Challenger: Roleplaying Game Core Rules

Part 0.1: Introduction

The mighty warrior strode valiantly into the dragon’s cave. The smell of brimstone—somewhat like what the knight experienced after eating beans— was strong in his nostrils. Suddenly, the great red serpent leapt up out of a crevice in the earth! His molten eyes fixed on the hero. Who dares challenge the mighty Seojsofnoes?!

"It is I, Yanneth, the great swordsmaster, telekinetic, ninja, shape-changer!"

"Oh crud," said the dragon. He crept back down into his crevice. Perhaps he’d eat someone else another day.

Welcome to the 3rd major version of the Challenger RPG game! Despite appearances, this game is outrageously simple to learn and play. The bulk of the text is taken up by classes and races of which there are very many indeed. You should not feel you have to read through every single one to learn to play this game, instead, just read the chapter headings in each section and you will know all the rules you need to play. Better yet, grab a few friends and start play right away with the quick-play version and sample adventure (at the end of this book). You can always ‘add-in’ the advanced rules and character additions later on if you want.

Part 0.2: How to Play a Role-playing Game

or

What the Heck is this?

Role-playing is playing the ‘role’ of a fictional character in the game. Every player’s character or ‘PC’ is one such fictional character (a hero) one of the players controls.

The ‘GM’ is the one player who is in charge of the game known as the ‘game master’. The game master controls everything in the game and ongoing story except for the players’ characters. The players’ characters can do or say whatever they’d like, but it is up to the GM to decide what actions succeed or fail in his sole discretion. Sometimes the GM will call for a die roll to determine success or failure. The rules outlined in the following chapters will tell you what your player’s need to roll for their characters to accomplish such actions in the game. If any action is unlisted, use the recommendations below and your best judgment as GM. The GM designs ‘adventures’ which the heroes (PCs) embark on to slay dragons, rescue princesses, and retrieve great magical treasures. For more on ‘adventures’ and how to GM, please see: Chapter Seven: The GM’s Section and Chapter Eight: Adventure and Game Design.

RR is the number a player will need to roll at or above to succeed on a challenge (created by the GM or set from the rules in Chapter Seventeen: Monsters and Obstacles). This game is full of challenges; from mighty monsters, to climbing terrible mountains, to negotiating with deadly princes. RR stands for Risk Rating and also for Risk vs. Reward because when you risk something you’re most often rewarded with treasure, magic items, xp, or just your own survival! See the GM’s Section in Chapter Seven for more details on Rewards.

Part 0.3: Dice Abbreviations

1d20 means: roll one twenty-sided die. 1d6 means: roll one six-sided die. 3d6 would mean: roll three six-sided dice and add the results together. Roll 1d20-5 would mean roll one twenty-sided die and subtract five from the result. See also, the Glossary at the back of this book for how to roll any other funny numerical quantities including: percentages, 1d5, and 1d100 (which you don’t actually need a die for).

Part 0.4: What you will need to Play

You will need all of the following to play:

1. One or more friends ages 13 and up. (Or younger, if you think you can handle it.)

2. Polyhedral dice. You’ll need a full set of 7 polyhedral dice to play. If you don’t have them, you can make do with a random number generator on the internet.

3. Miniature Figures (Optional). Some players like to use miniature figures. This game supports that system, but it’s not necessary to play.

4. An ‘Adventure’. There is an included Sample Adventure at the back of this book to get you started (Chapter Eighteen). After that, you’ll either have to grab the loads of free adventures I’ve put out for Challenger, or create your own! See: Chapter Eight: Adventure and Game Design for more details on creating your own adventures and game worlds (also known as ‘campaign’ settings).

5. Imagination. This game is a role-playing game. All the action takes place in your imagination. Creativity also helps a lot. Ye have been warned.

Part 0.5: List of Abbreviations

RPGs (role-playing games) tend to use a lot of funny abbreviations. I’ll try to outline the most common ones for you here. If you come across any not listed below, please consult the ‘Glossary’ at the back of this book.

RPG: Role-playing game.

XP: Experience Points. Awarded by the GM to make the players’ characters stronger. See: Rewards in the ‘GM’s Section’ (Chapter Seven) for details. When you gain enough xp you level up and become more powerful. Challenger functions on a dual, level and point-buy xp system.

