The party moves through a darkened merchant warehouse. Four Skullsmasherz goblins are hiding in the rafters above, waiting to drop. The GM calls for a passive detection check before the ambush triggers.

The character catches the faint creak of a rafter and the acrid smell of goblin sweat above the sawdust. The GM tells the player: "Something is wrong above you." The ambush is not entirely foiled — the goblins still act first — but the party is no longer caught completely flat-footed, and the character may spend their first action on a defensive posture rather than a stunned recovery.

The party walks into a dead-end alley and crossbowmen rise on the rooftops — a clean ambush. Normally the surprised party loses the entire first round. But Sable has 4 points of Danger Sense, and the air went wrong half a beat before the strings drew.

Where her companions stand flat-footed for the opening volley, Sable is already moving — her Threat Radar passive means she acts in the surprise round at half her initiative rather than being shut out entirely. She dives behind a rain barrel and calls the rooftops before the first bolt lands. The ambush still happens, but it does not catch her. This is not a roll she chooses to make — it is always on; the body registers the threat before the mind names it.

A "merchant" spins Petra a grief-stricken story to talk her out of a healing draught — he's running a Deception (5 points) to swindle her. Petra has 4 points of Insight, which she adds to her opposed test to see through him.

The story is good, but the grief never quite reaches his eyes — and Petra's Insight feeds straight into her opposed roll, tipping it just past his lie. She sees through it and keeps the draught. Insight is the counter to every social blade: it adds to your defence whenever someone Deceives, Charms, Intimidates, Seduces, or Disguises against you. At 3 points she could also use Read the Room once per scene — the GM simply tells her whether one specific statement is a deliberate lie.

Across a crowded feast hall, two conspirators murmur over their cups — too far to hear, but not too far to watch. Sable (5 points of Lip Reading) reads their mouths. They are speaking normally, not hiding it, so the GM sets a flat difficulty of 8 for the distance and the bad angle.

She catches most of it: a name, a place, a time. The party learns of the meeting before it happens. Had one conspirator been deliberately shielding his mouth — a hand, a turned head — it would instead be opposed by his 1d10 + Stealth, a contest rather than a flat difficulty. Her Silent Read passive means she can do this with anyone in line of sight, extending the party's ears across any room.

During a tense audience, a duke's open ledger sits on the table for the few seconds it takes a servant to cross the room and close it. Doran has 4 points of Swift Read — and a single glance is enough.

In the heartbeat the page is exposed, Doran consumes it whole — figures, a name, a discrepancy in the accounts — with full retention. The party walks out knowing the duke is paying a debt he swore he had cleared. Swift Read rarely calls for a roll; its power is the passive rate of comprehension, turning a careless glance into a complete briefing. The GM may set a test only when the text is damaged, ciphered, or in a hand he must puzzle out.

A Birn Uluhm slavers' gate is closing. The party needs to clear a twelve-foot chasm and reach the iron lever before the portcullis drops. The GM sets the DV at 10 for the leap.

The character lands hard on the far ledge, fingers catching the edge, pulls through. The portcullis lever is reached with one action to spare. Had the roll failed, the character drops into the pit below — 2d10 fall wounds and the gate closes. The Threshold 3+ bonus also means this character adds bonus wounds on ranged attacks this session, representing legs powerful enough to anchor a bowman's stance.

Sable is fleeing across the rotted rafters of a burning mill, the floor gone beneath her. A beam ahead is half-collapsed and slick with tar — she needs to run its length and reach the window without stopping. The GM sets the DV at 9 for the run.

She crosses the beam at a dead run, weight forward, never letting her feet decide they're afraid — and clears the window as the rafter gives way behind her. She reaches the far side without spending a turn to balance. Had she failed, she'd fall through to the floor below (2d10 fall wounds) and lose the lead. Her Fluid Movement passive is why the GM didn't also charge her movement for the broken terrain — to a trained acrobat, the gaps and rubble are just more places to put a foot.

Sable has dressed as a Church almoner to walk past the cathedral guard. A suspicious deacon stops her and looks too closely — he has 3 points of Insight. This is a contest: her craft against his eye.

She holds the almoner's stoop and the bored, blessing-weary patience of someone who does this every day — and the deacon's suspicion finds nothing to catch on. The disguise holds; she passes. Note the contest used two different skills (her Disguise against his Insight), and on a tie the scrutineer would have won — the defender holds, and here the "defender" is the eye trying to pierce the lie. Routine, unscrutinised movement through a crowd needs no roll at all; that is her Second Skin passive.

Captured and roped to a chair by a slaver with 4 points of Brawling, Sable works the knots while the room's attention is elsewhere. Because a living captor tied these bonds, it is opposed — her give-finding against his cinch.

She finds the one loop that was pulled in haste and works her wrist against it until the whole binding loses its argument. The ropes drop; she is free and unnoticed. Against inert restraints — a dropped net, a magical binding with a fixed strength — the GM would instead set a flat DV rather than roll a captor's Brawling. Had she lost the contest, the knots would only have tightened, and she'd wait for a better moment.

Mid-negotiation with a baron, Sable needs to palm a signet ring from the table and replace it with a duplicate, under the nose of the baron's bodyguard, who has 4 points of Acute Senses. Her hands against his eyes.

She lets her other hand gesture wide at exactly the wrong moment for the guard — the eye follows the motion, and the ring is gone and replaced before the glance comes back. The swap lands clean; no one saw the interesting thing happen. Had the guard won the contest, he'd catch the motion and the table would turn cold in an instant. The same skill covers concealing a blade or introducing a small object where it shouldn't be.

A Kel Thurum gate captain is blocking the party's entry into Theldur. The character steps forward and demands passage by right of emergency — invoking the name of a High Cleric they've worked with.

The captain's jaw tightens, but the weight of command in the character's voice overrides his hesitation. He steps aside and orders the gate opened. Note: Authority compels compliance to the best of the target's ability — the captain opens the gate, but he also immediately sends a runner to notify his superior. Compliance doesn't mean loyalty.

The party needs information from a paranoid Altdorf merchant who knows who hired the Skullsmasherz. The character approaches him at the tavern, buying a round and leading into easy conversation.

The merchant relaxes visibly over the second drink. He doesn't volunteer everything at once — the GM may still require follow-up questions — but his guard is down and he won't lie. If the character had also used Perception to pre-read his tells, the GM might grant Advantage on any follow-up Charm attempts this scene.

Sable needs a sentry to abandon his post. She tells him — with the calm of someone relaying orders — that the watch-captain wants him at the east wall, now. She has 6 points of Deception; the sentry has 3 points of Insight. (This is the same contest as the Insight example, seen from the liar's side.)

The lie works because it is adjacent to the real — there really is an east wall, there really is a captain — and Sable never blinks. The sentry mutters and heads off; the post is empty. Note the contest is Deception against the target's Insight specifically (or raw Awareness if he is untrained in it). Her Baseline passive means casual observers catch no tells from her; only an active, rolled Insight test gets a read. Had the sentry won, he'd have smelled the order as wrong and raised the alarm instead.

A captured cutpurse knows where his gang is holed up. Korr doesn't raise his voice — he simply lets the dwarf's stillness and the weight of his reputation do the work, demanding the location. Korr has 5 points of Intimidation; the cutpurse is untrained in Zealotry, so he resists on raw Willpower.

The cutpurse runs the math — the quiet dwarf, the reputation, the lack of any threat that needs voicing — and concludes the numbers do not favour him. He gives up the safehouse. A resolute target (a zealot, a hardened captain) would resist with Zealotry instead of raw Willpower, a far stiffer wall. And anyone who has watched Korr make good on intimidation before takes a further penalty to resist — his Weight of Reputation.

