Three modes of play
Combat gets the spotlight, but most of a campaign happens outside it. The game runs in three modes, and they trade precision for speed.
is the slowed-down, action-by-action play of a fight — Chapter 4. is the default the rest of the time: moving through the world, searching, traveling, keeping watch. is the long view — days or weeks between adventures, spent building, earning, healing, and growing.
You slide between them naturally. The GM calls for initiative and you're in a fight; the fight ends and you're back to exploring; you reach town and settle in for downtime. Same characters, same rules, different grain.
Exploring
In exploration mode you don't count actions. Instead, each character picks an exploration activity to keep up as you travel — a standing stance toward the world. The common ones:
- Search — scour the area for hidden doors, traps, and treasure as you pass.
- Scout — range ahead and behind, giving the party a bonus to initiative if a fight breaks out.
- Defend — travel with your shield up and armor set, ready for an ambush.
- Avoid Notice — use Stealth to travel unseen.
- Follow the Expert — match a more skilled companion to keep pace with something you're bad at.
- Investigate or — study the world or sweep for magic as you go.
- Hustle — push the pace for a burst of speed, at the cost of getting fatigued.
What you're doing when trouble hits matters. The scout spots the danger first; the character with their nose in a book does not. These choices rarely need a roll on their own — they set up the moment a roll finally comes.
Travel pace
How far you get in a day comes straight off your Speed. Over a normal eight-hour day of travel, you cover a mile per hour for every 10 feet of Speed:
- 20-foot Speed — 2 miles/hour, 16 miles/day
- 25-foot Speed — 2.5 miles/hour, 20 miles/day
- 30-foot Speed — 3 miles/hour, 24 miles/day
- 35-foot Speed — 3.5 miles/hour, 28 miles/day
- 40-foot Speed — 4 miles/hour, 32 miles/day
A party travels at the pace of its slowest member, so that heavily armored dwarf sets the clock for everyone. Difficult terrain — rubble, thick brush, deep snow — costs double, halving your distance; the worst terrain costs triple. You can push past eight hours with a forced march, but tired travelers start taking penalties, and Hustle buys a short burst of extra speed at the price of fatigue.
Resting and recovery
A full night's rest is eight hours — you can stand a couple of hours of light activity like keeping watch, but no more. In exchange you recover Hit Points equal to your Constitution modifier times your level (a minimum of your level, so even a frail hero mends a little), and your daily resources come back: spell slots refill, focus points reset, and anything that recharges "once per day" is ready again.
Rest also walks back the day's wear. You lose the condition entirely, and the and conditions each step down by one. Wounded is the stubborn one — it clings until you're back to full Hit Points. And you need food and water; skip them too long and rest stops working as well as it should.
The long game
Between adventures, downtime is where characters become themselves. Days off the clock turn skills into gold, gear, and second chances. Here's what those days actually buy.
Crafting
To an item you need to be trained in Crafting, have its formula, and supply raw materials worth half its Price. You work for at least 4 days, then roll a Crafting check against the item's level DC. On a success you finish the item by paying the other half of its Price — or you can keep working instead, and each extra day chips away at what you still owe, letting patience stand in for coin. A critical success saves you more; a failure lets you salvage your materials and try again. It's slower than buying, but it's how you get the thing the shop didn't have.
Earn Income
When you'd rather make money than spend it, puts a skill to work. The GM sets you a task of a certain level with a DC to match; each day you roll against it, and your pay scales with the task's level, your proficiency, and how well you roll. A trained hand earns a modest daily wage; a legendary one working a high-level task earns a small fortune. Crafting, Performance, and the various Lore skills are the usual earners.
Retraining
Not every choice ages well. Retraining spends downtime to swap one out — a few days to trade a feat or a trained skill, longer for bigger changes — with the GM's sign-off. A build that isn't working at the table isn't a life sentence; it's a week of downtime away from fixing.
Downtime is also where a world grows roots: the contacts you make, the shop you invest in, the reputation you build. The tables that lean on it find their campaigns feel lived-in — like the heroes have a life worth defending.