The Table

The Galactic Game is played by conversation. The GM describes a situation, each player says what their character does about it, and dice settle any outcome that is in doubt. The two roles below divide the work of the table between them.

The players

Each player runs one character and speaks for them. What that character does is the player's decision alone, and no one at the table overrides it, the GM included. In return, a player says what the character is attempting, lets the GM name the roll, and gives the character something to want.

At the table. You do not need to know the rules to play. Say what you want to happen, and the GM tells you what to roll.

The GM

One person runs the world. The GM describes what the characters perceive, speaks for every creature the players do not control, decides what a situation calls for, and rules on anything the rules do not cover. The GM favors no side and protects no plot; the world responds to what the party does.

When a rule is unclear during play, the GM makes a ruling and play continues. Look the rule up after the session and apply the written rule from then on.

Division of labor

Session zero

Before the first session, agree what the campaign is about and what it will leave out. The system covers pre-industrial worlds and interstellar ones, so "a game in this setting" is not yet a decision. Pick a faction's space, a tech tier (see Equipment) and a tone, and say out loud which subjects the fiction will not touch.

See also. The GM's Manual, Tome XV, holds the GM's side of this chapter: encounter budgets, turn order, travel, hazards and running a session. It draws its terrain and hazards from the Environments catalog. A player does not need either.

Making a Character

Make a character in the order below and record each result on the sheet as you go. The Player's Manual carries the same checklist with every catalog it draws from and a worked example; the Workspace walks the same steps and keeps the sheet.

1. Ancestry. Size, speed, languages and the traits you were born with. 80 to choose from, counting sublineages.
2. Origin. The life before the campaign: two skills, a language or tool, ability adjustments, a starting kit and one feature that life still gets you. 26 origins.
3. Class. Your hit die, saving throws, training and level 1 features. 16 classes, each with a subclass chosen at level 3.
4. Ability scores. Generate six scores (see Abilities), then add your ancestry's +2 to one score and +1 to a different one, and your origin's adjustments.
5. Skills. The number your class grants from its list, plus your origin's two and any from your ancestry.
6. Equipment. Your origin's starting kit, or buy from the catalog.
7. Finish the sheet. Hit points, Armor Class, initiative, passive Perception, attack bonuses and damage, and, if you cast spells, your spell save DC, spell attack modifier and casting resource.
8. Name and the rest. Everything else can be filled in at the table.

Build one now

Resolution

Every roll in the game follows one procedure: roll a d20, add what applies, and compare the total with the number the roll has to meet. Advantage, contests, passive checks and natural 20s and 1s adjust that procedure, and Abilities, Proficiency and Skills name what is added to the roll.

Roll a d20, add what applies, and compare the total to a target number. If the total equals or exceeds the target, you succeed. The target is a Difficulty Class (DC) set by the GM, an opponent's Armor Class (AC), or the result of another creature's roll.

d20 + ability modifier + proficiency bonus (if proficient) + other bonuses

An attack roll, an ability check and a saving throw are all this roll with different modifiers. For example, Vey, a Rogue with a Dexterity modifier of +3 and a proficiency bonus of +2, picks a lock against DC 15: she rolls a d20, adds 3 for Dexterity and 2 for proficiency, and succeeds on a roll of 10 or higher.

Advantage and disadvantage

When circumstances strongly favor you, you have advantage: roll two d20 and use the higher result. When they strongly hinder you, you have disadvantage: roll two d20 and use the lower. Neither stacks; two sources of advantage are still one extra die. If you have both advantage and disadvantage on the same roll, they cancel and you roll one d20, however many sources of each apply.

Contests

A contest is a roll made by two creatures acting against each other. Both make the named check and the higher total wins. On a tie the situation does not change, so the creature trying to change it loses the contest.

Passive checks

passive check = 10 + every modifier that applies to the check

A passive check is a check no one rolls. The GM uses it for what a creature notices without searching, and a creature's passive Perception is the DC a Hide attempt must beat. Advantage adds 5 to a passive check and disadvantage subtracts 5.

Group checks

When the whole party attempts the same thing together, such as sneaking past a checkpoint or climbing a hull in a storm, everyone rolls the check. If at least half of them succeed, the group succeeds.

Tasks that take more than one roll

Some work takes several contributions: slicing a terminal while a trace closes in, chasing a courier through a market, winning over a council. The GM runs these as a progress track: a goal of 2, 4 or 6 steps, and often a pressure track that fills when attempts fail. Each successful check fills a step. Each attempt has to try something new, so the party cannot win by rolling the same check until it comes up. The procedure is Extended Tasks in the GM's Manual.

Critical Success and Failure

A natural 20, a 20 showing on the die, succeeds. A natural 1 fails. This applies to every d20 roll in the game: attack rolls, ability checks and saving throws. The total is not consulted; the 20 beats any DC or AC, and the 1 misses whatever the bonuses would have reached. No feature changes this unless it says so.

On an attack roll, a natural 20 is also a critical hit: roll the attack's damage dice twice and add the modifier once. A natural 1 on an attack roll is a critical miss.

A natural 20 or a natural 1 also widens the outcome. A critical success does what was attempted and adds one result no one asked for, chosen by the GM: the lock opens and the character learns how the mechanism works, or the lie holds and the guard volunteers a name. A critical failure fails and adds a cost in the same way: the pick snaps off in the lock, and the mechanism is now jammed, or the jump falls short and something below hears the landing. The GM describes the added result before the total is announced.

The limit on both is plausibility. A natural 20 succeeds at the thing attempted and widens it; it does not reach an outcome that was impossible when the dice were picked up. A character who cannot reach a ledge does not roll to reach it, and a character who rolls a 1 crossing a room does not fall off the planet. If an action has no version that could work, the GM says so before the roll, and there is no roll. The question a natural 20 answers is what else happens, and inside that limit the added result can go in either direction.

Abilities

Six ability scores describe what a character can do before training is counted. A new character generates the six by one of the three methods at the end of this chapter.

Each score has a modifier, and it is the modifier, never the score itself, that is added to a roll.

modifier = (score − 10) ÷ 2, rounded down

A score of 10 gives a modifier of +0. For example, a Strength score of 16 gives a modifier of +3, and a score of 7 gives a modifier of −2 (7 minus 10 is −3, halved and rounded down). An Ability Score Improvement (see Advancement) cannot raise a score above 20, and that is the only cap. A feature, a class ability, an item or an ancestry trait can raise a score past 20, each by what it says.

Generating scores

Use one of the following methods, agreed with the GM before characters are made.

• Standard array. Assign 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 to the six abilities in any order. This is the fastest method and the most predictable.
• Point buy. Spend 27 points from the Point-buy cost table. Every score starts at 8, and no score may exceed 15 before ancestry bonuses.
• Rolling. Roll 4d6 and drop the lowest die, six times, and assign the six totals in any order. Rolling can produce an 18 at level 1 or a set with nothing above 13.

Proficiency

Proficiency is training with a skill, a saving throw, a weapon or armor category, a tool or a language. Expertise doubles the bonus for a skill, and armor and weapons you are not trained with carry the penalties under Training.