The party needs the great hall watching the stage, not the side door. Petra takes the floor with a ballad — buying her companions the cover of a captivated crowd. She has 4 points of Performance and a Charisma modifier of +2. The GM sets a DV of 9 to hold a restless, half-drunk hall.

She finds the room's mood and feeds it — the hall leans in, cups forgotten, eyes on her. For the length of the song every face is turned to the stage, and the side door goes unwatched. Note Performance is the one social skill that adds your Charisma modifier on top of skill points, reflecting raw presence. Her Command the Room passive gives an edge whenever she works a crowd rather than a single mark.

Sable works a quartermaster toward signing off supplies the party has no right to — not romance, but making the easy "yes" feel like his own idea. She has 5 points of Seduction; the quartermaster, no zealot, resists on raw Willpower.

She makes saying yes the most appealing option in the room — flattery aimed at his competence, the sense that he alone can solve her problem. The requisition is signed. Seduction here is a lever, not a romance: the application is access, intelligence, and a target who wants to give you what you need. A disciplined or devout mark resists with Zealotry rather than bare Willpower, and is far harder to move.

A Cherubim — a celestial construct, Good-aligned and consecrated — bears down on the party. Most of their blows glance off its bronze hide, but one of them carries the void. The Dark-Souled fighter has 5 points of Dark-Soul, and the holy struggles to find purchase on a soul already given over.

Against the celestial, every blow the Dark-Souled fighter lands carries +5 extra damage (1 per point), and the same bonus rides their ranged and magical attacks against it. The thing that should be hardest for a mortal to harm is, for this one, the easiest. This is not a social skill despite its Charisma home — it is a profane affinity, paid for in what the character has let in. The bonus applies only against the pure and the consecrated: celestials, the divine, and the holy. Against everything else, Dark-Soul does nothing.

A Human fighter with Swords & Daggers proficiency picks up a fallen enemy's Polearm mid-fight to finish off a charging Beastman. She is not proficient in Polearms & Spears.

Without proficiency the fighter fumbles the unfamiliar grip — the Beastman shrugs the clumsy swing aside. The lesson: buying Combat proficiency isn't optional for a frontline fighter. The 25–35 XP cost is the difference between landing attacks and wasting actions. Picking up proficiency in a second weapon category later opens significant tactical options at no ongoing cost.

Erik Rose has acquired a light warhorse in Altdorf. Approaching the Skullsmasherz encampment, he spots the Ork Warboss standing in the open. He lowers a lance and charges directly at him, 40 feet of open ground between them.

The charge connects. The mount's momentum is added to the single devastating lance strike — this is the mounted combat payoff, a single hit that hits harder than any standard attack. The trade: only one attack for the entire turn. After the charge, Erik must use his movement to wheel the horse around. Attempting this without the Mounted Combat skill results in the GM calling for a Ride test just to stay in the saddle through the impact.

Erik Rose (Bows proficient, 3 pts Athletics for Lethal Force bonus) spots the Goblin Shaman who escaped Ogruk's camp — now 60 feet away, partially obscured by a fallen log. The GM sets a DV of 8 for the ranged To-Hit.

The arrow finds the Shaman through the gap in the log cover. The Lethal Force bonus from Athletics adds its wounds on top of standard bow damage — this is why Erik's build invests in both skills. Without Bow proficiency, this roll would have been made with Disadvantage, almost certainly missing at range with partial cover. The Shaman's status is now a GM call based on total wounds landed.

A Birn Juggernaut swings its massive fist at the party's Pit Fighter. The GM rolls to hit — and rolls a natural, unmodified 1. The Pit Fighter has 3 pts in Counter and still has 1 Action remaining this round.

The Juggernaut's fist crashes into the stone floor where the Pit Fighter stood half a second ago. She drives her elbow into the exposed joint where the armour plates meet, dealing 10 wounds. Against a large enemy like a Juggernaut this may not be decisive — but it's 10 free wounds delivered outside her normal attack turn. Critical note: if the Pit Fighter had already spent all her Actions this round, the Counter cannot trigger — action economy is the real constraint on this skill.

A Devotion healer wants the deepest well of casting she can build before a long delve. Her power is not measured in "slots" but in Essence — the pool every working is paid from. She has 9 Devotion, 6 Discipline, and Charisma 6, and wants to know how much she can spend before her well runs dry.

Discipline is the quiet multiplier for every caster and Ki practitioner. It feeds your Essence pool (each working costs its TN in Essence) and lifts your Maximum TN, so investing here means both a deeper well and a higher ceiling. With 21 Essence she could cast a TN 8 Greater Heal twice and still have 5 left, or spread many smaller blessings across a fight. The Composure passive (+1 wound per point) makes Discipline viable for frontline builds too — a Warrior Priest gets survivability and expanded divine capability from one skill — and at 3 points the Willpower bump begins to harden resists. It remains one of the most efficient cross-archetype skills in the compendium.

Andy's Druid has 3 points in Druid. Surrounded in the narrow mountain pass with the Goblin Shaman's Firewall cutting off retreat, Andy shifts into Bear form using a Druidic transformation spell — bypassing the chokepoint entirely by scaling the cliff wall.

In Bear form the Druid's movement and physical stats shift to the creature profile. The cliff wall that would require an Athletics test for a human is trivial for a bear. Druid's power lies in versatility — each point unlocks another tool. At 3 pts you have three distinct spells covering movement, healing, or battlefield control. The Awareness scaling means a Druid character's passive detection also improves over time, reinforcing the attunement-to-the-world flavour of the discipline.

The Dwarf Slayer Ironhammer faces the two Ogre Henchmen after watching his band be wiped out. He has 3 pts in Enraged and triggers the rage. His standard AP gives him 2 attacks. He is not Exhausted.

Ironhammer becomes a whirlwind — five swings against the Ogres, the bonus three wild and inaccurate but generating pressure no sane combatant wants to be inside of. The Tunnel Vision restriction means he cannot choose to target the fleeing Shaman — he must engage the closest threat. The 2-turn cooldown is punishing: after this turn and the next, the rage is spent and cannot be re-triggered. Plan the timing carefully — burning Enraged too early in a long fight is a tactical mistake.

Erik Rose loots Ogruk's body and finds the Magical Flail with the Degeneration quality. Without Evaluation, identifying it is rolled with Disadvantage. Erik has 2 pts in Evaluation — Disadvantage is removed.

Erik turns the flail over, running his thumb along the unusual black links. He correctly identifies it as enchanted and determines that the enchantment has a wounding-over-time component — the Degeneration quality. He doesn't know the exact mechanic (1 wound/turn until healed) without a higher success, but he knows enough not to be surprised by it in combat. A roll of 9+ might have revealed the full mechanical detail; a failure would have left it as an unidentified "strange flail."

A Halfling rogue with 6 pts in Evasion (+2 Defense bonus, +2 WM, +2 Agility) equips Chain Mail for a mission into Birn Uluhm. Chain Mail has a –2 Agility penalty.

In Chain Mail the rogue can't dodge — the metal prevents the sharp lateral movement Evasion requires. Her Defense bonus is wiped out, but her WM bonus survives. She still absorbs 2 wounds from every hit that lands, even if more hits land than before. The lesson: Evasion builds want Light Armor. In Heavy Armor, invest in Hard as Nails or Shieldsman for mitigation instead. Rolling with the Punch (WM path) remains viable in any armour, making Evasion still worth having even when a mission demands heavy kit.

The Warrior Priest (3 pts Devotion, 3 Blessings known) invokes a Battle Blessing on the Pit Fighter before a charge into the Skullsmasherz camp. The Blessing requires 1 Action to invoke.

