Core Rules: Creating a Character
The Echelon System
Choose an Echelon, which affects your party dynamics and grants a powerful unique benefit. Your Echelon helps craft your character’s development and acts as a force multiplier to your techniques.
What it is: Your approach to play. You pick 1 Echelon at character creation. It modifies limits or grants bonuses.
What it does NOT change: Your Source totals or Ability Scores.
When it matters: Key moments in play where your Echelon affects the story’s outcome.
Changing Echelons: This can be story driven, with consideration for how your character has grown.
Aegic
Unique Ability: Adds proficiency to blocked damage (if proficient in Strength, add proficiency a second time).
Role Example: An Aegis Paladin may specialize in shielding allies and absorbing incoming attacks.
Aurelic
Unique Ability: Can concentrate on 2 spells before incurring the multiple concentration penalty.
Role Example: An Aurelic Sorcerer might specialize in enhancing allies' combat prowess and defenses.
Ingenic
Unique Ability: Adds proficiency when crafting, repairing, or interacting with magical or technological items (non-attack/defense rolls), including computers (if proficient in the affected roll, add proficiency a second time).
Role Example: An Ingenic Rogue might specialize in deploying devices and managing tools mid-combat, or hacking into magical mainframes.
Malefic
Unique Ability: Adds proficiency twice when dealing damage (if proficient when calculating damage, add proficiency to damage a second time).
Role Example: A Malefic Cleric might channel destructive divine energy to wipe out enemies.
Myric
Unique Ability: May spend 2 Source Dice to treat an unstressed, non-combat check as a stressed check in order to gain proficiency, even if they are not normally proficient in the relevant discipline.
Role Example: A Myric Warlock might pick a lock or tame a horse, even if they’d never seen either.
Vitalic
Unique Ability: Adds proficiency twice to healing (if proficient when calculating healing, add proficiency to healing a second time).
Role Example: A Reparative Druid might focus on restoring allies quickly during combat.
Ability Scores
Characters have 6 Ability Scores. These scores snapshot every creature's core characteristics and affect the three main rolls of the game: ability checks, attack rolls, and counters.
- Strength provides passive damage absorption and can be used for melee/ranged attacks.
- Agility provides passive dodge and can be used for melee/ranged attacks and parry.
- Constitution is used for concentration and endurance checks. It also affects your available Movement and modifies your Hit Points after level 17.
- Wisdom, Knowledge, and Influence are used for spellcasting and social checks.
Ability Scores and Modifiers
All characters begin with 8 in every ability score.
At creation, players get 27 points to distribute among the six abilities.
- No score may exceed 20 at level 1.
- Raising a score above 15 costs 2 points per increment.
Point Costs
- 8 → 15 = 1 point per increase
- 16+ = 2 points per increase
Modifiers
- Every 2 points below 10: –1 modifier
- Every 2 points above 10: +1 modifier
Example Stat Block
| Stat | Score | Modifier |
|---|---|---|
| Agility | 15 | +2 |
| Constitution | 14 | +2 |
| Strength | 13 | +1 |
| Wisdom | 12 | +1 |
| Knowledge | 11 | +0 |
| Influence | 10 | +0 |
Ability Score Increase
- Every even-numbered level (including 20), gain +1 ability point.
- Scores may exceed 20 after level 1, but:
- Every 2 points above 20 must be offset by lowering another score by 1.
Example: If Knowledge is 21 and Influence is 13, raising Knowledge to 22 means lowering Influence to 12 (or any other stat by 1).
Source Dice (SD)
All characters have a Source Pool of dice used to fuel abilities, attacks, and more.
Source Pool by Level
| Level | Source Pool |
|---|---|
| 1 | 6d6 |
| 5 | 8d8 |
| 9 | 10d10 |
| 13 | 12d12 |
| 17 | 20d20 |
Replenishment
Out of Combat: Automatically regain Source Dice equal to your proficiency every unstressed hour
Hit Points
-
Before level 17:
HP = Source Dice Size × Number of Source Dice
Example: 6d6 → 6 × 6 = 36 HP -
Level 17+:
HP = 20 × Constitution score(not modifier)
Renewal
Regain HP during downtime:
- Regain HP = Proficiency Bonus + Constitution Modifier per unstressed hour.
Example: +3 Proficiency, –1 Constitution → regain 2 HP/hour
Core Actions (CA)
- Core Actions include attacks, spellcasting, and d20-based checks.
- Some actions cost 1 CA + additional SD.
- To take a Core Action:
- 20ft movement = 1 CA
- 2 SD = 1 CA
- 10ft + 1 SD = 1CA
Conversions
When you spend a Core Action + Movement, the Movement is converted into Source. When Movment is Converted this way to use a damaging or healing Technique, you roll Source Dice equal to the Movement Converted.
| Conversion | Rule |
|---|---|
| 1 Core Action + Movement → Source | Turn unused Movement into Source or a Technique |
| 1 SD → 10ft Movement | Source can be spent for extra Movement |
- Note: Movement cannot beconverted to Source without a Core Action
Turns
On your turn:
- You may spend all your Source
- You may use all your movement.
- Your turn ends when you've used all resources or you choose to pass.
Note: It is important to manage your Source over the course of an encounter, as expending it all on one turn can leave one vulnerable.
Hold Action
You may hold an Action or Reaction by specifying a clear trigger (e.g. "If a creature enters my range").
-You may hold an action and take your turn normally.
- You do not pre-commit Source Dice for held actions.
- When triggered, resolve the action immediately, committing necessary resources.
- If resolving it would exceed your SD proficiency cap, it becomes a Strained check.
- If you do not have the resources when the trigger occurs, the Action is not triggered.
- If the trigger never occurs, you lose nothing.
Stress
Stress
- All tasks in combat are considered stressed.
- For every missing SD, add +1 DC to stressed actions.
- Stressed DC = +1 per missing SD at the moment of the check.
| Missing SD | DC Increase |
|---|---|
| 1 | +1 |
| 2 | +2 |
| 3 | +3 |
| ... | ... |
Ascended Play (Level 21+): Stress is reduced to +1 DC per 2 missing SD (see Ascended Resilience).