Version 0.10 · not yet playtested
This is the System Reference Document for Wizards & Lizards: the whole rules engine in one setting-neutral place, plus the guidance for building on it. Where the core rulebook teaches a player to sit down and play, this document is for whoever wants to author, a new playbook, a creature, a spell tradition, an equipment set, or a whole setting, and needs the rules stated plainly and the design dials laid bare.
Everything here is released into the public domain (CC0-1.0). Take it, change it, publish your own version under your own name. No permission, credit, or royalty is asked or owed.
The system is built in layers, and almost all extension happens on top of the core, never inside it:
The rule that keeps the system coherent: when you are unsure where something belongs, push it out of the core and into a component. A new archetype is a new playbook, not a core edit. A new weapon is a new card. A new kind of magic is a new bundle. The core only changes when something becomes truly universal to every character at every table.
These chapters are terse reference; the worked play examples live in the core book. The authoring chapters are where the SRD adds what the core leaves out: the grant budgets, the suggested vocabularies, the balance levers an author needs, and a step-by-step authoring walkthrough (with a worked example) for a new playbook and a new creature.
A note on terms and dice: every roll in this game is 3d6 + an attribute, read on one fixed ladder. Wherever a setting renames a thing for flavor (a tradition’s “Warp” for falter, “Finesse” for Agility), the mechanic underneath is unchanged.
When an outcome is uncertain and failure would cost something, roll 3d6, add the relevant attribute (and any skill or situational modifier), and read one fixed ladder. Otherwise the action simply succeeds; do not roll.
| Total | Result |
|---|---|
| 8 or less | Miss. It goes badly; the risk lands. |
| 9–12 | Partial. You do it, but at a cost, compromise, or with harm. |
| 13–17 | Success. You do it cleanly. |
| 18+ | Critical. You do it, with an extra effect. |
The thresholds are fixed. A character’s bonus shifts the roll, not the ladder, which keeps the table reading one chart all game. The 3d6 bell curve (3–18, centered near 10–11) makes stacked modifiers behave: a +1 is worth roughly a tenth of a result band near the center, and the curve absorbs situational pluses and minuses without the wild swings of a single die.
At +0 the miss / partial / success bands run about 26% / 48% / 26%. The critical is read on the total, so it is rare for a low bonus (~5% at +2) and climbs with mastery (~16% at +4), which is how expertise shows.
Fumble (optional). A natural 3 or 4 on the dice (before modifiers, ~2%) is a fumble: something goes wrong and the GM may make the outcome especially bad. It is read straight off the raw dice, so it stays a flat ~2% at every skill level, and no bonus spares it, not even one that would carry the roll to a Success. No character is ever too skilled to fail.
Masterstroke. A natural 17 or 18 (before modifiers, ~2%, the mirror of the fumble) is a Masterstroke: a damaging blow deals +(level + 1) extra damage atop the band’s result. It too is read straight off the raw dice, so no penalty spoils it (a blow that misses deals no damage to add to); creatures have no level and simply score a Critical.
Four attributes, each from about +0 to +3 (a starting cap of +2; +3 by mid levels). They modify the roll only, not hit points or damage.
| Attribute | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Might | strength, melee, toughness |
| Agility | speed, finesse, ranged attacks, stealth, dodging |
| Wits | perception, lore, magic, awareness |
| Presence | willpower, command, persuasion, bearing |
A setting may rename an attribute for flavor (Agility to Finesse), but keep the four-pillar split: one attribute per mode of play, so every kind of scene has an attribute that owns it.
An action is a named way of engaging the dice: a trigger, an attribute, and the ladder. Six are shared by every character and printed on the sheet.
| Action | Attribute | Use |
|---|---|---|
| Strike | Might | attack a foe in melee |
| Shoot | Agility | attack a foe at range |
| Defend | Agility | dodge, parry, take cover, guard an ally, or hold ground |
| Maneuver | Might or Agility | shove, trip, disarm, grapple, feint |
| Endure | the fitting attribute | resist harm, poison, fear, magic (the save) |
| Skill | the fitting attribute | any task using one of your skills |
Beyond the six, a character may always describe what they do; if it fits no named action and the outcome matters, the GM sets a difficulty and calls for 3d6 + the fitting attribute. Combat adds a few more actions (Move, Steady, Suppress, Stand, Recover, Interact) and the Advanced Actions a playbook grants; see Combat.
Stress is nerve and effort spent under pressure, the universal “luck and grit” resource, and the reason Presence matters to everyone. The track is 4 + Presence boxes. Mark stress to:
Stress is not a fortune pool spent freely; it is finite and it bites back. If you would mark stress past your last box you falter: reset the track to zero and take a lasting Shaken mark (−1 to all rolls) until a full night’s rest in safety. A short rest clears 2 stress; a full night clears all stress and lifts Shaken.
Stress is distinct from hit points: hit points are the body, stress is the nerve. A component may rename the falter (an arcane “Warp,” a barbarian’s burnout) but the mechanic holds.
