Rules

This chapter covers the core rules of Sovereign. It endeavors to familiarize the reader with common terms, the goal of the game, the main procedures, and provide structure for commonly-occuring situations.

Sovereign is a Table-Top Role-Playing Game, where a group of friends come together to imagine a fantasy adventure. One player (called the Game Master) prepares an an adventure and the other players create characters who will go on the adventure. The Game Master describes each situation to the Players, who then tell the Game Master what their Characters do. Their actions create new situations, which the Game Master describes, and the process repeats.

The players aim to defeat powerful monsters and recover valuable treasure, which rewards Experience Points. Unlike most games, there is no winning in a strict sense, but playing well looks like earning as many Experience Points as possible without dying. After earning enough Experience Points, their Characters grow more powerful, and can face fiercer challenges (which tend to be worth more and more Experience Points).

The Game Master aims to resolve each situation fairly. There is no winning for the Game Master, but playing well involves creating interesting, impactful, and informed choices for the players, and then fairly determing what happens next.

Table Of Contents

Common Terms

Dice Notation

Sovereign uses dice to generate randomness. In order to compactly represent a roll with the notation NdX, where N is the number of dice to roll, and X is how many sides that die should have, adding all of the dice together.

For example, 3d8 means to roll 3 dice with 8 sides and total the results.

At times, we also perform additional operations. For instance, 2d6•10 means to roll two six-sided dice, add them together, and multiply the result by 10. 1d20+3 means to roll a 20-sided dice and add 3.

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The Big Picture

  1. The Game Master (GM) creates a loosely defined fantasy setting where most adventures that they would want to run fits in somewhere.
  2. The GM proposes a few adventures (describing them in vague strokes) to the players between sessions, the players pick the one they want to run next, and the GM prepares that adventure, using hard framing to place the Party right on the adventure’s doorstep with a strong hook.
  3. After an adventure is completed, the process repeats from step 2, usually with the same Party. Weeks or months pass in-game between adventures as appropriate.

This is very much a game about playing all of the wonderful adventures that the community has to offer. To that end, Sovereign attempts to strip out and de-emphasize anything that might entice the players away from the pre-written content in adventures. Domain play, crafting, etc have all be deliberately removed.

Finally, the episodic natures of the adventures facilitates players joining and leaving the table, and allows for players to easily introduce new PCs as their old ones die, retire, or recover. We want everyone playing as smoothly as possible!

Core Gameplay Loop

Sovereign is played with one GM and at most 8 players, playing as 4 to 8 PCs, venturing into dark dungeons, derelict castles, and ancient tombs for fun and profit. The game is, predominately, a conversation, but that conversation has structure:

  1. The GM describes a situation to the players, making sure to not assume actions from the players, paying special attention to what they see, hear, and smell. Then, they ask “What do you do?”
  2. The players clarify or describe their actions and the intent behind their actions. When acting as a group (such as picking the next room to explore), elect one person to speak for the group to reduce chaos.
  3. The GM informs the players how likely their actions are to accomplish their intent (taking into account the situation, their Attributes, and their Skills), what happens if they fail, and how much it costs them to try. Actions that have no chance to fail, have no consequences for failure and no appreciable cost to attempt just happen. Skill Checks are a useful way come up with likelihood, but the GM is free to come up with probabilities directly, like 1-in-6 or 45%.
  4. If the players find the ruling to be reasonable, the dice are rolled and we honor the stakes. If they don’t, they negotiate or come up with a better plan. Typical levers are higher chances of success for less impactful results, worse consequences for failure, or higher costs to attempt and vice versa.
  5. This creates a new situation. The GM fast forwards to the next meaningful decision, narrating the transition and repeats the process.

That’s the whole game. All other rules exist to either faciliate interesting decisions for #2, help the GM determine #3, or ease the negotiation in #4. If you find a rule isn’t doing any of these things, change or remove it.

Narrative Interaction

Much of the intresting part (and what separates skilled players from novice players) of exploring is coming up with a plan that avoids rolling. A plan that triggers a Skill Check or roll is workable, but also risky. A lot of the fun in this play style is coming up with plans that can’t fail.