When you are proficient with what a roll uses, add your proficiency bonus to the roll. The bonus is set by character level, as the table shows, and it is never added twice to the same roll.

Characters are proficient in some mix of skills, saving throws, weapon categories, armor categories, tools and languages. Class and origin grant most of them; ancestry and feats add the rest.

Expertise

Expertise in a skill doubles your proficiency bonus on checks with that skill. A few features grant it, and it is the only case in which the bonus counts twice.

Training

Armor and weapons are the two proficiencies a character can be caught without, because anyone can pick up either. Every suit of armor and every weapon names its category. You can use equipment from a category you are not trained in, at the penalties in the Untrained use table.

At the table. Every creature is proficient with its own unarmed strike, so an unarmed strike always adds the proficiency bonus. The disadvantage from untrained armor still applies to it.

Two further penalties belong to the armor itself and apply whether or not you are trained in it. Armor marked as loud gives disadvantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks. Armor with a Strength requirement your score does not meet reduces your speed by 10 feet. Speed penalties from armor do not stack: untrained use and an unmet Strength requirement together still cost 10 feet.

See also. Class is the usual source of this training, and feats widen it: Armor Training for light and medium armor and shields, Heavy Armor Training for heavy and powered armor, Martial Weapon Training for martial weapons, Heavy Weapon Training for heavy weapons, Firearm Training for firearms, and Energy Weapon Training and Exotic Weapon Training for the rest. Between them they cover every category in the catalog, and every item's entry names the training it requires.

Skills

A skill is a field of training tied to one ability. The twenty-one skills are listed below under the abilities they use.

A skill check is an ability check that uses a skill: roll a d20 and add the ability's modifier, plus your proficiency bonus if you are proficient in the skill. A check is written as the ability followed by the skill, so a Dexterity (Stealth) check adds your Dexterity modifier. The ability listed with a skill is its default. The GM may pair a skill with another ability when the situation calls for it, such as a Strength (Intimidation) check when the threat is physical.

At the table. Constitution governs no skill. It sets hit points (see Hit Points & Dying) and concentration saving throws (see Rift Energy).

Saving Throws

A saving throw is a roll made to resist something that happens to you. Your class makes you proficient in two of the six.

When an effect calls for a saving throw, roll a d20 and add the modifier of the ability the effect names, plus your proficiency bonus if your class grants proficiency in that saving throw. Every class grants proficiency in two. The effect names the ability: a Dexterity saving throw against a blast, or a Wisdom saving throw against a charm.

The DC of a spell's saving throw is the caster's spell save DC (see Rift Energy). A feature, weapon or item that forces a saving throw states its DC in its entry. For a hazard or the environment, the GM sets the DC from the Difficulty Classes table in Resolution.

Languages

Languages decide who a character can talk to. Speaking a language and understanding it are tracked apart, and telepathy reaches a creature whatever it speaks.

Every ancestry grants Common and at least one other language. Common is the trade language of the Prime Plane, and Galactic Standard is the working language of the space lanes; between them they cover most ports a party will land at. Every other language marks where its speaker is from. There are 36 languages in all.

Aesiric, Axiom Binary, Common, Draconic, Meridian Cant, Dwarvish, Ebon Liturgy, Elvish, Federation Standard, Galactic Standard, Ghurosh, Gnomish, Goblin, Halfling, High Aurelian, Istryx, Jotun, Kessic, Khrik'at, Low Aurelian, Myr, Mythar, Netherspeech, Njordhalla, Old Norska, Old Valar, Orcish, Primordial, Qy'reen, Saurian, Solir, Sylvan, Thuulean, Umigatari, Vanir, Zyrrakan.

Speaking

Speaking and understanding a language are tracked separately. A creature can understand a language without being able to speak it, which is the usual state of a creature without the mouth for it: a Thuul drone follows Common and answers in pressure changes, and a raised skeleton obeys an order in Common and says nothing. A stat block lists the two apart. Speaking a language always includes understanding it.

Literacy comes with speech unless a feature says otherwise. Ciphers, cants and liturgical registers are languages in their own right; a speaker of Common cannot follow Meridian Cant.

Telepathy

Telepathy is a sense. It carries meaning to any creature within its range whether or not the two share a language, and it is one-way unless the effect says otherwise. A creature with no language at all can still be reached by telepathy.

Storytelling

Use this chapter to contribute to a scene: make your character's intent clear, build on what the others offer and play through the consequences of a roll. Guidance for preparing and running scenes is in the GM's Manual.

Intent

Say what you want to happen before naming a roll. "I want to get past the checkpoint without the officer logging my face" gives the GM a goal to work with and several ways to answer it; "I roll Deception" gives the GM a number. The GM names the roll from the intent.

Character goals

Give your character a goal that can guide their decisions in any scene, including one that has nothing to do with their abilities. Write down what they are trying to get and what they will not do to get it, and name someone who knows them well enough to call them on either.

Offers

When another player builds on something you said, build on it in turn instead of correcting it. When the GM hands you a detail you did not ask for, use it.

Cost

After a failed roll, play the consequence the GM describes instead of negotiating it away. Decide how your character reacts and what they try next.

Improvising

You will be asked what your character does about something no one planned for. Two habits cover most of it:

• Answer in the fiction. Reach for what is in the room and on your sheet before reaching for a rule.
• Bring things back. The contact from three sessions ago, the debt no one settled, the ship left in a bad orbit. Reusing what the table already remembers costs nothing and makes the world continuous.

Sharing it

Everyone at the table gets to be good at something. If a scene belongs to one character's specialty, look for the angle that brings someone else in: the door the infiltrator cannot open quietly, or the officer who will only speak to a noble.

See also. The GM's half of this chapter is in the GM's Manual: preparing situations instead of plots, failing forward, and what to do when the party goes somewhere you have no notes for.

Exploration

Exploring a dangerous place runs in exploration turns of about 10 minutes. Each turn the GM describes what you can perceive, every player says what their character does, and the GM says what changed. Crossing a world between places runs a day at a time, and the GM's Manual has that procedure.

The exploration turn

1. The GM describes. What you can see, hear and sense from where you are, and any danger that is plain to see. Nothing that is plainly there needs a roll to notice.
2. You declare. Each character takes one activity for the turn. Activities that do not get in each other's way happen at the same time. If yours depends on someone else's, such as searching a room another character is still unlocking, say so.
3. The GM resolves. A check is called for only where the outcome is uncertain and matters. The turn's time passes, and anything counting toward a deadline moves on.
4. The situation changes. The GM describes what is different, and the next turn starts, or initiative is rolled.

Activities

The list is a set of examples. Anything else your character could do in ten minutes is an activity too: say what it is.

Into a fight

When exact timing matters, the GM calls for initiative. What the turn already established carries over: positions stay where they were, a door half-sliced stays half-sliced, and a character keeping watch rolls initiative normally while anyone the ambush caught unaware rolls with disadvantage, as Combat describes.

At the table. The GM uses exploration turns when time or danger makes the choices matter, and summarizes the walk back through rooms the party has already cleared.