Most of play is the Skill action. The GM sets difficulty as a flat modifier; most attempts are +0.
| Difficulty | Modifier |
|---|---|
| Favorable | +2 |
| Ordinary | +0 |
| Hard | −2 |
| Daunting | −4 |
Tools, position, and circumstance shift the roll a point or two more. With no real risk and no time pressure, do not roll; it simply works.
Help. One ally who can genuinely assist grants +1 and shares the risk: on a miss, the consequence may fall on the helper.
Exploration is the Skill action with the fitting attribute (read the land with Wits, climb with Agility, force a door with Might; find a trap with Wits, disarm it with Agility). A lock opens to quiet work (Agility and thieves’ tools, plus Thievery) or a loud Might break that may mar the contents; a barred or spiked door is no roll and forces afterward at Hard or Daunting. On a Partial the deed is done at a price, the trap springs a lesser bite, the pick snaps or rings, the sneak is glimpsed. Between a fight (seconds) and travel (days), dungeon delving runs in loose exploration turns of about ten minutes, the clock a torch, a wandering threat, or a watch is tracked against, not the footstep. Travel crosses the wider world a day at a time on a chosen map scale (a hex or inch to taste): on foot the base rate, mounted or by cart twice it, by river or sail three times, by air or great magic four or more. Each day a nominated navigator rolls Wits (with Wayfaring, Seafaring, or Riding): Critical, an edge gained (a day saved, a shortcut); Success, the day as planned; Partial, you arrive at a cost (lost time, a hazard, supplies or a mount spent); Miss, lost or weather-pinned or waylaid. The slowest traveler sets the pace, and another may Help. Social play is a Skill action with Presence, the ladder shaping the reaction (Success wins them over, Partial is a grudging yes with strings, Miss hardens them). Dice sway the GM’s NPCs only, not another player’s choices.
Contests pit characters directly against one another. Each side rolls the action that fits it, and the sides need not match (a Might shove against an Agility footing, a Wits argument against a Presence charm); each reads the normal ladder, and the higher band wins (Critical over Success over Partial over Miss). A tie of bands goes to the higher total; if totals tie too, the rawer dice break it (a natural 17-18 wins, a natural 3-4 loses), else it deadlocks. The bonus sets the band first, so it never lets the raw dice override a band the modifiers decided. When many vie for one prize (a race, a bidding war), each rolls once and the best result wins, ties by total; a long struggle runs as a few rounds, first to an agreed number of wins. A direct attack is not a contest; it uses the combat roll against Defense.
A skill is any named area of training (Stealth, Smithing, Folklore, Arcana). A relevant skill adds +1; a mastered skill adds +2. Without a fitting skill, roll the bare attribute. A few things, casting spells, deciphering deep magic, cannot be attempted at all without training that lives in a playbook. Skills are freeform in form but granted, not invented at will; see Skills for the suggested vocabulary and the authoring rules.
Combat runs one way: as a skirmish, played with tokens or miniatures and a ruler on freeform ground or a grid, measured in spaces (1 inch, or one square or hex). An optional abstract-combat supplement, theater of the mind with no map, exists outside the core.
Combat has two opposed sides. The player characters are a party and face each fight together as one side (with their pets, summons, and allied NPCs); the GM runs the foes as the other. They alternate, one unit at a time: the party activates one of its units, the GM responds with one, back and forth, until everyone has acted; when a side runs out, the other finishes its remaining units in a row. On the party’s activation the players choose together which of their unacted units goes next (characters, pets, summons, level-0 units, just more units in the pool).
The side with the highest-Speed combatant takes the first activation each round (static, set at the start of combat, no roll). Speed does not set activation order, a global Speed track would break alternation; Speed is only how far one Move action carries you in spaces (heavy armor may lower it, and it breaks the first-activation tie).
A fight that opens with one side unaware (an ambush, a hidden striker, a dozing sentry) begins surprised. The aware side takes the first activation regardless of Speed, and each surprised unit has one fewer action (two, not three) on its first activation; thereafter the fight runs normally. The Wits notice check (the engine’s Skill action) tiers it: Success or better cancels surprise (normal order); Partial keeps the surprised unit’s three actions, but the ambusher still acts first; Miss is full surprise, the first activation and the lost action both. Roll only when the noticing is in doubt; a unit with no chance to catch the danger is simply surprised.
Each activation you take three actions, in any order:
Multiple Attack Penalty (MAP). Each attack roll after your first this activation takes a cumulative −2 (2nd −2, 3rd −4). On the 3d6 curve a third Strike is usually worse than moving, maneuvering, or defending, which is the point: mixing beats spamming.
There is no universal reaction slot and no opportunity-attack bookkeeping. A reaction is an Advanced Action taken on another combatant’s activation for 1 stress, once per round, without spending an action of your own (now or on a future activation). A guardian’s Intercept (catch a blow meant for an ally) is one. Active stances instead cost an action to maintain (a guardian’s Taunt pulls aggro and costs one of the three actions). The free Strike from holding ground (and the Suppress shot) is not a reaction in this sense: it is an attack readied by an action paid up front, so it carries no stress cost and triggers on a foe’s move. Opportunity attacks are not universal, they must be set up.
