This is for discussing the Fantasy AGE Corebook, Companion, Bestiary, and others, along with Dragon AGE, and its respective books, and any ideas we might have for house rules to modify the core assumptions of those documents.

I have to say I love dragon age for its rich setting never having played the computer games I came to it purely from the rpg side.

I bought all three box sets, yes it took time and no I didn't use them until I got all three. Then I bought to all in one rule book.

Then fantasy age came along and it was what I had been looking for in a fantasy rpg..... The rules are light and flexible and blend into the background when not needed.

It made me feel like the 11 year old I was when I started gaming 39 years ago.
It was the main thing that got me back to gaming with a passion.

Now I would love to find a gm who would set up a relaxed fantasy game say between 3rd to 5th level.... I like starting from zero but I've played so many games over the years that way it would be nice to play a character who has a modicum of a reputation, skills and talent to start with for once :)

I played Origins and Inquisition... I'm trying to remember which one I explicitly didn't play because you couldn't pick the other races. Don't even have III on my HD but that doesn't mean anything.


I tried to run some Fantasy AGE idea but it got stuck in inactivity... I constantly worry about that because a great many times my health is to blame. I wouldn't mind having more DA stuff, and/or running more DA games. I had an idea based on progressing Thedas to a steampunk era and using more out of FAGE than DA, but it didn't go over particularly well.



I have... I dunno, mixed feelings about that. I don't like starting off as a "zero" in GURPS (personal preference 250 Ads, -50 disads.), but I actually prefer starting lower level in other RPGs. I could see starting an AGE game at 4+ so you could get your first Spec. though.

That's why I suggested 3 - 5 in level :)

It feels comfortable and yes perhaps start everyone with a specialisation would be fun

Done get me wrong I love starting characters from the beginning and seeing them advance but just once in a while I get the need to say be in a game where you are the captain of the watch rather than just a watchman in most rules to be that you need to be advanced in levels which can take a long time in some rpgs

That's my preferred starting point in FAGE for just that reason.

One of the things I noticed the first time I created a FAGE character is that the price lists seemed nonsensical. Some of that was fairly blatant, where one item would be listed as 10cp and another as 1sp, but also many items priced in cp seemed overpriced.

In Fantasy AGE, the conversion ratio is 10 copper to 1 silver (hence the first example). I've heard rumor that in Dragon AGE the conversion ratio was 100 copper to 1 silver, but GR didn't update the price lists for that change when publishing FAGE. Can someone who has both speak to this?

I um... didn't notice this before, but...

DA has a ridiculous conversion rate of



While FAGE has



The weird pricing of things like 20 cp and 50 cp for crates and flasks does transfer over to Fantasy AGE as if they didn't notice... I'll have to pay more attention for when I modify the Resource stat in Modern AGE to account for slightly less involved banking and finance making individual dollar amounts relevant.

Thanks. That tallies with my experience of weapons and armor being affordable with starting cash but, e.g., camping gear and meals not.

I like Modern AGE take on resources. If you set this up for use in a Fantasy setting, please do share! I'd like to use it.

I'm actually thinking the other way around, but where I'll be careful to note the basic unit of currency will be dollars (cuz 'Murica) could create a conversion to Fantasy AGE coppers to go along with the dollars so it creates an equivalency between the 3 units rather than the originally planned 2 units.

Does anyone know of in RAW or have good house rules for a PC helping another on a challenging task (other than the combat stunt)? The example I have in mind is cooperating in lifting a large, heavy grate, so there's plenty of physical space for more than one person to cooperate.

Not for Fantasy AGE, but Modern has two modes GMs can use depending on which they think is the most appropriate:

Fine Tuning says use the single highest roll and the single highest stunt die.
Force Multiplier says use the highest roll and all the stunt dice of everyone rolling.

They don't appear to give much in the way of guidelines whether you use Fine Tuning or Force Multiplier though.

In reply to The Ageless One (msg # 12):

Thanks.

Yer welcome.