GM: Game Master. The one player who ‘referees’ the game, describes the action, sets the scene, plays all the NPCs and villains, awards xp and treasure, and who has the toughest job because he has to actually read the GM’s section. The GM also designs ‘Adventures’ for the player’s characters to embark on.

PC: Player Character. Usually defined on a ‘character sheet’ (you may copy the one on the back of this book for your personal use only). Each player usually controls one character and possibly any ‘henchmen’ or ‘pets’ that character might have.

NPC: Non-Player Character. Any character in the game not directly controlled by a player is controlled by the GM and is thus a ‘non-player character’.

HP: Hit Points. A measure of toughness. When your hit points reach 0, you fall unconscious. At -10 hit points a character is dead (usually).

RR: Risk Rating. Roughly translated: Target Number. This is the number you will need to roll on 1d20 to succeed on a challenge. It is possible to roll numbers higher than 20 if you have ‘bonuses’ to a roll through your skills and powers. For example: Bob has +5 Climb and rolls a 20 on 1d20. His total is 25. If the RR number set by the GM is 25 or less, Bob has succeeded! Otherwise, Bob has failed.

You: This isn’t really an abbreviation. When these rules refer to ‘you’ it’s just short hand for ‘your character’. We never meant to imply you yourself are running around with swords and saving princesses from evil wizards when this might not necessarily be the case.

Fractions: This isn’t really an abbreviation either. Throughout the rules you’ll frequently run into fractions. Unless otherwise noted, round all fractions up.

Any more Questions?

Don’t worry. This game is actually stupendously easy to play. Just read the examples of play and the introduction and sample adventure. You don’t have to memorize the rule-book before play. Just rip into the adventure and look things up as you go. It’s the best way. If you still have any questions this book doesn’t cover, feel free to skip over to ‘Adventure and Game Design’ the ‘Glossary’ the ‘GM’s Section’ or check our website and the FAQ page. If that still doesn’t answer your questions, feel free to pop me a line at: challenger_rpg@hotmail.com and I’d be more than happy to answer any questions you might still have.

Challenger in a Nutshell

Thanks for purchasing Challenger RPG! I hope you enjoy playing it as much as I (and others) did designing it. Challenger was meant to be: fun, easy, fast, and filled with options. That’s why the book is so big. There are a lot of options here.

Will you play as a Swashbuckling Pirate? A Shape-Changing, Teleporting, Warrior Monkey? An incredible Immortal Archer Fairy? Or maybe even a Techno Wizard Robot? The choice is yours. There are thousands of Class and Race combinations for you to choose from, and that’s not even getting into skills!

This game is responsive not reactive. What this means is that the GM doesn’t plan things out and then force you to react to what he’s created. Instead, the GM lets you do whatever you want and responds to your actions. This ‘feel’ is reflected in the game rules and systems. The players roll all the dice, so they choose how to react to any situation. Will your players fight when you thought they should roll diplomacy? Will they talk when you thought they should fight? All the decisions are in the players’ hands—where they should be. Of course, as the GM with ultimate power, you can rig your ‘adventures’ to encourage certain courses of action. But the final decision is always in the players’ hands. They don’t have to pick up their combat d20 if they want to role-play instead.

Why is Challenger Faster? Your attack roll and your opponent’s attack roll have been combined. When you hit, he misses. When you miss, he hits. To fight many opponents quickly there are monster stacking rules. If the players are ignoring obvious threats, severely outnumbered, or taking pointless actions they will suffer free hits. For even faster combat, simply eliminate weapon damage ratings altogether (all weapons deal 1 damage + any bonuses) and Challenger becomes even faster! See page 194 for rules on combat.

Why does Challenger have More Options? Apart from a massive list of playable Races, Classes, and Skills; Challenger also lets you roll for ‘Character Traits’ and ‘Character Backgrounds’ to further detail your origins. It also lets you create your own skills! Use your own player-created skills to: 1. create any skill you want 2. create your own player-made powers and use the skills system to activate them and 3. tap into ‘special abilities’ for your character. Your potential for creating and optimizing your character with this system is limitless! All skills and powers are also balanced in the XP system so the GM doesn’t need to worry about a thing. Finally, you can create your dream character without worrying about the rules getting in the way, or unbalancing the game.