Consider being faced with a deep, 15-foot wide spiked pit. Dangerous. If a player wants to leap to the other side, the GM might rule that as a STR/Exert Check with failure resulting in taking 3d6 Damage from the fall and spikes as well as being stuck at the bottom.

A clever player might think to fill up the pit. Perhaps they spend some time dragging coffins, furniture, etc into the pit so that they can lower themselves down, walk across, and climb up the other side without rolling.

Searching for stuff works the same way - the GM will describe a new room to the players, but won’t assume that they touched anything (since it could be hazardous). A player can say “I search the room”, and lean on their character’s WIS/Notice, potentially triggering traps.

Better is for the player to specify what and how they’re searching. If their method (which usually has a time-cost measured in Turns) would find the hidden thing (whether a trap, treasure, or clue), they just do.

Attributes

A PC has five attributes ranging from 3 to 18, reflecting a range from the minimum viable capacity for a playable character to the maximum normal human level.

Three of these attributes are physical.

Strength, reflecting physical prowess, melee combat, carrying gear, and brute force. Influences melee attack rolls, melee damage, encumbrance, and Physical Saving Throws.

Dexterity, reflecting speed, evasion, manual dexterity, reaction time, and combat initiative. Influences attack rolls with ranged weapons and some melee weapons, AC, and Evasion Saving Throws.

Constitution, reflecting hardiness, enduring injury, and tolerating large amounts of magical healing. Influences HP and Physical Saving Throws.

Two are mental attributes.

Intelligence, reflecting memory, reasoning, technical skills, and general education. Influences Effort for most Arcane Traditions, Evasion and Mental Saving Throws, and the efficacy of some spells.

Wisdom, reflecting noticing things, making judgments, reading situations, and intuition. Influences Mental Saving Throws.

Attribute Modifiers

Each attribute has a modifier, ranging from -2 to +2 based on its score. This modifier is added to skill checks, attack rolls, damage rolls, Shock damage, and the relevant saving throw targets.

Attribute Modifier
3 -2
4-7 -1
8-13 0
14-17 +1
18 +2

In this text, when referring to an attribute’s score, it will be spelled completely, like Strength. When referring to an attribute’s modifier, it will be abbreviated to three letters: STR, DEX, CON, INT, or WIS.

If an injury, character advancements, or magic item alters an attribute, immediately update the attribute’s modifier.

Hit Points

A character’s hit points (HP) measure their distance from death. If a character is reduced to zero HP, they are dying. Taking damage reduces a character’s HP. For instance, when a character with 11 HP takes 5 damage, they would have 6 HP remaining.

A new character rolls the HP Progression for their Class for the maximum HP, adding their Con. If they have chosen the Die Hard Feat they add +2 to the roll. The final value for a given die cannot be less than 1 HP.

A character gains maximum HP as they advance in character level, re-rolling their prior levels and taking the new score if it’s higher, as explained in advancement.

NPCs roll a number of d8’s for thier HP equal to their Hit Dice (HD).

Saving Throws

Saving throws are rolled to resist some unusual danger or chance hazard. To make a saving throw, a person rolls 1d20 and tries to get equal or higher than their saving throw target. Sometimes a save might have bonuses or penalties applied to the roll, but a natural roll of 1 on the die always fails the save, and a natural roll of 20 is always a success.

There are three types of saving throws. Usually it will be obvious which type is most appropriate for a threat, but the GM makes the call.

Physical saves resist exhaustion, poisons, diseases, or other bodily afflictions. A Character’s Physical saving throw target is equal to 16 minus their character level and the highest of their STR or CON.

Evasion saves apply when dodging explosions, avoiding traps, reacting to sudden peril, or other occasions where speed is of the essence. A Character’s Evasion saving throw target is equal to 16 minus their character level and the highest of their DEX or INT.

Mental saves apply when resisting mental attacks, insubstantial magic spells, psychological trauma, and other mental hazards. A Character’s Mental saving throw target is equal to 16 minus their character level and the highest of their INT or WIS.

