Skill Checks

 

A skill check is made to perform some problematic action that requires skill. There are twenty skills in the game, and each one has a governing statistic. A skill check is a d20 plus the character stat modifier (always), proficiency modifier (if the skill is trained), and miscellaneous bonuses (which can come from various sources). Characters can attempt to use non-intellect-based skills they are not proficient in. They still roll a d20, but only add their governing stat modifier (not their proficiency modifier). Intellect-based skills are different; they cannot be attempted untrained. 

• Success Levels. When a character attempts a skill check they roll a d20 and add their total modifier, attempting to hit the target difficulty. If they roll a natural 1 the roll is a critical failure and something bad happens. If they succeed by 5 or more the roll is a critical success. If they succeed by 10 or more the roll is an epic success. Whenever a skill check has the potential for some additional benefit beyond simple success or failure, these levels of success can come into play. 

• Cross Training. Sometimes the same activity can be performed using different skills. There are many examples of this; Acrobat and Athlete can be used to jump, Survival and Nature can both be used to predict weather, Investigation and Diplomacy can both be used to summarize a pub crawl looking for rumors, etc. In situations where two skills could both be used to perform the same task, it is appropriate to assign different difficulty levels for each if one is more applicable than the other. Toolset training may also be used in place of a skill if the task directly relates to the toolset being used. 

• Support. Sometimes a character making a skill check can benefit from the support of someone else with the same skill. In situations where this applies, the supporting character grants a +2 bonus. 

Teamwork. Sometimes everyone in the party needs to attempt the same skill check. In these situations, at least HALF of the characters must succeed for the group to succeed. The pros are assumed to adequately support their less able companions and get them through it. This is particularly true in the case of athletics, deception, and stealth checks. If half of the party can get up the wall, trick the guards, or sneak up on the orcs, everyone can.

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Saving Throws 

 

A saving throw (or “save” for short) is a roll made to resist a harmful effect. There are three kinds; fortitude, reflex, and will. Every class is proficient in one (or sometimes two) saves. Proficiency in a save means that, in addition to adding your governing statistic modifier to the roll, you also add your total proficiency bonus. Nonproficient saves add your governing statistic modifier plus half of your proficiency bonus, rounded down.

• Fortitude saves deal with effects one can resist through toughness or physical stamina, such as poison. They are influenced by the ENDURANCE statistic. 

• Reflex saves deal with area effects one can resist by leaping out of the way, such as explosions. They are influenced by the AGILITY statistic. 

• Will saves deal with mental effects one can resist with willpower. They are influenced by the SPIRIT statistic. 

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Ailments

 

Not all harm that characters experience can be expressed in health points. Danger may also take the form of environmental hazards such as weather, starvation, disease, etc. These threats are serious because they are ongoing and cannot be resolved through simple combat. To avoid unnecessary redundancy and paranoia, it is fine for players to address these concerns when establishing protocols (see page xxx). If the Storyteller wishes to ignore these “mundane” environmental dangers in favor of a more action-intensive game, that is their prerogative. 

• Blindness & Deafness. Creatures that rely on sight to function are hampered by its loss. A blinded creature fails any ability check involving sight. Attack rolls against the creature have advantage, and the creature’s attack rolls have disadvantage. Creatures that rely on hearing to function are hampered by its loss. A deafened creature automatically fails any ability check relying on hearing. 

• Charmed. This is a general term used to describe several different types of mental compulsion. Unless otherwise noted in the description of the effects, a charmed creature regards its charmer as an ally. It will not willingly harm or endanger its charmer, and all social skill checks made by the charmer to influence the target have advantage. This effect ENDS IMMEDIATELY if the charmed creature is attacked by the charmer or her allies. Just because a target is charmed does not necessarily mean it views its former allies as enemies. While most evil creatures will not hesitate to attack their former allies, neutral or good-aligned creatures will likely defend their charmer or flee in confusion to avoid being forced to choose who to support. 

• Disease. There are two basic ways to contract a disease; exposure to a source of illness (such as a crowd of sick people or a pile of rotten filth) or a random encounter. Because adventurers travel and come into contact with various people and places, adding incidental sickness to encounter tables is reasonable. Not all diseases allow for a fortitude save. If players take risky actions that expose them to a high viral load, it is reasonable to state that they simply get sick. There are many types of disease, and some manifest very differently. Unless the Storyteller wishes to include this level of detail, the following rules can be used. After every long rest, the victim must make a fortitude save with variable difficulty. Every time a save is failed, the victim develops one level of exhaustion that cannot be removed with rest. If the victim succeeds on a fortitude save, one level of exhaustion is removed. They recover from the disease if they make two successful fortitude saves. If a character reaches six levels of exhaustion, they die. Getting complete bed rest offers advantage on the save. Medicine can offer hefty bonuses as well. 