Understanding This Product

This book is laid out into eighteen chapters. If you intend to play this game as a player you should read chapter one completely and the introductions to chapters two to five. This is all you need to know to play!

To ease character creation, players should print off a copy of the character sheet at the back of this book. If that’s not an option, you can make your own character sheet. You can also download and print (for free) multiple fancy versions of the Challenger RPG character sheet on the web. See our website, http://www.challengerrpg.com/, for details.

If you are the GM, you have both a lot of work and a lot of fun ahead of you. The GM’s job is to run the whole game, explain it to the players, and understand the rules. Don’t worry, to get started all you need to do is read chapters seven, eight, nine, and ten in addition to what you would read if you were a player. Chapter seven will explain how the game rules work, chapter eight will tell you how to create adventures and game designs, chapter nine will train you how to create a dungeon, and chapter ten will teach you how to run the game. After that, you can run the sample adventure included in this book (chapter eighteen). Everything is pre-made for you, so you should have no trouble at all.

When you feel ready to master the fine art of GMing—after running a few games using Chapter Eight: Adventure and Game Design—you may proceed to read the rest of the book more thoroughly, checking out the sections filled with monsters and challenges, bonus game master tips, the hoards of magical items included in the magic item chapter, and anything else you feel up to.

Part 0.6: Role-Playing

Long ago I thought role-playing was the act of rolling the dice in the game. I now think that’s quite funny. Anyway, role-playing is the act of playing the role of a character in the game much like an actor plays a part in a movie or some people use funny voices to play a character in WoW.

The whole trick to role-playing is to get into the persona of your character and start to act as that character would. The whole point of the game is to play another character from another time doing heroic things in a fictional fantasy world. If you just use your name for your character name and fight orcs all the time you’ll be missing most of the fun.

So what’s so fun about play-acting weirdoes with swords and magic? Well, to keep things from being totally random there is one player called the game master who is essentially a storyteller and referee for the game. It’s his job to know the rules and keep things on track. At more advanced stages of game-play, it’s his job to create the fictional world and design the adventures you want your fictional heroes to embark on.

To avoid the dreaded, I shot you. "No I shot you. thing; the Game Master has the final word on all successes and failures and what may be done and attempted in the game. The players each control a single character and the actions and words of that character but the GM plays the role of all other characters: all villains, kings, merchants, peasants, and so forth. The GM also sets the challenges, the stories, and the battles assigning difficulty numbers the players must roll to succeed and adjudicating the chances of actions to succeed or fail. No player can say, I build a rocket ship. What they can say is, I try to build a rocket ship. The GM may then say, You can’t. You must roll x on this dice. Or You automatically succeed."; according to play style and preferences.

When playing the game it is standard practice to describe actions, not actually do them. You don’t run around the parking lot to escape monsters, you just describe how your character is running away. Sometimes players will speak as their characters and sometimes as themselves amongst each other or to the GM to describe actions, ask game rule questions, and so forth. This is normal and usually it becomes second nature to players quickly.

To allow the players a mode of affecting their world they have powers and skills in the game mostly with statistical effects and most geared toward battle where lives will be at stake. This puts the players and Game Master on more even terms from time to time. While the GM may have ultimate power, it is wise to always let the players ‘roll’ to save their lives or influence their fate and especially in battles. No one likes having their character automatically killed, controlled, or forced to take actions.

By the same token, sometimes a game power of the players’ will allow them to influence reality or some of the characters controlled by the GM. It is a good idea to remember that the GM always has the final say on everything. He should be fair and reasonable, but if something is ruining the game or just doesn’t make sense he should step in and fix the rules. This is one of the things which make RPGs such great fun: Pure Creativity—both by the players and the GM.

For an example of some typical role-playing, see the examples of game-play in the very next chapter.

While it’s all well and good to play the game strictly by the rules, when you get more experienced you’ll learn how to tweak the game in subtle ways to make it work for you and help to create fun and interesting stories and games. You should encourage the players to role-play their actions and words as if they were their characters by granting them experience point rewards and statistical bonuses for doing so.