Social Interaction

When your character wants something from someone, the GM decides whether that person agrees, refuses or might go either way. Only the last needs a roll. You can speak in character or describe the argument your character makes. The roll uses your character's skill.

Attitude

Asking

1. Say what you want, and how you ask. Name the request and the approach: an honest argument, a lie, a threat, a performance.
2. The GM sorts the request. If the person would agree anyway, they agree. If they would never agree, they refuse, and the GM tells you what might change their mind if your character could know it. Otherwise the request is uncertain.
3. The stakes come first. Before an uncertain request is rolled, the GM says what a success gets and what a failure costs.
4. Roll. Persuasion for an honest argument, Deception for a lie, Intimidation for a threat, and Performance or another skill where it fits, against the DC for the person's attitude. If someone is actively working against you, such as a rival making the opposite case, it is a contest instead, and a listener who suspects a lie rolls Insight against your Deception.

Leverage

Leverage is a fact, an offer or a demonstration that matters to what the other person wants. Each piece lowers the DC by 5, each must be different, and two at most count. Anyone in the party can find it: Insight to learn what the person wants, Investigation to turn up evidence, Technology to prove a claim. A character standing beside the speaker can take the Help action to give advantage. The rest of the party does not roll the same argument again.

Trying again

A request that failed cannot be made again the same way. Something has to change first: new leverage, a better offer, a different person to ask, or a day for tempers to cool.

Limits

• A natural 20 gets the most the person would ever agree to. It does not get what they refused.
• Player characters decide for themselves. A check changes what a GM character does. When a GM character's argument ought to land on a player character, the GM says how compelling it is and the player decides. Only an effect that names a condition, such as Charmed, controls a player character, and only as far as the condition says.
• In combat, asking someone to stand down, surrender or hold fire is the Influence action, and the same rules apply.

Example. Liraen asks a relay operator, who is Indifferent, for the docking codes: DC 15. Tamsin has already shown her that the archive can be copied without her crew's personal files (a Technology demonstration, leverage), and Vessa found her unanswered pay claims in the relay's public log (Investigation, more leverage). The DC drops to 5. Liraen rolls Persuasion, and a failure would mean she seals the dock until the party leaves.

See also. For a negotiation with several sides or a deadline, the GM runs a progress track: Negotiation in the GM's Manual.

Combat

Combat runs in rounds, and in each round every creature takes one turn in initiative order. Damage and its types are in Damage & Defenses.

Initiative

When combat begins, every participant rolls initiative: a d20 plus their Dexterity modifier. Creatures act in order from the highest result to the lowest, and the order holds for the rest of the fight. A round is one pass through that order and covers about six seconds, so everything in a round is happening at once; the order is the sequence in which it is resolved.

At the table. Ties go to the higher Dexterity score, then to the creature that is not a player character. A creature that did not notice an ambush rolls initiative with disadvantage. There is no surprise round.

The turn

Your turn is a budget of five things, spent separately. You do not have to spend any of them, and spending one never costs you another.

At the table. The reaction is the one item in the budget you can spend on any creature's turn, your own included. It is spent when its trigger happens, usually on another creature's turn, and it comes back at the start of your next turn.

Movement

Your speed is the distance in feet you can move on your turn. It comes from your ancestry and is modified by armor, conditions and features. You can split your movement before, between and after the other things you do on your turn.

See also. Zero gravity, vacuum and overland travel are under Worldbuilding in the GM's Manual.

Mounts and vehicles

Mounting or dismounting a willing creature at least one size larger than you costs half your speed.

• A trained mount acts on your initiative and moves as you direct. Its only actions are Dash, Disengage and Dodge.
• An untrained or intelligent mount keeps its own initiative and acts as it chooses.
• If your mount is knocked Prone or moved against its will, make a DC 10 Dexterity saving throw or fall off and land Prone within 5 feet.

A vehicle moves on its driver's turn, and driving it takes the driver's action. Its speed is on its entry. Where the entry gives no speed, a ground vehicle moves 60 feet in a round and an atmospheric craft moves 120 feet. A skid, a jump or a tight turn is a Piloting check against a DC from the Difficulty Classes table in Resolution.

A vehicle has hull points instead of hit points, and at 0 hull points it stops until it is repaired. An attack against a moving vehicle must meet 10 + the driver's Piloting modifier. A stopped vehicle has AC 10.

Standard actions

The actions in this list are available to every character at every level, and nothing has to grant them. A class feature that gives you a new action adds it to this list; it never replaces one.

Attack action

Make one attack with a weapon you are holding or with an unarmed strike. Some features grant more than one attack with this action; when they do, they say so, and the attacks may be split between different targets.

Cast a Spell action

Cast a spell with a casting time of one action. A spell with a longer casting time is started with this action and continued on later turns; taking damage during that time forces a concentration check, and losing it wastes the slot.

Dash action

Gain extra movement equal to your speed for this turn. Difficult terrain, being prone and anything else that taxes movement taxes the extra movement too.

Disengage action

Your movement does not provoke opportunity attacks for the rest of this turn. It applies to every creature you leave the reach of, not only the one you were worried about.

Dodge action

Until the start of your next turn, attack rolls against you have disadvantage if you can see the attacker, and you make Dexterity saving throws with advantage. You lose this benefit if you are Incapacitated or if your speed drops to 0.

Help action

Choose one: give an ally advantage on the next ability check they make for a task you could meaningfully assist with, give an ally advantage on their next attack roll against a creature within 5 feet of you, or tend a dying ally within 5 feet so that their next death saving throw is made with advantage. The first two expire at the start of your next turn; the third lasts until they roll. Tending the dying is the one use of Help that needs no skill and no shared task: pressure on the wound is the whole of it.

Hide action

Make a Dexterity (Stealth) check against the passive Perception of anyone who might notice you. You need cover or heavy obscurement to try, and cannot hide from a creature that can see you plainly. On a success you are unseen until you attack, cast a spell, make a noise louder than a whisper, or someone finds you with a Search action.

Improvise action

Do something the other actions do not describe. The GM decides whether it needs a roll and which ability applies. This is a real action rather than a gap in the list: a system that only permits its own vocabulary is a smaller game than this one intends to be.

Influence action

Make a request of a creature that can hear and understand you. The GM decides whether it agrees, refuses, or might go either way, as Social Interaction describes. An uncertain request is a Charisma (Persuasion, Deception or Intimidation) check against a DC set by the creature's attitude: Friendly 10, Indifferent 15, Hostile 20. A creature that is winning, or that has more to lose by stopping, refuses. A failed request can't be repeated until something changes.

Ready action

Name a trigger and the action you will take when it happens. When the trigger occurs you may take that action as your reaction, which means you cannot also take another reaction that round. Readying a spell holds it at the ready and requires concentration; if concentration breaks, the slot is spent for nothing.

Search action

Look for something specific. Perception for what is hidden from the senses, Investigation for what has to be worked out, Insight for what a person is not saying, Survival for a trail. The GM names the skill from what you are looking for.

Shove action

Replace one attack from your Attack action with a shove against a creature no more than one size larger than you. Make an Athletics check contested by the target's Athletics or Acrobatics, their choice. On a success, push it 5 feet away or knock it Prone.

