Chapter the First
Two scenes of play with every single roll shown and explained. If you read nothing else before your first session, read this.
Both are 1st Level. Every number below is derived at character creation and then never recalculated — that's the point of the system. Sheet 03 shows how they were built.
Two Heroes are used here purely to keep the example short. Nothing in this scene changes with a larger party: the whole group still takes a single Turn together, and everyone still rolls their own defences.
| Stats | MIT 6 · DEX 4 · AWR 5 · RSN 3 · PRS 4 · LUK 4 |
| HP | 7 |
| Speed | 30' |
| Armor | 3 (heavy) — subtracted from every attack's damage |
| Trained | Melee, Ranged, Brawl, Detect, Finesse, Leadership |
| Melee Difficulty | 8 (20 − 6×2) |
| Detect Difficulty | 10 (20 − 5×2) |
| Saves | Endure 8 · Reflex 11 · Will 13 |
| Luck pool | 4 |
| Weapon | Longsword (d8, Keen), standard shield |
| Features | Valor — he Crits on 19 or 20, not just 20 |
| Stats | MIT 3 · DEX 5 · AWR 5 · RSN 6 · PRS 2 · LUK 4 |
| HP | 3 |
| Speed | 30' |
| Armor | 0 (a robe) |
| Trained | Arcana, Detect, Craft, Medicine, Sneak, Ranged |
| Arcana Difficulty | 8 (20 − 6×2) |
| Saves | Endure 14 · Reflex 10 · Will 12 |
| Luck pool | 4 |
| Mana | 4 |
| Spells | Burn, Light, Ward, Kinesis, and Guide from her Elf heritage |
Max HP is Might × Level, so 1st-Level casters are genuinely fragile. This is deliberate. Sella's job is to solve problems from thirty feet away, and Brann's job is to stand between her and everything else.
The stair ends in a flooded vestry. Ankle-deep black water, a collapsed ceiling on the left, and an iron-banded door on the far wall. Something behind that door is moving — you can hear it through the water.
Is there anything painted on the walls? I'm looking for anything that says who built this.
There is — faded murals under the waterline, and a line of script above the door.
No roll. Looking around a room isn't a Check. The GM only calls for a Check when the outcome is uncertain and failure carries a risk. Asking questions is free, and it's the single most useful thing a new player can do.
I'll put my ear to the door and try to work out how many of them there are.
Three, maybe four sets of feet. Small ones. And something heavier that doesn't move much.
Before we open it — can I read that script?
It's a warding formula, but the grammar is older than anything you've studied and you can't get the sense of it. As you lean in, your boot finds a plate under the water that gives about an inch.
The fail resolves. She doesn't get to try again with a different skill until something changes. In Vagabond a failed Check is a fact about the fiction, not a speed bump — and letting a failure stand is one of the five XP questions.p. 27
Acid trap. Both of you, Reflex Saves.
My Reflex is terrible. I'm spending a Luck for Advantage.
Sella, the trap offers you a choice: take d6 acid damage, or lose a piece of your equipment to it.
My scribe tools. I have three hit points, I'm not gambling them on a d6.
Two rules on display. Luck is spent before the roll to buy Favor — one extra d6, added. And when a rule offers a choice, the choice always belongs to the player.p. 2
Brann's Armor 3 didn't come up here. Armor is subtracted from attack damage, and a splash of acid from a floor plate isn't an attack. The GM decided that in about two seconds and moved on, which is exactly what the book asks for: if a question stalls play for more than ten seconds, rule it and keep going.p. 191
Nobody is hurt, so there's nothing to heal. Worth knowing what was available, though:
The door opens onto a crypt. Three goblins are levering the lid off a sarcophagus with a spear, arguing about it. Behind them, sitting on a stone bier and not helping, is a bugbear — seven feet of matted fur with a morningstar across its knees. None of them have noticed you.
Combat begins when someone physically harms someone else. The Heroes' Group takes the first Turn.p. 14 Because the goblins are distracted rather than the Heroes surprised, nobody has to make a Detect Check to act.
All three goblins are bunched around the sarcophagus. I want to drop Burn on them — a five-foot cube, damage only.
Two of them are inside the cube. They have four hit points each. Both die where they stand — the third was leaning away and is untouched, and now he's screaming.
Three things to notice. You only make a Cast Check when an unwilling Being is a Target — lighting a room or warding an ally just happens. The goblins' Armor 1 did nothing, because Armor is subtracted from Attack damage and this wasn't an Attack — it was a Cast.p. 8 And an area Delivery hits everything inside it unconditionally unless you say otherwise.p. 90
The system keeps them strictly apart. Attack and Cast are separate Actions, resolved by an Attack Check or a Cast Check, and enemy statblocks tag every ability as one or the other. Armor is defined against Attack damage only. The proof is in the metals table: Orichalcum costs fifty times base price and its entire benefit is that Armor reduces Cast damage.p. 76 That would buy you nothing if armour already worked against spells.
So armour is no defence against magic. A plate-clad knight and a robed wizard take the same damage from a fireball — which is exactly why Ward, Reflex Saves and simply not standing in the area matter so much.
I move up to the last goblin and cut him down.
There is no meaningful goblin left. The bugbear stands up.
It's a Frontline enemy, so it closes on the nearest target — that's Brann — and swings the morningstar. Brann, it hits. Do you want to Block or Dodge?
This is the part that surprises everyone. The bugbear does not roll to hit. Enemy attacks land by default; the Hero rolls the defence.p. 2, 14
Had he passed, he would have ignored one of the attack's highest rolled damage dice — here, all of it, since there was only one die. Note also what his heavy armour is worth: it halved that hit. It would also have Hindered a Dodge, which is why he chose to Block.
Hold on — it's at half HP, and it's already watched its whole warband die. That's a Morale Check.
It throws the morningstar at the wall, snarls something at you in Goblin, and bolts down the passage behind the bier. Unless you chase it, the fight is over.
Enemies check Morale when the first death in their Group happens, and again at half HP or when half the Group is down. Roll 2d6 against the leader's Morale score — higher than the score and they retreat or surrender.p. 15 Fights end fast in this game, and often not with a total kill.
Count the dice. Two scenes, one dungeon room, a trap and a four-enemy fight, and the players rolled the d20 seven times between them. Everything else was conversation.
| Roll | Why |
|---|---|
| Detect 13 vs 10 | Uncertain, and failing meant walking in blind |
| Arcana 4 vs 8 | Uncertain, and failing meant missing the ward |
| Reflex 8+4 vs 11 | A trap fired |
| Reflex 6 vs 10 | Same trap |
| Cast 15 vs 8 | Unwilling Targets |
| Melee 19 vs 8 | Attacking |
| Endure 6 vs 8 | Defending against an attack that had already landed |
Nobody rolled to search the room, walk down a corridor, or talk. Vagabond doesn't put social interaction on the dice at all — that's roleplay between you and the GM.p. 2