Roll 3d6 + attribute + modifiers − the target’s Defense, on the ladder:
| Result | In combat |
|---|---|
| Miss (8−) | No effect; an alert foe may strike back. |
| Partial (9–12) | Hit, but at a cost: reduced damage, or the foe counters or breaks away. |
| Success (13–17) | Clean hit, full damage. |
| Critical (18+) | Full damage +2, and one fitting condition (attacker’s choice). |
Defense = Agility + shield + cover (derived, not a separate stat). Damage = the weapon’s value − the target’s Armor (at least 1 always gets through), −1 on a Partial, +2 on a Critical. Subtract from Hit Points.
Position. Measure in spaces (1 inch, or one square/hex); reckon a space as about 5 ft (1.5 m) and an activation as a handful of seconds (a full-move activation covers ~9 m, a quick-time advance under arms, not a sprint). A Move carries you up to your Speed in spaces; Strike reaches an adjacent foe (a Reach weapon, two spaces); Shoot carries to the weapon’s range band, short 4 / medium 8 / long 12 spaces, a band past that a long shot (−1), beyond that out of range. Leaving melee is free unless a foe holds its ground (a Disengage Maneuver, no roll, waives its free Strike for the rest of the activation, until you enter a new threat’s reach). Move through an ally freely, never through a standing foe; a downed, unconscious, or prone foe is no barrier (a conscious prone foe still holds its ground like any active foe). You cannot end an activation sharing a space with another unit unless a trait allows it (a Tiny creature may share). Flat modifiers, each stacking with the others but never with itself: charging into melee +1, outnumbering/flanking +1, higher ground +1, target behind cover −1 to hit it, a long shot −1.
A weapon deals damage by size, light 3 / medium 4 / heavy 5, and carries one or more keywords. Bare hands or an improvised weapon deal 2 (a tier below light); bare hands are also Quick. Hurling something not made to be thrown (a rock, a chair leg) costs 1 stress, the fatigue a proper sling spares. A shield is +1 Defense; a two-handed weapon leaves no hand for one.
| Keyword | Rule |
|---|---|
| Two-handed | both hands, so no shield |
| Heavy | always two-handed, unwieldy: only one Strike an activation. A Success or Critical knocks the target Prone (Staggered if it cannot be felled), and the wielder may swing all-out: −2 to hit for +2 damage |
| Quick | one action makes two attacks; the second takes the Multiple Attack Penalty, like any extra attack (bare hands have it) |
| Reach | Strike a foe a step beyond arm’s length (over an ally, a closing charge) |
| Ranged | attacked with Shoot, at a distance; each has a range band (short 4 / medium 8 / long 12 spaces); a shot a band beyond it is a long shot (−1) |
| Reload N | spends N actions to reload between shots (crossbow 2, windlass 5): one telling shot, then a long wind |
| Thrown | a melee weapon that may also be hurled as a Shoot (short range) |
Action cost is a balancing lever. Most attacks cost one action. Heavy weapons are limited to one swing (their weight, not MAP, caps them); two-weapon fighting buys a second Strike that still takes MAP; a few attacks (the heavy weapon’s all-out sweep, certain Advanced Actions) cost two actions and count as one attack for MAP, the price is the actions, not a worse roll. Crit and precision are the multi-swing (finesse/light) weapons’ domain, not the one-swing heavy.
Armor soaks damage: light 1, heavy 2 (and Speed −1). Soak of 3+ is the mark of monsters and enchantment, and such a creature always carries a weakness worth finding.
A condition imposes a flat −2 unless noted. Re-applying a condition a creature already has escalates it (Staggered becomes Stunned; pile on enough and it goes Down), so focus-fire and stacked maneuvers can break a tough foe without raw damage.
| Condition | Effect | Cleared |
|---|---|---|
| Prone | melee hits it at +2; it acts at −2 | Stand (1 action) |
| Staggered | −2 to its rolls | ends next activation / Recover |
| Stunned | loses one action | end of its next activation |
| Grabbed | cannot move; −2 to act | break free (Maneuver) |
| Entangled | cannot move; −2 to act; one snare can catch up to 4 adjacent | a successful Maneuver or Endure (a “save”); a miss spends the action for nothing |
| Slowed | Speed halved (abstract play: crossing a range band costs double); no −2 to rolls | ends at its next activation, or Recover |
| Disarmed | improvised attacks only | retrieve weapon (action) |
| Frightened | −2 near the source; cannot approach it | Endure, or source gone |
| Ongoing N | N damage each activation, ignoring armor | tend it, or it runs out |
| Weakened | takes double from one named kind of harm | Recover (1 action), tend, or it fades |
A numeric condition does not stack: a second Ongoing (or Staggered, etc.) takes the worse value and resets its clock rather than summing, so a swarm’s many small venom-bites inflict only its single worst dose, not one per bite. One tend ends an Ongoing whatever its size.