The Warrior Priest's prayer is brief and sharp — not the long liturgy of a temple service but the clipped invocation of a battlefield veteran. The Pit Fighter feels the blessing settle on her like warmth through armour. Key GM note: Faith is deity-dependent. A Warrior Priest of a Sigmar-equivalent who begins looting temples or consorting with Chaos Cultists risks losing these abilities entirely at GM discretion. The power is real — but it comes with an ongoing obligation that other vocations don't carry.

A character with 6 pts in Focus faces Thrunn (the Iron Root) in heavy armour. Thrunn has 4 Wound Mitigation from his plate. The character spends 1 AP to Focus before attacking.

Against a lightly armoured target the character would shift the split — more into Potency, less into Penetration. Against Thrunn's plate, burning all 4 points into Penetration strips his mitigation entirely for this one strike, making even a modest hit deal full wounds. The Precision Threshold +2 To-Hit is always free — it doesn't cost pool points. This is Focus's highest value use: turning a heavily armoured elite into a viable target for a single decisive blow.

A Dwarf frontliner invests 2 points in Fortitude (90 XP total at Dwarf cost). Their base wounds before Fortitude were 18. They are Medium sized.

Fortitude is the most expensive wound-per-XP skill in the compendium but delivers the largest single pool increase. A Dwarf tank with 2 pts in Fortitude can absorb punishment that would kill two other characters. This is the skill for a character whose role is to stand in front of Korvax's soul-bound army and not die. The Physique scaling also compounds — more Physique means better melee To-Hit, more wounds on attacks, and better Strength Conditioning synergy. Everything feeds forward.

Erik Rose rolls to hit Ogruk with his arrow — the decisive moment of the battle. He rolls a natural 1. He has 2 pts in Fortune (2 rerolls this session) and has not used either yet.

Arrow to the chest. Ogruk falls. The Fortune point is spent — 1 remains for the rest of the session. The critical rule: you must accept the second result regardless. A player who rerolls a 3 hoping for better and gets a 1 is committed to the 1. Fortune is most valuable spent on pivotal rolls — a final enemy, a critical skill check, a death-saving throw — not burned early on minor tests. Two points in Fortune is a meaningful investment precisely because of moments like this one.

A Human Pit Fighter with 4 pts in Hard as Nails takes a hit from an Ogre that deals 9 wounds before mitigation. The Pit Fighter wears Studded Leather (2 WM from armour). Hard as Nails adds +2 WM physical (4 pts ÷ 2) — and since 4 pts exceeds the 3pt threshold, also +2 WM against spells and blessings.

The Ogre's fist connects but the Pit Fighter rolls with it, distributing the impact across a frame that has absorbed ten thousand training blows. 9 incoming becomes 5 actual. Over a long fight, 4 WM negated per hit is the difference between standing and dying. Hard as Nails stacks with armour, with Evasion's WM path, and with Shieldsman's Defensive Stance — and from 3 points onward its WM extends to spell and blessing damage too — a character building all three simultaneously becomes extraordinarily difficult to kill with standard attacks.

The Flagellant has just been struck down by Ogruk. The line is wavering. The Warrior Priest spends 1 AP to Inspire the remaining party (4 allies within 25 ft). The GM applies –1 for the fallen ally.

The Warrior Priest's voice cuts through the chaos — not a prayer, not a sermon, just the flat command of someone who has been here before and knows it isn't over yet. Four surviving party members feel their footing solidify. +1 Defense for one turn is modest but it applies to every incoming attack that turn — in a round where two Ogres and a goblin horde are swinging, that's potentially 3–4 hits softened. Higher Inspire rolls unlock dramatically better table results. Investing in both Inspire and Charisma is the core of a support build.

The Flagellant hits 0 Wounds after Ogruk's hammer blow. He has 3 pts in Iron Will. He is currently Bleeding (physical condition) but not under any magical condition.

The Flagellant crashes to the dirt but doesn't die. He has 3 turns of fighting at zero wounds — capable of acting but one hit from permanent death. The High Elf uses this window to reach him with a healing spell on turn 2. Had Ogruk's Shaman Hexed the Flagellant beforehand, one of those turns would have been forfeit. Iron Will doesn't make you invincible — it makes you briefly unkillable, which is enough if your healer acts fast.

A Human Ki Monk with 4 pts has learned 4 Ki Powers. Entering the narrow Corridor of Treachery in Khugron, she activates a Ki Power that allows her to sense the trap floor's vibration before triggering it — an enhanced perception power.

The Ki Monk steps back and points to the exact location of both trap plates. Ki Powers function like spells for tracking and resource management — they're drawn from the same pool as Blessings and Wizardry. The Physique scaling means the Monk also grows more dangerous in melee over time — Ki is the only vocation that directly increases a physical combat characteristic, making it uniquely suited to a fighter who also wants arcane-adjacent utility.

The party encounters a Pyreborn Elder near the Rysahm Ashlands. A character with Knowledge: Bestiary (2 pts) wants to recall what they know about Pyreborn weaknesses and behaviour before engaging.

The character recalls that Pyreborn are highly susceptible to cold, their strikes leave a burning condition, and Elders carry concentrated verath that is dangerous to mishandle. Succeeding by 2 provides actionable tactical information. A result of 9+ on a harder DV might also reveal the Ashen Mouth specifically, or the Birn hunting campaign context. Failing the roll doesn't mean the character knows nothing — it means they recall inaccurate or incomplete information, which the GM may feed them as misdirection.

Before the assault, Doran works at a borrowed bench to brew a batch of choking smoke-flasks. The formula is finicky — the GM sets the DV at 11. Doran has 5 points of Alchemy.

The mixture holds, doesn't ignite, and sets into three usable flasks. The party walks in with smoke to cover the breach. Had he failed badly, the batch could spoil or go off early (GM's call on a steep miss). Alchemy needs no tradition or Church tolerance — only materials, a stable bench, and nerve. His Identification passive also lets him name any compound, poison, or reagent on inspection — useful the moment someone hands the party an unlabelled vial.

The party is pursued across an old stone bridge and needs to drop it behind them — fast, with the charges they have. Korr, who took up Engineering in his fortress years, reads the span for the one stone that holds the rest. The GM sets the DV at 10.

He sets the charge at the keystone, not the deck, and the span folds into the gorge behind them. The pursuit is cut off. His Structural Eye passive is why he didn't need to roll just to find the weak point — he sees the failure line of any built thing in his sightline automatically; the roll was only for doing the work under pressure. The same skill covers building, trap design, and siege analysis.

A sealed tablet recovered from a pre-Age ruin is carved in a dead script no living tongue descends from. Read/Write is useless here — this is decipherment. Doran has 6 points of Linguistics; the GM sets the DV at 12 for a script this old.

The grammar yields, sound by sound, until the tablet speaks: a warning, and a name. The party learns what the ruin was built to contain. Linguistics is the deeper craft beyond Read/Write — codes, ciphers, dead languages, scripts that predate the Age. Higher point totals unlock older and stranger writing; a tablet like this would simply be impossible for a low-point character, no matter the roll.

A companion has been sick for days — fever, tremor, no obvious wound. This is not a battlefield patch (that is Mending) but methodical diagnosis and treatment. Petra has 5 points of Medicine. The GM sets the DV at 10 to identify and treat the creeping illness.

She names it — a marsh-fever from the crossing days ago — and knows the regimen to break it. The companion will recover with rest and the right tincture. This is the line the rules draw: where Mending is field instinct under fire, Medicine is methodology over time. Her Diagnosis passive means that on examination she identifies injuries, diseases, and conditions accurately without a roll — the roll here was for the treatment, not the naming.

