Chapter the Sixth
The subsystems that run between fights, how to build opposition, and how to scale any of it to the size of your table.
The book is unusually direct about the stance it wants from a GM, and the advice is worth taking literally.p. 2, 191
Vagabond has no canon and no default world — Ancestry lore is explicitly labelled as inspiration you can discard. That makes it unusually easy to run in someone else's setting: keep the names, faces and geography your players want, and use these mechanics underneath.
The spine of the whole game. A Clock is a circle divided into segments; when it fills, something happens.p. 12
| 4-segment Clock | Tracks Shifts within a day — the standard Travel Clock |
| 6-segment Clock | Tracks Scenes during a Crawl |
Segments fill when time passes, and also when the party does something loud, clumsy or slow. Anything that fills a segment also calls for a Random Encounter check. Use them for the dungeon collapsing, the ritual completing, reinforcements arriving, the execution at dawn — anything where the answer to "how long have we got?" should be visible on the table rather than hidden in your notes.
Running two or three at once is where they sing: one for the party's objective, one for the opposition's, one for a looming environmental threat.
Room-by-room exploration, and where most campaigns spend most of their time. Measured in Scenes of ten minutes; moving to a new area passes a Scene.p. 17
| Crawl Speed | three times base Speed |
| Clock | 6 segments. One fills per Scene, or when the party makes a lot of noise |
| Random Encounters | Check whenever a segment would fill — including on a failed Skill Check out of Combat |
| Spot Hidden | No roll. Spend the Scene searching a 10' area and you find what's there |
| Lockpicking | Finesse Check with a lockpick in hand. Fail and the pick breaks and you've made noise |
| Breaking a door | Damage the object. Loud even when you succeed |
Spot Hidden deserves emphasis. Searching isn't a Check — it's a time cost. That converts "I roll to look for traps" into a real decision, because the Clock advances while you do it. Play it that way and the dungeon runs itself.
| Trap | Save | Damage & Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Blade | Reflex | d8 |
| Cave-In | Reflex | 3d6 and Restrained |
| Darts | Reflex | d6 |
| Dread Wave | Will | Frightened for 1 hour unless dispelled |
| Electric Shock | Endure | d6 and Dazed for 1 Round |
| Flame | Reflex | Burning (Cd6) |
| Gas | Endure | Sickened (Cd6 damage) |
| Psychic Stun | Will | Paralyzed for 1 hour unless dispelled |
| Snare | Reflex | Restrained |
| Spikes | Reflex | d6, doubled if falling onto them |
Heroes who aren't surprised by a trap choose how they react, and a good reaction earns Favor on the Save. When it's unclear who a trap catches, it catches whoever currently has the lowest Luck — a neat piece of design that makes the Luck pool a resource with teeth.
Large-scale movement, measured in Shifts of six hours, on a hex map where each hex is 6 miles.p. 18
| Pace | Distance | Complication roll |
|---|---|---|
| Slow | ×0.5 | Add a d6, use the two highest — and you may Forage |
| Normal | ×1 | As rolled |
| Fast | ×2 | Add a d6, use the two lowest |
Base distance is Speed ÷ 5 miles per Shift, at the pace of the slowest member. Jungle, mountain and swamp halve it. After a Rest you can Travel two Shifts freely; every Shift after that costs 1 Fatigue until you Rest again.
| d66 | Complication |
|---|---|
| 11 | Hazard — Reflex Saves or 2d6 (avalanche, landslide) |
| 12 | Lost — the Navigator passes a Survival Check or the party returns to the previous hex |
| 13 | Obscurement — fog, smoke or sandstorm Hinders sight beyond Near for d6 Shifts |
| 14–15 | Storm — this hex and its neighbours are Difficult Terrain for Cd4 Shifts |
| 16 | Temperature — sweltering heat or bitter cold here and adjacent for Cd4 Shifts |
| 21–66 | Nothing happens |
You can swap a Random Encounter in for any 11–16 result. Bitter cold and sweltering heat each cost an Endure Save per Shift, with 1 Fatigue on a failure — which is how weather kills people in this game.
