13th Age: The Talented Rogue

The best way to describe a stereotypical rogue is simply not possible. Rogues always have a wide assortment of tricks up their sleeves that they area easy to mistake for a fighter or a wizard. While it is true that they get themselves out of bad situations as quick as they get themselves into them, know the best routes of escape, are aware of which guards are not paying attention, and can tell you how many coins were in that merchant’s purse, the way they go about all this is unique to the individual rogue. That is as true in 13th Age as it is in any other fantasy roleplaying game, and our latest release for 13th Age helps rogues to find their own unique style.

13 Rogue Talents and Powers gives your rogue new ways to show some flare. The rogues at Jon Brazer Enterprises managed to steal this little tidbit and are sharing it with you letting you see what is inside this bag of goodies. To see what else is inside, be sure to come back to the JBE Blog next week as we share more.

Of course, what rogue can wait? Instead, download it now at the JBE Shop, DriveThruRPG, and the Open Gaming Store.

Magical Savant

Choose a number of wizard cantrips equal to the highest of your Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma modifier; you can cast them like a wizard who lacks the Cantrip Mastery talent.
Adventurer Feat: Choose one wizard spell of your level or lower. Regardless of the spell’s usual frequency of use, it is a daily power for you. When you cast this spell, it has an effective level equal to the current escalation die, up to a maximum of your own level.
Champion Feat: If you have momentum, your Sneak Attack feature works when you cast this spell on an enemy that would normally be subjected to it, even at range.
Epic Feat: You no longer need momentum in order for your Sneak Attack feature to work with your chosen spell. Additionally, your chosen spell becomes recharge 11+ after battle rather than a daily power.

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Traveller: The Reidian Flyer Blasts into your Game

The Reidian Flyer-class Blockade Runner punches through enemy forces and orbital defenses with amazing speed. This starcraft outstrips missiles and quickly flies out of range of anything pursuing it. Now your Travellers can upgrade their game in the Original Traveller Universe beyond the Imperial borders. In the Foreven Worlds, danger lurks behind every asteroid—arm yourself well and live to make a cargo run another day!

This includes a 6-page PDF with full details about the ship and an 18″ x 12″ poster for you to print and hang on your wall.

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Traveller: Magmites

When we finally travel to different solar systems, one of the lifeforms we are expecting to find are called snottites. They are a glob of single-celled organisms that dissolve rocks and other mineral deposits for substance. It gets its name from the fact that it has a consistency close to snot. That is perfect for a game that is closer to hard science fiction like Traveller, except snot is not all that exciting. However, if it had a body similar to magma, that gets considerably more interesting. Blobs have been in Dungeons and Dragons since the beginning. I have yet to see one in Traveller and considering they do have a basis in reality (not the gelatinous cube, obviously), it only makes sense that this game should have a blob monster as well. This one just happens to be composed of magma.

Magmites come from deep inside a planet or moon. It is life made from the molten core inside the planet. When they come up to the surface through volcanic activity or quakes, they can quickly eat away at anything from living flesh to the metal of a space ship. It just burns away anything that it touches. It is not intelligent at all and as such lacks skills. So anything that it wants to do it is just a straight roll. However, anything it touches does take 2D damage In addition, anything that touches it—like melee weapons or those using their claws—take 2D damage.

These magmites will be in the upcoming Foreven Worlds: Creatures of Distant Worlds. Check out all of our Traveller products at DriveThruRPG.

Image by Gary Dupuis
Animal Hits Speed
Magmites 40 3 m
Skills —
Attacks Burn (2D)
Traits Immune to Everything (Cold), Large (+3), Natural Healing (1D/day), Slow Metabolism (–4)
Behaviour Herbivore, Grazer
Burn: The animal sets on fire whatever it touches. Anything in the same space as the animal takes the listed damage. Attacks against the animal using bare flesh—such as a fist or claws—take the burn damage.
Immune to Everything (Damage Type): The animal takes no damage from any source except what is listed in the Immune to Everything trait. For example, those immune to everything except cold take 1D damage for every gallon of water thrown on the creature.
Natural Healing (Damage/Interval): The animal heals itself by the listed amount every interval.