In our culture, we are trained to succeed and to gain power. Most new players in the game will search out the most powerful options and combinations. That’s a fine thing, but in a good role-playing game run by a good GM, role-playing well and ideas will become more important than power and statistics. Heroism will be worth more than wealth and magical powers and working your butt off will yield more benefits than having high scores in your abilities.

Why should the game be like this? Well, because it’s a heck of a lot more fun for everyone when it is. When the players stop worrying about rules and start worrying about their fictional characters and the story the game will take off. In the hands of a good GM, the players will never feel jealous of each other or the statistics of other players. They will rest assured that good game-play, role-playing, and hard work will be rewarded with power and success whether with dice rolls or without them.

This is not to say that rules and power are meaningless. It’s just to say that they’re not as important as having fun and creating a good game and story.

In a good game, someone will play a wizard to be powerful. In a great game, someone will play a wizard because they want to and they know the GM will let them do many cool and magical things by being a wizard. They might know warriors are more powerful, but will rest assured the GM will grant them boons for playing well in the game so they can play the kind of character they want to rather than the most powerful one.

Good luck, you’re about to embark on a grand adventure!

Chapter One: Rules

If you’ve ever played an RPG before, you’re probably familiar with most of the terminology in this game. Outlined below are some of the major changes from the traditional RPG:

Rule Number One

Rule number one is that ideas always trump rules. Think of all the rules of this game as guidelines—a framework upon which to build your great stories and awesome characters. A great idea should trump even a very good rule. Your character isn’t just a collection of numbers and scores in various abilities. Your character is a collection of cool ideas from both the book and your imagination. Hopefully, more so from your imagination than this book. Cool ideas should always beat numerical statistics just like good role-playing should always beat good dice rolling. A master GM will always recognize a cool character concept beats, breaks, and changes the rules. Numbers shouldn’t rule the game—cool ideas should.

The Core Mechanic

Roll 1d20 and if your roll equals or exceeds the challenge number set by the GM you succeed, otherwise you fail. Failing can result in damage or a penalty. Succeeding can result in surviving, or some kind of reward. The GM rolls no dice. If you do nothing on a turn, it may result in a failure. When setting the challenge number, the GM should consider the following points: 10 or higher is a normal challenge, 6 or higher is a ludicrously easy challenge, 15 or higher is a tough challenge, 20 or more is an extreme challenge, and 30 or more is an impossibly difficult challenge.

Because certain powers and skills in the game grant bonuses and penalties to your d20 roll, it is possible to achieve results higher than 20 or lower than 0. If the above paragraph confused you, please see Chapter Seven: The GM’s Section for more rules on Designing and Running challenges.

Part 1.1: Quick Reference of Challenger Rules

(See Chapter Seven: The GM’s Section for more details)

First Level PCs: You start with 10 hp, 5 powers, and 6 skills. Your base overland movement is 3 grid squares, or 30 ft. per round modified by the movement skill.

Every Level: You gain 1 hp and may trade in 1 power you never use with the GM’s permission. (1,000 xp equals 1 level.) You may also use your xp to purchase additional skills and powers for your character using a point-buy system. See: XP Costs for Character Additions in the GM’s Section for more details. Every 5 levels you also receive a special high level power, see Chapter 6: High Level Characters.

Attacking: Attack and Skill rolls are handled with the same core mechanic, so if you miss a target you suffer damage. Essentially your attack roll and your opponent’s attack roll have been combined. If you miss he hits, and if you hit he misses. The max attack bonus you can get is +5. There is no cap for skills or damage.

Multi-Classing: Each extra class you take costs 1 power point. So if you started the game with two classes you would have 4 power points to spend on powers from your two class lists (and any racial power lists). If you take 2 classes which share a Subtype, you don’t pay the power point penalty! (See Chapter Two: Classes for more details).

Saving Throws: A saving throw is a single 1d20 roll with bonuses from any powers, races, or other effects you might have. It is used against any extreme effect which would cause instant death, transformation, or the loss of your mind or body such as: poison, mind control, turning into a frog or death rays. You always get a save against combat damage resulting from another player’s failure of a challenge even if it only reduces the damage on a success. Saving throws can never be made against normal combat damage when you fail a roll against a challenge yourself.

