The 13th Age Second Edition Kickstarter is rolling strong! I’m working on finishing two pieces that weren’t in the document while Jonathan is refining monsters, cleaning up rules, and going through our long list of desired improvements.
Last night in my Spearpoint Dwarfoids playtest campaign, Jonathan played a 5th level ‘wood dwarf’ ranger. (That's not a wood-dwarf ranger above, that's a gnome ranger and her badger, a 2E illustration by Simone Bannach!) This new version of the ranger class had a great first playtest, no rules hassles and it held its own. I think the ranger’s major design issues are solved. Now I need to finish all the math and paragraphs that make a class fully playable.
When that’s done, and when we’ve finished revising the intro adventure, we’re going to release another version of the Playtest Packet. I believe that will happen shortly after the Kickstarter ends. Call it the Gamma Packet. Pelgrane will also update the current-draft that people who back the Kickstarter are getting.
The Gamma Packet will also have many corrections fixing typos, redundancies, errors, pratfalls, and ideas swiftly revealed as bad. We’ll put out a playtest questionnaire along with some pregen characters after the Gamma Packet when the draft has less static for people to cut through.
In other news, I've been getting interviewed by good people lately. Here's an interview by Teos Abadia from a couple days ago.
Hey Rob! I may be misunderstanding you, but in your interview with Teos, you seemed to say that the Power Source system of 4e was not something that you thought was useful from a game design standpoint, and was only there due to the business structure of 4e in selling more splatbooks. Can you elaborate on this? I thought that having a consistent means of identifying the power source of a class helped both in terms of a strong narrative in the setting and for building different mechanics/powers balanced against one another, along with certain assumptions that could be made about the nature of different power sources mechanically. What would you have done differently for 4e had you not been compelled to implement these?
ReplyDeleteI recently read an insightful update from Tom regarding the ongoing 13th Age Second Edition Gamma Playtest. It's clear that significant strides have been made, particularly with the revamped ranger class. Tom's playtest experience highlighted a seamless gameplay session with the new ranger, marking a promising resolution to previous design challenges. As they prepare to finalize the class mechanics and refine introductory adventures for the upcoming Gamma Packet release post-Kickstarter, anticipation builds within the community. This phase promises not just corrections but a streamlined experience aimed at enhancing playability and clarity. Tom's engagements with interviews, such as the recent one with Teos Abadia, further underscore the growing interest and momentum surrounding this eagerly awaited edition.
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