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Traveller: Reidian Flyer Poster

Whenever I play Traveller, I like to have the ship my players are in in a large format hanging on a wall for quick reference so they can see it in full detail. So when I set up to do the single ships for Traveller, I decided to include a poster map of the ships with its specs and an external picture. Having this helps to immerse my players in the universe of Traveller that much more at the start of every game session. We did this with the Gannet that we produced last year and we are doing this again for the Reidian Flyer.

The Reidian Flyer, incase you do not follow all the sneak peeks I post to Twitter or Facebook, is a blockade runner. What would normally be over a hundred tons cargo space is taken up with a high burn thruster reaction fuel. When the high burn and the standard gravitic drive are engaged at the same time, it produces a a full 11G of thrust, allowing the ship to pull away from pursuing missiles and get away from attacking ships. Whether your characters are passengers or in command of a Reidian Flyer, they can expect a bumpy ride while they are being shot at.

Download the Reidian Flyer when it is released and be sure to check out all of JBE’s other Mongoose Traveller 2e releases exclusively at DriveThruRPG.

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The Big Meeting

There have been quite a good many decisions that needed to be made concerning the direction of JBE for the next few months. Yesterday, I decided that we needed a company-wide meeting to resolve them. That happened this morning. Here are the results:

  1. Focus on Fifth Edition, Traveller, and 13th Age for the next few months. This is to clear out the backlog of stuff we wanted to publish last year but didn’t because official Pathfinder support is ending. We have plans to continue supporting these games after the backlog is complete. We discussed adventures for Traveller and 5e, ships and monsters for Traveller, subclasses and more for 5e, and a PHB2-like print book for 13th Age.
  2. No final decision on Pathfinder 2e support. We are waiting to see the final rules and license before making a determination on that front.
  3. Continued support of Pathfinder 1e. That is right, JBE will continue with PFRPG 1e. We do not have anything ready to go immediately so do not expect to see anything from us before summer, but we love this game and will continue to support it and its fans. How this will interact with possible PF2 support is yet to be determined.

We are really excited about all of this and hope that you are on board as well. Tell us your thoughts and what you want to see from us in the comments below.

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5e: Brass Golem

Next month, Jon Brazer Enterprises returns to gaming stores, and we could not be more thrilled. It has been about 5 years since our last book was shipped to game stores. We left because the logistics of getting a book to print on a regular basis was more than I could handle at that time. As time past, my circumstances have changed, and now I can bring all the awesome books we have been working on for the past few years to your gaming table via your local game store. We are kicking that off with the high level adventure Deadly Delves: Temple of Luminescence.

For those of you that do not know, our Deadly Delves line of adventures are designed to be easily dropped in to your campaign with little modification. Each adventure is self-contained. The Temple of Luminescence, as an example, can be added to any campaign setting by the GM changing one name to the setting’s Sun deity. Even then, if you are building your own setting, we included the deity and some details, making your job easier if you so desire.

Not only does the Temple of Luminescence easily fit into most games, it can even be a place where the adventurers go-to earlier in their campaign, seeing as how this location is associated with a major good-aligned deity and the majority of those inside are good (if misguided and deceived in this adventure). They could get to know the place and even work for the guy they will be fighting here.

One of the guardians of the temple is a brass golem. This high level monster is only one of the challenges your characters will face should they fight their way through the temple.

It is an interesting adventure that most gamers won’t see coming. Be sure to tell your local game store today that you want a copy. They can order it for you for release day in February.

Brass Golem

Huge construct, unaligned

Armor Class 17
Hit Points 189 (18d12 + 72)
Speed 40 ft.

STR 21 (+5) DEX 9 (–1) CON 19 (+4)
INT 3 (–4) WIS 10 (+0) CHA 1 (–5)

Damage Immunities fire, poison, psychic; bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical weapons that aren’t adamantine
Condition Immunities charmed, exhaustion, frightened, paralyzed, petrified, poisoned
Senses darkvision 120 ft., passive Perception 10
Languages understands the languages of its creator but can’t speak
Challenge 15 (13,000 XP)

Cold Sensitivity. If the golem takes cold damage from a spell or magical effect, it is restrained. At the start of each of its turns while restrained, roll a d6. On a 6, the golem is no longer restrained.
Death Throes. The golem explodes when it is destroyed. All creatures within 30 feet of the golem must make a DC 17 Constitution saving throw, taking 36 (8d8) fire damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.
Fire Absorption. Whenever the golem is subjected to fire damage, it takes no damage and instead regains a number of hit points equal to the fire damage dealt.
Immutable Form. The golem is immune to any spell or effect that would alter its form.
Magic Resistance. The golem has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.
Magic Weapons. The golem’s weapon attacks are magical.

