The Guardian (v.2) - a new class for 13th Age!

Here is the second and so far current version of my Guardian class for 13th Age (the first version was here).

The Guardians was created to a warrior that keeps enemies in check in the battlefield, inflicting conditions and interrupting a foe's actions. Guardians should be especially effective against big groups of weaker foes. In terms of flavor, there a lot of inspirations, from Wheel of Time's Wardens (that is where I tried to get the names for some Stances and Strikes) to the Dúnedain and also including stuff like the Dwarven Defender (and the Devoted Defender) prestige classes from 3rd Edition... and yes! from that from amazing scene from Fellowship of the Ring (among others).

Thank you to the 13th Age Facebook community and especially for Martin Killman for the feedback! The Guardian still needs (a lot of) playtesting but I hope to start using it at my table soon. I think a lot of abilities in the class need tinkering (like the Bodyguard stuff) and I'm not sure about how the Stances work thematically yet (I feel I'm still missing a few mechanic niches there). Anyway, let us see how it runs on the table.

Meanwhile, it is time to start working on my other two class ideas...

A Guardian going to battle!

The Tower of Visions #3 - The Tigers of Doors

Time for post #3 for the Tower of Visions! Here are post #2 and post #1 if you’re curious (they are not in order, I'll try that after finishing the dungeon). Unlike the previous posts this one can be played as a straight combat encounter (or not). Actually, I’m think that this can be the first encounter of the entire thing.

The Tigers of Doors

The party enters a big hall of unworked stone, 30 ft. wide, 12 ft. tall and roughly 100 ft. long. There are corpses of previous raiders to the Tower lying in the ground. At the end of the hall it is possible to see gigantic doors (from the floor to the ceiling) made of grey crystal. Guarding the doors are two big statues of tiger that seem to be made of multifaceted mirrors. Each statue is an otherworldly work of art and the characters can see themselves reflected in the various mirrors that made up each tiger.

The Gate Is Shut: If someone in the party gets close enough to the doors there is a chance they noticed something is wrong: besides the fact that the doors are really big and look more like a castle’s gate than a door there is no handle to pull them open. Close inspection (or the right questions) will reveal to the party that they are not doors, just a big crystal wall carved with the shape of doors (the Judge call allow Dwarven characters to notice that automatically if they reach the gate).

The Corpses: The corpses don’t rot and are in the position as of their demise. Investigating the bodies reveal razor sharps cuts that got through flesh, leather and metal.

The Judge can leave anything to be looted but when in doubt roll a few coins, 1d6 normal weapons (and ammunition) and maybe a shield or helm laying. Material components for arcane spells are also in order and if you’re feeling nice they can grant 1d6 “Spellburn points” to any spell (but if you roll a ‘6’ the caster suffers Minor Corruption). Oh, if you play 5E or other d20 game maybe the special components can give double damage or duration for the next spell (but there is a 25% of suffering Exhaustion or a wild mage surge). In fact, merciful Judges can leave one or two healing potions here or a few scrolls of lore collected about the Tower of Visions (these scrolls grant 1d2 “answers” to questions made by the party, after translation or any check required by the Judge).

The Tigers of Doors: When the party gets at 30 ft of the Tigers their reflections in the statues start chanting “Oh bloody ones! Offer honor and sacrifice to the Tigers of Doors, the Keeper of Impossible Paths, Masters of Mirror Worlds!”.

Not surprisingly (or so I believe) they Tigers start moving at that points and, after 1 round staring at the party, will jump to attack (preferably at the closest or unluckiest character).

Start with normal tiger stats of your choice (like the ones on page 174 of the DCC RPG Annual Vol. 1) but give them higher Initiative (+8 is nice) and AC (around 16-18). Piercing weapons deal minimum damage, slashing weapons deal half damage. They are immune to poison and effects that target living creatures, but suffer double damage from sonic attacks. They are immune to any ray attack (and there is a 25% that it is reflected back).