An ally may clear a condition for you, paying the same action and the same roll it would have cost you. Automatic clears (tend an Ongoing, hand a Disarmed ally a weapon) take one action. A clear that is a roll, the ally rolls: freeing you from a Grab is a Maneuver against the grabber’s Defense, so a strong holder (ogre, roc) resists the rescue as it resists your own struggle, one action buys the attempt, not the certainty. Self-steadying paths (Stand, Recover, Endure) are yours alone, and time-based clears need no action.
A successful Maneuver applies its condition instead of damage (Shove/Trip → Prone, Grapple → Grabbed, Disarm → Disarmed, Feint → Staggered). Some creatures cannot suffer some conditions (a legless thing is never Prone, a mindless thing never Frightened); the stat line says which, and the Maneuver then deals its damage if any.
Entangled and Slowed are not on the Maneuver menu. They come from snare gear thrown at short range (a net, a bola, caltrops; see Gear) or from a creature’s trait (a spider’s Web, a tar pit; see Adversaries). Because they ride on a carried item or a specific monster rather than universal play, they are defined where they appear, not earned by any Strike or Maneuver.
Damage subtracts from Hit Points. At 0 HP a combatant is Down: a felled monster dies, flees, or yields; a Down hero is unconscious and dying. A blow past 0 does not overkill, so no single hit kills a hero outright (the heroic baseline; the level-0 funnel is far more fragile).
Death save. On each of your activations while Down, roll an Endure with your best attribute (the highest of Might, Agility, Wits, or Presence):
| Save | Result |
|---|---|
| 18+ | Rally, conscious, back at 1 HP. |
| 13–17 | Stabilize (out of danger). |
| 9–12 | Cling on; save again next activation. |
| 8− | You die. |
Everything that helps a roll helps the save (Push, a Blessing, a reroll). Harm taken while Down forces a save at once; a foe who takes time to finish a helpless hero simply does. An ally may act instead: first aid (a Skill roll with Medicine, 13+ brings you up at 1 HP, 9–12 stabilizes) or healing that lifts you above 0. A hero who returns from Down rises Shaken.
Falling. A fall deals crushing harm. For every 12 ft (about 4 m) fallen, make an Endure roll (Agility to land with it or Might to take it, GM’s call; a helpless or unaware faller gets none and takes each span in full): Miss = 6 a span, Partial = 3, Success+ = 0. Falling ignores armor, but Resist / Weakness to crushing still counts. No overkill: a killing fall only drops a hero to Dying.
Combat conditions fade as their entries describe, usually within a round or two of leaving the fray.
| Part | At first level |
|---|---|
| Attributes | one at +2 (the signature), one at +1, two at +0 |
| Skills | three, trained (+1 each) |
| Advanced Actions | two: one granted by the playbook, one chosen |
| Hit Points | 12 + toughness (the playbook’s 0–4) |
| Stress | 4 + Presence |
| Speed | 2 (a playbook may set 1–3) |
| Defense | Agility + shield + cover (derived) |
| Kit | a weapon, perhaps armor, a few useful things |
An Advanced Action is the special trick of an archetype: a spell, a deadly strike, a guardian’s catch, a fighter’s tactic. They fill an unlocking track; a playbook also grants baseline archetype skills. Most playbooks may trade one Advanced Action for two extra skills, or the reverse.
Five levels. The GM picks the track: milestone (a level at a story beat), XP (one per significant challenge, a level every three), or XP plus treasure. Whichever, advance the whole party together.
| Level | Gains |
|---|---|
| 1 | the playbook grant budget (the start) |
| 2 | +4 HP · +1 skill (new, or deepen one to +2) · +1 Advanced Action |
| 3 | +4 HP · +1 attribute (cap +3) · +1 damage |
| 4 | +4 HP · +1 skill · +1 Advanced Action |
| 5 | +4 HP · +1 attribute (cap +3) · +1 damage |
The die stays the same; growth is hit points, skills, attributes, Advanced Actions, and damage. The +1 damage at levels 3 and 5 is delegated to the playbook: it raises weapon damage for a martial, spell damage for a caster, left out of the core. By level 5: ~30 HP, attributes to +3, five or six skills, four Advanced Actions, +2 damage.
A level-0 character, a villager swept into adventure, is the funnel’s fragile starting state, set below the level-1 budget:
The funnel is meant to thin the herd: a felled level-0 does not get the hero’s death save (a drop to 0 is simply out, the GM’s call on dead or dying), so run several per player and expect losses. A survivor who reaches the far side chooses a playbook and takes its full level-1 grant budget, the trial becoming their lifepath.
A playbook is the system’s main plugin: a guided sheet that builds one archetype through a lifepath, grants its skills and Advanced Actions, and never touches the core. Write a new one and you have added a class with no rules change.
Build every playbook to this budget, then move the dials within it:
The balance lever: swap 1 Advanced Action ↔︎ 2 skills to tune a playbook that comes out a little hot or cold.