Grapple action

Replace one attack from your Attack action with a grapple against a creature no more than one size larger than you, using a free hand. Make an Athletics check contested by the target's Athletics or Acrobatics, their choice. On a success the target has the Grappled condition. It escapes by winning the same contest on its turn.

Use an Object action

You interact with one object for free during your turn: drawing a weapon, opening a door, pulling a lever. This action is for the second one, or for an object whose own description says it takes an action.

At the table. Shove and Grapple replace one attack instead of costing the whole action, so a character with more than one attack can shove with one and strike with the rest.

Bonus actions

A bonus action is a second, smaller action on your own turn, and you have one only if something grants it: a class feature, an ancestry trait, a spell with a casting time of one bonus action, or an item that says so. A character with none of those has one action and one reaction, and that is a complete turn.

You get one bonus action per turn, however many things grant one. It does not carry over: an unspent bonus action is lost at the end of your turn. You take it at any point during your turn, before, between or after your other activity, unless the feature granting it names a moment.

one action + one bonus action + one reaction ≠ three actions

These rules grant two bonus actions to everyone, listed here. Everything else a character does with a bonus action comes from a class, an ancestry, a spell or an item.

Quick Use bonus action

Use an item on yourself whose entry says it takes a bonus action: drinking a potion, firing an injector, keying a battery. Every item states its own cost, and the item's entry wins over this one. Administering the same item to somebody else is the Use an Object action instead, because the hard part is the other person.

Reload bonus action

Reload a weapon that tracks a magazine, a cell or a cycle. Where the weapon says what its reload costs, the weapon wins: a revolver states an action, a combat shotgun states one shell per bonus action or the whole tube as an action. Where a weapon says nothing, one reload is a bonus action.

At the table. A spell with a casting time of one bonus action still costs a slot and follows every other casting rule.

Two weapons

Holding a weapon in each hand does not by itself grant a second attack. Off-Hand Strike is a trained bonus action: it comes from a fighting style that names two-weapon fighting, from the feat of the same name, or from a feature that says so. A character without one of those has a second weapon and no second attack.

Off-Hand Strike granted

When you take the Attack action and attack with a light weapon held in one hand, you may attack with a different light weapon held in the other. Add your ability modifier to that attack roll as usual, but not to its damage, unless the modifier is negative, in which case it applies. A feature that grants extra attacks does not multiply this one. You need the training: a fighting style that names two-weapon fighting, the feat of the same name, or a feature that says so.

Using items

Every item that has to be used states what using it costs in its entry, and the entry wins over any general rule. The pattern in this table is the one the catalog follows, and an item with no stated cost is ruled by it.

At the table. Each item's entry in the codex carries its cost as a tag, and the same tag appears beside the item in your pack on the character sheet.

Reactions

A reaction is one interrupt taken on any creature's turn, and you have one at a time. It refreshes at the start of your turn, so a reaction spent just before your turn costs you nothing, and one spent just after your turn leaves you without one for almost a full round.

Every reaction states a trigger, and you can take the reaction only when its trigger happens. Read the trigger as a complete condition: "when a creature you can see hits you with a melee attack" requires a creature, sight of it, a melee attack, and a hit.

A reaction resolves after its trigger finishes unless the reaction says otherwise. An attack that triggers a reaction hits and deals its damage first. A reaction that says it happens before the trigger resolves, as most shielding and deflection features do, interrupts the trigger instead.

opportunity attack = one melee attack, as a reaction, when a creature you can see leaves your reach without Disengaging

The opportunity attack is the reaction every creature has. Taking the Disengage action prevents opportunity attacks against you for the rest of your turn, and so does leaving a creature's reach while it cannot see you. A creature that cannot take reactions, a state several conditions impose, cannot make one.

Example. Dorran has one reaction per round. If two enemies leave his reach in the same round, he makes an opportunity attack against one of them and has no reaction left for the other.

Armor Class

Armor Class (AC) is the number an attack roll must meet to hit you. Unarmored, your AC is 10 + your Dexterity modifier. A piece of armor carries its own formula in place of that one: a base, plus the ability modifiers its entry allows. Light armor adds your full Dexterity modifier (a leather cuirass is 11 + Dexterity modifier), medium armor caps the Dexterity bonus (a breastplate is 14 + Dexterity modifier, maximum +2), and heavy armor allows none (chainmail is 16). When more than one formula applies, the highest is used. A shield and every other AC bonus add on top of the formula that won.

AC = the highest formula that applies + shield + other AC bonuses

For example, Dorran wears chainmail and carries a steel shield. The chainmail gives 16 and adds no Dexterity modifier, the shield adds +2, and his AC is 18. Out of the chainmail his AC is 10 + his Dexterity modifier, and the shield still adds +2.

At the table. You can wear one suit of body armor and carry one shield. A second of either does nothing, and the character sheet says so.

See also. Armor you are not trained in still gives its AC as written. The cost is under Training in Proficiency: disadvantage on Strength and Dexterity rolls, 10 feet of speed, and no spellcasting.

Attacks

attack roll = d20 + ability modifier + proficiency bonus (if trained with the weapon)

Melee weapons use Strength and ranged weapons use Dexterity. A finesse weapon uses whichever is higher. On a hit, the damage is the weapon's damage dice plus the same ability modifier. For example, Dorran, a Warrior with a Strength modifier of +3 and a proficiency bonus of +2, attacks with a longsword: he rolls a d20 + 5 against the target's AC, and on a hit deals 1d8 + 3 slashing damage.

See also. A weapon you are not trained with adds no proficiency bonus and is rolled at disadvantage, and every attack made in armor you cannot use is at disadvantage. See Training in Proficiency.

Range

Weapons in this game run from a held knife to an orbital lance, so range is stated as one of five bands on a ladder: Melee, Close, Medium, Long and Extreme. Each band covers a span of feet, as the Ranges table shows, so a table that wants a distance has one.

Every weapon and every spell states the band it is built for. The band is the rule, and the feet are what it means when a distance is needed. Where an entry also prints a distance, that distance is what placed it in its band, so the two never disagree.

At the table. Attacking past a weapon's range is possible at disadvantage, one step up the ladder at a time. Two steps past is out of range entirely. A Medium, Long or Extreme weapon fired at a target within Melee range has disadvantage. A Close weapon has no penalty there.

At the table. Areas of effect and reach are measured in feet. A 20 ft radius is 20 ft whatever range the spell is cast at, because the area is a shape on the table and the range is a distance to it. Speed is measured in feet. A range describes how far something reaches, not how far you walk.

Cover

Half cover gives +2 to AC and to Dexterity saving throws, and three-quarters cover gives +5 to both. A creature behind total cover cannot be targeted directly. Cover is three-dimensional: a deck grating overhead counts.

Vision and light

Light and obscurement limit what a creature can see, as the table shows.

A sense listed on an ancestry or a stat block changes what a creature can see:

• Darkvision. Within its range, dim light counts as bright light and darkness as dim light, in shades of gray.
• Blindsight. You perceive everything within its range without sight.
• Tremorsense. You pinpoint anything within its range that touches the same surface you do.
• Truesight. Within its range you see through darkness and illusions, see Invisible creatures and objects, and see a shapechanger's true form.

