Conduits of the Age (13th Age) PDF

This conversion of the conduit-class clocks in at 10 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 2 pages of SRD, leaving us with 6 pages of content, so let's take a look!

First thing you'll notice is that the class pretty much follows the formula established in the 13th Age core books, with info on play style, popular races, etc. showing up. Attribute bonuses gained by the class (the usual +2) need to be applied to either Dex or Wis, though they can't be stacked on the same attribute favored by the race chosen. Starting equipment contains melee weapon, ranged weapon, light armor and receive 25 gp starting gold (or 1d6 x 10). Regarding basic attacks and armor-preference, the class is leaning toward the rogue, with Dex being added to hit and damage. Damage bonus from ability modifier increases at 5th and 8th level, base Hit points are (7+Con mod)x3 at first level, scaling up to x24 at 10th level. Level up ability bonuses are granted at 4th, 7th and 10th level and a handy chart provides the conduit stats and over all - I was positively surprised. The rather complex class depiction of 13th Ag has been properly replicated here.

The defining class feature of the conduit, though, would be the conduct die: This begins at 1d6 as adventurer and increases to 1d8 at champion, 1d10 at epic tier. After a given heal-up, the conduit assigns a conduction power for which she meets the prerequisites to a side of the conduct die. When a side of the die is rolled, this means a conduct power is being rolled. The die is rolled twice The powers that were thus rolled are considered to be "charged", whereas all other sides are considered to be "drained." Repeat sides are rerolled in this process.

Whenever a magical ability targets the conduit, they can choose to use an interrupt action to roll the conduct die. If the conduct die lands on a side depicting a drained power, said power becomes charged and the triggering ability automatically misses, as the conduit absorbs it. If the die lands on a charged power, the conduit may elect to have the magical ability automatically miss all targets, but then takes damage equal to the level of the creature that created the effect - or the conduit may have the ability proceed. The conduit rolls the conduct die each round as a free action - upon landing on a charged power, they can use it; on a drained power, they can't.

The careful reader may have noted some problems with this ability: One: Monster-level as damage is negligible, considering the amount of damage that flies around a 13th Age table. More importantly, though - 13th Age, alas, does not properly codify what is a magical attack and what isn't. Granted, one can argue that the GM can easily make judgments as to this regard, but ultimately, this isn't as easy as one would think - is a gaze attack magical? A dragon's breath? Some guidelines would be nice here.

The class talents available allow for the modification of the conduct die and similarly, feats available for the class allow for more reliable playstyle for more score modifications and e.g. the charging of drained powers when rolling a charged power. Special mention deserves the Gigas Conduct talent, which increases die-size further by +1 - more variety and a larger arsenal, but also less control. Mystical Weapon allows for the potential expansion of either atk or damage, though the bonus die granted at low level may be a tad bit much.

But what conduct powers do we get? Well, a total of 16 such powers are provided and they include pretty much what you'd expect regarding single-use attacks and defensive tricks: Better initiative, melee force damage blasts, interrupt action MD-based means of making foes miss (NICE!) or healing - there are some nice options here. However, once again, the "magical effect" hydra rears its ugly head -Dissipation deals psychic damage and may also lock down "magical" abilities for the affected targets - which, as established before, are simply not defined in 13th Age. It should be noted, though, that balance-wise, this remains the only problem of the conduit powers presented herein.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are top-notch, I noticed no significant glitches. Layout adheres to a two-column full-color standard and features nice full-color artworks, though personally, I dislike both the decorative diamonds and the blue/yellow-color-scheme. Still, this is a matter of taste and will not influence the final verdict. The pdf has no bookmarks, but needs none at this length.