Actions

Multiattack. The golem makes two melee attacks.
Brass Falchion. Melee Weapon Attack: +10 to hit, reach 15 ft., one target. Hit: 18 (3d8 + 5) slashing damage plus 14 (4d6) fire damage.
Slam. Melee Weapon Attack: +10 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 15 (3d6 + 5) bludgeoning damage plus 14 (4d6) fire damage.
Breath Weapon (Recharge 5–6). A cloud of smoke and cinders fills a 20-foot radius. Each creature in that area must make a DC 17 Dexterity saving throw, taking 21 (6d6) fire damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful save. On each of the golem’s turn, roll a d6. On a 6, the cloud disperses. Otherwise, it remains and deals damage as above to creatures entering the area.

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Traveller: What Monsters Do You Want to See?

Doing an update to the original Creatures of Distant Worlds has been on my agenda since the release of MGT2e. While I have been working on it a little here and there since then, I have been hard at work on it for a few weeks and are pleased to announce that Foreven Worlds: Creatures of Distant Worlds will be released very soon. But before that happens, I just thought I would ask you Traveller fans what you would like to see inside. We do not want to miss something that you want included. Please let us know in the comments below and we will do our best to include it.

Remember to check out all of our Second Edition Mongoose Traveller offerings at DriveThruRPG.

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State of the Enterprise 2018

Hey everyone. It is that time of year again where I look back at the year coming to a close and forward to the year ahead. 2018 was a big year for the company and for the world at large. In many ways it was the year I expected even hoped for and many others it was not the year I expected at all.

Personal Life

Incase you hadn’t heard, I moved half way across the USA this year. I use to live in New Jersey and now I live in Missouri. My wife got a job that she has been working towards for some time now. We’re thrilled about this, but it has impacted my writing schedule.

What we hoped would happen but didn’t really expect was us buying a house. So in the past 4 months, we moved twice. Even right now, I’m still moving boxes that we never had the chance to unpack after the first move. So my writing schedule has been impacted again. If you want to know why we have not produced much since GenCon, that’s the primary reason (more on other reasons in a bit).

Pathfinder

Another wrench in the schedule is the announcement of Pathfinder Second Edition. I guessed this was coming a while back, but it still took me by surprise. We were just starting to get a solid stream of high level adventures under us when the announcement came. So we made our Pathfinder adventures a priority and we got almost all of them published before the release of the 2e playtest. I’m sad for the ones we cut from the schedule but it is entirely possible they will be seen in the future, either as Pathfinder 2e adventures, Fifth Edition adventures, possibly even 13th Age, or dare I say it Pathfinder 1e adventures.

As my own recent poll revealed, PF2e is not as popular as I (and many others) expected it to be. There still may be people playing PF1e for quite some time. We will keep monitoring the situation as things develop. Frankly, I don’t expect us to make a final decision on as to whether we are going to 2e or staying 1e (or even doing both) until we see the final rules and the compatible license. However, if you had asked me about it six months ago, I would have just assumed we’re going 2e and that is that. The fact that we’re considering other options should give you an indication of the situation.

Fifth Edition

The current push we are on is to make all of our Pathfinder adventures and other supplements available for 5e. We want to have just as much if diverse library of material for 5e as we do Pathfinder.

One thing we are doing with 5e we have not done in years with Pathfinder is get our books into distribution. Deadly Delves: Temple of Luminescence will be our first adventure making it’s way into game stores for this game. Shortly thereafter will follow Along Came a Spider. The latter was first released when 5e was still young, and our experience with the game was rather low (as was everyone’s). Since then we’ve leveled up our 5e game and we have plans for 5e supplements both print and PDF well into the new year. These include conversations of existing Pathfinder material as well as brand new supplements that are never seen before.

That was what a decent amount of my time has gone to as of late. When I said above that the move was the primary eater of my time, well working through the logistics to get this set up has another major time investment. It will be well worth it when all is ready to go.