Your primary skills: Physical Strength, Mental Strength, and Reflexes will grant bonuses on certain kinds of saving throws as appropriate. The maximum saving throw bonus is +5.

Skills: One of the best features of Challenger; you can choose to make up and create all of your own skills if you wish. Skills can even be used to activate player-made powers! For an extensive list of skills to pick and choose from (or use as inspiration when creating your own) and for rules on specific skills, broad skills, and power skills: see Chapter Four: Skills.

Powers and Skills?: The difference between powers and skills is that powers let you dictate how the game will be played, and skills grant bonuses on attempting things. If you have the ‘power’ to breathe water and roll high enough you can breathe water. If you have water breathing ‘skill’ you can try to breath water (The GM sets the RR with a skill, whereas with a power the game rules set the RR).

GM Rolls No Dice: The players will be rolling all attacks, damage for and against themselves, saving throws and so forth. The GM will still be required to roll occasional hidden checks and random encounter checks him or herself. See page 216 for details on hidden checks. This frees up your time for more important things like the story and role-playing.

Part 1.2: Step-by-Step Character Creation

1. Select 5 powers from your race and classes. Choose your race and/or classes at this time in combination.

2. Record your classes’ most favorable weapon and armor training entries and your total skill access from all your classes.

3. Record your race’s natural weaponry.

4. Select your 6 starting skills.

5. Buy weapons, armor, and equipment.

6. Roll for Background.

7. Roll Character Traits.

8. Mark down: Saving Throws, Movement, Carrying Capacity, Weaknesses (if any), Character Name, hp, background, personality, and any other notes you deem relevant.

9. You’re done!

Quick-Play Character Creation

Simply choose your race, classes, 5 powers, and 6 skills. Fill out the rest of your character sheet and you’re done in lightning speed and ready for adventure!

Part 1.3: Example Character Sheet

1. Armor rating of 2-4 means when you roll a 2, 3, or 4 naturally on 1d20 your armor has blocked the attack. ‘Naturally’ means the actual result of the die roll before adding in modifiers such as attack bonuses or penalties. See Chapter Five for rules on armor.

2. Hit points measures how much damage a character can take before going unconscious or dying. Most monsters and weapons deal hit point damage. See Chapter Seven for rules on Healing and Combat.

3. Level is a measure of a character’s strength and experience. As you complete adventures you’ll go up levels and get more powerful. See Chapter Seven for rules on experience points and levels.

4. Character is the name of your fictional character.

5. Player is your name so you know whose character sheet it is.

6. The Race of your character is his or her species. You only get one race. See Chapter Three for a list of races.

7. Class or Classes are the professions of your character which give him or her extraordinary abilities in the form of powers. Most often you’ll have two classes because of the Stacking Subtypes rule. Also, most of your powers will probably be from you classes so choose them wisely! See Chapter Two for a list of classes.

8. Initiative is not applicable in this game because all players act before all opponents. If it ever comes up who should go first, you roll Reflex saving throws opposed against everyone else in the contest with the high roller acting first and so forth.

9. Gender is the sex of your character whether male, female, or not applicable.

10. You start the game with 5 powers whether from races or classes.

11. You get the racial power marked with a ‘0’ for free. You also get any class powers marked with ‘0’ for free as well.

12. Carrying Capacity is a measure of how much weight your character can carry over long distances. Max Lift is how much you can briefly lift over your head. The standard format is Carrying Capacity/Max Lift. See Chapter Five for rules on: carrying capacity, saving throws, and movement.

13. Saving Throws are split into: physical, mental, and reflex depending on the nature of the special attack or circumstances. You use saving throws to get out of the way of extremely harmful effects, mind control, and some monster attacks.

14. Movement is how far your character can move in a 10 second round. It is usually listed as a measurement in squares which are 10 feet each. So a movement of 3 (which is standard for humans) would be 30 ft. per round. By expending your action and move to run you can go up to double this speed tactically or even more if you’re fleeing or sprinting.

