Thomas Shey
Legend
I'm curious about some experiences people who are familiar with the latter day AGE products, particularly Fantasy Age 2e have had.
Many a moon ago I ran a Dragon Age game, and while we liked quite a lot about it for the first 6 levels, it, to be blunt, went to hell not long after that. Part of it write off to the fact the first five levels were playtested much more thoroughly than the other 15.
But I've heard that some of the problems we have have still carried over, and wanted to hear if they were true, and to what degree.
The first was that level elevating hit points and damage absorbing armor don't play all that well together. This meant that even with the stunt that halved armor, the upper levels could be an awful slog (and this was only by 8th level; though the hit point elevation flattens out about 10 I still hate to think about what it could be like by 12th or more).
The second was that after a while, to-hit outraced any defense you were liable to have, to the degree that hit rolls were almost pointless. You were just checking for Stunt Point generation.
Related to the first, healing powers became progressively less relevant because they choked off at about 3D6, which is mostly a pointless waste of time when people have 60-80 hits, which meant a character who invested in it had wasted a lot of development. Thee were a number of issues similar to this with various spells (I know the FA magic system is considerably different, but its hard to assess just from skimming spell lists).
Now, the issue I can't easily tell is whether the new additions in terms of Stunts, Talents and Specialties impact any of this meaningfully.
Thoughts by anyone who's read one of the more recent ones in more detail than I have?
(Far as that goes, is the FA Companion worth investing in? I know it was written for 1e. I've already got the Modern Age Companion, so is it likely to give me anything I don't already have?)
Many a moon ago I ran a Dragon Age game, and while we liked quite a lot about it for the first 6 levels, it, to be blunt, went to hell not long after that. Part of it write off to the fact the first five levels were playtested much more thoroughly than the other 15.
But I've heard that some of the problems we have have still carried over, and wanted to hear if they were true, and to what degree.
The first was that level elevating hit points and damage absorbing armor don't play all that well together. This meant that even with the stunt that halved armor, the upper levels could be an awful slog (and this was only by 8th level; though the hit point elevation flattens out about 10 I still hate to think about what it could be like by 12th or more).
The second was that after a while, to-hit outraced any defense you were liable to have, to the degree that hit rolls were almost pointless. You were just checking for Stunt Point generation.
Related to the first, healing powers became progressively less relevant because they choked off at about 3D6, which is mostly a pointless waste of time when people have 60-80 hits, which meant a character who invested in it had wasted a lot of development. Thee were a number of issues similar to this with various spells (I know the FA magic system is considerably different, but its hard to assess just from skimming spell lists).
Now, the issue I can't easily tell is whether the new additions in terms of Stunts, Talents and Specialties impact any of this meaningfully.
Thoughts by anyone who's read one of the more recent ones in more detail than I have?
(Far as that goes, is the FA Companion worth investing in? I know it was written for 1e. I've already got the Modern Age Companion, so is it likely to give me anything I don't already have?)