Sasha Hall's Conduit is a surprisingly awesome take on the concept: I expected some issues for the difficult concept and 13th Age's rather intricate class design and encountered no brutal problems. More importantly than that, the conduct die is a truly unique playing experience that rendered the class an experience you can't really compare to others - and that's AWESOME. Seriously, once you've read so many classes like I have, jamais-vu-experiences become rare indeed, particularly when they actually work out as intended. The conduit, balance-wise, can be considered to range in the middle fields of 13th Age-classes - it is not weak per se, but the chaotic nature of the Conduct Die means that it plays in a unique style: Either you have excellent, variable damage...or tricks. Fans of quick-witted thinking at the table will certainly adore this class and I know the class has a place at my table. That being said, as much as I'd like to bestow my highest accolades on this class, I can't do that - the "magical" effect issue puts an undue burden on the GM and represents a significant chink in the design of the otherwise compelling class. Finally, one note for potential expansions: The conduct die SCREAMS interaction with the escalation die to me - in fact, I can see myself writing powers and talents tying them together - the result can provide both planning AND escalate the chaos factor even further - which would be win-win in my book. Why this obvious, glorious possibility wasn't yet used, I don't know, but I hope for such interaction in a future.

How to rate this, then? The conduct die is sheer brilliance and I love the unique playstyle, but with the "magical effect"-hiccup, I unfortunately cannot go higher than 4 stars for this supplement. I still wholeheartedly encourage you to check this out, though - we've got some talent here that deserves being recognized, particularly for the exceedingly low price-point.

Endzeitgeist out.

Two disclaimers: First, I received a free copy of this product in exchange for an honest review. Second, this review is based on my reading of the material; I haven’t had a chance to playtest it, thus my verdict may change once I have.

That out of the way, the 6 pages of Conduits of the Age contain a new class for the 13th Age RPG, the conduit, which is thematically based on Mike Myler’s magic absorbing class of the same name from Liber Influxus Communis by publisher Amora Game.

The pdf begins with an overview of the class from play style to Icons. This section, and in fact the entire product, are formatted exactly as the classes in the 13th Age core book and 13 True Ways are, which is nice. The overview is solid and actually has me interested about a few things; it is noted that half-orcs and gnomes are particularly common among the ranks of conduits which makes me wonder why that is and could lead to some interesting world building. Mechanically, this section notes that conduits can add +2 to either their Dexterity or Wisdom (which cannot be the same as the ability score increased by their choice of race) which is also an interesting choice as I would have assumed the choice would be between Dexterity and Constitution.

Next we have gear and basic attacks which are fitting for a character of a more roguish type, skewing more to light weapons and armor. The roguish feeling continues as basic melee attacks use Dexterity rather than Strength to determine their to-hit and damage. The charts summing up the conduit’s level progression, stats, and weapons look really nice, once again evoking the feeling that I’m looking at the 13th Age core book.

The meat of this class, it’s unique feature, is the Conduct Die. The Conduct Die starts as a d6 at level one, progressing to a d8 at Champion tier and d10 at Epic tier. After each full heal-up, the conduit can assign one Conduct Power to each side of her die and then rolls the die twice to determine which powers are “charged,” the remaining powers are “drained.” Whenever a magical ability, which I suppose doesn’t need to be a magical attack, targets the conduit, they can choose to roll the conduct die as an interrupt action. If the die lands on a drained side, that side becomes charged and the magical ability misses all of its targets. If the Conduct Die lands on a charged side, the conduit can choose to have the ability miss all its targets and instead do damage to her equal to the attacker’s level. On the conduit’s turn, they always roll the Conduct Die and may use the corresponding power if it lands on a charged side. The feats associated with the Conduct Die are solid, allowing the conduit to reroll drained results on their turn, allowing them to assign Conduct Powers to 3 sides of the die, and giving them an additional interrupt action per round only for use to roll the Conduct Die. I have no complaints about any of them.

The very nature of the Conduct Die leads to a great deal of randomness in the conduit accessing her class powers at all, let alone which ones she may use. I personally like this design decision, but I can see it being problematic for some players. The bigger problems, in my opinion, are twofold. First, the Conduct Die interacts with “magical abilities;” 13th Age doesn’t really define what magical abilities are, and while a few monsters cast spells, I’m not certain if the Conduct Die is intended to allow the conduit to absorb a dragon’s breath weapon, for example. Or a drider’s web… or a goblin shaman’s shaking curse… While I am fine ruling on cases like this as a GM as they come up, there may be GMs out there who feel this creates an unnecessary burden on them; some clarity would be appreciated. Secondly, I really dislike the ability of the conduit to completely prevent area effect spells from affecting her companions. In my experience, there are very few situations where a party doesn’t benefit from a worst case scenario that has one person take (in this case, likely a fraction of) the damage from an area effect rather than letting it hit everybody. This second problem could be alleviated somewhat with a firmer definition of “magical ability.”

