The section on damage resistance in the core book says, “If there’s an automatic damage effect that feels like it should have a chance of being reduced by resistance, go ahead and fake an attack roll to see if the effect penetrates resistance.” My question is, if the attacker has the shocked condition from the […]
Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is a ghost story, to begin with. It’s part of a long tradition of telling scary stories at Christmastime; and when handled well, the ghosts can provide us with a shiver even as we gleefully watch them terrorize Ebenezer Scrooge in order to turn his heart from wickedness. The other […]
The Combat Modifiers section on page 171 of the core book suggests giving +2 to attacks that have “advantageous circumstances” and -2 to attacks from adverse circumstances. The bonus can come from a particularly clever use of the terrain or a surprising combat maneuver. A bonus might also come from some special circumstance of the […]
So ye seek the lost treasure of Karrag Voraldo, do ye? There’s a tale about Voraldo told in the taverns of Shadow Port that ye should know, then. They say that during the Age of Corsairs he was a trusted lieutenant of the King of Corsairs himself, until greed overcame him. He began lying to […]
The Free RPG Day adventure Make Your Own Luck (get it here!) begins with an army of trolls and goblins besieging the town of Harrowdale. As written, the siege is a jumping-off point that gives the events in the adventure context. If you want to explore the ongoing tension and danger of defending a town […]
In the 13th Age Facebook group, a new GM asked for good examples of PC backgrounds. I offered some, but couldn’t help also giving advice on what makes a good background. (It’s one of my favorite mechanics in the game.) I said that a good background doesn’t just outline your character’s backstory in three or […]
In part one I described how Crown of Axis began with an invitation to write the next big introductory adventure for 13th Age, and my idea to set it in the Emperor’s city of Axis. I just had to convince Rob Heinsoo this was a good idea! First, I read everything ever written about Axis in […]
Elven Towers is a fantastic new adventure from Cal Moore—if you pre-order the print edition now, you get the full PDF and color map folio immediately as a download. It does some really interesting things with 13th Age design, but as a GM I also love that it’s full of creepy monsters. With Halloween on […]
If you attended the 13th Age Monster Workshop at Gen Con Online this past weekend, you were treated to some odd and creepy fun with gnomes. It reminded me that way back in 2013, when 13th Age was still brand new, I ran this weird little adventure at Gen Con. It was a lot of […]
When you need a new monster in 13th Age, customizing an existing monster is a great option. For this post, we’ll turn an existing monster—the human thug—into a variety of guards from across the Dragon Empire by adding a single, distinctive special ability. Player characters in 13th Age (and almost every other RPG) tend to […]