The biggest danger of the Tigers are their claws and bite. After rolling damage for a claw or bite attack, tell the hit character that she has a choice: either suffer bleeding damage equal to half the damage suffered at the start of each round; or lose 1 point of AC (that includes having a shield destroyed). The Tigers’ attacks are almost vorpal-sharp. Bleeding damage keeps going until healed (and is not cumulative, use the higher amount).

A way out: The way to leave this room is either to destroy the Tigers of Doors in combat or to notice that each Tiger is actually a magic door:

- Destroying a Tiger will open for 1d3 rounds a magic door to the next part of the dungeon. After that the Tiger will become a shard of living mirrors (use the same stats, with half hit point and attack as swarm against everything in 10 ft.) for 1d3 rounds. During the “swarm phase”  the magic door is still open, but anyone jumping through will suffer a free attack. Oh, and read later about the Curse.

- Anyone fighting a Tiger in melee range can glimpse in one of their multifaceted surfaces a shining door. Touching the right spot (this is a melee attack with Advantage) takes the character way to the next part of the Tower of Visions. Evil Judges can declare that such a “touching attack” grants the Tiger a free attack.

- Anyone “offering honor and sacrifice” to a Tiger of Doors can be transported away instantly. This can be either a religion check (DC 15?) or a cool roleplay, preferably followed by some concrete offer (blood and 1 point of damage is the standard ticket, but the Judge is free to accept anything of value).  

- The “sacrifice” bit can actually mean that a character lowers her guard to the Tiger and offers herself for 1 free attack. After the attack (dead or bleeding) the character is transported away. Maybe each “free attack” against one character can transporte another member of the party.

The Curse!

The Tigers of Doors required a sacrifice! These dudes are quasi-deities (weak ones). Killing their material forms won’t stop them for long but will deeply offend them. The character that did the killing strike should lose 1 Luck right away (to know that something is wrong). Congratulations, the character is cursed!

This is how the curse works: ask for a Luck check, rolling equal or less than the stat. Start with a d30. Once per game session or adventure ask for a Luck check. Each time the character fails, before crossing any door of the Judge’s choice, the character will see a Tiger of Doors briefly crossing it on the other side. After stepping through THAT door, it doesn’t matter what steps the character takes, they will suffer one successful bite attack (don’t forget the bleeding damage and maybe roll a d20 just to see if it is a critical hit). Each time that the character is damaged, decrease the curse die by one step (it stops at d10 but don’t forget that rolling a d10 is always a failure). If your d20 game doesn’t use Luck as a stat (heretics!) use Charisma.

How to remove the curse? I don’t know… sell your soul to a patron, do a quest for a god, build a shrine to the Tigers of Doors (which will grow to become a new Tower of Visions?) etc. This is the fun part and I will leave it to the Judge.

What if...

...some try to attack the Tigers of Doors from a distance before they animate (c’mon, it is obvious they will animate)? Remember, the trigger is 30 ft. Well, if that happens the Judge can just allow it and give the party 1 round of free shots. Evil Judges (you know, the best ones) will probably remove the message part of the encounter and just leave the party to figure it out the hard way.

Imagine something awesome like this... but it is a tiger! By Kardie Art.

The Tower of Visions #2 - The Stairs of Mortality

Continuing my Tower of Visions dungeoncrawl posts (#1 is here). I’m posting one encounter each time and later I hope to make some sense of the whole thing.

Actually this encounter here is based on my friend’s first idea for the dungeon: The Stairs of Mortality.

There is no room, just an infinity of darkness, an eternal abyss. The only path through it is a set of stairs wide enough that can allow two people side by side (but not fighting). The stairs appear to climb forever but there is a light above. When the party enters it seems more like a star, as it is pretty far. After climbing for a long time (enough for a long rest or 4d4 hours) the characters start to see things coming from the Abyss (from all directions). Mirrors, floating and rotating in the dark, each one man-sized and diamond-shaped.

The mirrors start at long range (60-100 ft.) where it is practically impossible to see their surfaces. When within medium range (0-60 ft.) the Judge can allow a Perception/Luck so that a character can try to see details in one of the mirrors (if the character succeeds roll on the table below and describe it). Basically each mirror shows a possible reflection of a character. Each mirror has AC 15 and 3 hit points. There are 1d2+1 mirrors per character. The mirrors take 1d2 rounds to get really close to the party.

