SETTING RULESAbility Score Increases[Personally, I think feats are interesting and add flavor and depth to characters, while Ability Score Increases are just kind of boring. Also, gaining a lot of feats fits the high-fantasy, kinda gonzo feel of 13th Age. But, the math of 5E character design and advancement depends on ASIs, so I'm using the following rule]Each time your character gains an Ability Score Increase, gain one feat and add +1 to one Ability Score. This replaces the standard 5E Ability Score Increase rule.
Alignment**[5E doesn't really use alignment for game mechanics anymore, and it's mostly been subsumed by Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws for role-playing purposes. And, personally, I've never liked the 3x3 grid alignment system. Still, alignment is an enduring legacy of the F20 family. I'm using 4E's looser alignment structure, but it's almost purely a role-playing mechanic.]If you choose an alignment, you’re indicating your character’s dedication to a set of moral principles: good, lawful good, evil, or chaotic evil. In a cosmic sense, it’s the team you believe in and fight for most strongly.
A character’s alignment (or lack thereof) describes his or her moral stance:
Good: Freedom and kindness.
Lawful Good: Civilization and order.
Evil: Tyranny and hatred.
Chaotic Evil: Entropy and destruction.
Unaligned: Having no alignment; not taking a stand.
For the purpose of determining whether an effect functions on a character, someone of lawful good alignment is considered good and someone of chaotic evil alignment is considered evil. For instance, a lawful good character can use a magic item that is usable only by good-aligned characters.
Alignments are tied to universal forces bigger than deities or any other allegiance you might have. If you’re a high-level cleric with a lawful good alignment, you’re on the same team as Bahamut, regardless of whether you worship that deity. Bahamut is not in any sense the captain of your team, just a particularly important player (who has a large number of supporters).
Most people in the world, and plenty of player characters, haven’t signed up to play on any team—they’re unaligned. Picking and adhering to an alignment represents a distinct choice.
If you choose an alignment for your character, you should pick either good or lawful good. Unless your DM is running a campaign in which all the characters are evil or chaotic evil, playing an evil or chaotic evil character disrupts an adventuring party and, frankly, makes all the other players angry at you.
Here’s what the four alignments (and being unaligned) mean.
THE GOOD ALIGNMENT
Protecting the weak from those who would dominate or kill them is just the right thing to do.If you’re a good character, you believe it is right to aid and protect those in need. You’re not required to sacrifice yourself to help others or to completely ignore your own needs, but you might be asked to place others’ needs above your own.... in some cases, even if that means putting yourself in harm’s way. In many ways, that’s the essence of being a heroic adventurer:
The people of the town can’t defend themselves from the marauding goblins, so you descend into the dungeon—at significant personal risk—to put an end to the goblin raids.
You can follow rules and respect authority, but you’re keenly aware that power tends to corrupt those who wield it, too often leading them to exploit their power for selfish or evil ends. When that happens, you feel no obligation to follow the law blindly.
It’s better for authority to rest in the members of a community rather than the hands of any individual or social class. When law becomes exploitation, it crosses into evil territory, and good characters feel compelled to fight it.
Good and evil represent fundamentally different viewpoints, cosmically opposed and unable to coexist in peace. Good and lawful good characters, though, get along fine—even if a good character thinks a lawful good companion might be a little too focused on following the law, rather than simply doing the right thing.
THE LAWFUL GOOD ALIGNMENT
An ordered society protects us from evil.If you’re lawful good, you respect the authority of personal codes of conduct, laws, and leaders, and you believe that those codes are the best way of achieving your ideals. Just authority promotes the well-being of its subjects and prevents them from harming one another. Lawful good characters believe just as strongly as good ones do in the value of life, and they put even more emphasis on the need for the powerful to protect the weak and lift up the downtrodden. The exemplars of the lawful good alignment are shining champions of what’s right, honorable, and true, risking or even sacrificing their lives to stop the spread of evil in the world.
When leaders exploit their authority for personal gain, when laws grant privileged status to some citizens and reduce others to slavery or untouchable status, law has given in to evil and just authority becomes tyranny. You are not only capable of challenging such injustice, but morally bound to do so.