A storm has scrubbed the trail and the party is turned around in deep forest with night falling. Sable reads the world for position — moss, shadow-angle, the cut of a streambed. She has 4 points of Navigation; the GM sets the DV at 9 to find true north and the road.

She translates the environment into a heading and walks them back onto the road before full dark. The party avoids a night lost in the deep wood. Had she failed, the GM might rule them further astray — lost time, a worse camp, an unplanned encounter. At its highest levels Navigation reads more than terrain: trade routes, political geography, and the instinct for which direction a threat will come from before it arrives.

The Warrior Priest with 3 pts in Light-Soul attacks a Blight Elf Spirit-Bound undead husk (Undead type — qualifies as Evil). Standard melee damage before Light-Soul would be 7 wounds.

The Warrior Priest's strike lands with a consecrated force that the undead husk's physical form can't mitigate normally. Light-Soul's bonus applies to melee, ranged, and magical attacks simultaneously — there's no need to re-spec depending on range. Against the Vraxxal awakening or any Blight-touched undead, a Light-Soul investment becomes significant quickly. At 6 pts the character also gains WM specifically against Evil attacks — turning them into both an offensive and defensive specialist against the world's darkest threats.

After the Ogruk battle the Flagellant is at 0 wounds and Bleeding. The party's field medic has 4 pts in Mending. Both characters are out of melee. The medic spends an action to treat the Flagellant.

The Flagellant goes from dead to breathing with 8 wounds in two actions. The Bleed mitigation means the haemorrhaging slows enough that the healing gains traction — without it, a bad Bleed can outpace even good Mending. Mending cannot remove the Bleeding condition itself; for that you need magic or a superior tool. The out-of-melee constraint is the critical limitation: Mending requires someone to keep the medic safe while they work, which shapes party positioning significantly.

A Human Wizard with 6 pts in Perception and a casting bonus of +3 casts Arcane Bolt at a target with TN 11. She rolls her To-Cast: 1d10 (rolled 10) + 3 casting bonus = 13. That beats TN 11 — confirmed cast. And because the die showed a natural 10, the dice explode.

The Wizard's focus sharpens the spell at the moment of release — the extra Perception points on the explosion roll are what bridge the gap between a raw 5 and the TN of 11. Without Perception, that chain dies on Roll 2. With 6 pts, it confirms. If Roll 2 had been a natural 10 (5 + 6 = 11, but the raw die showed 10), Roll 3 would trigger — same rules apply. Perception is the only bonus that applies to casting explosion rolls, making it the premier investment for any caster who wants to push deeper into the chain.

A Blight Elf agent in SunsReach attempts to Charm a party member into revealing where the fragment is being kept. The Charm roll sets a DV of 11. The party member has 3 pts in Perception.

The party member catches something wrong — the questions slightly too precise, the interest slightly too focused. The Charm fails. Perception is one of the rare skills that serves combat, casting, and the social layer simultaneously, making it an efficient investment for any build.

An Elf finesse fighter with 6 pts in Precise Strike (To-Hit bonus +2) attacks a Birn Juggernaut with Defense 12. She rolls her To-Hit: 1d10 (rolled 10) + 2 = 12. Meets Defense — hit confirmed. Natural 10 triggers explosion.

Without Precise Strike, a raw 6 on the explosion roll is a dead chain against Defense 12. With 6 pts, it confirms cleanly. If Roll 2 had been a natural 10 (6 + 6 = 12, raw die showing 10), Roll 3 would trigger on the same rules. Precise Strike is the only bonus that applies to melee and ranged explosion rolls — it is the premier offensive investment for any martial build that wants to push the chain against high-Defense targets. Note: Precise Strike has no effect on casting explosion rolls — that is Perception's domain.

A character with 3 pts in Quickness has +1 AP (standard 2 AP becomes 3 AP). In a turn they want to: drink a healing potion, swap from melee sword to bow, and fire one arrow at the retreating Goblin Shaman. Pre-Quickness this was three actions on a 2-AP character — impossible in one turn.

Quickness is an action economy skill — the extra AP doesn't just mean one more attack, it means one more everything. The Mastered Actions rule is what makes it particularly potent: mid-combat utility actions (potions, swaps, Inspire calls) that would normally eat a full AP in a standard build become routine. At 6 pts the character has 4 AP and +2 Agility, opening attack combinations and defensive options unavailable to the rest of the party.

The party discovers an Overseer's Manifesto in the drafting tables of Birn Uluhm. The document is written in an old Dwarven industrial dialect — archaic, technical, and partially ciphered. A character with Read/Write (3 pts) has Common, Old Imperial, and Dwarven recorded. Dwarven covers this dialect.

The character reads aloud the Overseer's justification for what was done — the Titan-Blood, the rejection of Kel Thurum's authority, the framing of their exile as enlightenment. The party now has primary source evidence of Birn Uluhm's intentions and history. Without Read/Write: Dwarven, the document would require either a hired translator (a risk) or remaining unread. Read/Write is cheap (15 XP all races) and its prerequisite role for Wizardry, Runes, Ki, Faith, Druid, and Shaman makes it essential for any magical build from session one.

The party enters the approach to Khugron and beholds the mountain maw for the first time — the stone warped into something that suggests teeth. The GM calls a Fear test (DV 8) for all characters without prior exposure.

Character A presses forward; Character B freezes in the entrance. Against the Vraxxal (who generate Terror at higher DVs) or the Arch-Weaver's presence, Resolve is the difference between acting and being paralysed. The magic WM component makes it doubly valuable in encounters heavy with Blight Elf Spirit-Binding or Vraxxal psychic attacks — physical toughness and arcane resistance in one investment.

An enemy captain tries to break Petra's nerve before a parley — leaning on her with 5 points of Intimidation. Petra is no untrained mark; she resists on her faith and certainty, rolling Zealotry rather than bare Willpower. She has 4 points of Zealotry. (This is the Intimidation example, seen from the wall's side.)

The captain's menace finds no fear to seize — Petra's conviction leaves no purchase. She meets his eyes and does not give an inch. Zealotry is the dedicated counter to mundane coercion: the bully finds no fear, the seducer no want, the charmer no vanity. Note the division of labour the rules draw — magical fear and compulsion are endured with Resolve, seeing through a social lie is Insight, and Zealotry is the wall against being coerced by people. An untrained character would resist these on raw Willpower instead, a far softer wall.

Doran needs to sustain a concentration spell across several turns of chaos while bolts fly past his head. Where another caster's focus would scatter, his trained stillness holds the working's shape. He has 5 points of Meditation.

The spell holds its shape turn after turn because Doran's inner space does — the working does not collapse when the world around it does. Meditation governs the mind's capacity to hold: sustaining a working across turns and recovering from the toll of exertion, where other skills merely resist the mind being broken. It is the quiet bedrock under every later mental discipline, and like all skills it lifts your Willpower by 1 every 3 points.

Korr swore an Oath at character creation: never to leave a wounded ally on the field. While that Oath holds, the sworn state lends him strength others don't have. He has 4 points of Oathkeeper. The moment comes — a companion is down under fire and the rest are calling retreat.

Because the act he is about to take is his Oath, Korr moves with the conviction the sworn state grants — he wades back into the fire to drag the ally clear. Oathkeeper turns a roleplay commitment into mechanical power: the character who has sworn does not fight the same fight as the one who merely intends. Break the Oath, though, and the strength it lent goes with it — the anchor only holds while the line is uncut.

Most fighters slow down as the wounds pile up — Disadvantage, lost AP — once they're hurt past a certain point. Korr does not, not as soon. He has 5 points of Pain Tolerance, and pain, to him, is just data to be sorted.