Once within medium range, ask for initiative (each mirror rolls initiative on a d10). The action of each mirror is to cut a character, dealing 3d6 points of damage (but can’t reduce a character below 0). The target can avoid this with an Agility/Dexterity check or any other crazy idea. If the target tries to shatter or attack the mirror they also must roll on the table below (although using a shield or some other protection could allow the character a saving throw or Luck roll). Why that? Because breaking (magic) mirrors is unlucky.

If a character falls to 0 hit points because of a mirror attack, roll on the table. If a character drops to 0 (i.e. is affected by a mirror), the other mirrors pass by and won’t attack that character that round. The mirrors will fly around the party for just 1d3 rounds then fly back to the darkness.

Finally, after the encounter, if the party keeps climbing the stairs they reach the next door after more 4d4 hours of walking. If someone falls in the darkness or rolls the ‘8’ result, consider that they appear again when the party leaves the room (but again for them on the table ignoring any ‘8’ result).

Each effect below tries to describe first what the character sees in the reflection.  If brought to 0 hit points by that mirror, that reflection becomes the reality.

The Mirrors of Mortality Table (Roll a d8):

1 - The character sees herself as a youth, almost a child. Reduce your age to something around 10-14 years old (or the equivalent of your race). If you have a positive modifier (or 0) in Str, Con or Per/Wis, reduce it by 1 (and adjust the Stat). For example: in DCC RPG, if you had Str 12 (+1), you Str is now 9 (mod 0). On the bright side, your Luck mod increases by 1 (if you don’t use Luck, as in 5E, just give the PC a free Inspiration after each long rost… the gods seem to favor the young).

2 - The character sees herself as old and decrepit. Increase your age to something around 80-100 years old (or the equivalent of your race). If you have a positive modifier (or 0) in ANY Stat reduce it by 1 (and adjust the Stat). Check the example above. Your Speed is reduced by half. If you’re playing DCC RPG, double your Luck points. That is how much Luck you have before you die of old age. You don’t recover Luck points anymore. If you’re playing something else, like 5E, you gain a number of Inspiration (yeah, I know it doesn’t accumulate and I hate that rule) or Advantages equal to 7+1d6... after that the Grim Reaper is coming for you.

3 - The character change sex and, because of that, one random stat increases by 1d4 and another decreases by the same amount (no maximum and a minimum of 3). If you like craziness, the Judge will select a secret trigger (like “getting drenched” or “falling below 0 hit points”). When that trigger happens change your sex again. If your character is for any reason sexless (like a golem) you now have a sex (and the entire package), live with that!

4 - The character becomes his opposite. In most parties this means inverting Alignment, god, philosophy, maybe appearance (for some reason Chaos loves spikes and piercings) and general behavior. If playing the DCC RPG, the Judge can choose a very different Birth Augur (or just roll again). The character is still the party’s friend (this isn’t a free card to be a jerk). If this is too much hassle then the reflection represents a different path in the life of the character, one where a single and very important event played out differently, according to the Judge’s call (for example: one monster or enemy wasn't killed by the character or perhaps the character’s brother didn’t become a villain etc.).

5 - The character sees herself as she is and is emboldened by that, recovering either 2d3 Luck or 2 Hit Dice of hit points (Judge’s choice). If rolled a second time, your reflection is actually more confident than you and will come out of the mirror to begrudge you for not living to your fullest potential. This reflection is now a real NPC, a better and bossy version of the character (+1 to all Stats and maximum hit points) and will probably become an enemy in the log time (or a very weird patron for the party).

6 - The character sees herself as a very young child (anything between 5-8) years old. Reduce her physical stats by half and add +2d3 to her Luck (Stat and points!). Either the character is a 0-level PC or (my favorite option) change her class to an Alice/Fool of the same level (the awesome class from A Red and Pleasant Land).

7 - The character sees just a dusty skeleton. She was dead a long time ago!***

8 - A black surface without any reflection. The character is trapped inside the mirror and if not free (give the party 1d3 rounds), disappear into the Abyss.