Next up are the Class Talents, of which a conduit selects three of the six options presented. The Controlled Conduct talent allows the conduit a modicum more control over which powers she may access; she may alter the roll of the Conduct Die up or down by 1. The feats associated are solid as well. Favorite Power allows a conduit to add the same power to two sides of the Conduct Die, allowing slightly more reliable access to her go-to powers. The associated feats are awesome, allowing the charging of a drained favorite power when the charged one is rolled, allowing the charging of both drained favorite powers when one would become charged, and allowing two different favorite powers as the Epic tier feat.

The Gigas Conduct talent precludes the taking of Controlled Conduct and increases the size of your Conduct Die to d8, d10, and d12 respectively but adds more randomness which may result in the inability to use the result you’ve rolled. The feats for this talent are pretty nice, allowing the conduit to ignore the d4 roll to a limited extent.

The Mystical Armor talent is alright, removing the penalties to attack for wearing heavier armor and increasing AC and Physical Defense. The Adventurer and Epic tier feats are nice, but the Champion tier feat’s bonus to Mental Defense seems a bit incongruous given the physical nature of the talent. The Mystical Weapons talent is interesting; I like the negation of penalties for using heavier weapons, but the extra damage die when your Conduct Die roll for the round is even seems like too much at low levels and like it will be pointless at higher levels… which I suppose makes it just about right if you look at it a certain way. The associated feats interact with the talent nicely. Finally, I don’t have strong feelings for the Wild Preservation talent. On the one hand, I’m not certain I like anything that adds modifiers to saving throws in 13th Age. On the other hand, it may not come up that often depending on your rolls, so it really doesn’t bother me overmuch. Two of the associated feats are interesting in that they affect recoveries, not saving throws, but again, this doesn’t bother me too much.

Overall, I like the talents. The Mystical Armor, Mystical Weapons, and Wild Preservation talents don’t interact much with the class’ primary feature, but they do offer a bit more breadth than just being a rechargeable magic battery. Honestly, my biggest gripe about them is that there aren’t more talent options, but I feel that way about all 13th Age classes, first or third party, so I won’t hold it against this one.

Finally, we come to the Conduct Powers, of which there are sixteen. I won’t go into depth on each, but they are what you would expect, being primarily a number of different single use attacks and defenses. There are some nice ones like Deflective, which may cause an attacker to miss as an interrupt action. Mending allows a target to heal using one of their recoveries. Mystical Movement allows the conduit to take an additional move action as a quick action. I will note that the various powers that allow the conduit to add an ability bonus (Dexterity for example) to a different ability’s check (Intelligence, say) will probably see less use than more strictly attack or defence ones. The assortment of feats for each power are fine for the most part, if somewhat conservative; there are quite a few increased damage dice among them, which are to be expected if kind of boring. I would love to see some feats that interact with the escalation die, which is a 13th Age innovation that has sadly been ignored entirely in this product.

The pdf itself is well edited and has a nice layout as I’ve noted previously. The design however, is not to my tastes. Each page has a trio of diamonds with large drop-shadows in the inner and outer margins. I find these distracting and dislike that the drop-shadows overlap with the text to a small degree; I’d prefer the diamonds, sans shadows, only on the outer margin. Similarly, the section headers use a mirrored font that I find distracting. Honestly these kind of things are probably me being persnickety, but they do warrant mention. On the other hand, the two pieces of art used are really nice; the fact I haven’t seen them before is just icing.

Sasha Hall shows a real aptitude for 13th Age design; she has done a really good job maintaining the theme of this class (magic absorbing blaster) from its Pathfinder roots and translating it into mechanics that honestly feel like something that was omitted from the 13th Age core due to space constraints. I hope she takes this as the compliment I intend it to be. The conduit’s biggest problems, its lack of facility without magic to absorb, and the lack of definition of magical abilities, can be alleviated to a large degree by a GM who knows how to design encounters to his players’ interests and who is comfortable making rulings in the absence of definition. I will end with a final verdict of four stars and a hope that I will see more 13th Age work from this author soon. Maybe even another LIC class!