Korr keeps swinging at full effectiveness deep into wound totals that would have another fighter fumbling and short of breath — his penalty threshold sits 15 wounds higher than normal, and he carries +10 permanent wounds besides. He is the last one standing and still fighting clean. Note this is a Physique-governed skill despite reading as mental — it is the body's calibration of what requires stopping for, not numbness.

A long fight has drained Doran's Essence to nothing, but the party still needs one more spell to survive the last wave. Willpower Reserve is what lets the casting continue after the body and will should have given out. He has 4 points.

Where another caster simply has nothing left, Doran reaches into the reserve and pulls one more working out of an empty well — the spell that turns the fight lands when it had no right to. Willpower Reserve does not make spells stronger; it governs how long you can keep casting when everything else has run dry, and adds your points to any test to hold concentration under fire. Its higher tiers benefit only those who can channel a discipline — a pure martial gains little from it beyond the Willpower every 3 points provides.

Erik Rose is mounted on his light warhorse during the Skullsmasherz assault. An Ork axe lands on him for 6 wounds. The GM calls a Ride test (DV 7) to absorb the impact and stay mounted.

Erik lurches in the saddle but digs his heels in and holds. The narrow success keeps the cavalry option open for the rest of the fight. Failing by even 1 would have ended the mounted combat entirely and potentially caused the horse to bolt. The Physique cap on Ride points reflects the physical strength needed to control a war beast — a character whose Physique hasn't kept pace with their Ride investment hits a hard ceiling on mount tier regardless of XP spent.

A Human mercenary starting character invests their first 15 XP into Rugged (1 pt). Base wounds were 12. They're heading into the mountain dungeon, Earth's Core, for Session 01.

At 15 XP per point, Rugged delivers 2 wounds per 15 XP — the best pure wound-per-XP ratio in the compendium for early investment. It's the first thing any physical character should buy. The Physique progression at 3 pts creates compounding returns — more Physique improves melee To-Hit, Strength Conditioning scaling, and grapple effectiveness simultaneously. A Rugged/Strength Conditioning/Athletics stack is the foundation of any melee build in IronTithe.

A Dwarven Runesmith (5 pts in Runes) spends the night before assaulting Khugron inscribing a Greater Rune of Warding onto the Pit Fighter's shield. The rune will last the full session.

The Runesmith's chisel bites into the shield's iron boss with deliberate, unhurried strokes. The completed rune glows faintly and holds. At 7+ pts the Runesmith could inscribe Permanent Enchantments directly onto weapons and armour — creating lasting magical items that grow in value as the campaign progresses. The Wizardry lockout is the hardest trade-off in the compendium: the two paths are philosophically and mechanically incompatible. Choose at character creation — Runes rewards patience and preparation; Wizardry rewards flexibility and raw power.

A Halfling Shaman with 3 pts attempts to Spirit-Bind a wandering undead husk outside the Pale Weald — bringing it under temporary control to use as a distraction. The Shaman is in leather armour (Light — no penalty). She invokes the Spirit-Binding spell from her 3-spell repertoire.

The husk turns and begins walking toward the Birn patrol — away from the party. The Shaman's dual-energy spell list means she can flip between binding and withering in the same encounter, making her the most tactically flexible magical vocation at low investment. The armour restriction is real — stepping into Birn Uluhm's metal-heavy interior will suppress her casting entirely unless she plans around it. A Shaman in heavy armour is just a Halfling with a rattle.

A Dwarf frontliner with 4 pts in Shieldsman faces a Birn Juggernaut at the start of his turn. He must declare his stance before the Juggernaut acts. He expects 2–3 incoming hits.

Against 3 incoming attacks of 8 wounds each, Defensive Stance absorbs 12 total wounds across the turn — potentially the difference between taking 24 wounds and 12. The stance declaration is the core tactical decision of Shieldsman: if the enemy has high attack count, go Defensive; if the character has a single decisive opening, go Offensive for the Bash bonus. The Brawler's Synergy adding Shieldsman pts to Unarmed tests makes this viable for non-sword builds who want to fight dirty in tight quarters.

The party's Warrior Priest casts a Healing Blessing on a wounded ally. Base Blessing heals 8 wounds. The ally has 3 pts in Spirit.

The Spirit investment amplifies every Blessing that lands on this character — not just healing, but buffing Blessings too. At 3 pts, Spirit turns an 8-wound heal into an 11-wound heal without the Priest investing anything additional. The Magic WM at 3 pts also kicks in here, reducing incoming damage from hostile spells. Spirit is the cleaner's best friend: it rewards characters who expect to be healed regularly by making every heal more efficient, and it defends against the Blight Elf Spirit-Binding and Vraxxal psychic attacks simultaneously.

Crossing into the Pale Weald's outer edge, a character is nicked by a Blight-tipped bolt. The poison deals 3 wounds per turn. The character has 4 pts in Stamina.

The Blight toxin courses through but finds nothing to grip — this body has been marching through swamps and eating field rations for years. The poison is entirely neutralised at 4 pts Stamina. Against a 5-wound-per-turn poison it would still deal 2 — but the mitigation stacks. The Exhaustion delay is equally significant in long fights or chase scenes: while other characters flag after their standard turns, the Stamina character keeps moving. Combined with Survival (similar resistance profile), a dedicated wilderness build becomes extremely difficult to attrition down.

The party's Halfling rogue has successfully shadowed a Birn scout through the Khugron corridor. The scout is unaware, engaged in examining the wall runes. The rogue attempts a Backstab from behind.

The rogue's blade finds the gap between the scout's gorget and pauldron. Standard dagger wounds doubled — the scout drops without raising an alarm. The Advantage/Disadvantage asymmetry on the test reflects how lopsided this engagement is: the scout doesn't know to look, so their detection is hampered while the rogue's execution is guided by preparation. Against a target who is Aware/Engaged, both sides roll normally — the ×2 multiplier remains but landing it becomes significantly harder.

The party needs to capture Thrunn (the Iron Root) alive for interrogation rather than kill him. The Pit Fighter with 3 pts in Strength Conditioning attempts to Grapple him instead of a standard weapon attack on her turn.

Thrunn is locked — Movement 0, cannot use 2H weapons, Disadvantage on all Defense/Parry rolls, and external attackers have Disadvantage (Ranged) or –2 (Melee) to hit him. The party's casters can now work on him without risk of him swinging. Breaking free costs Thrunn his next action and an opposed Physique roll — unlikely given the Pit Fighter's investment. The +2 Melee Wounds per 3 pts also means this character's regular attacks throughout the session deal more wound damage, making Strength Conditioning both a utility and offensive investment simultaneously.

Disarmed and pinned against a tavern wall, Korr has no weapon — but Brawling means he never truly does. He has 5 points of Brawling and a Physique modifier of +3. He drives an elbow into the thug crowding him.

The elbow lands like a dropped anvil — 14 wounds with nothing but his own body. Because the thug has no unarmed training, Korr's Always Armed passive also forces the man to fight back at Disadvantage, turning a close-quarters scramble into Korr's kind of fight. This is the same skill a captor rolls to keep someone bound — it opposes a prisoner's Escapology.

The only way into the keep is up a sheer, rain-slick outer wall — wet stone, few holds, a long fall. Mira goes first with the rope. She has 4 points of Climbing; the GM sets the DV at 11 for the conditions.

She reads the wall for the holds that will bear weight and threads the wet stretch without slipping, fixing the rope at the top for the rest. The party has a way in. Had she failed, the fall is the GM's to adjudicate (height in fall wounds). Note her Vertical Movement passive means routine climbs — rough stone, timber, a natural cliff in fair conditions — need no roll at all; the DV here was for the rain and the sheer face.

