However, in reading the document, it seems to me that someone who only knows 5e might be a little confused looking at the Quickstart guide, because it assumes you know some things that you may not. So, in a gentle effort to assist, here are some things that might be helpful to someone coming in to this Quickstart from 5e:
1. The Basics are the Same, with One Big Exception. When 13th Age says that it is a "d20" game, what the means is when a PC or NPC is trying to accomplish some task, the player or GM rolls a d20, adds some sort of modifier based on a character ability, and tries to get equal to or above a target number. So, when you see on the pre-generated character's character sheets a "+6 vs. AC" for the Half-Elf Fighter, that means you are going to roll a d20, add 6, and then compare the total to the AC of the target. In other words, just like 5e.
The big difference is that there is no general Advantage and Disadvantage mechanic, so you are almost always rolling one d20 for checks (I say almost, because the Barbarian's Rage mechanic grants the equivalent of Advantage to attack rolls--see the "Hell-Blood Fury" power on the Hellsinger pre-gen). The Advantage and Disadvantage mechanic in 5e covers two big categories of situations--character abilities (i.e. "when you do X, you get Advantage/impose Disadvantage on your target") and situational modifiers (i.e. "when you are in situation X [say, in darkness], you have Disadvantage on attack rolls"). 13th Age handles the former, in general, via numerical bonuses or penalties. So, if you look on the Half-Elf Fighter's character sheet, you will see the "Threatening" Class Ability, which imposes a -4 penalty to enemies trying to disengage from the Fighter; in 5e, that would probably be handled with Disadvantage. As to the latter, 13th Age, encourages the GM to ignore situational modifiers in favor of faster, more streamlined play. But if the GM really insists on using situational modifiers, he or she can slap a +2 or -2 on the roll and move things along.
One thing this means is that 13th Age has a little bit more in the way of on-the-fly math than 5e. It is nothing on the scale of some of the other F20 games that one could play (D&D 3.5/Pathfinder 1st Edition and D&D 4e come to mind), but it is noticeable in comparing the two games and how they play. The truth is that Advantage/Disadvantage is a really clever mechanic (albeit a bit too "swingy" IMO), and so this is probably a net negative for 13th Age, but I don't think it is enough of a negative to outweigh the positives.
2. Player Input into the Story of the Game. 13th Age comes out of a school of game design that involves the players in a collaborative process with the GM of building the world. Probably the easiest place to see this is on Page 7 of the Quickstart, which discusses the "One Unique Thing" concept. Here, the player gets to define something about their character that is Unique, and then it becomes true in the context of the campaign. So for example, one of the uniques provided on Page 7 is "I'm the only halfling acrobat to escape from the Diabolist's Circus of Hell." If a player were to pick that unique, then the rules assume there is such a thing as the Diabolist's Circus of Hell in that particular campaign, and the GM should at least give a thought to what that is, how in interacts with the world, etc. A similar thing can happen with Backgrounds--if the players opt for more complex Background choices like "Captain of the Dwarven Mountain Rangers," then the "Dwarven Mountain Rangers" are an organization in the world.
Another place to see this is on Pages 14-16, with a discussion of the Montage mechanic. Rather than the GM describing the PCs travelling between the starting point of the adventure and the main location of action, the players come up with the events that occur on the journey, as well as the solutions to those problems in a free-form roleplaying format.
This really gets kicked into overdrive, though, with the Icon mechanics. The sample adventure that the Quickstart points you toward--Wade Rockett's Crown of Axis--does not have a pre-set antagonist. Instead, the antagonist is determined by which Icon relationships the players take and which ones are active for that particular adventure. As discussed in the Quickstart, the GM could even have no pre-set story, and just use the Icon rolls as the basis for improvising an adventure on the fly.
This model is not the default style of play for 5e. It's true that there is nothing in 5e that would stop a group from running their games this way, but there is also nothing in 5e that would suggest that you can or should run it this way. Moreover, the published adventure paths for 5e from Wizards of the Coast presume a much more "bright line" distinction between the players and the DM--the DM creates and governs the world, and the players play in the world that is created. As a result, this style of play is likely going to be a bit of a shock to the system for 5e veterans, both on the player side and the DM/GM side. GM's might feel like part of their authority or creative freedom is being usurped by the players, and players might feel uncomfortable or unsure about being able to basically say things into existence. Moreover, the idea of giving players narrative agency is so foundational to 13th Age's DNA that taking it out likely removes any real reason to consider the game.
For those that are hesitant, I would strongly encourage you to give this style of play a try. It might feel a little strange at first, but my experience is that it greatly increases player engagement and lowers GM task loading. I use this style, and Montages in particular, in basically every game I run. It's really good and really fun for everyone at the table--trust me.
3. Healing and Rests. It would be easy to skim over the "Healing and Damage" section on Page 14 from a 5e perspective and think "OK, recoveries are basically Hit Dice, and a full heal-up is a Long Rest." Not quite.