An attack against a creature that cannot see you has advantage. An attack against a creature you cannot see has disadvantage, and if the creature is hidden you must also guess its location. Attacking reveals your position whether the attack hits or misses.

Damage & Defenses

Every hit and every harmful effect deals damage of a type, and a creature's defenses are stated against those types. What damage does to a creature's total is in Hit Points & Dying.

Resistance

Every instance of damage has a type, and a creature may have resistance, immunity or vulnerability to that type. Resistance halves the damage, immunity reduces it to 0, and vulnerability doubles it. Halving and doubling each apply once, after every other modifier, and resistance and vulnerability to the same type cancel each other. For example, Ilsa has resistance to fire damage and is hit for 14 fire damage: she loses 7 hit points.

At the table. A broad resistance supersedes a narrower one. If one feature gives you resistance to fire damage from spells and another gives you resistance to fire damage, you have the second and the first no longer matters.

Damage types

Every portion of damage has exactly one type. An attack or effect can deal more than one portion, as a burning blade deals slashing damage and fire damage on the same hit; apply each defense to the portion of its type. An effect that offers a choice of types says which applies.

Physical. Force applied by a weapon or a body. The most commonly resisted group, and the one most armor is built against.

Energy. Heat, charge and chemistry acting on the body. Most of it is Tier III and above, and most of it ignores conventional plate.

Esoteric. Damage drawn from the Rift, from the divine or from a mind. Resistance to these types is rare and comes from what a creature is.

At the table. There are 18 types in all, and the list is closed. Every weapon and every spell picks from it.

Temporary hit points

Temporary hit points are a separate pool that sits on top of your hit points and absorbs damage first. They do not stack: if you gain temporary hit points while you already have some, keep the higher amount. Temporary hit points vanish when you finish a long rest.

Conditions

A condition is a state that changes what a creature can do. An effect imposes it and says what removes it. The full list, with each condition's effects, is in the Conditions catalog.

There are 27 conditions, and several include others: a Paralyzed creature is also Incapacitated, and the character sheet applies both.

Exhausted is one of two conditions that stack, in six levels of exhaustion. Level 1 gives disadvantage on ability checks; level 2 halves your speed; level 3 adds disadvantage on attack rolls and saving throws; level 4 halves your hit point maximum; level 5 reduces your speed to 0; level 6 kills you. A long rest with food and water removes one level.

Wounded stacks in five levels and marks an injury that did not heal cleanly. Each level reduces your hit point maximum by 5, and healing cannot take you above the reduced maximum. You gain one level each time you return from 0 hit points or below (see Hit Points & Dying). A long rest with medical attention removes one level.

Three conditions come from deprivation: Dehydrated, Malnourished and Suffocating. Dehydrated and Malnourished give levels of exhaustion that do not clear until you have drunk or eaten. Suffocating is a countdown: once you are out of breath, you can last a number of rounds equal to your Constitution modifier, minimum 1. At the end of that time your hit points drop to −1, unless they are already lower, and you are dying. You cannot be stabilized or regain hit points until you can breathe.

The full condition list

Hit Points & Dying

Hit points measure how much harm a character can take before falling. Your class's hit die sets them, and the track continues below 0: a character at 0 is down but stable, and one below 0 is dying.

At level 1 your hit point maximum is the highest roll of your class's hit die plus your Constitution modifier. At each level after the first, add a roll of that die or its fixed average, plus your Constitution modifier again. For example, Dorran, a Warrior with a d10 hit die and a Constitution modifier of +2, starts with 12 hit points and adds 1d10 + 2 at level 2.

Hit dice

You have one hit die per level, of your class's size. During a short rest you can spend any number of them: for each die spent, roll it, add your Constitution modifier, and regain that many hit points. When you finish a long rest you regain spent hit dice equal to half your total, rounded down, minimum one.

Dying

Zero is the middle of the hit point track. Damage that would take you below 0 continues into negative totals, and the distance below 0 is the distance healing has to make up.

Death saving throws

While you are below 0 hit points and not stable, make a death saving throw on each of your turns: a d20 against DC 10, with no modifiers.

• 10 or higher is a success. 9 or lower is a failure.
• A natural 20 counts as two successes. It does not stand you up.
• A natural 1 counts as two failures.
• Three successes and you stabilize: the rolling stops. You stay Unconscious at whatever negative total you fell to, until you are healed or wake up.
• Three failures and you die.
• Taking damage while stable makes you dying again, with the count of successes and failures reset to zero.

Stabilizing

Healing is arithmetic: it adds to your current total from wherever that total is. A character at −9 who receives 4 points of healing is at −5 and still dying. To change your state, the healing has to reach 0.

to stabilize: heal what you are negative · to stand: one more than that

For example, Ilsa finds Dorran at −6 hit points. Healing him for 6 brings him to 0, stable and Unconscious; healing him for 7 brings him to 1 and he is conscious. The longer a character lies below 0, the more healing it takes to bring them back, and a single point of healing on a character at −5 leaves them at −4 and still dying.

Reaching 0 or above by any means resets the death save count. Successes and failures do not carry over to the next time you fall.

First aid

A creature within 5 feet of you can take the Help action to tend you: pressure on a wound, or an airway held open. Your next death saving throw is then made with advantage. This use of Help needs no skill and no equipment.

At the table. A creature with a medical kit can take an action and make a DC 10 Wisdom (Medicine) check to stabilize a dying creature within 5 feet. The stabilized creature stays at its current total. The Help action needs no kit.

Waking up

A stable creature that receives no healing wakes after 1d4 hours with 1 hit point. You cannot spend hit dice while Unconscious.

Returning to 1 hit point or more after dropping to 0 or below, whether by healing or by waking, gives you one level of Wounded (see Conditions).

Resting

A rest is a stretch of time with nothing demanding in it, and it is how hit points, hit dice and spent resources come back. There are two kinds, the short rest and the long rest, and each says what interrupts it.

A short rest is 1 hour of light activity. During it you can spend hit dice to regain hit points, and at its end you recover anything that says it returns on a short rest.

A long rest is 8 hours, at least 6 of them asleep; the other 2 hours can be light activity such as talking, eating, reading or keeping watch. When you finish one, your hit points return to maximum, all spell resources refill, every daily use resets, half your hit dice return, temporary hit points and death save counts clear, and you lose one level of exhaustion if you had food and water during the rest.

• A short rest interrupted by combat grants no benefit.
• A long rest interrupted by 1 hour or more of fighting, casting or walking starts over. A shorter interruption adds its length to the rest.
• You benefit from one long rest in 24 hours, and only if you start it with at least 1 hit point.

At the table. Where you rest does not change what the rest gives. A long rest in a Black Meridian flop-pad and a long rest aboard a Halcyion cruiser are mechanically identical. A feature that works "during a long rest in a workshop" uses the rest's waking hours; the rest still restores what a rest restores, and it is not a downtime day.