NPCs have a single saving throw target equal to 15 minus half their rounded-down HD. Thus, an NPC with 3 HD would have a saving throw target of 14+ for any particular hazard.

Skills

A PC’s skills reprsent their training. A newly-created PC starts with a few trained skills and gain more as they level up.

Interpretting Skill Levels

Skills are rated on a scale from -1 to 4. Level -1 represents an absence of training. Level 0 represents basic competence. Level 1 represents professional-level skill. Level 2 in a skill likely makes a character the best in a village or city block. Level 3 represents mastery, and likely makes the character one of the best in a city. Level 4 represents world-class skill.

This text refers to to skills and their level compactly like {Skill}-{Level}. For instance Exert-1 or Heal-2.

All skills start at level -1.

The Skill List

Skills may overlap in their application; the character may use either skill at their discretion.

Skill Checks

Most Characters are skilled, competent folks who are perfectly capable of carrying out the ordinary duties of their role. Sometimes, however, they are faced with a situation or challenge beyond the usual scope of their role and the GM calls for a skill check.

To make a skill check, roll 2d6 and add the most relevant skill level and attribute modifier (denoted as {Attribute Modifier}/{Skill}, like STR/Exert or INT/Magic). If the total is equal or higher than 10, the check is a success. On a failure, the Character either can’t accomplish the feat at all, bad luck cheats them, or they achieve it at the cost of some further complication. The GM determines the specific consequence of a failure.

The GM is always the one who calls for a skill check, and they do so at their discretion. The player simply describes what their Character is attempting to do, and the GM will tell them what skill and attribute combination to roll.

NPC Skill Checks

When an NPC needs to make a skill check, they roll 2d6 and add their listed skill modifier if their action is something they ought reasonably to be good at. If it isn’t, they roll at +0, or even at -1 if it seems like something they’d be particularly bad at doing. If the NPC is special enough to have actual attribute scores and skill levels, they use those instead.

Group Checks

When a Party faces a situation together, one Character makes the roll. For each other Character with a positive modifier, add 1 to the roll. For each Character with a negative modifier, subtract 1.

This represents forcing open a heavy door together, everyone trying to stealth past a guard, or collectively climbing a cliff face.

Opposed Skill Checks

When skills oppose each other, the side attempting to change the situation rolls a skill check and tries to get a result of 8 plus the other side’s modifier. For example, a Character trying to sneak past a guard might roll 2d6 plus their DEX/Sneak against 8 + the guard’s WIS/Notice. We write this compactly as DEX/Sneak vs WIS/Notice.

Keeping Track of Time

A Turn is a time measurement used to determine how often certain abilities or actions can be taken. Some powers can be triggered only so many times per Turn, while some special abilities only work once per Turn.

A Turn is one particular fight, event, activity, or effort that doesn’t take more than ten or fifteen minutes. A fight takes a Turn. A chase takes a Turn. A tense backroom negotiation takes a Turn. So long as the party is doing the same general activity in the same general location, it’s probably one Turn.

Combat is made up of Rounds, each one lasting approximately ten seconds. A single combat may involve multiple Rounds of action, but always takes a Turn. A round begins with the actions of the side that wins initiative and ends after the actions of the side with the lowest initiative.

Between adventures or in safe places, time passes naturally, usually counted in either hours, days, or weeks as appropriate.

Injury, Healing, and System Strain

Injury is almost inevitable in an adventurer’s career. Some forms of it are longer-lasting than others.

Mortal Injury and Stabalization

When a Character is reduced to zero HP from taking damage, they are Mortally Injured. They will die at the end of the sixth Round after their incapacitation unless stabilized by an ally or some special ability. A Mortally Injured character is helpless, takes no actions, and does nothing useful.

Stabilizing an ally is a Main Action that requires a DEX/Heal or INT/Heal skill check with a penalty equal to the Rounds since the target fell and a healer’s kit. Only one ally can try to stabilize a victim per round, though others can attempt to aid their check (via a group check). Attempts may be retried each round for as long as hope lasts.

Once stabilized, the victim remains incapacitated for one Turn before recovering with 1 HP and the Frail condition.

