“Our goal with 13th Age is to recapture the free-wheeling style of old-school gaming by creating a game with more soul and fewer technical details. …13th Age makes the play group’s campaign the center of attention, with a toolkit of rules that you can pick and choose from based on the kind of game you want to play. The mechanics draw from classic games as well as newer, story-based games.”
– Jonathan Tweet, co-designer
Story and Crunch!
13th Age combines the best parts of crunchy d20-rolling fantasy gaming with story-focused rules that help the gamemaster and players collaborate to create unique campaigns.
Storytelling
- Every character has One Unique Thing that sets them apart from all others and provides the raw materials for adventures and plotlines focused on that hero.
- Each character’s backgrounds provide bonuses to relevant skill checks so that every skill roll can reveal new details of that hero’s backstory.
- Connections with the icons—high fantasy archetypes such as the Archmage, Lich King, or Prince of Shadows—give even 1st level heroes an introduction to the conflicts that shape the world.
- The evocative but deliberately non-canonical setting helps each campaign surprise itself with new twists! We don’t tell the story—each of your campaigns tells new stories.
Crunch
- Streamlined combat rules harness the good bits of crunchy tactical combat without ticky-tacky measurements.
- Innovations like the escalation die ensure that battles crescendo instead of getting bogged down.
- Each of the nine character classes has unique features, advantages, and play styles; the flexible fighter is nothing like the wild sorcerer or the elegant bard.
- In this second edition of the game, thirteen years of experience with the system and hundreds of playtest reports helped us revise the game’s class features, talents, spells, kin powers, and monsters (!) so that there are only interesting choices.
Splendid Art
- Fantastic art from the artists listed at left, coordinated and in some cases highlighted and illuminated by paints from Lee Moyer.
Heroes’ Handbook
The 350 pages of the 13th Age Second Edition Heroes’ Handbook include character creation, a chapter on the kin, classes, backgrounds, the combat rules, icon connection rules, and writeups of each of the icons to help players use their connections in fun ways that shape the story. To help people get into the game, the book opens with a 17-page example of play covering campaign planning, character creation, and the first four battles fought by a party of heroes exploring a cemetery overrun by Lich King cultists.
Gamemaster’s Guide
Players will want 13th Age Second Edition Gamemaster’s Guide for treasure and information on the default setting of the Dragon Empire. Gamemasters need the GM book’s 250 pages of rules for running the game, campaign advice, rules for quickly creating exciting and balanced battles, hundreds of monsters, guidelines and tools for designing new monsters, and an introductory adventure in a living dungeon!
Hardcover plus PDF.
Authors: Rob Heinsoo, Jonathan Tweet
Cover Artists: Lee Moyer, Aaron McConnell
Interior Artists: Lee Moyer, Aaron McConnell, Simone Bannach, Andi Brown, Joshua Calloway, Laura Galli, Heinrich Kley, Cristiana Leone, Pat Loboyko, Rich Longmore, Dagmara Matuszak, Roena I. Rosenberger, Paul Tobin, Naomi VanDoren
Editor: Trisha DeFoggi
Layout: Jen McCleary