However, you would prefer to work within the system to right such problems rather than resorting to more rebellious and lawless methods.
THE EVIL ALIGNMENT
It is my right to claim what others possess.Evil characters don’t necessarily go out of their way to hurt people, but they’re perfectly willing to take advantage of the weakness of others to acquire what they want.
Evil characters use rules and order to maximize personal gain. They don’t care whether laws hurt other people. They support institutional structures that give them power, even if that power comes at the expense of others’ freedom. Slavery and rigid caste structures are not only acceptable but desirable to evil characters, as long as they are in a position to benefit from them.
THE CHAOTIC EVIL ALIGNMENT
I don’t care what I have to do to get what I want.Chaotic evil characters have a complete disregard for others. Each believes he or she is the only being that matters and kills, steals, and betrays others to gain power. Their word is meaningless and their actions destructive. Their worldviews can be so warped that they destroy anything and anyone that doesn’t directly contribute to their interests.
By the standards of good and lawful good people, chaotic evil is as abhorrent as evil, perhaps even more so. Chaotic evil monsters such as demons and orcs are at least as much of a threat to civilization and general well-being as evil monsters are. An evil creature and a chaotic evil creature are both opposed to good, but they don’t have much respect for each other either and rarely cooperate toward common goals.
UNALIGNED
Just let me go about my business.If you’re unaligned, you don’t actively seek to harm others or wish them ill. But you also don’t go out of your way to put yourself at risk without some hope for reward. You support law and order when doing so benefits you. You value your own freedom, without worrying too much about protecting the freedom of others.
A few unaligned people, and most unaligned deities, aren’t undecided about alignment. Rather, they’ve chosen not to choose, either because they see the benefits of both good and evil or because they see themselves as above the concerns of morality. The Raven Queen and her devotees fall into the latter camp, believing that moral choices are irrelevant to their mission since death comes to all creatures regardless of alignment.
Fighting in Spirit[In an RPG, there's little worse than having your character taken out of the action, through injury, mind control, ghoul paralysis, or what have you. So, I'm going to use the following rule.]If your character begins a turn incapacitated, whether due to unconsciousness, paralysis, petrification, polymorph, or death, you may use a special action, Fighting in Spirit. On any subsequent turn, you may aid another character on an ability check, attack roll, or saving throw they are about to make. In order to do so, you should narrate, with the cooperation of another player, how your incapacitated character aids their character. This may be a flashback to a momentary training montage, a piece of advice, setting an example of valor, or simply the inspiration and desperation of fighting for a fallen comrade. You and the other player then each roll a d20. The other player may choose to use either roll. Once you use the Fighting in Spirit action, you cannot use it again until the end of your next turn.
Icons*An icon is a powerful NPC (non-playable character) that has a strong influence on the world outside of your campaign, yet may indeed aid or oppose your character over the course of your campaign, depending on the relationship your character has with the icon.
Icons have their own story, alignment, and personality. The general knowledge and history about them may vary in depth and accuracy; they may be well-known or mysterious. They have their own relationships with other icons, too, which may be friendly, tolerable, or acrimonious. Icons are usually not directly part of the campaign. They rarely make an appearance personally, except perhaps at very high level. Most of the time, interacting with an icon means that you’re actually interacting with his or her lower-level functionaries, acolytes, disciples, bureaucrats, lieutenants, barons, priests, etc. In fact, any level of relationship with an iconcan be enough to get you noticed by other people who are connected to that icon.
Your character may have relationships with certain icons. This relationship, if it exists, can be positive, conflicted, or negative. See Icon Relationships.