NPCs who aren’t important enough to merit a name die instantly when reduced to zero HP.

Frail

Creatures who reach 0 HP and then recover are Frail.

A Frail character acts normally, but if reduced to 0 HP again, they die instantly. Frail characters do not recover HP through Natural Healing.

Frailty is removed with a continuous week of Comfortable Sleep and medical attention by someone with a healer’s kit and at least Heal-0. In addition, someone with at least Heal-1 can make one attempt to remove Frailty with a healer’s kit, an hour of labor, and a successful DEX/Heal or INT/Heal check.

Frail characters without this level of medical care must make a Physical save after a week; on a failure they die 1d6 days later, while success means they lose their Frailty after another month’s Comfortable Sleep.

Natural Healing

A wounded creature recovers HP by getting Comfortable Sleep and adequate food. Provided they are warm, fed, and comfortable, they regain HP each morning equal to their experience level, or equal to their HD if they are NPCs.

Characters are not confortable while sleeping in tents, outdoors, etc. It has to be a honest bed.

Frail creatures do not recover HP through natural healing.

First Aid

Healers can patch up victims in a hurry at a cost to their physical resilience. By spending one minute patching up an ally with a healer’s kit, heal 1d6+Heal points of damage. Each such application adds one System Strain to the target. First aid restores HP to a Frail target, but it cannot remove their Frailty.

One Turn is enough time for a healer to apply as much first aid as is wanted to their party.

System Strain

Magical forms of healing (like Healing Touch), use of powerful augmenting magic (like Haste), and First Aid can take a toll on a user’s physiology. Their System Strain total reflects the total amount of stress their body has undergone.

A healthy character starts at zero System Strain and has their Constitution as their maximum.

Magical healing and certain spells and abilities (like Speed) will add to a subject’s System Strain. If this addition would put them over their maximum they cannot activate the spell, benefit from healing, or otherwise gain any use from the ability. If they are forced over the maximum by some unavoidable effect, they are instead knocked unconscious for an hour.

Characters lose one point of accumulated System Strain after Comfortable Sleep.

Rest

Each Character needs to sleep for at least 8 hours a day in order to avoid incurring System Strain from Lack of Sleep. Magic items that recharge on a per-day basis recharge recharge at dawn.

For all other mechanics to recover (System Strain, Effort committed for the day, recovering Spells), the Character needs Comfortable Sleep.

Comfortable Sleep needs to be:

The intention here is that Characters cannot get Comfortable Sleep (and thus recover resources) while on an adventure. They must return to a settlement where they can sleep comfortably in peace. While the adventurers are away, the dungeon has time to respond and repopulate.

Some (mega) dungeons are so large that they have (especially as a reward for exploration or befriending a faction) places to achieve Comfortable Sleep.

Poisons and Diseases

Most toxins force a victim to make a Physical saving throw to resist their effects or mitigate their harm. Weak perils might grant as much as a +4 to the saving throw, while dire threats might apply a -4 penalty.

If the save is failed, the poison or disease takes hold. Most poisons act quickly, inflicting damage, adding System Strain to the target, or applying long-lasting penalties. Diseases have a slower onset but often apply the same sort of harms.

A medic can treats a poisoned person within a minute of the poisoning with a healer’s kit to give them a better chance to resist. They add twice their Heal to the victim’s saving throw roll, or +1 if they have only Heal-0.

Some poisons, like that of a pit viper, are save or die. Once the poison takes hold, the victim has 1d4 Turns to live unless specified otherwise.

Other poisons can have other effects. A giant centepede causes lethargy. A Tarentella causes 2d6 turns of painful jerking spasms.

Chases and Pursuit

Characters have a habit of chasing others and being chased.

If one group is faster than the other group, that group succeeds.