So I originally had this thought while I was looking over Modern AGE but it occurs to me that in the Fable series of video games, they have Strength, Skill, and Will. If we take the Fantasy AGE Abilities and subdivide them as such:

Constitution
Fighting
Strength

Accuracy
Dexterity
Perception

Communication
Intelligence
Willpower

They start to look a bit Strength, Skill, and Will-ish. So anywho, that got me pondering whether it would be worth trying to run a Fable-esque game where the Hero of Oakvale

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Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
saw The Darkness as a direct result of Theresa getting Lucien so interested in rebuilding the tower and bringing about the darkness in the third canon game, killed her, and

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set in motion a reign of terror as Jack of Blades, and the Hero's Guild shifts focus to destroying him...

Does anyone have a table they like of house rules for combat bonuses and penalties? The Circumstance table on p.100 could use some expansion, IMO. For example, Defender is Prone is +1 to the attack, but that only makes sense for melee attacks. If anything, it would be a penalty to ranged attacks.

I realize the table is intended to be just examples, but I'm interested in a more comprehensive set of house rules if anyone has them, beyond, "eh, take a +2," for what's really a fairly tactical game.

The table in Modern (28 pages later) is more or less identical, but has cover separated out in another area. I always feel like they took the GURPS modifiers and cut out about 3/4 of them because they didn't want to nitpick on that level. Kind of depends what you're looking for beyond that though.

In reply to The Ageless One (msg # 17):

Ah, my GURPS-enthusiasm is showing again?

Back before the answer to forum questions started being "go buy my supplement", that sort of enthusiasm was a good thing to have. I don't care to keep track of what supplements I can't afford, and while piracy isn't a compunction I have it does get tiresome.  Far and away, it's the thing that keeps me from playing GURPS for the last 4 years. So I quit the system, and AGE (Modern in particular) is my current go to short of writing my own system... 3 of which have gotten mixed reviews so far.

In reply to The Ageless One (msg # 19):

AGE is my go-to for relatively tactical gaming right now. D&D 5e is also ok, though the 20-sider aspect is bad, especially with the "compressed" math of 5E. GURPS takes far more cognitive resources than I can muster anymore, especially PBP.

So FAGE is a nice way to play D&D-like games with a bell curve!

I've never had that problem with GURPS, because I can always tell when something is under something.


But yeah, for me AGE in general has that same nice bell curve I came to know and love so many years ago, and there's that chart I posted over in The Expanse that's nice and convenient if I need to make snap decisions on TNs.

I would love to find a fantasy age game that was just a fun classic dungeon crawl in the old d&d style. Nothing too in-depth just old fashioned fun

In reply to jamat (msg # 22):

Agreed!
...
No useful contributions, just agreeing. :)

link to another game is open. There are 3 of us. I think we're level 12.

Thanks I've chatted to the GM for that game would loved to have joined but my tablet screws up the rolld20 site that the maps are produced on so wasn't able to join the game

In reply to jamat (msg # 25):

Ah, that's too bad.

Yeah it is :(

This is a character I created for a game here but it never really took off but would love to find a fantasy game to play him in


Name: mouse
Race: human
Status: middle class
Background: initiate
Class: mage
Level: 1

Abilities:

Accuracy: 0
Intelligence: 3 (religious lore)
Perception: 2
Willpower: 3

Communication: 1
Constitution: 0
Dexterity: 1 (ride)
Fighting: 1 (brawling, staves)
Strength: 0

talents: chirurgy (n)

Speed: 11
Health: 23
Defence: 11

Magic:
Arcane specialty: Healing Hands Cantrip
Magic talents: wood (n), earth (n)

Spells:rock blast (e), stone cloak (e), forest blend (w), be growth (w)

Arcane device: staff
Magic points: 18

Silver pieces: 26

Equipment:
Back pack
Staff 1d6+1
Bedroll
Candles x2
Flint and steel
Rope 20yds
Torches x 5
Dried meat

Mouse was in the woods by a local ranger. He was handed into the priests to be raised.

He learned their religion but questioned it at the same time. This got him beaten by the priests.

Due to his hard life he spent more and more time in the forest where one day after a beating he was found by the ranger who had first found him as a baby.

He was a practical and honest man and over the following years taught the young mouse how to fight. The priests stopped the beatings one day when the youth took his quarter staff to his attackers.

He was banished from the church but that was no great loss and he went and lived in the forest where he felt more at home.