15. This is a box for your character symbol or picture. You might want to get a second piece of paper for notes, appearance, personality, background, and a larger area to draw a character portrait.

16. XP, or experience points, are a measure of your character’s deeds and accomplishments. You get them for saving people, defeating bad guys, and accomplishing significant tasks. When you gain 1,000 experience points you level up. Experience points can also be spent to improve your character in various ways. See Chapter Six for rules on High Level Characters. See Chapter Seventeen for a list of monsters and sample obstacles.

17. Skills are the second most important aspect of your character within the rules next to powers. They can be player-created or from the book and cover a wide range of abilities and talents both outside and within combat. Use skills to detail your character and get anything you want you couldn’t get with your powers. Use skills to build your dream character. See Chapter Four for rules on skills.

18. Equipment is the gear your character brings on adventures. This could be: weapons, armor, magical items, money, tools, supplies, food, or whatever else you think you might need including mounts, pets, and henchmen. See Chapter Five for Equipment, Weapons, and Armor. See Chapter Fourteen for rules on Henchmen, Pets, and Allies.

19. Treasure is a handy box for all the sweet loot your character is bound to pick up including: gold, gems, jewelry, magic items, and so forth. See Chapter Thirteen for a List of Sample Magic Items.

20. Throughout the game you will earn experience points and levels. At the end of an adventure you may spend some or all of your earned experience points to buy upgrades, new powers, better skill ratings, more hit points, or other things to add to your character. This box is to help you keep track of how much you’ve spent and how much you have left over. Never erase you total experience points! See Chapter Six for rules on High Level Characters.

21. Character traits can be found at the end of Chapter Five. They can be chosen or rolled randomly to help you get started thinking about your character’s personality, quirks, and place in the world. They range from aspects of appearance to personality traits.

22. Weaknesses are only applicable if you want them. Taking one weakness affords you one extra starting skill. Further weaknesses don’t give you extra starting skills. The nature of any weaknesses taken should be determined by you and the GM in coordination.

23. You gain one Background Power which you can roll for at the end of Chapter Five. Use this background power to gain a minor benefit and to further detail your character’s back-story or as a springboard for your imagination.

24. Skill Notes is a box to help you remember your most important skill bonuses and such. For example, if you had the survival skill at +5 a power which gives you +2 survival and a background power of +2 survival you could note on the skill section +9 Survival to help you keep track.

25. Combat Notes is a box to help you keep track of your best attacks, weapons, and combat powers. For example, you might have +1 to attack from a power, +1 to attack from natural weapons, a 1d10 damage great sword and the ability to attack three times once per adventure. You could write Great sword Attack +2 Damage 1d10 and once per adventure 3 attacks.

26. Social Notes can be used to write down your relations with NPCs or perhaps your best negotiation skill bonus, if any.

27. GP is an abbreviation for gold pieces. Gold coins are the standard currency by which all in-game prices are governed.

Part 1.4: Example of Character Creation

Bob decides to play a Warrior class character and sees that taking two character classes with the same subtype costs nothing so plays a Warrior/Swords Master. He takes the following powers: Two Weapon Fighting: re-roll one attack roll per round up to twice per battle and only miss if you fail this roll as well, Unstoppable Tank: it takes five hits minimum to kill Bob in battle regardless of damage, Favoured Weapon (Sword): +1 attack and +3 damage with a sword, Sword Master: +1 attack and +5 to damage with a sword for one encounter per adventure, and Undeafeatable Sword: Bob cannot be disarmed of his sword and he cannot drop below one hp by being struck by a sword wielding foe.

Bob could have taken powers from his race (human) as well but he’s opted to take them all from his classes instead. He also gets the powers marked with 0 from his classes and race for free. They are: Heavy Armor Expert: No penalties to movement and physical skill checks from wearing heavy armor, Blade Master: +1 damage with a sword, and Human Versatility: one bonus skill and +4 to any skill.

Bob marks down his armor training, weapon training, skill access, and the descriptions of all his powers. His best armor and weapon training are the following: Heavy Armor: which allows him to wear all armors and Expert Weapon Training: which allows him to use all but Master weapons. His skill access is: Athletics only. This means Bob can only take athletics skills and skills allowable to anyone, but not magic or other specialized skills.