Otherwise, the pursuing group makes an opposed group DEX/Exert or Con/Exert skill check vs the fleeing group’s DEX/Exert or CON/Exert subject to the following modifiers:

Situation Mod
There are more pursuers than pursued -1
The pursued have no head start at all +2
The pursued have one round’s head start +1
The pursued have less than a minute’s head start +0
The pursued have more than a minute’s head start -2
The pursuit is half-hearted or obligatory -1
The pursuers are enraged or vengeful +1

On a success, the pursuing group catches up with the fleeing group, beginning combat if they’d like and automatically winning initiative, with the front-members in melee range of the rear members of the fleeing group.

Encumbrance

Gear has encumbrance, measured in points and denoted enc, as exampled in the table below. The more awkward or bulky the object, the greater the encumbrance. The GM adjudicates ambiguous objects.

Gear enc
Portable in a small pocket 0
Portable in one hand 1
Requires two hands to carry or use it 2
Requires a whole-body effort to haul it 5+
Dragging an unconscious teammate 12

Gear is either Stowed or Readied.

Stowed gear is packed away carefully in pockets, packs, and harnesses. It’s easier to carry but harder to quickly access. Using Stowed gear requires that the bearer take a Main Action to pull it out before using it. A character can carry a total number of Stowed encumbrance points equal to their Strength score.

Readied gear is carried in hands, holsters, quick-access pockets, or other easily-accessible places. It can be used as part of an action without any further preparation. A character can carry a number of Readied encumbrance points equal to half their Strength, rounded down.

Bulk Weights

Sometimes the Characters need to transport bulk amounts of goods that are measured in pounds. When it’s necessary to convert these weights into encumbrance points, assume that 50lbs is 10 enc.

Every 100 coins counts as 1 enc.

Pack Animals and Porters

To haul more equipment and loot than the Characters can carry, they need pack animals, porters, or vehicles.

Type Cost enc
Heavy pack horse 40g 30
Mule or donkey 20g 15
Porter 2g/day 12
Cart (pulled by 2 beasts) 25g 300

Falling and Other Hazards

Some perils occur with some regularity for adventurers. A few of the most common are detailed here.

Falling: Most creatures will take 1d6 damage per 10ft they fall, up to 20d6 maximum. Spikes or other hazardous terrain at the bottom will add at least 1d6 to the total. A creature that intentionally leaps or skids down in a controlled way makes a DEX or STR/Exert skill check at a difficulty of 7 + 1 for every 10ft; on a success, the effective distance fallen is halved.

Suffocation: Creatures fight or act normally without air for one Round per point of Constitution, or 10 Rounds for most NPCs. If they don’t move, they quadruple this time. Once they run out of air, they must make a Physical save each Round or take 1 HP per HD or level they have.

Starvation: Each day of insufficient food (1 Ration) causes 1 System Strain. If you already have maximum system strain, you die.

Dehydration: Each day of insufficient water (a waterskin’s worth) causes 3 System Strain. If you already have maximum system strain, you die.

Lack of Sleep: Each day of insufficient sleep (8 hours every 24 hours) causes 2 System Strain.

Starvation and Dehydration are ignored so long as the Characters aren’t trying to sleep in a dungeon or stay longer than they paid for.

Overland Travel

Unless there is an extremely compelling reason to play it out, montage through the geography traveled and arrive at the destination. For time-tracking purposes, Characters are able to travel ~18 miles/day.

We abstract the cost of hiring mercenaries, donkeys, buying rations, etc with this chart from Illusory Sensorium. The further you travel, the more food you need, which is heavy, so you need donkeys. The donkeys also have to eat, and be protected, which requires more donkeys to serve as a baggage train, all of which need guards that also have to eat, and so on. Hence, we have exponential costs:

Weeks Cost per Character Weeks Cost per Character
1 10g 6 320g
2 20g 7 640g
3 40g 8 1,250g
4 80g 9 2,500g
5 160g 10 5,000g

Dungeon Exploration

These rules are meant for tracking adventures in a dangerous site where perils could spring up at any moment. Not all Wandering Encounters are hostile (see Reaction Rolls), but each is a risk of pointless fighting or sudden alarm.

