Initiative

Staggered initiative order. Each side will alternate taking turns with one of their combatants. Player then GM, then Player again. Which side gets to go first is based thematically on which side was the aggressor in the encounter. If that is hard to determine then a skill check of some sort is asked for.

Once this turn order is established it will be the same each round. It will not be the players choice every round of combat to determine a new order.

A Surprise Round is an extra action prior to the creation of a staggered order.

Turns / Rounds

Each player gets 1 turn in a round. A round consists of all combatants getting their full turn.

Action Economy

• Shake an effect - Attempt to get rid of a condition, or escape a graps, etc
• Action - attack, cast spells, pick up heavy stuff, etc
• Movement - move a number of feet based on lineage (and Specialties perhaps)
  • There are specific rules for Jumping, climbing, gliding, flying, disengaging, being prone, burrowing, etc
• At-will - Free to perform abilities/spells/features
• Reaction - 1 reaction per round, refreshes on your turn but is used on other's turns
• Technique - Small effort of some sort - swap weapons, command companion, minor spells

Important to note that Opportunity Attacks do exist in this game. You only get as many opportunity attacks as you have Reactions.

Attack Mechanic

Attacking is as simple as rolling 1d20 and adding your proficiency bonus for the weapon you are rolling. Weapon damage is then rolling the weapon's damage and adding your attribute to the damage result. If you are wielding a two-handed weapon you double your attribute value.
If you roll a 20 on a d20 and get a critical strike you then roll the weapon dice damage twice, and add the attribute bonus twice.

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Defensive Mechanic

You have a Defense value that the enemy is trying to meet or beat to hit you. Once you are hit then you will determine how much damage you take based on your potential armor.

Armor does not require proficiency, but it does require the Attribute to wear them. If you do not meet the requirement you are considered untrained and take debuffs.

Armor types have different Buffering Dice associated with them. These are Usage Die that reduce incoming damage by the amount rolled. The dice are also associated with specific damage types. If you have an armor type that only buffers piercing and take slashing damage you cannot use it. However, if you have d6 against slashing you can then roll the Buffering die, and reduce incoming damage by the result. If you roll a 1 then the die steps down like a Usage Die. In this system they refer to these as Dice Chains instead of Usage Die.

Using a shield can either be done as a Technique on your turn, or as your Reaction. Your Defense will then increase by the shield's block value. Regardless of it being raised or not you can still use its Buffer value to reduce damage.

Modifications to Resolution

There are two main mechanics to help modify your die roll. Advantage/Disadvantage, and bonus die. Curios and different powers might grant Advantage, and Willpower die act as Bonus Die for your attack results.

Curios

Some backgrounds have curios. These are thematic items that you can use to get bonuses on skills rolls. Firstly the Curio must make thematic sense on how it can help you. Then you can roll a second d20 and take the result you prefer.

Willpower Die

You gain 1 of these at the beginning of combat. This is only used for combat encounters. The size of the die (step) is determined by your class, and you can only accrue as many Willpower Die as the party size.

You gain these willpower die also when you defeat a noteworthy enemy, or if some objective is completed. You lose these willpower if you begin dying.

Willpower die can be rolled and added to your attack value. This is done after the attack roll. You can also use this Willpower die to boost an attribute check to stabilize a fallen ally.

Conditions

There lots of specific conditions that have specific statuses on players. Effecting movement, and abilities

Environment

There are different weather conditions in the game that will effect your players and their access to downtime mechanics. They might also add conditions like fatigue, weakened, slow, poisoned based on what is happening.

Time or Scenes

There are 3 cycles in a day; morning, noon, night. The party can take an entire cycle to perform a downtime. They can perform 1 major downtime activity or 3 minor ones. If you are devoting that time to something else you only get 1 minor downtime (part of the morning scouting or hunting for NPCs).

During downtime you will have natural recovery, which is rolling your health die + fortitude and regaining that in Hit points. If you also have a Good Meal with Friends you will get 2x your max health die + fort.

There is an interesting mechanic called Good Meal with Friends. This is a time for players to RP and tell stories about their characters, reveal secrets, etc. This can only occur during the night timeblock, and during this players will take different minor and major actions. This is also when players can help other players level up who might not have earned trials on their own yet.

Resource

You gain 1 of these at the beginning of combat. This is only used for combat encounters. The size of the die (step) is determined by your class, and you can only accrue as many Willpower Die as the party size.

You gain these willpower die also when you defeat a noteworthy enemy, or if some objective is completed. You lose these willpower if you begin dying.

Willpower die can be rolled and added to your attack value. This is done after the attack roll. You can also use this Willpower die to boost an attribute check to stabilize a fallen ally.

Health & Dying

This is standard hit points. When you are reduced to half of your health you require a status called bloodied. When you reach 0 HPs you are considered dying.

When you begin dying you immediately receive a Deathmark. You are also changed in initiative to the beginning of the round (this means if you are knocked out on an enemies turn before you, you wait until the start of the next round before you have a Consequence.)

Each round after this you are going to receive another Deathmark. Each player has a number of deathmarks equal to 5 + Level + Fortitude. In order to revive a player you have to heal them more than their current Deathmark number. If you can't heal you can aid the healing player, but there is a DC check that is also based on the Deathmark rank (10+Deathmark).

These deathmarks are considered permanent scars. For each one you have you must remove a skill bubble marked but your total hit points will go up by the number of deathmarks you have. The player can narratively describe what the scar is and how it effects their skill being reduced.

While a player is down they have Death Actions.

• Reaction to roll a d20 and let a player use that result instead of the one they rolled
• Reaction to increase an ally's movement by 10ft
• Reaction to buffer an ally's damage by d6

The main mechanic for spellcasting are spell slots. Every spell has a Source associated with it. You need to have access to the source the spell uses in order to cast it. Next, you need to have the right amount of spell slots. A Level 0 spell is free, but a Level 1 spell requires 1 spell slot. A level 2 spell requires 2 spell slots. Spell slots themselves don't have levels associated with them. The level of the spell is letting you know how many slots you are required to cast them.

You gain new spells through Character Advancement

There is a really nice section that discusses how to establish your first session. It goes through the purpose of play, developing an organization, how to build a one-shot, and more. It really tries to ease the player into the process.

For encounters there are Tables for generating adventure purposes, different battlefield/encounter objectives and layouts, and more.

There is also a nice and brief section on Character Retirement. This is interesting because its not just for player death, but for players who maybe accrue too many Deathmarks, or potentially if player's just don't want to use that PC anymore.

Other things of note are sections for: Nonviolent resolutions of encounters, Companion rules, How to Manipulate Objects, different rules for Movement, Crafting Equipment and Items, and then how to have a Profession to earn income.

Finally the game has its own Lore system that you can utilize, and it goes into details of this system at the end of the Alpha packet.