Rift Energy

Rift Energy is the power behind every spell, and every character who casts draws it through one of fifteen Channels. Your spellcasting ability sets your spell save DC and spell attack modifier, and your class sets how you come by spells and what casting costs. The spells themselves are in Tome V.

Rift Energy is the energy a spell is made of. A spell, a plasma rifle's overcharge and a hyperdrive draw on the same energy through different training, and they resolve on the same rolls. A character who casts does so through one of the fifteen Channels.

The Channels

There are fifteen Channels in two families. The seven Rifting Channels each work one substance of the Rift: Sun, Arc, Earth, Metal, Molten, Water and Ether, each named for what it draws on. Arc is an offshoot of Sun; Metal and Molten are offshoots of Earth. Ether covers air, arcana and thought, and is the largest of the seven. Each Rifting Channel is organized into lines: a low-level spell branches into divergent higher forms, so two casters of the same Channel diverge as they advance.

The eight classical Channels each work one kind of effect: Abjuration, Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion, Necromancy and Transmutation. They are the arcane tradition that predates the Rifting split and is still taught across the Prime Plane in much its original form. A classical Channel has no lines; a caster working one accumulates spells instead of committing to a branch.

At the table. The two families are mechanically identical: same slots, same save DC, same attack modifier, same concentration rule. A Wizard's Riftcraft Tradition can specialize in any of the fifteen, and every spell in Tome V names the Channel it belongs to.

Attack and save

spell save DC = 8 + proficiency bonus + spellcasting ability modifier

spell attack modifier = proficiency bonus + spellcasting ability modifier

Your class sets your spellcasting ability: Intelligence for the Engineer and Wizard; Wisdom for the Cleric, Druid, Monk and Ranger; Charisma for the Bard, Paladin, Sorcerer and Warlock; the Psion chooses Intelligence or Charisma. For example, Ilsa, a Cleric with a Wisdom modifier of +3 and a proficiency bonus of +2, has a spell save DC of 13 (8 + 2 + 3) and a spell attack modifier of +5.

Rift Affinity

Rift Affinity is a derived rating from 0 to 10. It starts from a baseline your class carries, as the table shows, adds what your ancestry and origin grant and any feature that raises it, and is capped at your level and at 10. Full channelers carry the deepest baseline, then the half channelers and the ki and charge classes, then everyone else. Rift Affinity sets how much you can hold open at once, and the Tier IV and Tier V artifacts that require a minimum rating will not work for anyone below it.

At the table. Every character has some Rift Affinity. A Warrior with no spellcasting still carries a rating above 0, and that is enough for a Sun-Rifted blade to work in their hand, though not to open it the way its maker could.

Resources

What you spend to cast depends on your class: spell slots by level, a pool of points, ki, charges, or pact slots that return on a short rest. All of them refill on a long rest. The progression tables hold the per-level numbers for each class.

Preparation

What fuels a spell and how you came by it are separate questions, and a class answers the second in one of three ways, as the Spell access table shows. Every class states which method it uses and how many cantrips and leveled spells it grants at each level.

prepared each long rest = spellcasting ability modifier + class level (minimum 1)

At the table. A Paladin uses half their class level, rounded up, in place of the class level in this formula, matching the half-channeler pattern their slots follow.

A spell you have not prepared cannot be cast this turn, however plainly it is written down. The character sheet shows only your prepared spells in the Actions panel and keeps the whole list on the Spells tab, where preparing happens.

Example. A subclass can be the only reason a character casts at all. The Rogue class casts nothing, and the Shadowstalker subclass gives it spells from the Rogue list with slots from the Third Channeler table. It states its resource, its access method and its spell counts the way a class does.

Concentration

Some spells last only while you concentrate on them, and you can concentrate on one spell at a time. When you take damage while concentrating, make a Constitution saving throw against a DC of 10 or half the damage taken, whichever is higher. On a failure the spell ends.

Apex spells

A 10th-level spell is an apex spell, a working on the scale of a region or a plane, drawn straight from the Rift. Most take an hour-long rite. To cast one, you need:

• Class level 20 in a class whose spell list holds the spell. Multiclassing never reaches it.
• Rift Affinity 6 or higher. A full channeler's baseline at 20 is 4, so the last two points come from ancestry, origin, a feat such as Rift Sense, a Cybernetic Rift Conduit or a relic.
• An apex casting. The full channelers' 10th-level slot, 10 Spell Points or Psionic Points, the Warlock's 10th-level Mystic Arcanum, the Boon of the Apex, or the Continuum Shard.

Every apex spell is bound by these limits, and no feature overrides them:

• One per long rest. You cast at most one apex spell between long rests, whatever pays for it.
• No discounts. No feature, item or surge casts an apex spell for free or for less, pays for it in hit points, alters it with Metamagic, or raises a lower-level spell to 10th level.
• The price. When the spell takes effect, you gain one level of exhaustion and roll once on the Surge Table. Immunity to exhaustion and a ward against Rift density do not stop either.

At the table. An apex spell changes a campaign, whether it sinks a continent or opens a door to another plane. Agree with the GM where the story goes afterward before the rite begins.

Starship Operations

From Tier IV a party has a hull as well as its characters, and a ship is a character sheet the whole table shares, with its own hit points, its own defenses and its own posts for the crew to fill.

Hulls

A hull's entry carries the statistics in the Hull statistics table.

See also. Hulls and components are items like any other, cataloged in Tome X and fitted on the Starchart screen. A component upgrades a stat; it does not change what the ship is.

Posts

Each post aboard a ship is held by one character, and a held post changes what the ship can do. A character qualifies for a post through a skill, through their class, or through both, and a character qualified twice counts for more in the post than one qualified once.

A post's effect grows with the rank of whoever holds it: 1 for a character qualified once, 2 for one qualified by both skill and class. Each rank of engineer adds 12 hull points, each rank of gunner one hardpoint, and each rank of quartermaster 25 tons of cargo. Each rank of pilot takes a tenth off a lane's days, and each rank of navigator takes 1 off its danger.

Small crews. A post no one holds does nothing. With no pilot the ship takes no maneuvers and counts as Slow; with no gunner no mount fires. A character holds one post at a time, and moving to another post takes the character's movement for the turn. A post can be filled by hired crew, who roll the post's checks with a flat bonus and count as unqualified for its effect.

At the table. A character with no post is a passenger. Passengers can still fight, but they do not improve the ship.

Travel

Interstellar travel is measured in days on a lane. A lane's entry gives its kind, its length in days (1 to 7 on the current chart) and a danger rating from 0 to 5. The hull's FTL rating scales the length: a slow drive multiplies the lane's days by 1.5, a standard drive leaves them as written, a fast drive multiplies them by 0.6 and a blink drive by 0.25. A fitted drive component raises the hull's rating to its own; it never lowers it. A trained pilot then takes a tenth off and a specialist pilot a fifth. Round to the nearest day, minimum 1. A hull with no FTL rating is bound to its system whatever else is fitted to it.

days of travel = lane days × FTL factor × pilot factor, rounded, minimum 1

For example, a corvette with a standard drive and a trained pilot crosses a 4-day lane in 4 × 1 × 0.9 = 3.6, rounded to 4 days. With a fast drive the same crossing is 4 × 0.6 × 0.9 = 2.16, rounded to 2 days.

