Dice
Rolling Dice
Whenever you need to determine success or failure for a task, you roll one or more six-sided dice. 1d6 means you roll one die, while 3d6 means you roll three. Whenever you roll multiple dice, you compare the highest number rolled to the difficulty of the task. You succeed if your result meets or exceeds the difficulty. Easy tasks are 3, moderate are 5, and hard are 7, though they can go as high as 10.
Ones are Special
If you roll any 1s, you may do one of three things with them:
- Add them to your highest die
- Save them for later use during the scene
- Give them to a nearby ally
Note that only "natural" 1s are special, which means that the number 1 must appear on the die. Rolling 1d6 with disadvantage (-1) and getting a 2 doesn't count as a 1 for the purpose of adding, saving, or giving a +1 bonus. Any 1s that you saved from earlier in the scene may only be added to one of your rolls during the scene, not given to allies.
Skilled versus Unskilled
If the task relates to one of your class skills, you roll a number of dice equal to your skill value and take the highest result. Otherwise, you roll 1d6 with disadvantage (-1). Any character may attempt to roll any skill, though their chances of success are very small. This means that anyone can attempt to roll reflexes to avoid an attack or awareness to notice a secret door.
Advantage and Disadvantage
If you have an advantage, add +1 to your roll. If you have a disadvantage, subtract -1 from you roll. Advantages and disadvantages do not stack, though one of each will cancel out. The narrator determines what qualifies as an advantage or disadvantage on any given roll. All unskilled rolls are made with disadvantage. It would be unwise to attempt spellcasting, especially arcane, without the proper skills, as there are much more significant consequences for failing than with other actions.
Re-rolls
Most non-combat rolls determine your effectiveness for an entire scene, like rolling deception for disguise or willpower to stay awake all night, others are rolled just once for each specific application, like dexterity to walk along a narrow ledge or spellcraft for identifying an arcane artifact. The narrator might allow you to re-roll on a task, but it might come with a consequence. For example, you might be able to try to roll strength again on a door you'd previously failed to break, but failing again would automatically cause a wound.
Teamwork Rolls
Sometimes your entire team needs to approach a task together. In situations like this, everyone makes the same roll and adds any 1s on to whatever the highest number rolled was. Note that teamwork rolls usually have a difficulty much higher than normal rolls.
Social Skills
The four social skills are deception, empathy, intimidation, and persuasion. Though they might occasionally have applications in combat, they're most useful in social situations when the heroes must interact with other people. The difficulty to succeed with some social skills could rise and fall at any time. For example, winning over a few guards with persuasion might be much easier before starting a fight with them, while intimidation could work the other way around. The narrator determines the application and effectiveness in each scene, and depending on how the heroes use their social skills, their favor with others might improve or get worse.