Character creation is roll-or-choose tables, not point-buy, and the tables do the budgeting. The recurring shape that works:
Keep tables on the d6 family only (d6, 2d6, 3d6, d66, d666); never a d4/d8/d10/ d12/d20/d100. Fit a menu of size N to one of those.
Define each archetype by what it does best and what it deliberately lacks, and state the role positively, as the active job it fills, not apologetically. “Holds the line, keeps the pressure on, and picks allies up” beats “never the best at any one thing.” Name what it cannot do once, confidently, and subordinate to the role; do not restate the apology in every section.
Four design truths from balance testing inform the niches:
Advanced Actions are the archetype’s kit, and the kit, not the stats, is what makes two playbooks on the same chassis play differently. Guidance:
The kit varies by archetype, but the cost shapes recur. An author reaches for the one that matches how long the advantage lasts. Six cover almost everything:
Match the shape to the duration: an instant edge → one action or a stress; an ongoing mode → a sustained drain; a rare, fight-defining trump → once per session. Whatever the shape, the gating rules above (cap chains, halve action-economy levers) still apply.
Stamp every playbook with the rules version it was written against (a
line near the title). When the project’s version.txt
advances past that stamp, on any change that could affect playbooks
(actions, attributes, stress, combat calculations, the grant budget,
progression), the playbook is flagged for review and re-stamp. New
playbooks carry the then-current version.
Putting the sections above into a procedure:
A fresh archetype, built setting-neutral, to show the dials in motion. (Reskin the flavor for your own world.)
1. Niche. The Hunter owns the open ground: the first shot, the read of the trail, the foe singled out and run down. It lacks a front-liner’s armored staying power; it wants distance and a marked quarry. Stress direction: create-an-effect (mark a quarry; line up the killing shot).
2. Budget, with the swap lever. The Hunter is a skilled archetype, so it takes the swap (1 Advanced Action → 2 skills): one granted Advanced Action and five skills, rather than two and three.
3. Lifepath (sketch). Two of the four tables, to show the shape:
Where did you learn the wild? (1d6) 1. A game-warden’s child on a great estate. (+1 Wits · Tracking) 2. A border-scout, paid to walk the dangerous edge. (+1 Agility · Survival) … (entries 3–6 each grant one increment and one skill)
What do you hunt? (1d6) 1. Beasts that have learned to hunt people back. (skill: Beasts) 2. Fugitives, for the bounty and the road. (skill: Streetwise) … (3–6)
Whose trail do you guard? (party-binding) Choose another character; once per session, when you act on their behalf, one of you turns a partial success into a clean one.
Express: Agility +2 / Wits +1 / +0 / +0, the five skills above, Mark the Quarry plus one pick below.
4. Advanced Actions. The granted one is a single-target rider, deliberately not a chain:
Every dial is visible: the swap lever (five skills, one granted action), a single-target rider that does not chain, a companion handled as a side-pool unit rather than an action multiplier, and an area attack gated by both an action cost and stress. The Hunter is on budget without copying any existing archetype.
A skill is any named area of training that adds to the Skill action (and to any other action the GM rules it touches). A relevant skill adds +1; a mastered skill adds +2 and also sharpens how the GM reads the result. Without a fitting skill you roll the bare attribute.
Skills are freeform in name and scope. A player most often takes skills from their playbook’s lifepath and from advancement rewards. Playbooks are explicitly modular and self-contained: each one defines its own skills, and nothing stops a GM or players from introducing a new skill at the table that fits the fiction. Name it, agree on its scope, and play.
The practical consequence: the playbooks in play, plus whatever a table coins, form the working skill list. Two tables running the same core with different playbooks may have different skill vocabularies, and that is fine.
A few capabilities are hard-gated behind training that only a playbook grants, chiefly spellcasting and the reading of deep magic. Everything else is open: a character without the Stealth skill may still try to sneak, at the bare attribute.
This is a guideline, not a closed list. Its job is to help an author find the right power balance and keep skill scope consistent across playbooks, so that two authors do not write one over-broad skill and one hair-thin one. Reuse these names where they fit; coin a flavored variant when the archetype earns it, but keep its scope in line with the bucket it sits in (a duelist’s Footwork is an Athletics of the blade, not a do-everything skill).
| Domain | Suggested skills | Flavored variants seen in play |
|---|---|---|
| Body & movement | Athletics, Endurance, Riding, Seafaring | Climbing, Acrobatics, Footwork |
| Combat craft | Soldiery, Brawling, Dueling, Marksmanship, Command | Drill, Bodyguarding, Mercenary Lore, Tactics |
| Stealth & streets | Stealth, Thievery, Deceit, Streetwise, Disguise | Larceny, Contacts, Appraisal, Glamour, Sleight |
| Lore & craft | Old Lore, Arcana, Nature, Mechanics, Reckoning | Artifice, Spirit-Sense, Beast-Lore, Theology |
| Perception & wilds | Perception, Tracking, Wayfaring | Watchfulness, Vigil, Weather-Sense, Hunting |
| Society & will | Interaction, Oratory, Devotion, Insight, Resolve | Courtesy, Song, Intimidation |
| Medicine | Medicine | Surgery |
Notes for the author:
A skill granted by more than one playbook is a feature, not a redundancy: it says these archetypes could have trained in the same hall, and it is how the cast reads as one world rather than a set of unrelated kits. Author skills on two axes:
Two deliberate moves to keep in your pocket when you write a new playbook:
When you finish a playbook, glance at what it shares with the existing cast: aim for at least one skill in common with a kindred archetype, one or two unique markers, and any bridge or gap you mean to make.