A trained navigator takes 1 off a lane's danger and a specialist navigator takes 2; a medic at their post takes 1 more off. What remains, minimum 0, is the crossing's risk. On arrival the GM rolls a d20 against the crossing's encounter number. A roll at or under that number means something happens: a quiet crossing, a discovery, a hazard, or hostile contact, with dangerous space skewing toward contact. The Starchart screen rolls and names it, and the same tables are printed in the GM's Manual under Voyages. Most crossings are quiet.

encounter number = 2 × risk + the destination's danger + 1 per full 3 days of travel (+2 on an unstable lane, +4 on a blockaded one), minimum 1, maximum 18

At the table. The one event that calls for a roll from the helm is a lane shear: the pilot makes a Piloting check against DC 10 + twice the lane's danger, and on a failure the ship takes a quarter of its hull point maximum in damage and the leg costs one more day. The other hazards name their own check or saving throw when they come up.

Ship combat

A ship engagement uses the same initiative order as any other combat, with the ship acting on the pilot's initiative. The crew do not take turns flying the ship; each crew member takes their own turn to do their post's job while the pilot flies.

Taking damage

Shields absorb damage first and recover between engagements. Hull points do not recover on their own; repairing them takes a yard or an engineer with time. A ship reduced to 0 hull points is adrift. It does not explode; it loses power, air and heading, everything aboard is still there, and what happens next is played as a scene.

A ship's systems are its drive, shields, weapons, sensors and life support. A critical hit against a ship fails one, and so does the first hit in an engagement that takes it below half its hull points. Roll a d6 on the Systems table. Hull and shields are pools, not systems.

After the engagement, shields refill. A failed system comes back with 1 hour of work and a DC 15 Technology check, or at a yard for a tenth of the price of the matching component. Hull points come back only with repair, which is a downtime project: Downtime gives the cost and the time.

At the table. The GM's Manual chapter Voyages runs a whole engagement, with an escape, as an example. Weapons rated against hulls deal double damage to ships and structures and are largely wasted on people. Personal weapons do the reverse.

Scale

The scale ladder runs personal, vehicle, small craft, escort, line and capital. When attacker and target are two or more steps apart, the smaller side deals no damage to the larger, and the larger has disadvantage on attack rolls against the smaller. A character firing a sidearm at a capital hull does nothing to it.

Creatures

A creature is anything the GM runs from a stat block. Its Power Rating sets its proficiency bonus, and through it the attack bonuses and save DCs in its panel. Every creature in the game is in the Bestiary, and you can build your own in the Workspace.

A creature is a character with the derivation taken out. A character's numbers come from an ancestry, a class and a level; a creature's are written on its stat block, so a GM running four at once can change a number and see the result.

Power Rating

Power Rating (PR) measures what a creature is worth as an opponent. It runs from 0 to 21, with fractions below 1 for creatures that are barely a fight on their own. It is the only rating a creature carries, and four numbers follow from it.

Proficiency bonus = 2, rising by 1 at PR 5, 9, 13, 17 and 21

Attack bonus = proficiency bonus + attacking ability modifier

Save DC = 8 + proficiency bonus + the ability forcing the save

Trained save or skill = ability modifier + proficiency bonus

GM. None of the four is stored on a stat block. Each is computed from the rating and the creature's own abilities every time the page is drawn, so retuning a creature's rating updates all four.

Ratings

Armor Class and hit points are given as ranges, because a brick and a duelist at the same rating have different shapes. Damage per round counts the creature's main attack routine only; a breath weapon or a once-per-fight effect sits outside the band.

Size

Every creature and every ancestry occupies one of 8 size rungs. Size is what an effect means when it says Medium or smaller, and it is the first word of the line under a stat block's name. Each rung carries a mark, the same one the Bestiary filters by and a creature card wears.

At the table. An ancestry's size is fixed by the ancestry. A creature's size is written on its stat block, and an effect that changes size moves the creature along this ladder instead of to a figure in feet.

Type

Every creature carries one to three types, most distinctive first. The vocabulary is the same one an ancestry uses for its physiology, so a rule that keys off construct catches the Riftwork player character and the labor automaton with one word. There are 13 types.

• Humanoid
• Fae
• Elemental
• Beast
• Monster
• Undead
• Construct
• Celestial
• Fiend
• Draconian
• Giantkin
• Aberration
• Plant

Where a creature's species is also playable, its stat block links to that ancestry and its types match the ancestry's physiology exactly. A Ghoul creature and the ghoul ancestry are the same thing written down twice.

Species

Species sits one level above the individual stat block. Skeleton and Wraith are species; Skeleton, Skeleton Warrior and Wraith are stat blocks. Species is what an Orc Hunter and an Orc Warrior share when both are the same creature doing a different job.

Equipment

A creature's gear is gear that exists in the catalog. Where a stat block names a weapon, it links to the entry in Items at the same price, weight and tech tier a player would pay. Taking a Halcyion Holy Knight's greatsword off the field gets you a Plasma-Edge Greatsword, the same entry a player would buy.

Running one

A creature takes damage, makes saving throws and dies on the same rules as a character, with two exceptions. It has no hit dice to spend, and it makes no death saving throws: at 0 hit points a creature is out of the fight, and whether that means dead is the GM's call.

Advancement

Characters advance from level 1 to level 20, by experience or by milestone as the table agrees. Each level brings a hit die and what your class table lists for it.

You advance either by experience, against the thresholds in the Character advancement table, or by milestone, when the party completes the objective the GM named for the level. The character sheet supports both, and your proficiency bonus follows your character level either way.

Either way, a level comes from what the party gets done. Experience is awarded for obstacles overcome, objectives reached and jobs completed, the same whether the party talked, sneaked or fought its way through, and every character present earns the full award. Milestones work the same way: the GM names the objective at the start, and any route to it counts. The award tables are in Rewards & Advancement in the GM's Manual. Milestone is the default.

Each level brings a hit die, whatever your class grants at that level, and the following:

• Subclass at level 3, from your class's list of subclasses. Once chosen it does not change.
• Ability Score Improvement at levels 4, 8, 12, 16 and 19. Take +2 to one ability, +1 to each of two abilities, or a feat instead. An improvement cannot raise a score above 20. Nothing else is capped: a feature or an item that raises a score past 20 does so by what it says.

Multiclassing

When you gain a level, you may take it in a class you do not yet hold instead of in your current class. A character who does this has a class line instead of a single class: Wizard 5 / Rogue 3 is a level 8 character.

Taking a level in a new class requires a score of 13 or higher in the primary ability of your starting class and in the primary ability of the new class. The Monk and Paladin need both of their primary abilities at 13; a class that offers a choice of two needs one of them.

Multiclassing rests on the split between character level and class level:

• Character level is your total across all classes. It sets your proficiency bonus and the experience threshold for your next level. Wizard 5 / Rogue 3 has the proficiency bonus of a level 8 character, which is +3.
• Class level is the number of levels you hold in one class, and it is what that class's features unlock against. Wizard 5 / Rogue 3 has the features of a level 5 Wizard and a level 3 Rogue. It does not have the level 8 features of either class, and it gains them only by reaching level 8 in that class.