A forced march through freezing passes, then a fight at the end of it. This is not a single roll — it is the difference between a character who arrives able to fight and one who arrives spent. Korr has 6 points of Endurance.

Where his companions are flagging, Korr is still moving — his +6 permanent wounds give him a deeper reserve to spend, and his Iron Constitution means he recovers to full between fights in half the time the others need. Endurance rarely calls for a roll; it is the body that simply does not stop. It is one of the purest "always on" investments in the game — every point is a permanent wound and a faster bounce-back.

A wizard hits the party with Barometric Crush — a TN 12 working that pins everyone in the area and tries to slam them Prone (Physique TN 12 + Resist or fall). Korr, the anchor of the line, has 5 points of Steadfast, which he adds to the resist.

The pressure drives the rest of the party to their knees, but Korr plants his feet and rides it standing — the line holds because he does. Steadfast is the dedicated counter to every shove, charge, grapple, and arcane shunt. At 6 points his Immovable tier would halve the forced movement before he even rolls, making him nearly impossible to displace.

A bridge collapse drops the party into a fast, cold river in spate, gear and all. Sable has to reach the far bank and a trailing companion before the current takes them past the bend. She has 4 points of Swimming; the GM sets the DV at 10 for the rough water.

She cuts across the current rather than fighting it, reaches the companion, and drags them both to the shallows. No one is lost to the river. Her Water Competency passive is why calm water needs no roll — she moves through it at speed and can hold her breath for Swimming pts × 2 minutes — and the roll here was only for the spate. Failure in fast water risks being swept downstream (GM's call) and the panic that drowns the untrained.

The party enters the Rysahm Ashlands without magical heat warding. The GM rules that the extreme heat halves Wound Mitigation for outsiders. A character with 3 pts in Survival rolls to resist heat exhaustion (DV 8).

The Survival character presses on, managing hydration and shade in ways the rest of the party doesn't instinctively understand. The Advantage on environmental resistance tests is the skill's defining feature in wilderness and hazardous terrain — the Ashlands, the deep underground cold of Birn Uluhm's lower levels, the toxic fog periphery of the Pale Weald. The half-rations rule also matters on long expeditions: a character with Survival costs half the food resources of a non-Survival character, stretching supplies in extended campaigns significantly.

The party has identified the trap floor in Khugron's Corridor of Treachery (thanks to the Ki Monk). A Halfling with 3 pts in Thieving attempts to disarm the first pressure plate. The GM sets DV 9 for this mechanism.

The pick slips — the mechanism stiffens. The trap is now harder to disarm but has not triggered. The Halfling can try again at DV 11. A second minor failure would push to DV 13. A major failure (failing by 3+) would lock the attempt entirely — requiring superior tools or a different approach. Crucially: failing by 4 or more on a Disarm attempt triggers the trap immediately — dropping both characters down 30 feet into the Oubliette. The stakes are real and the margin is narrow.

The party follows the trail of Birn hunters who passed through the Grey Mountains two days ago in fresh snowfall. The GM sets DV 6 (recent tracks, soft terrain). A Ranger with 3 pts in Tracking and +1 Awareness bonus rolls.

Base success reveals the tracks exist and the general direction. The 5-over margin provides 2 bonus details: (1) the Ranger identifies approximately six individuals by gait depth and boot pattern — a small hunting party, not a war band; (2) one set of tracks is heavier than the rest, dragging slightly — something is being carried, likely a captive or a carcass. This intelligence changes the tactical approach entirely: a 6-person team with cargo is an ambush, not a frontal assault. Tracking doesn't just find trails — it reads intention.

Tom (Human Wizard, 3 pts Wizardry, 2 pts Discipline) invests his new point into Wizardry — learning a 4th spell and raising his casting ceiling by 1. The Power of Three already paid out +1 Intellect at 3 pts. He selects a new offensive spell from the Wizardry list.

Tom's reach grows with every point — each Wizardry point is both a new spell learned and +1 to his Maximum TN, the ceiling of what he may attempt. Casting above the ceiling is Overreach — possible, never free; the weave bites back. The Duverger Penalty (40 XP for Dwarves vs 35 XP for Humans) reflects the lore: Dwarves who pursue Wizardry are fighting their own nature to do it. The Runes lockout is permanent — choosing Wizardry at point 1 closes the Runesmith path forever. Choose deliberately.

A Beastman raider swings a heavy axe at Korr. The hit lands — but Korr has Block, and a tower shield. As the blow connects he spends his reaction to brace the shield into its arc. The raider is roughly his size (Large or smaller), so the bracing holds.

The axe rings off the braced shield and Korr takes nothing — no roll, no partial mitigation, the full blow simply stopped. That reliability is Block’s identity. Its hard limit: it does nothing against a creature larger than Korr — a Giant or a Titan’s blow shatters the brace and lands in full. Against a charging Aethon, Block is worthless; against a man-sized foe, it is an iron wall.

A swordsman lands a thrust on Mira. Rather than absorb it, she spends her reaction to Deflect — guiding the blade aside with her spear. This is a contest: her parry against his strike. She rolls Agility-based; the GM uses his attack total of 12 as the value to beat.

Her spear catches the thrust and turns it wide — no wounds land. Unlike Block (automatic but size-capped), Deflect is a contest: cheaper to learn (50 XP) and it can fail if the roll falls short, but a master rarely misses. Had she taken the Revert-Back specialization, winning the contest wouldn’t just stop the blade — it would feed the attacker’s own momentum back into them for a counter-hit.

A Titan’s massive foot comes down where Sable is standing — an attack Block could never stop and Deflect couldn’t contest. The hit is scored. Before wounds are rolled, Sable declares a Dodge and throws herself clear.

The foot crashes down on empty stone — Sable is simply elsewhere. This is why Dodge costs 200 XP, four times Deflect: it is the only defensive reaction that ignores size entirely and converts a landed hit into a clean miss. An arrow, a dagger, the stomp of a mountain — all the same to a true Dodge. The premium price buys the one thing the other two can’t: no exceptions.

Doran looses a fire working at a charging cultist — and as the spell forms, the cultist’s ally tackles him out of the way, putting a far better target (their leader) in the open. Doran spends 1 Action to Deviate, flowing the already-cast spell onto the leader instead.

The fire curves mid-air and takes the leader full instead of the expendable underling — no re-cast, no wasted Essence. Deviation is not a defense; it is a caster’s tactical pivot, saving a committed spell from a target that just stopped being worth it. At the crit tier (Divergence), excess energy even arcs to a second creature nearby. It rewards casters who commit early and adapt late.

Mira drives her spear (a 2H weapon) into a cultist’s flank. Her base spear damage is, say, 10, plus her +1 Melee Wound passive. Impale isn’t about getting through armor — it’s about leaving a wound that keeps killing after she’s moved on.

17 wounds up front, and the cultist now bleeds for 2 stacks every turn until treated — the spear left an open channel. Note what Impale does not do: it ignores armor entirely. It doesn’t pierce plate or find gaps — that’s Expose Armor’s job. Impale is the bleed engine: pure deep damage over time. The Skewer spec (2 AP) doubles the dice and stacks even more Bleeding, committing her full weight to anchor the strike.

An enemy knight is turtled behind a heavy shield Korr can’t get around. Rather than chip at the man, Korr swings his warhammer (a 2H weapon) at the shield itself — Sunder targets the gear.

The shield buckles — its Defense bonus is gone for the turn, opening the knight up for the rest of the party, and it’s permanently weakened until someone repairs it. Korr dealt no wounds to the knight at all, and that’s the point: Sunder is the only skill in this group that attacks equipment rather than flesh. Against a weapon it’s an opposed Physique test; the Shatterpoint spec can outright destroy gear (or Ruin worn armor). The dedicated answer to a foe whose strength is their kit.