At the start of each Turn after the party enters the site:

  1. Roll a secret Wandering Encounter check with frequency depending on the adventure or site. On a 1, the encounter will happen at some appropriate moment this Turn. Most adventures give a frequency (like every other Turn).
  2. The Players decide what they want to do this Turn: move into a new room, carefully search their current location, fiddle with some object they’ve found, or something else that takes ~ten minutes.
  3. The GM explains the result of their actions, whether that’s a first-glance description of a new room, notice of the hideous abomination that’s rearing up before them, or the explosive detonation of the crystal they just experimentally prodded.
  4. Start over from the top, assuming their actions have consumed a Turn, until they withdraw from the site or it becomes safe enough to stop counting Turns.

Timekeeping in the Dungeon

Once the Characters intrude on a ruin, dungeon, or other dangerous site the GM starts tracking time in Turns. Each Character can do one significant thing per Turn. Different Characters can be doing different things in the same Turn. Not every Character has to do something.

The point of tracking Turns is to have a rough measure of activity. The more the Characters do and the longer they stay, the more likely that they’ll run into Wandering Encounters or the denizens will have time to realize that intruders are present. Eventually, the Characters need to either pull back or clear the site entirely of its dangerous inhabitants.

Activity Turns
Move from one room of interest to another 1
Pick a lock or disarm a trap 1
Get in a fight with something 1
Perform first aid and looting after a fight 1
Search a room carefully 1
Time a torch lasts until burning out 6
Time a filled lantern lasts before burning out 24

Doors

Out of all the obstacles the party will face, doors will be by far the most common. Doors mark the beginning of most new areas, and so how to handle doors will come up over and over.

Doors can be locked, in which case a character with Thieves Tools can try pick it, usually with a DEX/Sneak check. If they fail, they can not try again until they gain a level of experience.

Locked doors can be battered down. 6 turns less STR and Exert for wooden doors, and triple that for metal-reinforced doors. Metal or stone doors can not be battered down with mundane means. Roll an extra Wandering Encounter every Turn.

Doors can be stuck, in which case a character can try to force them open in a Round with a STR/Exert check. If they fail, it takes 1d3 Turns to open the door.

Doors can be listened at for a Round (but only once per Turn), revealing noises as loud as talking without a roll. The presence of anything quieter with requires a WIS/Notice check.

To pass through a door, choose to make either a hard or soft entry. If not specififed, a soft entry is assumed.

In a hard entry, the party arranges around the entrance, bashes it in, and charges the room in a planned pattern of entry. They trigger any traps over the threshold and appear hostile to any inhabitants, but are capable of surprising anyone who might be watching the door.

In a soft entry, the party arranges to defend and hold the door as a choke point, sufficiently far away from traps. One Character quietly opens the door and observes. They have the opportunity to notice traps, do not appear hostile, but are incapable of surprising anyone who might be watching the door.

Encounters

When the Party encounters a group of NPCs in a dungeon, either from a Wandering Encounter or because the room contains NPCs, then:

  1. The GM describes what the Characters see/hear/smell,etc.
  2. The Players choose if they want to fight, talk, run, or wait.
  3. The GM rolls for (or chooses) the NPCs reaction. This frequently results in parley or in combat.

Encounters and Surprise

Characters are sufficiently alert when exploring a site to avoid any chance of surprise, barring a set ambush. If they burst in on the denizens suddenly, however, the locals might be too stunned to act for a round.

If the GM thinks this is possible, use an opposed roll. Represent bursting into a room as group STR/Exert vs WIS/Notice check. Represent sneaking up on a group as group DEX/Sneak vs WIS/Notice.

Wandering Encounters

Every so many Turns, a GM should roll 1d6 to check for a Wandering Encounter. On a 1, the Characters will run into one during the Turn. The frequency of the check will depend on how alert and organized the site’s inhabitants are.

The actual contents of the encounter are decided when the GM puts together the site. Not all encounters involve running into creatures. Some are mere events or situations that fit the site. In the same vein, not all encounters are necessarily hostile, either. Reaction rolls should be made for all groups of creatures.

A wandering encounter starts when one side is able to see the other side, based on the map and available light sources. Usually this is symmetric, but differences in vision, light, etc may make one side able to see the other without being seen themselves. In these cases, the side with advantage may be able to achieve surprise.

