There are nine character classes in the 13th Age core book. Four new
classes are definitely appearing in the first expansion book, 13 True Ways. Two more classes, the
battle captain and occultist, could be added as stretch goals for the Kickstarter.
It
takes a lot of work to do a new class right, particularly when we’re also
committed to handling multiclassing. I suggested the two new classes as stretch
goals for 13 True Ways because they
would make the book into something bigger and better than I could have hoped.
I’m
going to say a few words about each class that appears (or might appear) in 13 True Ways, three at a time. Let’s
start with the battle captain, chaos shaman, and druid.
Battle Captain
Originally Jonathan and I were
planning to let the bard fill the role of “healer who gives people orders.” But
obviously bards are more than that. And the warlord’s approach to
commander-style healing seems to resonate with many players. So I started
thinking about how we’d do the mechanics for this type of class in 13th Age. I came up with some
answers I liked, at which point it seemed obvious to add a warlord-style
character to the list of stretch goals.
Who
remembers the marshal class that appeared in the Miniatures Handbook that Jonathan and I helped design for 3e? Hand
that gamer the ancestral badge of obscure
discernment. The marshal was an important antecedent for the warlord. I’m
not saying the battle captain is going that route. But I thought I’d mention
that the warlord wasn’t the first
commander in the squad. Definitely the first martial healer commander in the
squad though. I imagine that adventuring parties led by a warlord would have a
bit of trouble going back to a marshal: “What do you mean that you can give us
orders but you can’t let us heal? Arrgh!”
Chaos Shaman
I’m fond of occasionally
random mechanics. This fondness can be a strength when I figure out how a
particular section of the gaming audience isn’t being served by mechanics that
are too cut-and-dried. It can be a weakness when I let randomness get in the
way of actions that should be straightforward. Well, the chaos shaman is going
to be an unapologetic class for people who prefer to play on the ragged edge of
WTF instead of the cautious curve of well-ordered priorities. It’s likely to
present a very different way to play. Some people will love it. Others, not so
much, which means part of the design challenge is to make sure that people who
don’t want to play a chaos shaman have no problem playing with a chaos shaman.
In
the story of 13th Age, the
chaos shaman is a tradition of magic kept alive by the High Druid and now
invigorated by the reappearance of the Orc Lord. Classes that make more sense
of connections with problematic icons are part of what 13 True Ways is about. You may not need to be a half-orc to be a
chaos shaman, but it might help.
It killed me to have the High
Druid as one of our thirteen icons and not be able to get the druid into the
original book. But my design goals for the druid were a bit too ambitious to be
finished working in the initial phase of this project. We needed to nail the
system down before mastering the stunts we hope to pull with the druid. We’re tinkering with
themes that have always been in stories involving druids but haven’t shown up
in druid class mechanics. I’m happy to get a chance to take a deep breath, go
over the whole thing with Jonathan, and carve the druid into shape.
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