A foe in heavy plate (armor DM 8) is shrugging off the party’s blows. A fighter with Expose Armor (Awareness 5) doesn’t hit harder — she hits the strap, the gap, the weak point, dropping their protection for this one strike.

For that one strike the plate may as well not be there — the full weapon damage lands on flesh. This is the cluster’s true anti-armor specialist: it doesn’t break the armor (that’s Sunder) or bleed them (that’s Impale) — it momentarily negates protection so a hit bites clean. The Undress spec zeroes worn armor entirely, and against natural hide/scales (which can’t be unbuckled) it tears a catastrophic opening for (2 × Agility) + 2d10 reduction plus Bleeding — the answer to armored beasts as much as armored men.

Sable (Agility 6, Awareness 4) faces a lightly-armored skirmisher. She doesn’t try to overpower him — she lands clean before his guard arrives, her speed and read of the fight doing the work her arms can’t. Her base dagger damage is 6.

A light dagger becomes a 16-wound strike because Sable’s finesse stats carry it — raw Agility and Awareness added straight to the wound (no division; the score itself). Note the deliberate contrast with Expose Armor: Nimble Strike is pure fast precise damage and does nothing special against heavy armor — it shines against the lightly-armored and the quick. Its Shadow Strike setup uses smoke to Disorder a foe and turn her next hit into a Backstab, the finesse fighter’s opener.

Two goblins crowd Mira at once. She swings her greatsword (2H) through the first and lets the momentum carry into the second standing beside it. Her base damage is 12; her +1 Wound passive applies since she’s facing 2+ foes.

One swing, two goblins down — the first takes the full 13, the second takes 6 from the follow-through. Cleave turns being outnumbered into being surrounded by targets. Its whole identity is breadth: it’s the only melee skill here that hits more than one enemy. The Whirlwind spec (now 2 AP) makes a single roll against everything in reach for Normal + (2 × Physique), with a crit that knocks the whole circle Prone.

Korr (Physique 7) brings his two-handed maul down on an armored sergeant. Impact is about sheer mass — a blow that staggers through plate where a finesse strike would glance off. His base maul damage is 12, plus his +2 Melee Wound passive.

28 wounds and a Stun — the maul’s mass does the work, scaling hard off raw Physique (the score doubled, no division). Impact is the brute-force crusher: where Tune-up relies on precision placement, Impact relies on overwhelming mass. The Full-Weight spec (now 2 AP, down from 3) caves in breastplates for Normal + (4 × Physique) + 2d10 and stacks 2 Stuns — the big committed swing, now one action cheaper to throw.

Sable (Physique 4) needs to take a sentry out of the fight without the raw strength of a bruiser. She doesn’t overpower him — she lands the pommel on the exact spot where the jaw meets the skull. Base weapon damage 6.

Modest damage, but 2 Stuns — the sentry loses his next actions entirely, effectively removed from the fight without a kill. This is the key contrast with Impact: where Impact relies on raw mass, Tune-up relies on placement — even a low-Physique character lands the disabling blow because it’s about the switch, not the swing. The Lights-Out spec (2 AP) stacks 3 Stuns and a 2-turn Prone — a near-total incapacitation for a precision fighter.

An enemy sorcerer is mid-incantation, about to drop a working on the party. Sable (Agility 6) slips in behind and draws a cold line across his throat — the dedicated answer to anyone whose power comes out of their mouth. Base dagger damage 6.

25 wounds and heavy bleeding — and on a crit the sorcerer is Muted, unable to cast a vocal spell, call for help, or rally his troops. Throat Slice is the anti-caster assassination tool: it scales off Agility (doubled, raw) and specifically punishes anyone who relies on speech. The Slash spec (2 AP) nearly decapitates — 3 Bleeding, an automatic Mute, and a Stun. A spellcaster’s worst nightmare in melee range.

An enemy archer is about to loose on Petra. Korr (Physique 7, Shieldsman 4) has 25 feet of open ground — he lowers his shield and sprints, turning the charge into a kinetic hammer to break up the shot.

The archer is bowled over before the arrow flies — 24 wounds from the charge and the shot disrupted. Shield Rush is initiation and disruption: it needs room to build momentum, but for only 50 XP it closes distance and hits hard. The Blitz spec turns it into a juggernaut (2d10 + 4 × Physique + 2 Stuns). Cheap, situational, and devastating when the ground allows the run-up.

Mira is holding a doorway against three raiders at once. Normally being outnumbered hands them flanking bonuses — but she enters the Battle-Ready stance, reading the fight as a rhythm rather than a mob, and turns the three-on-one into three manageable duels.

The three raiders lose every bonus their numbers should grant — Mira fights them as if one at a time. Battle-Ready is the anti-flanking positioning skill: it doesn’t deal damage, it removes the penalty for being outnumbered, which is why a doorway (no one behind her) is the perfect place to use it. Its Berserker spec trades that defensive control for reckless offense — ignore Disadvantage and add 1d10 to every hit, at the cost of −1 Defense. This replaced the old Enraged primary skill.

Sable (Awareness 5) has a clear line on an enemy officer across a courtyard. No melee, no cover — just a clean shot. This is Marksman’s home: the patient, precise kill. Her bow’s base damage is 7, and her +2 Ranged Wound passive is always on.

22 wounds from a single arrow — raw Awareness carries the shot (the score itself, added straight in). Marksman is the generalist precision shooter, the 100-XP foundation of any ranged build. Its Sniper spec (2 AP) folds in Agility too and adds Bleeding — the patient one-shot from the treeline. Contrast the specialist platforms below: at 100 XP Marksman is the all-purpose archer; the 200-XP skills do something it can’t.

Mira is locked in melee with a brute, and a lesser archer wouldn’t dare shoot for fear of hitting her. Sable (Awareness 5) has Opportunist — the chaos doesn’t blind her, it opens gaps. She fires into the tangle at the brute.

The arrow threads past Mira and bites the brute clean, ignoring the usual penalty for firing into a melee — and it punches through 5 points of his armor besides. Opportunist is the battlefield shooter: where Marksman wants a clean line, Opportunist thrives in the mess, shooting into melee and obscured targets others can’t. Its Seeker spec “locks on” for Advantage and Normal + 1d10 + (3 × Awareness) + Agility — a guided killing shot.

A heavily-plated knight (armor DM 8) is advancing on the party, shrugging off normal arrows. A crossbowman with Heavy Arbalest cranks a bolt — the arbalest is built to treat plate like wet parchment.

Every bolt shaves 2 off the knight’s armor automatically, and the Linebreaker spec ignores his plate entirely while punching through to a second man behind him. This is the dedicated anti-armor platform — it costs 200 XP (twice Marksman) precisely because armor-bypass is a powerful, specialized job a generalist bow can’t do. Note the clean tier logic: generalist ranged skills cost 100 (Marksman, Opportunist); specialist weapon platforms like the arbalest cost 200.

A blackpowder-wielding mercenary levels her weapon at a charging berserker. Where the other ranged skills kill quietly or pierce armor, Thunderstrike is a scream — every hit rattles the target senseless. Base shot damage 10.

The shot lands and the berserker reels — every successful Thunderstrike hit Stuns, no crit required. That reliable stun is its identity: it’s the ranged disruptor, breaking momentum and morale rather than maximizing raw damage. The Point-Blank Execution spec (2 AP, 5ft range) steps into their shadow for Normal + 3d10 + (2 × Awareness), knocks Prone, and cannot be parried or blocked by shields — the panic-button when something closes the distance. Like the arbalest, a 200-XP specialist platform.