When to Roll an Encounter Check

Type of Location Turns
Alerted site with organized defenders Every 1
Unalert site with organized defenders Every 2
Site with no organized or active defense Every 3
Site with very few mobile inhabitants Every 4
Abandoned or disused nook in a site Every 6
Chamber unknown to the natives of the site No check

Reaction Rolls

When the party enocunters other creatures, the GM describes what they sense and asks the Players what they do. Broadly, they can:

If how the other creatures respond is uncertain, the GM rolls their reaction, comparing the result against the Player’s action:

2d6 / Action Fight Talk Run Wait
2 Combat Combat Chase Fight
3-5 Combat Combat if could win, run otw. Chase Combat if could win, run otw.
6-8 Combat if could win, run otw. Parley Ignore Ignore
9-11 Run Parley Ignore Ignore
12 Run Parley Ignore Parley

Results of Combat mean just that - head immediately into combat.

Results of Combat if could win, run otw means that they’ll fight if they think that victory is very likely; typically this means they have a 3:1 HD advantage or greater. Otherwise, they’ll Run.

Results of Parley mean that they parley with the Characters. Meaningful parley requires leverage, otherwise it’s just pleasantries or posturing.

Results of Run means that the they run from the Characters (often to group up with allies). The Characters may give chase.

Results of Chase means they’ll chase the fleeing Characters.

Results of Ignore means they’ll continue doing what they were doing before encountering the party.

Denizens of a dungeon immediately turning to combat should be rare, reserved for mindless undead, guardian automatons, or creatures protecting their children. More often, they’ll go fetch allies to create an overwhelming advantage and force the Characters to retreat.

Parley

Talk is cheap, especially in a dungeon. Getting anything of value (information, assistance, items) requires Leverage.

Leverage is (non-exhaustively) anything the Characters…

The amount of value a NPC is willing to offer should roughly equal how much leverage the Characters have.

Beasts and monstrosities want food and territory.

Dragons want food, territory, treasure, and domination.

Humanoids want territory, treasure, domination, or higher order concepts like fairness, kindness, loyalty, obediency, and sanctity.

Giants are obsessed in their place in the hierarchy of Giants, and anything that will help them climb that hierarchy.

Undead and constructs are compelled by whatever directive created them.

Fiends want to cause suffering.

Aberrations have intentionally alien, unintelligible motives.

Fey have emotional motives, often following dream logic or the seven deadly sins (gluttony, lust, greed, sorrow, wrath, sloth, pride).

source: The Monsters Know What They’re Doing

Advancement

Characters accumulate Experience Points (XP) by defeating monsters, extracting coins and treasure from dungeons, and making it back to a settlement. The party accumulates XP while on an adventure, and then all surviving members get a share of the total XP when they return to town. Characters get a full share and Henchmen get half of a share.

Coins and Treasure award 1 XP per 1g worth of value, regardless of whether the treasure is sold or the coin is spent. It just has to make it back to town.

For example, if the party of 4 PCs and 3 Henchmen defeats 300 XP worth of monsters and hauls back 1500g worth of treasure from a dungeon, the party’s total XP is 1800. There are 4 + 3/2 = 5.5 shares, so each PC gets 1800 / 5.5 = 327 XP, and each Henchmen gets half that, 164.

XP for Monsters

Monster HD Base XP Bonus XP / Ability
Less than 1 5 1
1 10 3
2 20 5
3 35 15
4 75 50
5 175 125
6 275 225
7 450 400
8 650 550
9–10 900 700
11–12 1,100 800
13–16 1,350 950
17–20 2,000 1,150
21 2,500 2,000
21+N 2,500+250•N 2,000+250•N

XP Thresholds

Once a character has enough XP to level up and is in a settlement, they do.

Level XP Level XP
1 0 6 24000
2 1500 7 48000
3 3000 8 100000
4 6000 9 200000
5 12000 10 300000

Advancement Benefits

More HP. To determine their new maximum, they roll their HP Progression for each level they now possess, adding their CON to each die. No individual die can be reduced below 1 point, even with a negative CON. If the total roll is greater than their current maximum HP, they take the roll. Otherwise, their maximum HP increases by one.