It was here he spied a young girl, he recognised her as the local mage's apprentice. He looked out for her all the time fascinated with her and the magic she practices on her own when she thought she was alone.

He picked up a few phrases from her and practiced them himself feeling comfortable with the strange words as if he should know them.

And amazingly they worked, over time he found he was better at magic that revolved round the earth and with the skills the priests had taught him concerning the healing arts was a natural with healing magic to.

One dull winters day he was sitting watching the girl when a pack of hungry wolves happened upon her.

Without a thought he jumped down out of the trees in front of her spraying the pack with sharp rocks and chased them away.

From that day on the girl allowed him to sit with her while she practised and he showed her his talents which she helped him master.

This young strange girl became his best and only friend. But one day she didn't show. Days turned to weeks and eventually he made his way back into the village to find her concerned for his friend.

What he found stunned him, he learned quickly that the mage had been killed and the girl gone the common rumour was she had killed her master for his power and stole his spells and made off with them.

Mouse just couldn't believe his friend would do such a thing, he knew she cared for her master and was gentle and kind, but something had happened and he would find out what.

With nothing holding him to the village he packed his things and headed away. It's been two years now he's been following rumours but has always been two steps behind. One day he will find the truth and his friend until then he used his powers where he can for those in need

The Earth Initiate spells are great! And Forest Blend is also a very nice spell to have. Good combo.

Cheers I thought they were a good mix and it's my first fantasy age mage to so I'm quite pleased with him

Some of the new spells in the companion look interesting for earth and wood to

I've got a Wood Arcana Mage using Ensnaring Roots to great effect on opponents that don't have ranged attacks! With a focus, the Spellpower is high enough to keep enemies pretty thoroughly stuck.

What seems like a fair baseline cost to get an NPC Mage to cast a spell (N, J, M) into an empty spellstone, once the mage with the spell has been found?

EDIT: Oops, I just re-read the Spell Stone description. So instead, what's a fair cost for a loaded stone (N, J, M)?
This message was last edited by the player at 19:57, Sat 29 Feb 2020.

I honestly don't recall items like that even getting prices, which I've honestly felt is a little odd. Before my computer crashed, I did a thing for Modern AGE where I classified TNs based on item rarity, and backwards engineered something I can't quite remember for a coin value. I'll see if it survived the crash.

In reply to The Ageless One (msg # 33):

No, they're not priced in either core or Companion. I don't have the GM book. And thanks!

Ok, so in my Heavy Metal document, I did the following:


I set this to a base TN of 11. I thought I had originally put copper coin values to TN 12-18, but I may not have... In a crunchy resources supplement I had, those "dollar amounts" of those respective TNs was $75, $225, $675, and $2025 respectively. Those values were indicative of a simple success. If you allowed stunt points to affect it as I did for my crunchy resources value, the numbers would be multiplied by the stunt die. If you use any of the dollar amounts I give in these explanations, then a dollar is 1 cp.

The underlying assumption of the resources document is that things the average person can't purchase outright would be put to advanced tests with ST either 10 (2 stunt points for 5 days) 40 (A month truncated to 4 weeks respectively) or 200 (accounting for 2 weeks off a year). You can multiply the base values of the respective TNs by the ST to get cash on hand you need to purchase an item. So if a common item is a weekly purchase for an average person, it might be $750. If rare and uncommon items are Monthly purchases they'd be $9,000 or $27,000 respectively. If a Legendary item is a yearly purchase, the player who accumulates 405k can just purchase it (Much easier to do in Dragon AGE because 1 gold would be 10K, so it's basically 40 gold and change. 4050 in Fantasy AGE).  You can also go by property, evaluating the price of each property at each rarity level  before multiplying (or just not multiplying since you're nitpicking each individual property)

I don't think my GM is going to get anywhere near that grainy, but the walk-through is helpful. Thanks!

well, you don't have to give 'em the whole ramble. See what they say about the base numbers of each rarity level (with empty stones being Common and each talent level the spell is at upgrading it by 1 level of rarity) and if they think the baseline prices are fair it's all hunky dory. If they don't you can present them with prices appropriate to the week's month's or years savings by doing the multiplication I presented on your end, and presenting those prices to the GM.