The rest follows from that split:

• Hit points. Each level uses the hit die of the class that took it. Your first level is still the maximum roll of your starting class's die.
• Saving throws. Proficiency comes from your starting class alone. A second class does not add its two.
• Weapons, armor and tools. You gain the proficiencies of every class you hold.
• Subclass. Each class chooses its own, at its own subclass level, counted in that class.
• Starting class. You cannot leave your starting class; it always keeps at least one level.

At the table. Spell resources follow your starting class's progression table and do not combine across classes. A Wizard 5 / Cleric 3 has a Wizard 5 slot table and nothing from the Cleric levels, so a two-caster build is weaker than two single-class casters. A table that wants a combined version agrees it with the GM before play.

GM. Levels beyond 20 belong to the tier structure the setting is built for and are deferred until the first twenty are proven in play. The character sheet stops at 20.

Downtime

Downtime is the time between jobs. The GM says how many days the party has before the next one. Each character spends them on one project at a time: making or mending something, installing an augment, fitting out a ship, learning, or working for pay.

Downtime days

A downtime day is 8 hours of work. A long rest is not one, and neither is a day of travel on foot or a day holding a post during a crossing. A passenger on a crossing gets one downtime day for every two days of travel, for work that needs only what the ship carries. Several characters on one project add their days together and pay its cost once.

Projects

Crafting

You can make any item in the catalog that has a price, except vehicles, salvage, raw materials and artifacts. Ordinary work turns out a set value in a day, by the item's tier, and needs the facility that tier calls for.

Rift work is a relic or a graded item (+1 to +3). It takes a set time by rarity, and the crafter needs the Rift Affinity shown. A Rare or rarer item, and anything at Tier V, ends with a check using the tools, against the DC shown; a failure adds a quarter of the time again, and a natural 1 also wastes a quarter of the materials.

A feature that makes work faster or cheaper applies to these numbers: the Engineer's Master Architect halves the materials and the days for Tier IV, and a Cybersmith installs an augment in 1 hour a slot. A repair is 25% of the crafting cost and time. A tool proficiency proves you can do the work; it does not give you a fabricator or a part that is not for sale. Every item's page shows its own crafting plan.

Example. Tamsin repairs a broken plasma pistol (1,200 gm, Tier IV). Crafting one would take 600 gm of materials and 1 day at a fabricator, so the repair is 150 gm of parts and 1 day, at a fabricator, with tinker's tools. In the field, with no fabricator, it waits.

Installing in the field. An Engineer installing an augment without a clinic makes a DC 15 Wisdom (Medicine) check at the end. On a failure, the surgery hours run again before it takes. A Cybersmith's installation needs no check.

Equipment

Equipment is everything a character carries, buys or finds. Every item belongs to a tech tier, and its rarity sets its price. The items themselves are in the equipment catalog.

Tech tiers

Every one of the 1803 items in the catalog sits in one of five tech tiers, by the era that built it. A campaign fixes which tiers are available before play. For example, a frontier campaign might run Tier I to Tier III and never see an energy weapon.

Pre-Industrial	Steel, bows, plate. Alchemy at its most practical.
Industrial	Powder and pressure. Matchlock to breech-loader, brass and wire.
Modern	Cased ammunition, electronics, vehicles, atmospheric flight.
Spacefaring	Energy weapons, powered armor, cybernetics, FTL hulls.
Esoteric	Mythar relics and Rift-tech. Found and fought over, and almost never for sale.

Grades

The tier says which era built an item. The grade says how good this particular item is, and it is the plate beside the tier on every item's entry. There are four grades, struck in four metals, and every item in the catalog has one: an ordinary blade is Grade I, and nothing is ungraded.

Grade	Plate	Bonus	Description
Grade I · Standard	Green	none	Ordinary. Issue kit, shop stock, and most of what anyone carries.
Grade II · Refined	Bronze	+1	Better than issue. The work of a good smith, or a lucky find.
Grade III · Pristine	Silver	+2	Deliberate work, commissioned and paid for.
Grade IV · Masterwork	Gold	+3	Epic. The best a living hand produces, and everything above it.

At the table. A weapon or a suit of armor worked to a better standard climbs the same four rungs, so its bonus and its grade are the same statement: a +1 item is Grade II and a +3 item is Grade IV. Everything above Grade IV is still Grade IV. Rarity is a separate axis, shown on the item's entry with its own plate; the difference between an epic blade and a legendary one is recorded there.

At the table. A grade needs no attunement, and a graded item is priced by its rarity under Prices. The craft behind a grade changes with the tier: a Tier I blade is Rift-tempered at the forge, and a Tier IV emitter is tuned against a live lattice. A named item such as a Holy Avenger or a Frost Brand carries its own text in place of a bonus, and its plate comes from its rarity.

Money

There are three coins and one form of scrip, as the table shows.

Coin	Code	Worth
Bronze	BP	1 bp
Silver	SP	10 bp
Gold	GP	10 sp
Marks	GM	1 gp

At the table. Galactic Marks are scrip: an Ascendancy ledger entry that trades at parity with gold. Beyond the relays, people want the gold coin. The catalog quotes every price in marks.

Prices

Ordinary kit is priced on its own entry, by what it is and what it took to make. Anything with a rarity is priced by that rarity, on one ladder that runs the length of the catalog.

Rarity	Price	Source
Common	100	Stocked anywhere with a market.
Uncommon	500	One dealer per settlement, and they know what they have.
Rare	2,000	Ordered, waited for, and rarely on a shelf.
Epic	8,000	Sold between people who already know each other.
Legendary	40,000	Changes hands perhaps twice in a lifetime.
Artifact	Not for sale	Not for sale. A price is not what stands between you and it.

At the table. Two things sit off the ladder. A consumable costs half the price for its rarity. Tier IV and Tier V goods are priced against each other instead of from this table: rarity on a plasma rifle says how hard one is to come by, and nothing about its worth beside a particle rifle.

At the table. An enhanced grade costs its base item's price plus the rung for its grade: a +1 adds the uncommon price, a +2 the rare and a +3 the epic. A Longsword +1 is 15 + 500 = 515 gm. No price is a fraction of a coin; where a thing costs less than a mark it is quoted in silver or bronze.

GM. A GM who wants a tighter or a looser economy moves the whole ladder instead of adjusting individual entries.

Encumbrance

Your carrying capacity is your Strength score × 15 pounds, and the character sheet totals what you carry against it. For example, a character with Strength 12 can carry 180 pounds.

• Over capacity, your speed drops to 5 feet and you have disadvantage on ability checks, attack rolls and saving throws that use Strength, Dexterity or Constitution.
• Over twice your capacity, you cannot move.

Using it

An item that has to be triggered carries its cost as a tag on its entry and beside it in your pack. The pattern is under Using items in Combat.

Attunement

Some items must be attuned before they give anything beyond their mundane use. Attuning to an item takes a short rest, and a character can be attuned to three items at once.

The equipment catalog · Starting kits