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  1. - Top - End - #1
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    Devil

    Join Date
    Nov 2015

    Default Anyone have experience with Fantasy Age and/or Modern Age?

    I've been looking into them and love the stunts mechanic. As a lover of the 5e sorcerer class, I was pleasantly surprised to see that you can play with the spell versatility of the wizard class with the stunts to serve as your sorcerer metamagic. I was initially turned off at there only being 3 classes, but apparently you can go many routes in each class to get much more versatility and feel like you're playing D&D classes.

    Has anyone gotten to play this/these game(s)? What are your thoughts on it to someone coming from D&D (mostly 4e and 5e for my play experience)?
    "I'll have my revenge, and Deathstalker (part) II! ™"

  2. - Top - End - #2
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Anonymouswizard's Avatar

    Join Date
    Oct 2009
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    In my library

    Default Re: Anyone have experience with Fantasy Age and/or Modern Age?

    I want to like AGE, but there's a few issues that stop me. Mainly the fact that the advancement of health and damage is completely out of sync leading to padded combat at higher levels, and that there are a couple of duff Talents. Don't take Music, it's benefits are incredibly situational, and the designers even admitted this and gave the much more generally useful Performance Talent in the Fantasy AGE Companion. Contacts is also questionable, as written in Fantasy AGE it's an air-breathing mermaid, but the Modern AGE version makes the intended benefits (skipping a lot of rolls to investigate and get favours) explicit.

    On that note, I'd recommend Modern AGE over Fantasy AGE. Character creation and advancement is much less restrictive, weapon proficiency is gone and thank goodness because it was redundant, there's a wider variety of corebook talents, a wider variety of corebook subsystems, Stunts have had a reworking and a re generally better, Health has been lowered and it advancing is now optional. In many ways Modern AGE feels like the second edition, while some changes are because it's no longer following the D&D model there's also a lot of things that feel like bug fixes.

    Note that Modern AGE drops a couple of things people expect these days, like finesse weapons. If you use it in Melee you add Fighting to the attack roll and Strength to the damage roll, if it's a ranged weapon you add Accuracy to the attack roll and Perception to the damage roll. Whether or not this is good is personal taste, but I felt like Fighting in Fantasy AGE was incredibly unimportant.

    Another thing to realise is that magic is less powerful and versatile than in D&D. Mages (and Psychics in Modern AGE) are still worth playing, but Power Point reserves don't allow for continually spells. In Fantasy AGE be prepared to use your Arcane Blast and a lot and be annoyed that you don't get many Talents, and do not play a full mage in Modern Age, at the very least pick up a combat-related focus and a couple of noncombat Talent trees.

    The Stunt mechanic is very good though. You'll find players get Stunts a lot, and that many Talents, especially combat ones, have 'you can perform a certain Stunt for less' as one of their benefits. It makes two mundanes fighting more interesting than it is in D&D.
    Snazzy avatar (now back! ) by Honest Tiefling.

    RIP Laser-Snail, may you live on in our hearts forever.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Zelphas View Post
    So here I am, trapped in my laboratory, trying to create a Mechabeast that's powerful enough to take down the howling horde outside my door, but also won't join them once it realizes what I've done...twentieth time's the charm, right?
    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Raziere View Post
    How about a Jovian Uplift stuck in a Case morph? it makes so little sense.

  3. - Top - End - #3
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    Devil

    Join Date
    Nov 2015

    Default Re: Anyone have experience with Fantasy Age and/or Modern Age?

    My main concern is that looking over the classes and specializations that they offer much less in effects than the DND classes and sub-classes do. I like tat there's more talents (skills in DND) that are non-combat focused and I love the stunts mechanic, I just wish it was in DND as well. Thanks for the input. Glad to know I'm not the only one to ever consider playing the AGE games.

    My only 2 issues with Modern Age over Fantasy Age is that magic is optional in MA (meaning you could end up with a GM who refuses to allow it) and that there are no races in MA either as far as I have seen.
    Last edited by samcifer; 2020-12-31 at 03:01 PM.
    "I'll have my revenge, and Deathstalker (part) II! ™"

  4. - Top - End - #4
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Anonymouswizard's Avatar

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    Oct 2009
    Location
    In my library

    Default Re: Anyone have experience with Fantasy Age and/or Modern Age?

    Quote Originally Posted by samcifer View Post
    My only 2 issues with Modern Age over Fantasy Age is that magic is optional in MA (meaning you could end up with a GM who refuses to allow it) and that there are no races in MA either as far as I have seen.
    Those are both intentional. Modern AGE is primarily meant to run Present Day Present Time settings first and foremost, things like urban fantasy and cyberpunk are secondary concerns. There's no playable non-human species because there's none in real life, and magic (and psychic powers) are optional because they don't exist in the real world (according to current science, at any rate).

    Classes and specialisations being less impactful is also a feature not a bug (and Modern AGE finally went classless anyway). Classes represent your rough combat role (support, ranged fighter, or melee fighter), while specialisations are just Talents with greater in-setting implications. I find the Fantasy AGE Companion has some of my favourite specialisations, alongside options like Paladins you now have things like the Gangster and Spy specialisations that implicitly connect you to in-setting groups.

    Fantasy AGE shares a lot of assumptions with D&D via the Dragon Age games. Modern AGE actually steers more towards heist movies, noir, and the more grounded edge of the cyberpunk genre. The lack of nonhuman PCs has actually lead to more flexibility in character creation, as characters get a wider stay off potential starting Talents just from the Backgrounds and Professions in the core rulebook, and can actually start off more specialised. The only downside is that you do have to deal with characters being able to communicate and research as long as the power is on.
    Snazzy avatar (now back! ) by Honest Tiefling.

    RIP Laser-Snail, may you live on in our hearts forever.

    Spoiler: playground quotes
    Show
    Quote Originally Posted by Zelphas View Post
    So here I am, trapped in my laboratory, trying to create a Mechabeast that's powerful enough to take down the howling horde outside my door, but also won't join them once it realizes what I've done...twentieth time's the charm, right?
    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Raziere View Post
    How about a Jovian Uplift stuck in a Case morph? it makes so little sense.

  5. - Top - End - #5
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    DruidGirl

    Join Date
    Jan 2007

    Default Re: Anyone have experience with Fantasy Age and/or Modern Age?

    Are you familiar with Titansgrave perhaps?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWn6...ClXAH3GRT0pAp2

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