Bye and thanks for playing!

***[OPTIONAL] Believe it or not the entire “Rock falls everyone dies” thing has its place in the game when used right. Adventyring (and dungeoncrawling) is an extreme hazard prone career. In this particular adventure it happens when the character is brought to 0 hit points by a crazy magic mirror and then rolls a ‘7’ on a table. Not bad in my opinion but, as they say, YMMV. So, if you don’t like this change the idea (or just remove the entry and roll a d7). An option could be that for the ENTIRE world the character died a long time (if you must roll a dice to know how many years ago… like 1d4 or 3d6, depending on your campaign). This means that probably most of the last adventures and deeds of the character never happened. Because the party is inside the Tower of Visions they don’t know that and the entire new timelines doesn't catch up with them. When (if…) they leave the dungeon they will see a place where probably some things happened differently. The “dead” character is now a living paradox, a weird clone of the original, the “true character” which died some years ago. The Judge is encouraged to come up with all kinds of weird and esoteric consequences: maybe divination magic can’t find her anymore (remember, she is dead!), or she can’t be raised from the dead (no soul?) or maybe she can’t burn Luck anymore (the Fates don’t know her) etc.

OR, if you don’t want to remove the character from the game and want something crazy but more simple, just pick one of the cool un-dead classes from the Gongfarmer Almanac and bring the character back.

[OPTIONAL] Place a NPC here to spice things up. He appears to be an old goblin but is an immortal and cursed human called Dokab. Give him stats roughly equivalent to a 5th level fighter (or similar monster of your choice). He is seeking “the Mirror of Dust” (i.e. any mirror on the table that ages or kills you) to remove his “undying curse”. The fact is that the mirrors of the Stairs actually avoid Dokab, because he was cursed by a deity. Dokab did titanic atrocities (and a few really good things) through the ages, usually with different names and aliases. He just wants to die. He does not trust anyone and so tells that he is looking “for a loved one trapped in a mirror”. If pressed he’ll attack (he is pretty reckless as he can’t really die). His curse? Basically, you can’t bring Dokab below 1 hit point unless you use something like a Wish. Oh, if the party pushes him off the Stairs, roll a d6. There is a 1 in 6 chance that he hits the right mirror and the party (unwillingly) releases him from the curse. However, if that does not happen, well, the party will probably meet an angry immortal waiting for them outside the Stairs. The Judge is encouraged to use Dokab as a recurring and really dangerous enemy. An observation: if this guy is an immortal of legend why the “low level”? (although in DCC RPG a 5th level Warrior is really something.) Well, he is immortal and nothing can really hurt him, so he got a bit rusty with his skills. Although if the party really rekindles his anger, he’ll train for a few months and “recover” his lost levels (imagine if Alexander the Great was cursed not only with undying and a goblin form, but also with never again rebuilding his empire… imagine how pissed off he would be. That is Dokab. If you have ever read the Malazan Book of the Fallen, this dude is Kallor but he looks like a lowly goblin, which doesn't help). Oh, and removing Dokab’s curse will anger the deity that cursed him. Use that to maximum enjoyment (of the Judge of course) and start by removing a few Luck points.

Art by Amelia Plant.

The Tower of Visions #1 - The Room of the Eyeless Ogre

A long time ago I promised a friend I would write a dungeon crawl for him based on the themes of mirrors, visions, age and self-image... (Sorry Luciano, it has been 2 years already?)

I’m terrible with promises as you can see. I’m not sure if this is still useful but I’m gonna try to post this dungeon crawl in small encounters. I’m calling it the Tower of Visions so far. Although I intended this to be used with DCC RPG I’ll try to be as generic as possible with rules terms (hopefully you can adapt it to your favorite d20 Fantasy). After posting a few of them I’ll try to organize the entire thing and any feedback until there would be appreciated. The idea is that this is an adventure for PCs of levels 2-3.

Here is one of the encounters: The Room of the Eyeless Ogre.