Activities generally cost a Shift.p. 19
| Craft | Needs Materials worth half the item's value plus tools. Your Craft Difficulty sets how much value you can produce per Shift; Shifts accumulate and needn't be consecutive |
| Forage | Survival Check — d6 Rations, or Materials worth d6 × 5s. Also possible while Travelling at Slow Pace |
| Hunt | A Shift and a Survival Check to find game. Rations harvested equal the beast's HP; Materials are that × 5 in silver |
| Study | Gain a Studied die — spend it for Favor on any d20 roll within the day. Also lets you change one Class Feature choice, such as a Spell known |
| Rest | A Shift of light activity, fed and watered: HP, Luck and Mana to full. Already at full HP? Clears 1 Fatigue instead |
| Craft Difficulty | 18–17 | 16–15 | 14–13 | 12–11 | 10–9 | 8–7 | 6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Value per Shift | 1s | 20s | 50s | 2g 50s | 5g | 7g 50s | 10g |
Study is quietly one of the best actions in the game, and the one players most often overlook. It converts downtime into stored Favor, and it lets a caster re-tool their spell list between adventures — which means nobody is ever permanently stuck with a bad pick.
| Lodging | Horrible | Poor | Modest | Comfortable | Luxurious | Opulent |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Per day | 1s | 2s | 10s | 20s | 40s | 1g |
Any meeting with NPCs is an Encounter, and not all of them are fights. Two dice keep them varied:p. 14
| d6 | Distance | 2d6 | Reaction |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Close | 2–3 | Violent — attacks immediately |
| 2–4 | Near | 4–6 | Hostile — likely to attack |
| 5–6 | Far, if possible | 7–9 | Untrusting, possibly confused |
| 10–11 | Neutral — open to leaving peacefully | ||
| 12+ | Friendly — willing to become an Ally |
Rolling reaction rather than deciding it is what stops a dungeon becoming a corridor of identical fights. It also means Parley — an Influence Check to end hostilities — is worth having on someone's sheet.
Enemies don't roll Checks or Saves. What they have instead is a Zone, an Action list, and Morale.p. 15
| Zone | Behaviour |
|---|---|
| Frontline | Moves Close and makes melee attacks |
| Midline | Moves Close to attack then falls back to Near. Below half HP, behaves as Backline |
| Backline | Stays Far and attacks or casts at range |
The Action Gambit: statblock Actions are listed in priority order. Use the topmost one that's available and work down. Combo entries let it take several Actions as one; if part of a Combo is unavailable it still uses the rest. This is what lets you run six enemies without six decisions.
Casts on enemy statblocks don't use Mana — they have limited daily uses or a Recharge Countdown die. Armor is a flat number with a bracketed tag for converting from other systems. Shields simply add +1.
Checked when the first of the Group dies, when the leader falls, when one of them is alone at half HP or lower, or when half the Group is down. Roll 2d6 against the leader's Morale — higher and they break. No Morale value, or Berserk, means they fight to the death. You can switch Morale off entirely, but it's the main thing keeping fights short.
Every statblock carries a TL. It's the enemy's level as if it were a Hero: a TL 1 enemy is roughly a fair fight for one 1st-Level Hero.p. 110 So a serviceable starting budget is total TL ≈ total party Levels.