  • Characters who have already experienced a given disease may develop immunity. If the disease is particularly virulent and there is a risk of catching it again, assume the survivor gains advantage on any ensuing fortitude saves to resist. If an epidemic is underway, it is sensible for players to voluntarily catch a disease and weather it under ideal conditions (medicine, rest, magic, etc.) to reduce their chances of catching it later when these things may not be available. 

• Poison. Poison has two effects. First, it deals a certain amount of damage to the victim. Second, if the victim fails a fortitude save, they will suffer extra damage and some debilitating effect. Unless otherwise noted in the poison's description, the victim suffers disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks until the poison is treated or overcome. Other forms of poison can induce paralysis, sleep, etc. While most poison damage occurs immediately, the poison's disabling effects normally occur after a variable number of rounds or minutes. 

• Starvation. If a character goes without food for 2 days, they suffer one level of exhaustion. A character who goes without food loses 1d6 points of endurance a week. Eating normally removes this level of exhaustion after one day, and characters with regular food regain 1 lost point of endurance each day. Dehydration is far more dangerous. If a character goes without water for 1 day, they suffer two levels of exhaustion. Every day a character goes without water, they lose 1d4 points of endurance. Drinking normally removes these levels of exhaustion after one day, and characters with regular access to potable water regain 2 lost points of endurance each day. 

• Heatstroke. Prolonged exposure to high heat is dangerous to unprotected characters. Depending on the environment and level of exertion, a character in this situation will need to roll a fortitude save after a variable period. Failure causes 1 level of exhaustion. Successive failed checks result in additional levels of exhaustion. If removed from the heat, characters can use an interlude to remove one level of heat exhaustion.

• Hypothermia. Prolonged exposure to extreme cold is dangerous to unprotected characters. Depending on the environment, a character in this situation must roll a fortitude save after a variable period. Failure causes 1 level of exhaustion. Successive failed checks result in the loss of 1d4 points of endurance. If taken out of the cold and given a source of heat, a character can attempt one new fortitude save every hour to regain 2 points of endurance. Being immersed in freezing water is extremely dangerous; it forces an immediate fortitude save, with an additional save required for every minute of exposure. Even after removal from the water, fortitude saves must continue every minute, and no attempt at recovery can be made while the character wears wet clothing.

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Perception

 

• Illumination. There are four levels of lighting: darkness, dim, bright, and blinding. Creatures with special visual abilities, such as dark sight or infravision, treat darkness and dim lighting as “bright” to a specific range. 

  • Darkness. Stealth advantage. Possible blindness. 

  • Dim. Perception disadvantage. Missile attack disadvantage. 

  • Bright. No bonuses or penalties. 

  • Blinding. Stealth disadvantage. Perception advantage. Missile attack disadvantage.

• Darksight. Creatures with dark sight can see a certain distance (usually 60’) in environments without light. Darksight has no color; everything perceived is in black and white. Details are otherwise normal. 

• Infravision. Creatures with infravision see the world in heat gradients to a specific range (usually 60’). Infravision reveals creatures and objects as general shapes ranging in color from blue and black (cold) to red and orange (hot). Details are minimal. The main advantage of Infravision is its ability to spot warm-blooded creatures in dark environments easily. The residual heat left by warm-blooded creatures moving across cold surfaces can also be noticed within a few rounds of passing. 

• Ultravision. Creatures with ultravision can project a strange sort of illumination from their eyes, well beyond the visible range of most humanoids. While ultravision can reveal certain types of organisms, it is not ordinarily helpful in navigating the dark. Instead, it exposes traces of fluids that fluoresce, such as blood, even once they are no longer perceptible to normal vision. Creatures with the power to see in the ultraviolet spectrum are rare.

• Scent. Creatures with this powerful ability have olfactory acuity on par with a wolf. This provides them access to a great deal of additional information; they can authenticate a being's identity by scent, track others with great efficiency, detect smoke or toxic gas before anyone else, sense changes in a creature's body chemistry (such as sickness or pregnancy), know if a person whose scent they are familiar with was recently in an area, and so forth. Virtually all creatures with a highly developed sense of smell are susceptible to blood, and they can detect spilled blood nearby with no rolls required. All living things also leave a cloud of scent particles in their wake, which linger for a variable time. 

• Alertness. Alertness measures how hard a creature is to sneak up on. It is the target # a creature must roll on a stealth check to ambush a given creature or to evade its notice. In most situations, a single stealth check is sufficient to hide from a creature for several minutes. It only needs to be repeated if the hiding creature does something significantly risky to necessitate another roll. If a creature is on high alert, meaning it has substantial cause to suspect an enemy is nearby, its alertness score goes up by 6. It is not possible to be perpetually on high alert, as it is very stressful and mentally taxing. The Storyteller has the final say on whether a creature, or character, is justified in being on high alert. 

