like beings from a previous age to bring down a corrupt empire really ticked my boxes. I ran a few sessions but I never could really grok the system, and nobody in my group was familiar either with any WW games. Frankly, I think I might even prefer a dice pool system over D20, D100, etc, but those WW games in particular were impenetrable, mechanically, for me. I had attempted a conversion of it to 13th Age at one time, but I quickly gave up. Too much work. I hate when games become work  tdenmark Exactly. E&E gets straight to the point. Gives you everything you need, nothing you don't. I wish more games were written this way, retro style or otherwise. |
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Post by Desparil on Aug 26, 2021 14:50:52 GMT -6
Interestingly enough, after playing in an Exalted campaign for 14 months, my group recently abandoned its mechanics and converted our characters to 13th Age. It's been glorious! We struggled with Exalted's mechanics the entire time. But returning to the familiarity and relative simplicity of 13th Age, we immediately dove into more roleplaying in a given session. So far, it's been a big success. I was out of RPGS when White Wolf became a thing. I got back into them in the mid 90s (94?), and really the themes of most WW games didn't do anything for me, except for Hunter, Adventure! (the pulp game), and then Exalted when it came out. Exalted really appealed to me- I'm very much NOT into the Anime thing- but the idea of the return of these demi-god like beings from a previous age to bring down a corrupt empire really ticked my boxes. I ran a few sessions but I never could really grok the system, and nobody in my group was familiar either with any WW games. Frankly, I think I might even prefer a dice pool system over D20, D100, etc, but those WW games in particular were impenetrable, mechanically, for me. I had attempted a conversion of it to 13th Age at one time, but I quickly gave up. Too much work. I hate when games become work tdenmark Exactly. E&E gets straight to the point. Gives you everything you need, nothing you don't. I wish more games were written this way, retro style or otherwise. Honestly, a lot of the complication in Exalted only comes into play when you start using lots of Reflexive charms. The only reason attacks are broken into 10 steps is because they wanted to give some charms a timing advantage over others, i.e., you don't have to commit to using them until after you've seen how good the other guy did. Really, on an attack with no charms being used, I'd call it four steps: 1. Determine any bonus or penalty dice (stunts, environmental factors, etc.) and roll the attack 2. Subtract target's DV (or rolled defense successes, in 1st Edition) from attack successes; a result of 0 or less is a miss, while any positive difference is carried to the next step 3. If a hit was scored, take base damage dice (typically Strength plus weapon stat), add any carryover successes from step 2, and subtract the target's Soak rating 4. Roll damage dice; special rules for 1s and 10s are suspended on this roll, damage cannot be botched over get exceptional successes; apply successes to enemy Health Levels Whereas I'd call D&D three steps, typically: 1. Determine any bonus or penalty and roll the attack 2. Compare to target's AC by whatever means the particular edition uses (ascending AC, THAC0, attack matrix) to determine hits 3. Roll damage and apply to enemy's hit points Granted, counting successes does also make the steps take a fraction longer in the Exalted scheme, but with practice the difference is hardly noticeable. What really makes Exalted combat slow is when everyone is deciding along every step of the way whether it's worth using a charm right now, and when people are making three or four attacks per turn - mostly issues in high Essence play. |
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Post by jeffb on Aug 26, 2021 16:42:57 GMT -6
I was out of RPGS when White Wolf became a thing. I got back into them in the mid 90s (94?), and really the themes of most WW games didn't do anything for me, except for Hunter, Adventure! (the pulp game), and then Exalted when it came out. Exalted really appealed to me- I'm very much NOT into the Anime thing- but the idea of the return of these demi-god like beings from a previous age to bring down a corrupt empire really ticked my boxes. I ran a few sessions but I never could really grok the system, and nobody in my group was familiar either with any WW games. Frankly, I think I might even prefer a dice pool system over D20, D100, etc, but those WW games in particular were impenetrable, mechanically, for me. I had attempted a conversion of it to 13th Age at one time, but I quickly gave up. Too much work. I hate when games become work tdenmark Exactly. E&E gets straight to the point. Gives you everything you need, nothing you don't. I wish more games were written this way, retro style or otherwise. Honestly, a lot of the complication in Exalted only comes into play when you start using lots of Reflexive charms. The only reason attacks are broken into 10 steps is because they wanted to give some charms a timing advantage over others, i.e., you don't have to commit to using them until after you've seen how good the other guy did. Really, on an attack with no charms being used, I'd call it four steps: 1. Determine any bonus or penalty dice (stunts, environmental factors, etc.) and roll the attack 2. Subtract target's DV (or rolled defense successes, in 1st Edition) from attack successes; a result of 0 or less is a miss, while any positive difference is carried to the next step 3. If a hit was scored, take base damage dice (typically Strength plus weapon stat), add any carryover successes from step 2, and subtract the target's Soak rating 4. Roll damage dice; special rules for 1s and 10s are suspended on this roll, damage cannot be botched over get exceptional successes; apply successes to enemy Health Levels Whereas I'd call D&D three steps, typically: 1. Determine any bonus or penalty and roll the attack 2. Compare to target's AC by whatever means the particular edition uses (ascending AC, THAC0, attack matrix) to determine hits 3. Roll damage and apply to enemy's hit points Granted, counting successes does also make the steps take a fraction longer in the Exalted scheme, but with practice the difference is hardly noticeable. What really makes Exalted combat slow is when everyone is deciding along every step of the way whether it's worth using a charm right now, and when people are making three or four attacks per turn - mostly issues in high Essence play. It's been so long...18...19.. years since I played? I don't even remember much in the way of specifics. But I only had the 1st edition and a the GM screen and an adventure or two- I sold it off in 2005. I'll have to take a look at To5C again from DTRPG and give it a read through. |
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phantomtim
Level 3 Conjurer
13th Age Enthusiast
Posts: 87
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Post by phantomtim on Aug 27, 2021 3:57:47 GMT -6
I had attempted a conversion of it to 13th Age at one time, but I quickly gave up. Too much work. I hate when games become work The only change we made was tying the icon advantage mechanics to the Solar's anima level. Since we're sticking with the default setting, when a Solar reaches bonfire levels, that's sure to bring some complications. Otherwise, we translated our characters to 13th Age as best we could. I think we captured the feeling of the characters nicely, even if it took a fair amount of reskinning. It's far from a one-to-one conversion, though. Not all of my character's charms made it over (there were a lot of them, after all). But what didn't come over will hopefully be covered by our take on the icon advantage mechanics and by backgrounds. |
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