A creature needs only a short line of numbers and one idea that makes it worth fighting. The GM rolls a creature’s attacks exactly like a character’s: 3d6 + its Attack − your Defense, on the ladder. Its saves use attributes by tier (below); everything softer still, skills, cunning, the shape of its plan, the GM simply plays.
Name: HP · Defense · Armor · Attack +N (damage) · Speed · special
That is the whole block. Keep it to one line so a GM can field a foe at a glance and a reader can lift it into a new setting.
Pick a tier and adjust to taste. Danger comes from hit points, armor, and numbers, not from bigger damage. A lone Dire foe drowns under four heroes’ actions, so give it extra attacks or minions, not just a fat damage die.
| Tier | HP | Atk | Dmg | Armor | Def | Acts | Typical |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lesser | 4–6 | +2 | 3 | 0–1 | 2 | 1 | goblin, bandit |
| Common | 12 | +3 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 1 | soldier, cultist |
| Greater | 18 | +3 | 5 | 1–2 | 3 | 2 | gladiator, knight |
| Dire | 30+ | +4 | 6 | 2–3 | 3 | 2–3 | ogre, chieftain |
A swarm’s danger is how long each body survives, not how hard it hits: give a weak foe a point or two of armor and a few extra hit points and it stops being a nuisance and becomes a threat.
Run a Dire foe with a retinue, and with cunning. A boss alone drowns under the party’s actions, so the real fight is the boss behind its minions. Play it to hang back while the minions bleed the party, spending its actions to taunt, harry, and finish the wounded, and to commit in force only when the tide turns, or to quit the field and return later. Send it in early against a larger party, late against a small one. Run as a stand-and-trade slab of hit points, the encounter is a pushover or a wipe; run with tempo, it has a rhythm and a way out.
A creature saves like a character: 3d6 + the fitting attribute (Presence against fear or a divine Rebuke, Might against a shove, Wits against an illusion, and so on). Rather than write four numbers on every stat line, take them all from the foe’s tier and note only the exceptions:
| Tier | Attributes |
|---|---|
| Lesser | +0 |
| Common | +1 |
| Greater | +2 |
| Dire | +3 |
So a Dire foe saves at +3 across the board by default; you note that the ogre’s Might is higher still and its Wits lower, or that a drilled soldier has a steadier Presence. This keeps Attack (its offense) and attributes (its saves) separate, the same split a character has, and it gives every fear, morale, and resist roll a number without bloating the one-line block. A truly steadfast foe takes a high Presence or a flat immunity (see below), the way the mindless dead feel no ordinary terror.
A creature’s threat should come from its one trait, not from inflated numbers. The toolbox:
These three are one family on a “harm-sensitivity” axis: Resist (half) → normal → Weakness (double) → Bane (only its kind). All are per-creature plain language, not a universal damage-type chart, and the “kind” is GM-adjudicated.
Note in the stat line the conditions a creature’s kind ignores: a legless or bodiless thing cannot be knocked Prone or Grabbed, a mindless thing cannot be Frightened, an unarmed thing cannot be Disarmed. An immunity makes a foe markedly harder (the party loses the openings those conditions buy), so grant it deliberately, as you would any defense. When a condition will not stick, the Maneuver that would apply it simply deals its damage, if any.
A creature with a Bane takes damage only from its named Bane; all other harm passes through and deals nothing. It is a puzzle, not a wall: the Bane IS the telegraphed weakness in plain language in its stat line, something a player can discover and exploit (fire, a blessed blade, the environment, a parley, a retreat). The core rule: a Bane names its own counter, so the puzzle ships with its own answer. Keep such creatures low-HP so the puzzle drives the encounter, not a damage grind.
Do not build a universal damage-type chart (fire/frost/holy/profane with a grid of resistances); that was rejected on purpose. Name an element for color, but treat each creature’s Bane as a per-creature, plain-language counter.
Name: HP · Def · Armor · Attack +N (dmg) · Speed · special.
Note only the attribute exceptions (the brute’s high Might, the
mindless thing’s missing fear).The typical case, a Fen Lurker. Idea: it drags you off your feet and under the water. That is Grab. Common tier, lightly adjusted, one trait, done:
Fen Lurker: HP 12 · Def 3 · Armor 1 · Attack +3 (4) · Speed 2 · Grab (a hit holds the target; Maneuver to break free; while held, it drags toward deep water).