Doran (Intellect 7) wants a fire working to truly land on a pack of ghouls — no fizzle, maximum bite. He takes two actions to Concentrate, placing every syllable with care before he releases. His base spell damage is 14 (including his +3 Spell Wounds passive).

The spell lands with Advantage (almost certain to hit) and deals 21 — raw Intellect added straight to the wounds. Concentrate is the offensive amplifier: it costs 2 actions and trades speed for certainty and power, the caster equivalent of a committed heavy swing. Its +3 Spell Wounds passive lifts every spell Doran casts, even when he isn’t channeling. The Intensify spec pushes the payload even higher for the killing cast.

An enemy sorcerer looses a TN 7 working at Petra. Normally Doran would have had to spend an action earlier in the turn entering a Reactive Stance to counter — but he’s an Arcane Duelist, and he reads the spell forming and answers instantly. He has the AP to match it.

Doran tears the incoming working apart before it reaches Petra — and because he took the Spell-Eater spec, he doesn’t just neutralize it: he feeds on it, either reclaiming a Spirit point or banking the unraveled spell’s TN (7) onto his next offensive cast. This is the dedicated counter-mage: it makes Counter-Casting free of the usual stance tax, turning Doran into a constant threat to enemy casters. (Requires Magic 8 & Discipline 3 — a deep investment for a specialist role.)

The party has no dedicated healer, but Doran is a Wizard — and with Infusion of Arcana, the same spark that burns can mend. Mira is badly hurt; Doran takes an offensive spell that would have dealt 18 wounds and harmonizes it into healing for her instead.

Mira recovers 9 wounds from a spell that was built to kill — arcane damage, inverted into restoration. This is what lets a Wizard cover the healer’s role in a party without one: it’s not as efficient as true Devotion healing (you only get half the value), but it means no party is helpless just because they brought no priest. On a crit, the harmony is perfect and the ally receives the full wound value as healing. (Distinct from Divinity, which empowers actual healing invocations rather than converting damage.)

Petra (Devotion 8) calls a healing blessing on Korr, who’s taken a beating. Divinity doesn’t convert damage like Infusion — it empowers her real healing prayers, the gods answering with physical weight. Her blessing’s base healing is 10.

Korr recovers 18 — her Devotion skill points pour straight into the heal (raw, no division). Divinity is the dedicated healing amplifier for true believers: where Infusion of Arcana gives a Wizard a half-strength emergency heal, Divinity makes a Devotion caster’s real blessings hit far harder, and on a crit even purges a Bleeding condition. The Sanctity spec (Devotion 9) turns her into a fortress of restoration for the whole party.

The party descends into an undead crypt. Petra, who has taken Cleric, becomes the beacon against the dark — spending an action to raise a 60ft Aura of Light as the Cherubim and lesser undead close in.

The aura steadies the party’s nerve against the crypt’s horrors and lights up every Evil thing within 60 feet, and Petra’s strikes against them bite harder. Cleric is the anti-Evil support skill — not a healer or a blaster, but a hardened beacon: its passive +1 DM and bonus-healing-received make the Cleric durable, while the aura turns a fight against the unholy in the party’s favor. The natural pairing for anyone expecting to face undead, demons, or the consecrated dark.

A Druid (Druidism rank 9, the form’s Aspect Characteristic 6) drops her spells and becomes the Hunt — taking the Guardian form to tank a charging ogre while the party regroups behind her. She shifts (2 AP), paying 1 Spirit per turn to sustain it.

She becomes a wall of fang and hide — 22-wound natural strikes, +3 DM and +10 wounds to soak the ogre’s charge. Primal Aspect is the shapeshifter’s capstone: while shifted she can’t cast non-nature spells, but she gains a whole combat identity. The Predator form is a bleeding striker (+2 Agility, Bleeding attacks), Guardian the tank shown here, and Skybound grants flight. One skill, three battlefield roles — the deepest single investment a Druid can make (Druidism 9 required).

A horror’s aura has struck Doran (Willpower 6) with Fear — he’s about to lose his turn to panic. Where Resolve and Zealotry resist the mind being seized, Sovereign Mind lets him actively shake it off. He spends an action to surge his will against the condition.

Doran throws off the Fear and acts normally — the condition is gone, not merely endured. That’s the key distinction from the primary Willpower skills: Resolve and Zealotry are passive walls (they help you not get afflicted), while Sovereign Mind is the active cure (it removes an affliction that already landed). Its passive also gives +1 to all Willpower defenses, and Mental Shielding can pre-empt a forced test with Advantage. The mind made into a fortress that can repair its own walls.

The fight hangs on a knife’s edge and Mira has already spent her actions — but the killing blow is right there if she could swing once more. Korr (Charisma 5, the party’s commander) shouts the order, lending her the action to take it.

Mira gets one more swing — with a +5 to the roll from Korr’s shouted order — and lands the finisher. Command is the force-multiplier: it doesn’t make Korr stronger, it makes the party act more often and more reliably, effectively spending his action to buy an ally a better one. The 30ft Fear/Morale aura steadies everyone nearby, and the Blood Rally spec pushes that battlefield-leader role even harder. A whole build can be founded on turning one leader’s voice into extra party actions.

Mid-fight, an enemy captain is about to quaff a healing potion that would turn the duel. Sable doesn’t kill him faster — she simply takes the potion off his belt with Combat Larceny before he can reach it.

The captain reaches for a potion that isn’t there anymore — Sable is now holding it. Master Thievery extends a rogue’s larceny into combat: stealing the key, the potion, the holy symbol mid-duel, or sabotaging a weapon to fail at the worst moment. Out of combat its passive grants Advantage on all lockpicking and pickpocketing. It demands deep investment (Thievery 10) but it weaponizes theft itself — sometimes the best counter to a threat is simply to take it away.

Sable (Agility 6) slips up behind an unaware sentry, dagger drawn. Phantom Assassin turns a quiet approach into a killing strike — and even when she’s fighting in the open, her +2 Melee Wound passive is always on. Base dagger 6. Against the unaware sentry she has Advantage.

27 wounds from a dagger to an unaware target — and the Silence means the sentry can’t scream a warning or cast as he falls. Phantom Assassin is the stealth-kill specialist: devastating against the unaware (Advantage + Agility-scaled damage + Silence), but note the passive +2 is now always on, so she’s lethal even in a stand-up fight, not just from the shadows. The Artery Sever spec, launched from full Stealth, is a surgical execution. The party’s answer to sentries, casters, and anyone who needs to die quietly.

Korr (Willpower 6) is the last one standing between the party and a rampaging troll. A blow drops him to 0 wounds — he should fall. But Unwavering is an Epic Vocation: his body no longer has permission to fail while there’s a fight to finish.

Korr makes the test and stays on his feet for one more action — enough to land the blow that fells the troll before he goes down himself. This is why Unwavering costs 300 XP and is flagged an Epic Vocation: it’s build-defining. Its +3 DM is permanent, its Iron Shell can wall off a full turn of damage with raw Willpower, and Last Breath cheats death itself for a final, decisive moment. The unbreakable anchor of a party.

A Druid (Willpower 5, Druidism 12) is slain outright in a brutal fight — not Bleeding or Burning, simply struck to 0. To the Earth Mother her blood is not an ending but a seed. Rebirth triggers automatically, and over the next turns her body begins to knit itself back together.

Five actions after she fell, the Druid rises again with 11 wounds — resurrection, once per day, paid for with a long and vulnerable recovery. This is the single most expensive skill in the compendium (400 XP, Druidism 12 — near-mastery) and it earns every point: it is literal return from death. The 5-action toll is the balance — she’s helpless while it completes, and active damage-over-time (Burn, Poison) stops it cold. The ultimate expression of the Druid’s creed that death is only a change of season.