The door opens to magical darkness (not even darkvision works) in what seems to be a large circular room of stone, the ceiling the height of two men. After all the party gets in (and only after that), the door disappears and everything is covered by the hungry darkness. A mere moment later a sphere of light, slightly bigger than a human head, starts shining in the middle of the room atop a stone pedestal, half the height of a man (there was nothing there when the party got in). The walls of the room, the floor and the top are now covered in crystal clear mirror-like surfaces.

There are two things of importance in the now bright room. The first is a door made of what appears to be ice. The second is an apish creature made of stone, eyeless, squatting between the party and the door. It takes a moment to realize that both the door and its guardian are actually just reflexes in the mirror wall. There is nothing in the room itself. The guardians promptly stare at the party and charge.

That is the basic premise of the room. A few things to consider:

• Give the monster the stats of an Ogre, but double the damage, give it the AC of a stone golem and maximize its hit points. The idea is to make the monster scary and make the party flee. Give it two attacks per round or, better, a Grapple/Slam sequence. The creature usually grapples a character then throws her at another character. If damaged it react with a slam against the poor victim.
• The monster is not invisible. It is just not there. It “exists” solely in the magical mirror wall. However it can affect the party’s reflections. If it hits a character’s reflection, it can hurt him/her. Defending is hard because there is nothing there in the real room and the character must react based on their reflections (give the monster Advantage to attack rolls). 
• Attacking the wall to hit the creature is a terrible idea: each hit against the wall (AC 10) cracks it and a lot of crystals shards explode from it, dealing automatic 1d6 damage to all characters in a 5 feet range (no save, although if someone is really careful and is maybe using a shield give them a Refl/Dex/Luck/whatever chance to suffer half damage… maybe a better idea is using a reach weapon). Remember, hitting the wall is not enough, to “hurt” the creature you must hit its reflection and overcome its AC (i.e. a stone golem’s AC).
• At any time, any character can cover the source of light in the middle of the room. This covers the place in darkness, effectively “stops” the guardians, giving the characters a chance to rest, talk and plan. Unfortunately, it also “resets” the guardian’s hit points. The encounter literally starts again.
• There is (the reflection of) an ice-like door behind the monster. It can be opened by the character’s reflection. This is really weird, because the reflections can affect the door but the real characters don’t feel a thing. In game terms, to open the door the party must rol 3 successful Dexterity/Agility or Intelligence checks (standard difficulty). Two characters can cooperate to get it faster. Yes, the guardian will try to stop them. After the door is opened, any character can “cross it” if they close their eyes and jump through in the mirror wall.
• Breaking the mirror wall where the door is could be another option. Give that section of the wall a total of 20 hit points and let the party smash hit (remember that each hit deals 1d6 damage to all characters in a 5 feet burst).
• One crazy idea to defeat the eyeless ogre (if the Judge want of course) is if the party is carrying any small mirror with them. If they catch the ogre's reflection in the mirror (an Agility/Dex check?) and them smash that item, let them the ogre fall in the ground in pain for 1 full round, filled with cracks, and remove  1/2 or 1/4 of its total hit points.
• [OPTIONAL] There is some loot in the ground. Place a jewel or gem. Also one weapon of your choice. The catch? They’re just reflections. To get the items the character must succeed at a Agility/Dexterity check (maybe with Disadvantage). Using the weapon in the room always has Disadvantage (remember, there is nothing in the character’s real hands). If you’re feeling lucky maybe the weapon is magical and can hurt the eyeless ogre. If the party manages to leave the room they can take the loot with them. What does the weapon do? Well, maybe it is a +1 magical weapon that is in fact invisible and can only be seen in reflections (out of the room, with a little bit of training, the character can wield the weapon without Disadvantage).
• [OPTIONAL] Remember the source of light? It is a (very heavy) stone orb that shines. It can be lifted with a hard Strength check and carried out (the PC is probably with half Speed and without his Dex bonus to AC due to the weight). If carried outside the orb becomes a crystal ball (use your favorite crystal ball, if in doubt, just let a wizardly PC use it once per day to see, but not hear, someplace that he was before… with all the normal divination limitations of your campaign).