Traveller

“Look for that in 2018.” That is what we said concerning several projects for Traveller in the State of the Enterprise 2017. So it is fair to say that things have not gone according to plan this year. We released our first single ships last month… and that is all we published this year for Traveller. Needless to say that was not the plan this time last year. We still have the last two parts of the Prelude to War adventure path. We have a number of monsters and vehicles that we want to turn into their own books. And we want to publish a number of small settings that you can integrate into the Foreven Worlds, elsewhere in the Third Imperium, or somewhere in a different setting. So we have our hands full for the year ahead.

13th Age


We continued our 13 Class Options series with 13 Wizard Cantrips and Spells and 13 Cleric Domains and Spells. The still not yet named 13 Rogue Options has fallen victim to the same time crunch we’ve described above from the moves and the Pathfinder schedule reschuffeling. Plus, we want to take the time to make each one that much more awesome. When we are satisfied with it, you’ll be the first to know.

After the “core four” classes, we plan to get to the others published. Let us know which you would like us to tackle sooner than others. We’d love to hear your thoughts.

2019 and Beyond

The next few months, JBE is focusing on 5e, Traveller, and hopefully some 13th Age as well because they received so little love last year. That will be our plan for the next four-to-six months. Beyond that, we have a number of ideas but nothing concrete. One thing is for sure, 2019 is going to see some big changes from us. We have all the printing logistics worked out, and I will be working on the company full time in the new year. This means we finally have both the means and opportunity to do things we have been dreaming about for a decade. I can’t say for sure yet which way we will be going, but expect big things from us this year.

By big things, I do mean sizable books or possibly our own system or our own setting. The last time we tried something like this was with Shadowsfall back in 2012 (almost 7 years ago!). Back then, we had the means (being in game stores then as well) but really lacked the opportunity to do it at the level we wanted. Having the experience from publishing so many more rules supplements and adventures since then, we are more prepared to embark on this dramatic step.

The road ahead is exciting, and we are ready for this adventure. We hope you will join us on our epic quest.

That pretty much wraps up our look back of the year and the look ahead. So from all of us, we hope you enjoy your time with family and friends this season, and we will see you in the new year.

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5e: Giant Gingerbread Golem

While we at JBE don’t have a Book of Beasts: War on Yuletide or similar book of holiday themed monsters for Fifth Edition yet, I thought I would share with you one of my favorite monsters from that book converted to this game. The monster was originally inspired by Mongo from Shrek 2. Gingy is my wife’s favorite character so she squeed when she first saw Mongo. So I thought I would bring this guy to life, so to speak.

I hope you enjoy him in your 5e games. Treat yourself and download our 5e products as a gift to yourself.

Giant Gingerbreak Golem

Gargantuan construct, unaligned
Armor Class 17 (natural armor)
Hit Points 145 (10d20 + 40)
Speed 30 ft.

Str 22 (+6) Dex 11 (+0) Con 19 (+4)
Int 4 (–3) Wis 12 (+1) Cha 1 (–5)

Damage Immunities fire; bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks that aren’t adamantine
Condition Immunities charmed, exhaustion, frightened, paralyzed, petrified, poisoned
Senses darkvision 120 ft., passive Perception 11
Languages —
Challenge 11 (7,200 XP)

Fire Hardening. Whenever the giant gingerbread golem is subjected to fire damage, its surface becomes harder, but it becomes less flexible. Until the end of the giant gingerbread golem’s next turn, it takes no damage from bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing attacks that aren’t adamantine, and its speed is reduced to 20 feet.
Immutable Form. The golem is immune to any spell or effect that would alter its form.
Magic Resistance. The golem has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.
Magic Weapons. The golem’s weapon attacks are magical.
Stomping Walk. The giant gingerbread golem shakes the very ground, causing those nearby to fall prone. Any creature standing on the ground when a giant gingerbread golem walks within 5 feet of them that fails a DC 18 Dexterity save falls prone.

Actions

Multiattack. The giant gingerbread golem makes two slam attacks.
Slam. Melee Weapon Attack: +10 to hit, reach 10 ft.; one target. Hit: 28 (4d10 + 6) bludgeoning damage.
Spice Breath (Recharge 5-6). A giant gingerbread golem exhales coarsely-ground cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg. Each creature in a 30-foot cone must make a DC 18 Dexterity saving throw, taking 73 (21d6) slashing damage damage on a failed save and has disadvantage to all Dexterity (Stealth) checks for the next 3 days as the creature smells like spices, or half as much damage on a successful one and does not have disadvantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks.

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