In 13th Age, all healing comes from spending a recovery and rolling the recovery dice to determine how many HP you get back. What spells and potions do is act as a trigger that allows the PC to spend the recovery out of their pool. If you look at the Forgeborn Cleric pre-gen, the "Heal" spell allows the target of the spell to spend a recovery during the fight--the spell itself doesn't actually provide any HP. Healing Potions (Page 17 of the Quickstart) do provide some bonus HP, but the core of it is drink the potion, spend a recovery, get a recovery's worth of HP back. Without those triggers, you are limited to the Rally action (which you can always use once per fight, and then you get a 50% change to use again) or waiting until after combat where you can spend recoveries freely (this takes the place of the 5e "Short Rest" mechanic, as is assumed to occur after every fight).
In other words, recoveries are not a way to heal your PC they way Hit Dice are in 5e; they are the way to heal your PC. Even the rare cases where some power or spells lets a PC heal using a "free recovery" (i.e. it doesn't cost a recovery from the pool), you still roll the recovery dice to determine how much healing happens. Note also the rule for what happens when you try to heal if you are out of recoveries--the amount of HP recovered is halved, and the PC takes a -1 to all attacks and defenses. All of this shakes out to generally providing more healing for low level characters than 5e, but putting a limit on the total amount of healing that can be provided to any one character.
Likewise, it is true that mechanically a Long Rest and Full Heal-Up are the same, in the sense that it is a complete reset of all HP and class abilities. However, the timing when a Full Heal-Up occurs is fundamentally in the hands of GM, with the default being after four combat encounters/the length of one game session. This is true no matter how much in-game time passes between the battles--if the PCs are on a long wilderness journey that takes 30 days, then they can't get a full reset for 30 days. I'm not going to pretend to be unbiased here--I think 13th Age's system is significantly better than 5e's Long Rest mechanic. Having the PCs completely heal after 24 hours, as is the case in 5e, makes it very hard to do challenging, attrition-based adventures that last longer than that 24 hour time frame. This places the GM in a conundrum between in-world adventure pacing and in session adventure pacing, while 13th Age makes the two the same.
Also note the death and dying mechanics, which are just different enough from 5e to be annoying and easy to miss--the threshold to succeed on a death and dying roll is 16 (not 10 as in 5e), but you only need 1 success to spend a recovery (and thus be out of the dying state), and it is four failures (not three) before you are actually dead.
4. Spells and Ranges. Spells in 5e that do damage are divided into spells that require a spell attack roll (against AC) to hit, and spells that automatically hit but allow the target to make a saving throw. In 13th Age, basically all spells require the equivalent of a spell attack roll. Instead of targeting AC, most spells target one of the other two defense stats in 13th Age--Physical Defense or Mental Defense. But, with that exception, spells work exactly like weapon attacks. On the flip side, "saves" are used in 13th Age only to end ongoing effects, whether in the form of conditions or ongoing damage (see Page 13). Saves are not tied to any attributes, and are (generally) unmodified d20 rolls.
The other thing to note is how spells interact with the movement and range mechanics. By default, 13th Age does not use a grid, unlike 5e which very much defaults to grid-based movement and ranges (notwithstanding the fact that it implies otherwise in the rules text). Enemies are either nearby or far away (one move or two moves to get to them, respectively), and spell ranges are similarly delineated as touch, nearby targets, or far away targets. There is also no calculation of cones or cubes for multi-target spells; instead, you target a random number of enemies at a certain range band and you have to roll separate attacks for each. This is much more loosey-goosey than 5e--if you look at the spellbook for the Wizard at the end of the pre-gen file (Page 52), you'll see that Lightning Bolt targets "1d3+1 nearby enemies in a group or in a (rough) line."
The last big thing to note about spells is that they have varying recharge timers. On that same Wizard spellbook page, you will see that Acid Arrow, Blur, Charm Person and the Utility Spell can be used "Daily" (which really means once until a Full Heal-Up), which is the same as spell slot spells in 5e. Note that, on your Daily spells, you may use each of them only one time each, as opposed to mixing and matching when spending spell slots in 5e. Whereas Magic Missile is "At Will," and thus works like a 5e Cantrip that can be used an unlimited number of times. There are also "per battle" spells, like Heal and Spirits of the Righteous on the Cleric sheet, which as the name implies reset at the end of a fight (and so are kinda like Warlock spell slots that recharge on a Short Rest). Unlike 5e, these recharge timers are tied to the spell, not the class feature, and so a spell caster can mix and match between spells with varying recharges when preparing their spell load-out.
5. The Escalation Die. It's easy to gloss over the Escalation Die (Page 14) but it is a key part of 13th Age. Every round of combat after the first, the PCs get a cumulative +1 to all of their attacks (which includes spell attacks). What this means is that the PCs get better at fighting the longer the combat goes on, which means that it makes sense for players to wait until later in combat to pull out their "big guns" like Daily spells. I would suggest, if you are running 13th Age, simply telling your players about this from the beginning, as the system is designed around making those sorts of strategic decisions.
Seriously, 13th Age is really great. If you are a 5e player and looking to try a fantasy ttrpg that is familiar but with a different feel, you really should give 13th Age a shot.
This is a great deep-dive into the differences between 13th Age and 5e. Thanks for taking the time to create this! I'm definitely sharing it.
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