Body measures physical resilience, toughness, endurance, and overall health. It reflects your character’s ability to withstand punishment, resist fatigue, and endure environmental hazards or poisons.
Body Checks
When your character attempts an action primarily involving endurance, resilience, or resisting physical hardship not directly covered by a specific skill (like Survival or Athletics), the GM may call for a direct Body Check.
- Mechanic: Roll 2d10 and sum the dice.
- Difficulty: The GM sets a difficulty target number (typically from 4 to 16, see benchmarks below) based on the challenge’s physical demands.
- Success: Your roll is equal to or less than your Body score AND equal to or less than the GM’s set difficulty target.
- Failure: Your roll exceeds either your Body score OR the difficulty target set by the GM.
Typical Difficulty Benchmarks with Examples:
- Simple: 16 or less (e.g., resisting mild fatigue after a normal day’s march; shaking off slight dizziness from stale air).
- Routine: 14 or less (e.g., stomaching slightly questionable food; resisting the effects of cheap ale).
- Moderate: 12 or less (e.g., enduring uncomfortable heat or cold with appropriate gear; resisting common, weak poisons).
- Difficult: 10 or less (e.g., pushing through exhaustion during a forced march; resisting moderate poisons or diseases).
- Challenging: 8 or less (e.g., holding breath while swimming underwater for an extended period; resisting potent poisons).
- Severe: 6 or less (e.g., enduring exposure to extreme weather without proper protection; resisting virulent diseases or toxins).
- Heroic: 4 or less (e.g., surviving brief exposure to a near-lethal hazard like volcanic fumes; resisting deadly, fast-acting poisons).
Example in Play:
Aria (Body 13) tries to resist the effects of potent spoiled rations she accidentally consumed. The GM determines this is a Moderate challenge, setting the difficulty target at 12. Aria rolls 2d10.
- Scenario 1: Aria rolls a total of 9. Since 9 is less than or equal to her Body (13) AND less than or equal to the difficulty target (12), she succeeds and shrugs off the worst effects.
- Scenario 2: Aria rolls a total of 13. Since 13 is equal to her Body (13) BUT greater than the difficulty target (12), she fails. Her constitution wasn’t enough to overcome this particular challenge, and she suffers the consequences.
- Scenario 3: Aria rolls a total of 15. Since 15 is greater than her Body (13), she fails automatically, regardless of the difficulty target.
Derived Statistics and Influence
Your Body score determines important derived statistics:
- Hit Points (HP): Roll 1d10 per point of Body, then add your Strength. This represents overall durability and physical health.
- Stun Points (SP): Equal to your maximum Hit Points, representing resistance to fatigue, pain, and minor shocks.
Body also strongly influences skills such as Survival and Athletics, and it’s the key factor in resisting many physical hardships like poison, disease, or environmental exposure. High Body characters are hardy, enduring, and robust; low Body characters are frail, tire easily, and succumb more quickly to injury or environmental challenges.
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File Created: 04/28/2025 Last Modified: 04/28/2025