Exploring#

Doors, dark and the road

Picking a lock, finding a secret door, following a trail and slipping past a guard are all checks (The Basics), and this page has the DCs the world sets for them. Traps spring on whoever walks in, the dark hides everything from anyone without a light, and the road between places can always turn up something hungry.

Locks#

To pick a lock you need lockpicks or thieves’ tools in your pack. Roll a d20, add your Dexterity modifier and a tenth of your lockpicking, and meet the lock’s DC. A natural 20 always opens it. A natural 1 that fails snaps one of your lockpicks; thieves’ tools never break. A picked door is unlocked on both sides but still closed, and a picked chest stands open. A guard who sees you try attacks you. Sedia’s locks run from DC 10 to 25, and most sit between 12 and 18.

A pickpocket’s pick abilities open a lock of their own kind or a lesser one with no lockpicks at all, and break none: a d20 at or over the ability’s difficulty. Fortify lock adds its roll to a lock’s DC for a while, against every way of picking it. Some locks can’t be picked at all, and those open only for their key.

Forcing a door#

A closed door that won’t open can be smashed. It’s a Strength check, and the door’s DC depends on what it’s made of. Both rooms hear every blow.

Wedged shut

4 more.

Locked

6 more, and 2 more for every 5 points the lock's DC is over 10. A lock that can't be picked never gives.

Your size

Small takes 2 off, large adds 2 and huge adds 4. Something tiny can't smash a door at all.

A smashed door stands open on both sides and can’t be closed or locked until someone mends it with a hammer, which works half the time. To wedge a door, open or shut, you need a hammer and a wedge, which it uses up. Wedged shut it won’t open from either side; knocking the wedge out again is a Strength check.

Searching#

Going over a room for what’s hidden rolls a d20 for each hidden thing in it: add your Wisdom modifier and a tenth of your searching, and meet its DC. Secret doors in Sedia’s ruins are DC 10 to 18. A natural 20 always finds it. Resting while you look takes 5 off, and you can’t search asleep.

A search turns up secret ways, traps and anything a quest asks you to notice. Something hidden on purpose (a purse under a floorboard, a letter in a lining) turns up six times in ten. It doesn’t find hidden people: for those, see Unseen and unheard.

Traps#

Some places are trapped for anyone who walks in, and spring again every hour you stay. Only the first kind a place has springs.

Fire

A blast of flame. One time in four the smoke blinds you as well, for 1d6 hours. Any resistance to fire spares you.

Ice

A bolt of ice. Any resistance to water spares you.

Rocks

A rain of stones. Only full resistance to earth spares you.

Pit

The floor gives way and drops you to the room below, which springs its own traps on you. Anyone flying is spared.

Fire, ice and rocks do damage between two thirds of your level and your level, at least 1, and never take you below 1 health. A Dexterity saving throw against DC 15 halves it.

Woodsmen set traps of their own. One springs on the first foe of its setter who walks in, and lasts fifteen hours. Anyone can find one by searching, against 10 plus its setter’s Dexterity modifier. Disarming one takes the trap proficiency of its tier or a better one: a d20 and a tenth of that proficiency against 5 for a basic trap, 10 for a complex one (set at level 40 or more) and 15 for a magical one (at 50 or more). A character with reflex adaptation gets to leap clear as one springs: a d20 and their level against the trap’s level and its setter’s.

Tracking#

Everyone who walks out of a place by a way out leaves a track, even sneaking. A place keeps the five freshest, one for each person, and a track fades after about fifteen hours.

A pickpocket’s track reads every track there is. A woodsman’s tracking reads each on a d20 at or over 10 plus its maker’s level, less the woodsman’s: the stronger the quarry, the fainter the trail. Cover tracks wipes a place’s tracks and keeps it from taking new ones for a while. Following a trail across open country without either ability is a Wisdom check (The Basics).

Unseen and unheard#

The stealth abilities don’t roll. While you hold one, it simply works, until a blow lands on you or you land one.

Hiding

Hide, shadow walk, shadow walking and stalk shadows keep you from being seen out of a fight. Plain hide ends when you leave the place; the others go with you.

Sneaking

Sneak and stalk shadows move you without a sound: nobody hears you come or go.

Invisibility

Nobody sees you, in a fight or out, except someone with detect invisibility.

Seeing through it

Expert hunting sees everyone hiding in the shadows, though it can't root them out.

Without an ability it’s a contest: your Dexterity check against the Wisdom check of whoever might notice you. The dark hides you from anyone who can’t see in it.

Tight places#

Ladders, rungs and handholds can be climbed by anyone, and a hard climb is a Strength check. A flier, like someone under float, takes a climb as level ground and crosses open air nobody else can. Swimming against a current is a Strength check, and armor makes it harder.

Some ways are too low or narrow to walk: a crawlway, a squeeze between slabs. Each is marked with the largest size that walks it, and anyone bigger has to crawl, at half speed for twice the stamina. Your size comes from your height:

The dark#

The sun rises at 5 and sets at 18. From sunset to sunrise the open land is dark: fields, forests, roads, hills and caves. Fog, a blizzard or a winter storm darkens the day as well. Rooms under a roof and city streets are never dark from the sky, but some places are dark at any hour.

In the dark you see nothing at all: not the way out, not who’s there, not what’s lying on the floor. In a fight you’re blind (Conditions). A torch, a candle, a lantern or a conjured light lights the place it’s in for everyone there, carried or set down (Light). Infravision sees the people in the dark, and dark vision the things.

Hazards of the land#

Some places hurt you just for standing in them: a vent field, a drowned hall, a salt pan at noon. Every hour you’re there, each of the place’s hazards strikes on the chance it gives. Damage from a hazard never takes you below 1 health, so it wears a party down rather than killing them, and resistance to its element cuts it the way it cuts a blow.

Leaving is the cure. The hazards that take from your aim or your dexterity last two hours after you get out, and staying only keeps them fresh: they never stack.

In the deep places#

Caves and mines are never quite still. Once an hour underground, or whenever the party goes quiet for too long, roll a d20. On 15 or more nothing stirs; under that, read the line.

On the road#

Sedia’s maps are cut into areas, and a road is counted in the areas of country it crosses. Each one takes a quarter of a day on foot, so a party walking from dawn to dusk covers about four. A mount covers an area in 6 hours divided by the quarters of its speed: 6 hours at ¼, 3 at 2/4, 2 at ¾ and an hour and a half at 4/4 (Mounts).

For each area the road crosses, roll a d10: on a 1, something that lives there bars the way and attacks, and nothing else will on that journey. The encounter roller picks it by ground and level. Kill it and walk on, or flee back the way you came; either way the rest of the road is clear.

The table gives the days on foot between each province’s chief town as the crow flies, a quarter of a day for every area between them. Roads wind and hills climb, so a real journey runs longer: add a day or two where the way crosses mountains, swamp or the Sands of Bone.

Pacing a journey

Four areas is a good day’s walk, but nobody has to walk it. A party that rests at every inn, stops to haggle, or gets caught by weather takes longer, and a storm or a broken bridge is a better story than a d10.