The Basics#

What the dice decide

When something could go wrong and it matters if it does, roll a d20, add the modifier of the score it leans on and a tenth of any ability of yours made for the job, and meet the DC the storyteller sets. A saving throw is the same roll made to shrug something off. This page also has every condition in one place, and how health, stamina and willpower come back.

Rolling a check#

Most of what a character does just happens: they walk to the market, buy bread, climb the stairs. Call for a check only when the attempt could fail and failing would matter. Roll a d20 and add:

Your modifier

The modifier of the score it leans on: strength to force a door, wisdom to notice the ambush. Getting Started has how to work it out.

An ability made for it

If one of your abilities is made for the job (pick basic lock for a lock, tracking for a trail), add a tenth of its efficacy, rounded down: the same tenth an attack adds.

Help or hindrance

Give 2 more or 2 less for whatever helps or hurts: good tools, a rushed job, a friend lending a hand, a storm in your face.

Meet or beat the DC and you do it. Miss it and you don’t, or you do it at a cost: the lock opens but the pick snaps, the climb goes fine until the last handhold.

Natural 20s and 1s

A natural 20 does anything that could be done at all, and a natural 1 fails whatever you add to it, the way the attack roll works. If one of your abilities was in the roll, a natural 20 also earns it a practice tick (Levels).

What each score is for#

Seven scores cover everything a character can try. When it isn’t obvious which one a check leans on, ask what would make someone good at it.

Against someone else#

When two people want opposite things (a thief slipping past a guard, two sailors arm-wrestling), both roll and the higher total wins. A tie goes to whoever was already there: the guard, the one holding the door.

When several try the same thing, whoever’s best placed rolls, and each who can actually help adds 2. Four people pushing a cart is a help. Four people picking one lock is not.

Saving throws#

A saving throw is a check to shrug something off: poison in a cup, a fever going round the ward, a trap’s needle, a night on the mountain. The storyteller sets its DC by how bad it is, and you add the modifier of the score that resists it (What each score is for). Make it and you shake it off, or take half if it’s damage.

Abilities that name a difficulty (DC 15 to blind) are rolled by whoever uses them, the way the game rolls them: a d20 at or over the DC lands it. You don’t save against those. The exception is gear that gives you an extra saving throw against that kind of harm, like armor that’s steadfast against stuns or hunters against poison (Loot & Shops): then it lands only if you also fail a saving throw against the same DC.

Setting a save

Use the check DCs. A mild poison or a cold night is 10, bloodmoss or a fever 15, the deadly ones 20 or more. A creature’s venom is 10 plus a fifth of its level.

A scene, roll by roll#

Three of the ready-made characters come to a locked warehouse on the Tharsis docks at night, looking for a stolen cart of candles. This is how the rules sound at the table.

1. StorytellerThe warehouse door is oak with an iron lock, and there's a lantern moving behind the next row of crates. A watchman, humming.
2. RikazzI'll pick the lock while he's on the far side.A check: d20 + Dexterity modifier 2 + a tenth of his lockpicking, 0 for now. He rolls 11, for 13. The storyteller set the lock at DC 12. It opens.
3. StorytellerThe watchman stops humming. Is somebody there?
4. HaldiI stand very still in the shadow of the crates.A contest: Haldi's Dexterity check against the watchman's Wisdom check. Haldi rolls 9 + 2 = 11. The watchman rolls 7 + 2 = 9. He shrugs and goes back to humming.
5. EremayisInside, I want to know which crates were moved recently.A Wisdom check, DC 10 for fresh tracks in sawdust. A natural 20: he finds the cart's tracks, and the trapdoor they lead to.
6. StorytellerThe trapdoor breathes up a sweet, rotten smell. Everyone near it, a Constitution saving throw, DC 15.
7. EveryoneRikazz makes it. Haldi and Eremayis don't.Those two are Exhausted for the hour: 2 off attack rolls and checks, and no running. Whatever's down there, they're meeting it tired.

Only roll when it matters

Nobody rolled to walk to the docks, find the warehouse or open an unlocked door. Each roll above is one where failing would have changed the story.

Conditions#

Whatever the dice leave on you, in one place. A condition lasts as long as what caused it says, or until something takes it off: a priest’s dispel, a cure from an alchemist, a night’s rest. Those that come off your feet are on Defending too, and those that come from losing a fight on Defeat & Death.

Asleep

You lose your turns, your guards don't count and blows do double. Any blow wakes you, and so does a shake from a friend.

Blind

Take 4 off your attack rolls, or 2 if you have blind fighting.

Diseased

Take 1d4 at the end of every round of a fight, 1 off your attack rolls and 5 off your damage, until it's cured.

Drunk

Everything you say comes out slurred, and you can't get another drink to your mouth. When you cast a spell, roll a d20: on a 6 or less the words slur and it never starts, though you still pay for it. Keep drinking and that climbs as high as 17. It wears off a little every hour (Drinking).

Exhausted

Take 2 off your attack rolls and checks. You can't run, use a combat skill or use an ability paid in stamina. It lasts as long as what caused it says, or until an hour's rest out of the weather.

Frightened

Every round you try to flee instead of fighting. If you can't get away, you cower and do nothing.

Held

Hamstrung, shackled or on a broken leg. You can't walk, follow or flee, though you can still fight whoever's in reach.

Lingering harm

A wound, a burn or a frostbite that keeps hurting: the damage it names at the end of every round, for the rounds it names. A bleeding wound stops your health coming back until it closes.

Off-balance

Take 2 off your Defense until your next turn.

Poisoned

Lose a share of your most health at the end of every round of a fight: a twentieth for bloodmoss, up to a quarter for krakken (Poisons), until it wears off or is cured.

Prone

Knocked down or tripped. Take 2 off your attack rolls and 4 off your Defense until you get up, which takes a turn.

Silenced

You can't cast. Abilities that aren't spells still work.

Slowed

Everything you pay for in stamina costs twice as much, and any haste on you is gone.

Stunned

You lose your turns while it lasts, your guards don't count and blows do double.

Getting it back#

Out of a fight, health, stamina and willpower come back every hour, and how you spend the hour decides how much. Nothing comes back during a fight.

Each is for every score at 10. Add half a point an hour for every 2 points over 10 of the score behind it (constitution for health, dexterity for stamina, wisdom for willpower), rounded down at the end. A night’s sleep, eight hours of it, gives back 72 health, 96 stamina and 72 willpower before those.

A campfire adds two thirds to what everyone at it gets back, a good bed at an inn or at home adds more, and a priest’s reverence doubles it. Being caught resting or asleep when a fight starts is dangerous: Off your feet has what it costs.

Food, water and sleep#

Go three days without water or six without food and what you get back each hour is halved, and halved again if it’s both. Neither kills you by these rules. Eat and drink before you fight again (Food & Drink).

Tired

After about five days without sleep. Take 1 off your attack rolls, and anyone attacking you adds 1.

Asleep on your feet

After six. Take 2 off and they add 2, and whenever you aren't fighting you nod off where you stand and drop whatever you're holding.

Only characters past level 10 tire this way, and a constitution of 18 or more lasts twice as long. Resting holds you where you are. Every hour asleep makes up for as many hours awake as your Constitution score.

Long marches

These rules are gentle on purpose, since a party’s days are usually full of more interesting trouble than hunger. When the journey is the story (a desert crossing, a siege, a winter in the mountains) count the days and let the saves start early.