Better Saves. Their saving throw scores decrease by one, making it easier to succeed on saving throws by rolling equal or over it. As a first level character has saving throw scores of 15, reaching second level would lower them to 14, modified by their appropriate attributes.

Improved Attack Bonus. Their attack bonus improves according to their level and their chosen class.

Gain Advancement Points. They gain three Advancement Points that they can spend on improving their Skills or attributes. Experts and Partial Experts gain an extra bonus Advancement Point to spend (via Quick Learner), giving them four points each time they advance.

The cost for improving a skill is listed below. Every skill level must be purchased in order; to gain level 1 in a skill they need to pay one point for level 0 and then two points for level 1. They must be the requisite minimum level to increase a skill to certain levels. Less hardened Characters don’t have the focus and real-life experience to higher degrees of mastery.

Skill Level Point Cost Min Character Level
0 1 1
1 2 1
2 3 3
3 4 6
4 5 9

They can also spend their Advancement Points to improve their Attribute scores by 1, recalculating their Attribute Modifier each time.

Advancement Point Cost Min Character Level
1st 1 1
2nd 2 1
3rd 3 3
4th 4 6
5th 5 9

Gain a new Feat. At levels 2, 5, 7, and 10 they can add a level to an existing Feat or pick up the first level in a new Feat.

If this is the first level they’ve taken in the Feat, they might be granted a Bonus Skill. During character creation, this is treated like any other skill Improvement. Taken as part of advancement, however, it counts as three Advancement Points spent toward increasing the skill.

This is enough to raise a level -1 skill to level 1, or boost a level 1 skill to level 2. They may do this even if they do not meet the minimum character level requirements.

If the Advancement Points aren’t enough to raise the skill to a new level, they remain as credit toward future advances. If applied to a skill that is already at level 4, they can spend the Advancement Points on any other skill of their choice.

More Spells and Arts. Mages learn new arts, can cast and prepare more spells, and automatically learn new spells as they advance, based on their Arcane Tradition.

Alignment

Alignment interacts with various magic items. Creatures in bestaries will often have an alignment, which is useful for interpretting their moral theory. Characters don’t choose an alignment, they live it. If a magic item only works for Lawful characters, then they need to act Lawfully or it does not work for them (GM discretion).

Law vs Chaos

Lawful: Lawfulness emphasizes the importance of adhering to moral rules or duties, regardless of the consequences. It holds that certain actions are inherently right or wrong based on the nature of the action itself, rather than the outcomes it produces. Lawful folks believe that moral rules, such as honesty, promise-keeping, and respect for autonomy, should be followed as a matter of principle, even if doing so may lead to undesirable results in specific situations.

Neutral: Neutrality emphasizes the cultivation of virtuous character traits, such as wisdom, courage, justice, and temperance. Neutral folks believe in developing good character and making decisions based on what a virtuous person would do in a given situation. The goal is to become a morally exemplary individual who consistently acts in accordance with these virtues, leading to a fulfilling life and contributing to the well-being of society as a whole.

Chaotic: Chaotic folks argue that the moral value of an action is determined by its actual outcomes rather than the intentions behind it or adherence to moral rules.

Good vs Evil

Good: Good folks believe in acting selflessly to benefit others without expecting anything in return, often at cost to oneself.

Neutral: Neutral folks belive that an action is morally right if it maximizes one’s self-interest. According to neutral folks, the only moral obligation an individual has is to promote their own well-being, and they should only consider the interests of others insofar as doing so ultimately benefits themselves.

Evil: Evil folks actively seek to harm and exploit others for their own gain or pleasure. They lack empathy, disregard the rights and well-being of others, and may even derive satisfaction from causing suffering.

Summary

That’s it for the core rules! By now, the reader should have a handle on goal of the game (get XP), an understanding of the game’s structure (the Core Gameplay Loop), and should know where to look to resolve commonly occuring situations.

Key takeaways:

Absent from this chapter are the rules for Combat which are complex enough to have its own chapter.

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