This campaign uses the
"Official Icons"Icon Relationships*Your character’s relationship with icons is an important way to draw him or her into your
game world. An icon may have its own champions and heroes (including you) to advance its
cause in the game world.The Icons Relationships Master Chart summarizes the likely roleplaying and story-oriented consequences of positive, conflicted, and negative relationships with heroic, ambiguous, and villainous icons.
| ICON | POSITIVE RELATIONSHIP | CONFLICTED RELATIONSHIP | NEGATIVE RELATIONSHIP |
| HEROIC ICON | As far as this icon is concerned, you’re one of the good guys, a
white-hat hero. Authorities often help you, and civilians often trust you. On the down side, you may be called on to serve representatives of the icon even when you have other plans. You might also be a target of villainous icons or this heroic icon’s rivals. | You're probably one of the good guys, but for some reason you're suspect to the icon. Maybe you're a convict who has served his time, or an imperial soldier who was too good and got drummed out of his legion. You have insider knowledge and allies who are in good with the icon, but you also have enemies associated with the icon. | In the icon’s eyes, you're a dissident, opponent, rival, or foe. You may
have contacts or inside knowledge that you can use to your advantage, but some form of trouble waits for you wherever this heroic icon has influence. |
| AMBIGUOUS ICON | Thanks to your relationship with the icon, you are a hero to some, a villain to others, and possibly even a monster to a few. The enemies of your friends may turn out to be your friends, and vice versa. Advantages and complications will come from all sides. | Your relationship with the icon is complex, an uneven relationship with an icon who's a hero to some and a villain to others. One way or another, you can find help or hostility anywhere. You don’t just live in interesting times — you create them. | Your enmity with this icon makes you some enemies, but it also makes you some useful friends. You may be a dissenter, unwanted family member, or even a traitor in some way. |
| VILLAINOUS ICON | You are able to gain secrets or secretive allies, but your connection to this icon brings trouble from people associated with the heroic icons who oppose the villain. Be prepared to justify why you're not imprisoned, interrogated, or otherwise harassed by the heroic icons and their representatives whenever they encounter you. Or for that matter, by the other PCs. | You mostly work against the icon, but you're also connected to the icon in a way you can't deny. Your connection sometimes gives you special knowledge or contacts, but it also makes you suspect in the eyes of many right-minded would-be heroes. | You mostly work against the icon, but you're also connected to the icon in a way you can't deny. Your connection sometimes gives you special knowledge or contacts, but it also makes you suspect in the eyes of many right-minded would-be heroes. |
Once per session, you may call upon one of your icon relationships for a benefit or advantage. The most straightforward way to use your relationship is on positive or conflicted connections that generally provide you with outright assistance and useful information. Negative relationships usually provide inside knowledge, special skills, opportunistic allies, and possibly some sort of supernatural advantage against a villain. Often you might find that enemies of your rival see you as an opportunity to strike against that mutual enemy. You might get help, wealth and resources, and even magic items from quite unexpected sources, some of which may not be entirely to your liking. In addition to aid from others, icon relationships provide characters with special knowledge. A negative relationship with a thoroughly villainous icon is more in keeping with the heroic lifestyle, but you should expect that the assistance you get from a negative relationship may end up being more directly confrontational than more conventional conflicted and positive
relationships.
InspirationInspiration in 13th Age 5E works differently than in standard 5E.
Characters gain Inspiration by roleplaying their Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws, by taking big risks, and by doing cool, heroic stuff. Basically, whenever it feels dramatically appropriate, the DM will award a character an Inspiration token. There is no limit how much Inspiration a character can have, but you can't take it with you. Characters lose all unused Inspiration at the end of the session, and begin each session with one Inspiration token.
You can use Inspiration in one of two ways. You can spend one Inspiration token to grant yourself Advantage on an ability check, attack roll, or saving throw before making the roll, using the normal rules for Advantage. You can also spend one Inspiration token to re-roll an ability check, attack roll, or saving throw, after you see the roll but before you know the final outcome. You may choose to keep the new roll or the original roll. If you rolled with Advantage or Disadvantage, re-roll the lowest die, choose to keep the original roll or the re-roll, then compare it to the other die result, and use the highest (for Advantage) or lowest (for Disadvantage). You cannot spend more than one Inspiration token to re-roll, but you may spend an Inspiration token to gain Advantage and another to re-roll on the same roll.
*
This material is drawn from the 13th Age SRD and Archmage Engine, under the Open Game License for non-commercial use.**
This material taken directly from the Wizards of the Coast website for non-commercial use.