The book is candid that this is a loose guide rather than maths, and it's right to be. Two things distort it badly:
| TL | HD | HP | Armor | Damage/Round |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 1–2 | 1–9 | 0 | 0–2 |
| 1 | 3–4 | 10–19 | 0 | 3–5 |
| 2 | 5–6 | 20–29 | 1 | 6–8 |
| 3 | 7–8 | 30–39 | 1 | 9–11 |
| 4 | 9–11 | 40–49 | 2 | 12–14 |
| 5 | 12–13 | 50–59 | 2 | 15–17 |
| 6 | 14–15 | 60–69 | 3 | 18–20 |
| 8 | 18–19 | 80–89 | 4 | 24–26 |
| 10 | 23–24 | 100–109 | 5 | 30–32 |
| 12 | 27–28 | 120–129 | 6 | 36–38 |
| 15 | 34–35 | 150–159 | 7 | 45–47 |
| 20 | 44–45 | 200–209 | 10 | 60–62 |
To build your own: double the Armor for a, divide HP by 10 for b, divide average damage per Round by 6 for c, then TL = (a + b) ÷ 4 + c, rounded to one decimal.
Group-based Turns mean this system takes extra players better than most. The maths that needs adjusting is narrower than you'd expect.
| Players | Encounter budget | What else to change |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | Total TL ≈ party Levels × 1.5 | Enable the Plot Armor Luck variant. Offer a Hireling each, or open at Level 2. Avoid single big monsters entirely |
| 3 | Total TL ≈ party Levels × 1.5 | The baseline the book assumes. Make sure Detect and some healing are covered |
| 4 | Total TL ≈ party Levels × 1.5 | Adopt Rotation or Initiative within the Heroes' Turn |
| 5–6 | Total TL ≈ party Levels × 2 | More enemies rather than bigger ones. Give the opposition its own Backline so damage spreads |
| 7+ | Total TL ≈ party Levels × 2, in two waves | Split the Heroes into two Groups with separate Turns. Take declarations first, then resolve. Delegate the map to a player |
Don't scale by inflating a single monster's damage. Heroes have Might × Level hit points and enemy attacks land automatically — a 4d6 attack will simply kill a mid-Level caster through a passed Save. Add enemies, not dice.
| Falling | 1d6 per 10', max 20d6 at 200'; land Prone |
| Bitter cold / sweltering heat | Endure Save per Shift, 1 Fatigue on a fail. Extreme environments may call for it hourly or per Round |
| Suffocation | After a minute: Heroes roll d8 each Round and gain 1 Fatigue on a result at or above their Might; enemies simply gain 1 Fatigue |
| Fatigue | Each point fills a Slot; 3 stops Rushing; 5 kills. Only real rest removes it |
Attacks against unequipped objects automatically hit. HP equals Size; Armor comes from material — 0 for cloth, paper, glass; 1 for hide, leather, wood; 2 for bone, chain, stone; 3 for metal; 4–6 for reinforced metal. Assume flammable things are Weak to Fire and stone is Weak to Blunt.p. 12
| NPCs | For anyone sticking around, build them a Hero Record and play them cooperatively |
| Hirelings | A Hero spends their Action or skips their Move to command one. That Round it uses the Hero's Leadership for any Checks and Saves; uncommanded, it fails them. A Hero can command up to half their Presence |
| Companions | Granted by Perks such as Animal Companion, Familiar and Conjurer. Follow the Perk's own rules |
Hirelings are the cleanest fix for a small party — they add bodies for Flanking without adding a character sheet anyone has to level.
Money runs 100 copper to the silver, 100 silver to the gold, and Heroes start with 3g. That scale matters: a longsword is 40s, so early treasure of a few gold is genuinely transformative.
Relics are magic items described by a Lore.p. 99 Some are Fabled — unique, war-worthy, effectively indestructible. Some must be Bound by a 10-minute ritual; one Being per Relic, three Relics per Being. Consumables are used up and worth roughly a tenth of a permanent Relic. Cursed Relics bind permanently until a 5th-Level caster spends a Shift lifting the curse.
Special metals multiply a weapon or armour's base cost: Cold Iron ×20 (a weakness for Fae), Silver ×10 (against the accursed), Adamant ×50 (+1 damage or Armor, +1 Slot), Mythral ×50 (one Slot lighter), Orichalcum ×50 (Armor reduces Cast damage). That last one is the only thing in the game that puts Armor between a Hero and a spell.