"Have you ever wondered if your life was determined by, instead of the impact of your own effort and will, an impartial, unfeeling external factor?"
Rolling Dice and Handling Challenges
Ultimately, every action attempted has a difficulty assigned to it, and a minimum roll that needs to be made on a d20 to beat it. Of course, some actions should not require it — the GM may determine the difficulty is 0, which is an automatic success. Most passive or general actions would fall into this category, unless in the interest of storytelling an element of chance is needed.
In combat, only the player rolls (There is not a competing roll from the GM). If the player is attacking, they roll for the attack at a defined difficulty level. A success hits. If the player is being attacked, they roll to defend against the attack. Unless otherwise stated, a success on the defense roll indicates the attack misses. In player vs player rolls, the initiating player rolls, but the target player may spend 1 XP per level to increase the the difficulty by one step (up to 2 additional steps).
In those cases, the GM will assign a Difficulty to the task between 1 and 10. Every step in the difficulty scale represents a total of three points that must be rolled above. As such, on a Difficulty Level 1 roll, you need to roll above a 3 on a d20, whereas a Difficulty Level 7 roll would require you roll above a 21 on that task (Impossible without a skill or asset to reduce the Difficulty)
The breakdown of difficulty is as follows:
| TASK | DIFFICULTY DESCRIPTION | TARGET NO. | GUIDANCE |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | Routine | 0 | Anyone can do this basically every time. |
| 1 | Simple | 3 | Most people can do this most of the time. |
| 2 | Standard | 6 | Typical task requiring focus, but most people can usually do this. |
| 3 | Demanding | 9 | Requires full attention; most people have a 50/50 chance to succeed. |
| 4 | Difficult | 12 | Trained people have a 50/50 chance to succeed. |
| 5 | Challenging | 15 | Even trained people often fail. |
| 6 | Intimidating | 18 | Normal people almost never succeed. |
| 7 | Formidable | 21 | Impossible without skills or great effort. |
| 8 | Heroic | 24 | A task worthy of tales told for years afterward. |
| 9 | Immortal | 27 | A task worthy of legends that last lifetimes. |
| 10 | Impossible | 30 | A task that normal humans couldn’t consider (but one that doesn’t break the laws of physics). |
Obviously, once you reach a certain point in difficulty, you'll need to adjust the difficulty. You can do this with Effort, Skills, Equipment, and other Assets your character possesses (when combined, any asset that adds a multiple of 3 to your roll will simply drop the difficulty down one step per +3).
It is possible, with the right combination of factors, for a character to significantly reduce even the most impossible task to relatively simple.
On a roll, there are two rolls which, as long as the roll succeeds, create a critical success.
Minor Success
- A natural roll of 19 is considered a Minor Success (better than 'Success' alone)
- On an attack, this adds 3 points of damage, or the player may request a beneficial special effect (knockback, disarm, etc).
- On a skill/action roll, this means you not only succeed, but you have a particularly impressive success.
Major Success
- A natural roll of 20 is considered a Major Success (better than 'Success' alone)
- On an attack, this adds 4 points of damage, or the player may request a beneficial special effect (knockback, disarm, etc) and only do 2 additional points of damage. You may also choose to halve the damage bonus and take an additional action in the same round.
- On a skill/action roll, this means you not only succeed, but you have a strikingly impressive success.
As well, in combat, a natural roll or 17 or 18 results in +1 or +2 to damage respectively on a success, but there is no special effect.
Critical Failure
Upon rolling a natural 1 on a skill roll, two things happen. First, the attempt is an automatic failure. Indeed, it is very likely going to be a remarkable failure, perhaps even catastrophic. As a result, in combat, the defender will take an additional 2 points of damage, or if the attacker fails, they manage to take one point of appropriate damage themselves.
On top of this, the GM is able to introduce an intrusion, which in effect is an additional complication caused by the failure. Unlike normal intrusions, this does not come with an XP bonus.
A critical failure CAN be re-rolled for 4 XP, however the intrusion will still occur.