Endurance measures your physical stamina, resilience, and capacity to withstand prolonged hardship. It reflects your ability to push through pain, exhaustion, hostile environments, and sustained strain without faltering. Skilled use of Endurance allows you to survive grueling conditions, resist fatigue, and endure physically punishing challenges while maintaining effectiveness.
Typical Uses:
-
Marching long distances without rest or collapse
-
Resisting fatigue during prolonged swimming, climbing, or running
-
Enduring environmental extremes (heat, cold, high winds, etc.)
-
Surviving torture, illness, or poison long enough for rescue or treatment
-
Holding your breath underwater or in smoke-filled areas
Passive vs. Active Clarification:
Endurance may be tested passively or actively.
-
Passive checks occur when the GM tests resilience without player declaration (e.g., resisting cold weather overnight).
-
Active checks occur when you attempt to push beyond your normal limits (e.g., forcing another hour of travel or sprinting past exhaustion).
Linked Statistic:
-
Strength (Str)
Situational Modifiers:
Apply the Difficulty Ladder based on conditions, duration, and physical stress:
-
Routine (+20%): Hiking a rugged trail with full gear for a day
-
Favorable (+10%): Swimming across a broad, calm river
-
Challenging (–10%): Running a multi-mile sprint in armor
-
Hard (–20%): Marching 24 hours with minimal rest
-
Very Hard (–30%): Withstanding intense heat without shelter
-
Extreme (–40%) or worse: GM discretion for near-impossible feats, such as surviving magical extremes or weeks without food
Consequences of Success and Failure:
-
Success: You endure the challenge with no penalties, staying effective despite the strain.
-
Critical Success (01): You shrug off the strain entirely and suffer no lingering penalties from exhaustion or fatigue.
-
Failure: You become fatigued, suffering penalties such as reduced movement, slower actions, or increased vulnerability to exhaustion effects.
-
Critical Failure (00): Your body gives out entirely, resulting in collapse, unconsciousness, or severe harm depending on the situation.
Untrained Use:
Endurance may always be attempted, even by untrained individuals, using half Strength rounded down. However, untrained characters are more likely to suffer penalties or push themselves recklessly.
Endurance is about avoiding penalties, not gaining special advantages. Success means you keep going without decline. Critical Success means you suffer no exhaustion effects at all. This skill keeps you at your best when others start to falter.
Narrative Examples:
-
A sellsword pushes through a flooded jungle on forced march, barely resting between days.
-
A hunter swims a frigid river, teeth clenched, refusing to surrender to the cold.
-
A monk kneels in a blizzard, meditating through the night without shelter or fire.
-
A knight endures hours of brutal interrogation, revealing nothing as the captors grow frustrated.
Gameplay Example:
Arden, a hardened mercenary, faces a brutal forced march across a flooded jungle. His Endurance skill is 55%. The GM rules the tropical heat and endless mud make this a Hard (–20%) check, lowering his target number to 35%. Arden rolls a 19—success. He presses on through miserable conditions, reaching camp without suffering penalties or collapse.
Endurance is often the last defense in deadly survival scenarios. When magic isn’t available—or when resting isn’t an option—Endurance lets characters face grueling conditions without succumbing. Use this skill to create tension and highlight physical struggle, but reward success with meaningful narrative impact. Characters who pass tough Endurance tests stay in the fight when others fall behind.
[ Back | Contents | Next]
You are welcome to print a copy of pages from this book for your personal use. Please note that mass distribution, commercial use, or the creation of altered versions of the content for distribution are strictly prohibited. This permission is intended to support your individual gaming needs while maintaining the integrity of the material.
File Created: 05/01/2025 Last Modified: 05/01/2025