Sometimes a class is a bit more than a single class! The new demonologist class in Book of Demons is a bit like the druid in 13 True Ways in that it uses talent choices to define its class features and spell lists. The three demonologist paths—corruption, flame, and slaughter—have features in common, including resist […]
Author Archives: Rob Heinsoo
Recently we’ve gotten some feedback from players on the summoning mechanics for champion and epic tier druids and necromancers that coincides with how we handle summoning in new books like 13th Age Glorantha and Book of Demons. In this column, I’m going to take the opportunity to extend one of our summoning improvements to the […]
Part of the fun of developing adventures like Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan’s Red Crag Castle section of Book of Demons is adding monsters that complete the theme. Sometimes those missing bits turn out to be things that fill a gap in all of 13th Age, not just the one adventure. That turned out to be true for […]
By Rob Heinsoo, with Jonathan Tweet Another 13th Age campaign, another experiment with the icon relationship dice! My previous campaign was using a riff on the way that 13th Age Glorantha handles rune narrations. This time, in a campaign I’m referring to as 13th Arduin*, I’m using an idea from Jonathan that he hasn’t gotten […]
This month’s column introduces a new monster that will be useful for people playing with the two newest 13th Age books, Fire & Faith and Book of Demons (as of now, both available for pre-order). The mini-adventures collected in Fire & Faith feature the same icons who are most prominent in Book of Demons: the […]
The soon-to-arrive 13th Age Glorantha (13G) book from Moon Design is more than 6/8ths of the way through layout. I’ll share some monster conversion notes from Glorantha to the Dragon Empire when the layout is complete and the book is available to order on BackerKit. For now, let’s look at a couple of mechanical elements […]
by Rob Heinsoo One of the great touches that Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan added to the unique hellholes he created for the upcoming Book of Demons is a customized random demon ability table for each hellhole. While developing the book, I realized that Gareth’s work was pointing to something that has bothered me for a while: I’m […]
by Rob Heinsoo I’ve known editors who agonize over the placement of a comma in a card game rulebook ten years after the game released . . . and other editors who nodded knowingly when I told the stories as what I thought was an example of caring way too much! My own nibbling regrets, […]
In the demonologist playtest I ran a week ago, the non-demonologist character in the party cast turn undead against a mixed group of zombie mooks and ghostly mooks. We were halfway through the attack when we all realized, no, this couldn’t be right, something was wrong with our results. I must have half-remembered an […]
Publishing Lions & Tigers & Owlbears: 13th Age Bestiary 2 feels like a celebration! As part of the fun, we’re offering sample monsters from the book to a few gaming and geek culture sites, and I’m taking a sage moment here to tease out the origin stories. Rakshasa: The rakshasa entry started with art. Lee […]