Now that Bob has his five powers, his class and race, and his free powers; he moves on to the Skills chapter. Normally a character starts out with only 6 skills, but Bob’s Human Versatility gives him one extra skill so he now has 7.

Bob chooses the following skills: Perception, Stealth, Athletics, Smash, Spinning Attack, Climb and Diplomacy.

Bob now calculates his skill bonuses as follows: Perception +5, Stealth +9, Athletics +0, Smash +5, Spinning Attack -5, Climb +5, and Diplomacy +5. Specific Skills start at +5, Broad Skills at +0, and Powerful Skills at -5.

Next, Bob moves on to the Equipment chapter and buys a sword which deals 1d8 points of damage on a hit and heavy armor which gives him armor 2-4. When Bob wants to attack he rolls 1d20 and adds his attack bonus if any. If he misses he’s hit unless he rolls the exact number of his armor on his dice such as a 2, 3, or 4 for heavy armor. In this case, Bob’s armor has blocked the attack. Bob can’t use a shield or wield a two handed weapon because he wants to use the two weapon fighting power so he buys an extra sword to take advantage of that power.

Bob writes in the combat notes section of his character sheet: Attack +1 Damage 1d8+4 with a sword.

Finally, Bob fills out the character errata on his sheet, writing down his character name, level, appearance, background, personality, saving throws at +0, movement at 3 or 30 ft. per round, carrying capacity of 60/180 lbs., and so forth. Bob’s done!

Part 1.5: Example of Play

Bob decides to go into a dungeon. At the entrance he’s beset by drunken rowdy women. For some reason he gets scared and says, Um, I have a dentist’s appointment. He rolls a diplomacy skill check of 1d20+5 from his diplomacy and gets 23 which is enough to defeat an extreme obstacle and easily get by the women (tough obstacle RR 15).

Bob enters a cave which is very dark. He lights a torch and can now see up to 30 ft. or 3 grid squares and dimly to 50 ft. He drops his torch and then trips and falls into a thousand foot chasm! Bob desperately reaches out for passing vine and rolls a Climb check of 1+7. However, a roll of one is always a critical failure. Bob is about to perish so the GM kindly allows a saving throw. Bob’s saving throw modifier for Reflexes is +0 and the GM sets the RR at 10. Bob rolls a 13 and survives. He clutches the vine and climbs out with a roll of 15 (difficult challenge).

Bob spends a quiet moment reviewing his life. That moment is interrupted when an Elf played by Larry runs screaming into the room followed by a tentacled poison beast, two stacks of 5 goblins, and an evil wizard.

What the--? says Bob.

Larry the Elf shrugs and the battle begins. Since the players always act first it is determined that Bob will take his turn first this round and Larry second. Once combat order is set it isn’t usually changed, but the GM may allow it under special circumstances. If the players wanted to fight out who goes first they’d both roll reflex saves with the high roller acting first.

Bob attacks a stack of 5 goblins and misses. He re-rolls with his two-weapon fighting and swings his second sword for a roll of 12 on 1d20+1 for a total of 13. The RR of the Goblin stack is 13 so that’s a hit. Bob rolls 1d8 and gets a 4. He adds his +4 bonus to damage for a total of 8. The GM tells Bob it was a mighty blow that downed a couple Goblins but the stack is still up and running with hit points remaining.

Larry’s Elf attacks and hits the goblins as well dealing enough damage to defeat the challenge by equaling or surpassing its hit points.

Next is the results phase. The GM describes what’s going on. If either of the players had taken ineffective actions, no actions, or been severely outnumbered; they would have suffered free hits.

Round two begins and Bob acts again. This time he gets a total of 9 and misses the second goblin stack. Since Bob missed, the Goblins hit! They deal a total of 9 damage to Bob.

Larry misses the evil wizard and triggers an area attack against all players. Whenever you’re subject to combat damage that was the result of another player failing a roll you always get a saving throw so Bob rolls reflexes 12 and takes only ½ damage rounded up from the area attack. Larry automatically takes full damage. Bob drops another 4 hp and would normally be unconscious at negative hp, but because of his unstoppable Tank