 

Trap Rules

 

Spotting a non-magical trap is a secret perception check rolled by the storyteller against the trap’s stealth score. They require a thievery roll to disarm. A trap's stealth score is 10 + the creator's proficiency modifier + the creator's intellect modifier. If a trap is particularly ingenious or the surroundings make it particularly hard to spot, the difficulty may be more severe than this at the Storyteller’s discretion. A trap's damage is largely circumstantial; dropping a basket of rocks onto an orc is far less lethal than dropping an oak tree onto one. Thus, a trap's damage is always subject to the Storyteller's approval.  

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• Traps (Mundane). The fantasy genre is filled with elaborate traps requiring precision clockwork and colossal feats of engineering to create. In certain situations, these may be appropriate, but most traps created by humanoids can be made with a hatchet, a shovel, a knife, wood, stone, rope, and time. The following traps should be made available to all humanoids (including characters) with trapmaking tool proficiency or survival skill; 

  • Alarm. The trap makes noise when triggered, alerting nearby creatures. 

  • Deadfall. The trap drops a heavy load onto a given spot, such as a tree, a basket of rocks, a boulder, etc. 

  • Foothold. The trap snares a target’s foot and restricts their movement, holding and possibly harming them.

  • Incendiary. The trap bursts a container of flammable liquid on the target while igniting it. 

  • Pitfall. The trap is a covered pit, potentially with spikes or other hazards on the bottom. 

  • Spikes. The trap is one or more concealed spikes, possibly in a slight depression in the ground. 

  • Springbolt. The trap is a crossbow rigged up to fire at a given spot when a trigger is activated. 

  • Tripwire. The trap is a thin wire at the foot or throat level to provoke an uncontrolled fall. 

  • Other traps may be included in this list at the Storyteller's discretion.

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• Traps (Magical). Magical traps are different from mundane traps. They require an arcana roll to disarm and can be detected with a successful perception check or using spells like aura sight, truesight, or similar. Disarming a magical ward requires a basic understanding of how they work; wards create an intangible field centered on an anchoring glyph. This field is similar to a magnetic aura or a soap bubble. If an intruder gets too close the ward brushes their aura and attraction occurs or the bubble pops, triggering the effect. There are various arcane methods of tricking, misdirecting, or countering this hanging influence to “confuse” the programming of the glyph, causing it to short out without discharging. 

 

The exact flavor text of this process should be worked out between the Storyteller and the players ahead of time. Perhaps the character positions multiple creatures with differing auras at the very edges of the ward in various spots, causing the power to bleed off without actually triggering. Perhaps they have stones or figurines in their toolkit with simple petty enchantments that create arcane resonance or confuse the ward into registering a computer-like error and shutting down. Whatever the rationale, this process is always an arcana check because it relies on knowledge of the mechanics of magical theory. For this reason, rogues who specialize in traps are encouraged to take the arcana skill. Remember that the arcana skill does not impart spellcasting ability; it is simply knowledge of spells and how magic works. Actual spellcasting is a particular process, accessible only to those rare individuals who are born with magical souls, receive divine or mystic investiture from outer planar entities, or endure the long and slow process of attenuating to cosmic energies that shape reality (enduring arcane rigor in the process). 

 

Travel Rules

 

• Travel Speed. First, the Storyteller must establish how many miles the party can travel daily. Physically fit characters traveling on foot in a group will move 20-30 miles daily, depending on the terrain. This is not meaningfully affected by individual party members’ foot speed because the vagaries of overland group travel even out over a day. Characters on horseback move at double this speed, averaging 40-60 miles daily. Truly exceptional horses can achieve speeds of up to 100 miles a day, but such animals are rare. 

• Encounter Checks. Rolling two encounter checks a day is proper if players travel through dangerous or poorly patrolled areas. The odds of an encounter will depend on the table used. Highly hazardous areas may require 3-5 encounter checks a day. An encounter table uses percentile die. Lower sections of the percentile range will indicate “no encounter”, while higher percentiles will indicate an encounter. Rarer encounters have fewer percentile points assigned to them.

• Rations. A traveling party consumes 1 point of rations per person per day of travel. A single point of rations has a load value of 1. When calculating the supplies a party can carry, add up the total load capacity of all party members (add up their MIGHT scores) and establish a pool from which the party draws when traveling. Remember that a mount can carry substantially more load than a character. This is why most adventurers traveling long distances keep pack animals. 

• Safe Transport. Specific methods of travel are supposed to be safe and reliable. These include well-patrolled roads, armored stagecoaches, merchant caravans with plentiful mercenary guards, armed ships traveling well-established routes, etc. Characters using these methods of travel must often pay for the privilege, but bypass the need for encounter checks and food is typically provided. While high-level adventurers often develop extraordinary methods of travel, these services are still necessary.