Core Mechanics

Your character, like every monster, has natural strengths, limitations, and abilities determined by six key attributes: Brawn, Agility, Vitality, Ego, Intellect, and Spirit. An attribute score of 3 represents the lower end of capability — it highlights a clear area of weakness but still allows your character to contribute and function as an adventurer. At the other end of the spectrum, an attribute score of 18 is the highest your character can normally achieve, reflecting exceptional talent and the peak of humanoid potential without the aid of special features or magical effects. These attributes define how your character interacts with the world, both physically and mentally.

Your character's Prowess is determined by their level (see /professions/overview.md for the full 12-level progression framework) and represents their growing skill and expertise. Monsters also have a Prowess value, which is built into their abilities. When your character is able to add their Prowess to a roll, it means they are trained in that particular skill, ability, or weapon. Your character will use their Prowess to enhance Trials and attacks.

A Trial is called by the GM in circumstances when a player attempts to use an ability, a skill, make an attack (such as with a weapon or spell), or any other time the GM deems warranted. A Trial is resolved by rolling 2d10 and adding the relevant modifiers.

Edge and Strain represent momentary advantage or disadvantage on a single Trial. They are not persistent status effects or tracked conditions — they are determined fresh for each roll based on the circumstances, then forgotten.

Flat bonuses to Trials should be rare. Most situational advantages and disadvantages in Untold Epoch are expressed through Edge and Strain rather than stacking numbers.

Not all successes are equal, and not all failures are empty. When a Trial succeeds, the margin by which the total exceeds the DR determines the quality of the outcome.

Hero Dice are a pool of d6s available to every player character (not NPCs or monsters) that can be used to influence the outcome of any Trial they make. Your pool size equals your Prowess + your character's level. A character starting at level 1 will have 2 Hero Dice; a character at level 7 will have 10.

Every creature has three Defensive Ratings that represent how difficult they are to affect. When an attacker rolls a Trial against a target, they roll against the appropriate Defensive Rating. No resistance rolls or saving throws are made — the attacker always rolls. If the Trial total meets or exceeds the DR, the effect succeeds. Ties go to the defender.

Light conditions affect Trials that require sight to perform. This framework applies equally to all characters and creatures — there is no default exception for specific heritages or types. Adaptation to darkness is expressed through creature traits, not binary switches.

A Skill Trial is a type of Trial used whenever a character wants to attempt some feat of skill that doesn't involve strict combat. When the PCs try to climb an obsidian cliff, persuade a crime boss to sell them some juicy blackmail material, pick the lock of a dwarf's treasure-vault, or do something else that requires expertise, a Skill Trial is in order. Not every action requires a Trial — if a feat is something ordinary for a character's background, or too unambiguous to carry meaningful consequence, the GM should let it succeed without a roll.

Almost everything a character can do — a skill, a weapon, a spell, a perk — exists on the same simple progression: untrained, trained, or Mastered. This page explains what those three states mean. For the exact numbers behind each one, see the pages linked throughout.

Rest and Recovery are the two restoration mechanics in Untold Epoch — and they are not interchangeable. A Rest is a night's sleep that partially restores Hit Points and Mana Points and resets profession features. A Recovery is a week spent somewhere safe enough for the body and mind to properly mend, granting full restoration and the chance to pursue downtime activities. Wounds that stop short of killing still demand time to heal, and time spent recovering is time not spent on the road.

When any creature is subject to sufficient damage to take their Hit Point total to 0, they die. Unlike other games, there are no grace period rounds or rolls of the dice to cling to life longer. A creature cannot survive with 0 Hit Points.

Status effects represent conditions that hinder or empower creatures. Each status effect is categorized as either a Bane (negative) or a Boon (positive). The full catalog of individual Bane and Boon entries lives in /compendium/status-effects/ — the rules below govern how all of them function.