No special damage type, no inflated numbers. The threat is the Grab and the water behind it, the players answer with a Maneuver, an ally’s Strike, or staying out of reach. That is a whole monster.
The puzzle case, an Ashen Revenant. Idea: a burned dead thing that ordinary steel cannot touch. That calls for a Bane, so keep the HP low and telegraph the answer:
Ashen Revenant: HP 8 · Def 2 · Armor 0 · Attack +3 (4) · Speed 2 · Bane: fire or blessed flame. Mindless (cannot be Frightened). A struck blade slides through the ash and does nothing.
The two together show the rule of the chapter: most creatures are a tier plus one trait, and a puzzle creature is the same with its counter named and telegraphed.
Magic in this game is a plugin on the core engine, not a subsystem inside it. The core rules define no spells. A caster is just a playbook that grants the Spellcasting Advanced Action and a themed bundle of spells; the spells live on that playbook and on the player’s spell-book sheet. This section is for whoever writes new spells, bundles, traditions, or caster playbooks. It tells you how to keep new magic balanced and in voice without touching the core.
The whole point of the design is that a community member can add a wholly new kind of caster by writing a playbook and a handful of spells, with no change to the rules everyone already knows.
A spell is resolved as a Skill action: roll 3d6 + the caster’s casting attribute (Wits for arcane study, Presence for divine or innate power), add trained edge and situation, and read the standard ladder:
| Total | Result |
|---|---|
| 8− | The spell fails. The cost is still paid; in a desperate spot it may misfire. |
| 9–12 | It works at reduced effect. The player may spend +1 stress to get the full result instead. |
| 13–17 | It works. |
| 18+ | It works, plus an effect (extra reach, an extra target, a rider condition). |
Partial (9–12) reduced effect is defined by the spell, but the default heuristics are: half damage or healing, half duration, half area, or one fewer target. The design principle is that players are never forced to spend stress on a partial; they always have the lesser outcome as a free option and the full outcome as an optional stress buy.
Against a willing target or with no one to stop you, casting usually needs no roll at all; you simply pay the cost. Roll when an unwilling target resists or when failure would bite.
Three fixed truths the core already establishes, build on them, do not restate them in a playbook:
Every spell sorts into one of four magnitudes. This is the single most important authoring tool: decide the magnitude first, then write flavor to fit. Do not invent new costs.
| Magnitude | Cost | What it can do |
|---|---|---|
| Cantrip | free, at will | A cosmetic or personal trick, here and gone: a light, a spark, a mended cup, a sensed lie, a whispered word. No real harm. (See guardrails below.) |
| Spell | 1 stress | One real effect, now: single-target harm about a weapon’s worth (often ignoring armor), one condition on one foe, a solid heal, a useful utility. |
| Greater spell | 2 stress | Reach beyond one subject: an area, several targets, strong control (a binding, a barrier), a large heal, a revival. |
| Ritual | time, no stress | The slow, safe path. Anything you have calm minutes to do out of a fight, and the grand effects that should never be cheap: sanctify, scry, speak with the dead, raise the dead, lasting enchantment. |
Rules of thumb when you are unsure:
A caster who has spent their last stress should not be reduced to throwing rocks, so every casting bundle grants a single at-will minor attack: the dim ember left when the fire is out. It is not a cantrip (cantrips deal no harm worth a number, see the guardrails); it is a deliberate, capped baseline. Author it to all of these limits:
This is the always-available fallback the stress-track balancing relies on (a caster is burst, not endurance): when the fuel runs dry the caster still contributes a little, without ever competing with the martials’ damage. Name and flavor it to the tradition (an arcane spark, a divine rebuke), but hold the limits.
Most spells are immediate: they resolve and are done (a bolt, a heal, a shove of force). Lasting effects need a way to hold the magic, and this is where the stress economy needs care. Stress clears on rest, so a ward “that lasts the night” paid for with a single stress would cost nothing by morning. Resolve it with one of three durations, named on the spell:
This is the recommended improvement to the stress system for any spell that should linger: a sustained ward, a flying boon, a light that lasts the watch, a lasting blessing. It keeps the stress track free for the fight, gives material components a real job, and turns preparation into play. A caster who is out of a component can still produce the effect by Concentration or by casting it as a ritual; they just cannot fire and forget.
Authoring components:
A rough heuristic by source: divine and innate traditions tend toward immediate grace, mercy and wrath spent in the moment, plus the odd one-round aura, and so rarely need anchors or a pouch. Arcane traditions are the ones that build lasting things, wards, lights, bindings, and so are where anchored durations and components earn their keep. A divine caster who only heals, smites, and raises brief auras carries no component pouch at all.
Cantrips are free, so they need fences, or a clever author will write a cantrip that does a costed spell’s job. A cantrip must not:
A good test: a cantrip is personal. Its magic is sustained by the caster’s own presence, so an object a cantrip enchants goes dark the moment it leaves the caster’s hand. You carry your own light.
When a spell sits between two magnitudes, a tag nudges it. Use these sparingly and note them on the spell.
| Tag | Effect | Cost shift |
|---|---|---|
| Unavoidable | ignores the target’s Defense (no roll to resist) | up a step |
| Silent / Unseen | no visible or audible signature | up a step |
| Selective | spares chosen allies inside an area | up a step |
| Loud / Obvious | announces itself; no stealth | down a step |
| Concentration | must be held (see Duration) | down a step |
| Material | consumes a component beyond any anchor | down a step |
“Up a step” means treat a 1-stress spell as a 2-stress greater spell (or move a greater spell into ritual territory); “down a step” means the reverse, to a floor of a free cantrip.
This game keeps one distinction that matters at the table: ordinary harm versus magical harm. Magical harm is what lets a spell hurt a creature whose Bane is something other than steel. Do not build a chart of fire/frost/holy/profane damage types with a matching grid of resistances; we rejected the universal damage-type table on purpose. Name a spell’s element freely for color (a frost ray, a holy flame), but treat the element as flavor, not as a defense category.
When a creature should take damage only from a Bane, write that as a per-creature, telegraphed counter in its stat line, in plain language, exactly as the core directs for Bane. The Bane is the puzzle; the player should be able to learn it and beat it.
A caster playbook does not hand out a spell list. It hands out a small bundle gated by the character’s origin, the teacher, god, school, or pact that defines them. The recurring shape:
A caster’s track is 4 + Presence, so at 1 stress per spell they get roughly four to six castings between rests before the falter risk bites. Author to that budget:
The encounter calculations in this game, and the threat tiers on the Gamemaster’s Screen, assume a party of four. Fewer or more heroes changes a fight more than the headcount suggests, because actions and focus-fire compound: three heroes are not three-quarters of a party, they are meaningfully more fragile, and the gap shows up as attrition across a delve, not in any single fight. This section is how to adjust.
In testing, a balanced level-3 party cleared a punishing five-wave delve about 90% of the time at four heroes. Drop to three (keeping a healer) and that fell to ~70%; drop the healer too and the trio wiped almost every run. The fixes below restored a three-hero party to a comfortable clear rate.
Use any one lever; combine them for an easier ride.
The danger at three players concentrates in the late, durable waves, not the opening skirmish, so spend your difficulty budget there: an easier road in, and a fair chance to rest before the worst of it.
The opposite problem. Four heroes already bury a lone foe under their actions, so a fifth makes single big enemies trivial. Add bodies and a Dire foe’s escort, not just hit points: give solo Dire foes Multiattack and minions (see the bestiary’s Dire notes), and add about one foe per extra player. More players also out-action attrition, so the rest gate matters less, tighten it if you want the tension back.
A fight’s danger is not fixed by its stat blocks; it bends to how the party plays. Trading blow for blow, every hero attacking every activation, is the deadliest way to meet a hard fight, and it is the floor the encounter calculations assume. The levers that climb off that floor are defensive: a wounded hero who spends an action to Defend trades offense for the durability to stay upright, and an upright hero keeps swinging. A guardian’s Taunt and Intercept, focus-fire to drop a foe an activation early, and a fair rest gate do the same work.
Position is the strongest defensive lever of all, because no one may move through a standing foe. A passage one or two bodies wide lets a handful hold off a crowd: only as many attackers as the gap is wide can strike the front at once, so a swarm’s numbers stop counting. Ten rats or a dozen goblins simply queue; the line takes them one or two at a time and grinds them down. A second rank behind the first is not a second wall but a second life for the line, the instant the front defender falls, the one behind steps up. Anyone sheltered further back, a caster, a wounded hero, an NPC under guard, is safe exactly that long: until the last defender drops. (In the open, where foes can go around, holding your ground adds a free Strike at anyone who tries to slip your reach; in a true chokepoint the body itself is the wall and the free Strike is a bonus, not the mechanism.)
What breaks a held line is not more bodies but harder ones. Raw per-hit power, a Dire bruiser whose blow cracks the tank and whose knockdown steals its actions, chews through a chokepoint that a whole swarm could not. So does anything that refuses to play the geometry: a flyer, a burrower, a foe that flanks a second entrance, or archers who shoot over the line at the soft targets behind (a body blocks bodies, not arrows). A lone runner can also try to Disengage past the front, but it spends its turn doing so and arrives spent among your back rank, where the second rank meets it.
Design a hold the door or protect the envoy set-piece around exactly this. Give the defenders a real chokepoint and name it, so the choice to hold is visible; then decide how you mean to threaten it. Send numbers if you want the line to hold and the players to feel unbreakable; send per-hit power or a way around if you want dread, and let them feel the second rank thinning. The tension of such a scene lives in the geometry, not the stat block.
A hero who is desperate can dig past a full stress track for one clutch spend, a finishing Push or a life-saving Resist, then carry the Shaken −1 until a full rest. That valve only matters in a fight that drains the track to empty, and it reshapes how you build threats: