2.5. Status Conditions and Saving Throws

Many Spells, Traps, and Abilities can inflict Status Conditions. When you are hit by something that says it "Inflicts" something, you will need to succeed on rolling a Save or become afflicted by the Status Condition listed. Saves also help you avoid damage from some sources, like traps and spells. Occasionally, you will use a Save for other Tests, like determining turn order in combat or your level of focus on an Ability.

Your Saves and Status Conditions can be found on the left side of the Status box on your Character Sheet.

Saves

Your saves Saves help you avoid Status Conditions and some damage.

The Saves and their use cases are as follows:

Grit

Use your fortitude and determination to save yourself from poison, exhaustion, cold, blunt trauma, grapples, getting knocked back, getting knocked down, being swept downstream, etc.

Edge

Use your foresight and cunning to save yourself from projectiles, traps, attacks targeting weak-points, sudden environmental dangers, tricky illusions, etc.
Also used to determine turn order at the start of an Encounter.

Focus

Use your mental fortitude and tuning to save yourself from psychic attacks, magical charms, magical fears, possession and more.
Also used to maintain spells that require Concentration.

Each Save is based on a different Exploration Stat and can be Improved through various Perks (which will be discussed in 2.9. Tracker Boxes.) You may also be granted bonuses to these Saves through other Abilities or Items.

When rolling one of the Saves, you will perform the usual d10 Test. If an Ability is what triggered the Save, you can roll with an Advantage if your opponent's Ability Score was a [..6] Low Score. Conversely, you will need to roll with a Disadvantage if your opponent's Ability Score was a [10..] High Score. If your opponent got a [7..9] Mixed Score, you make the Save as normal.

Status Conditions

Learning to use Status Conditions can help you overcome your enemies, but your enemies can also use them to weaken and overpower you. Most Status Conditions have two levels represented by "Stacks". For each Stack of a condition, the condition's effect can becomes stronger or last longer.

There are two main types of Status Conditions:

Fleeting Conditions : Conditions that lose one Stack (or level) at the end of your turn.
Persistent Conditions : Conditions that retain their Stacks until certain ending conditions are met.

Note that the above is true for NPCs as well.

Each of the main Status Conditions is listed below. A shortened description of each is also provided on your Character Sheet.

Other Status Conditions exist which are more rare. These rare conditions can be found in the Conditions List appendix or on the Ability, Item, or Creature that inflicts said Condition.

Fleeting Conditions

Fleeting Conditions lose one Stack at the end of your turn. A complete list can be found in the Conditions List appendix.

One of the more important Fleeting Conditions to understand is the Strained Fleeting Condition:

Strained

[Type:: Fleeting]

Abilities with the "Straining" Penalty (or "Straining Abilities") impose one stack of Strained if you Pass their Test.

All Straining Ability Tests have one Disadvantage for each stack of Strained that you have.

This Condition imposes limits on your stronger Abilities by making it difficult to use them back-to-back. Be aware of which Straining Abilities and be sure to give yourself enough time for your Stacks of Strained to wear off before using another Straining Ability.

Core Fleeting Conditions

Of the Fleeting Conditions, there are ten Core Fleeting Conditions. A summary of each can be found on your Character Sheet.

The Core Fleeting Conditions in more detail are:

Bloodied

1 or 2 Stacks: Take 1 True Damage at the end of your turn.

Blunted

1 or 2 Stacks: You have Disadvantage when using Abilities.

Charmed

1 Stack: You are sympathetic toward the source of this condition.
You have Disadvantage on any actions you take that target the source of this condition and would affect it in a negative way.
2 Stacks: You are fully charmed. You cannot use actions that would directly target and affect the source of this condition in a negative way.

Dazed

You cannot perform Reactions, unless they are Free Reactions.

Frightened

1 Stack: You are scared of the source of this Condition.
You must roll with Disadvantage on any actions you take that target the source of this condition.
2 Stacks: You are fully frightened. In addition to the base effect, while the source of this condition is visible, you cannot willingly move closer to it.

Restrained

1 Stack: Lose 1 Beat immediately. Gain 1 less Beat per Round than usual.
2 Stacks: Lose all your Beats immediately. Gain no Beats per Round.

Silenced

1 Stack: Your speech is faltering or weak. You have Disadvantage on all Spell Abilities.
2 Stacks: You cannot speak. You cannot use Spell Abilities.

Slowed

1 Stack: Your Movement is halved (rounded down.)
2 Stacks: Your Movement is 0. You cannot move or stand up.

This condition does not itself interrupt any Movement.

Susceptible

1 or 2 Stack: You have a Disadvantage on all Saves.

Vulnerable

1 or 2 Stacks: All incoming Damage is increased by 1 (unless it was at zero.) This occurs prior to any Defenses or other modifications.

Wounds

Whenever you take Damage directly to your Vitality, you will gain a Wound. To gain a Wound, you will have to make a special Wound Test that will randomly giving you a Core Fleeting Condition as a Persistent Condition that lasts until you heal a Vitality (Only one Stack of your Wounds is removed per Vitality healed. Your healer chooses which Stack is removed.)

The Wound Test is also used by a few Abilities that can randomly inflict or alter your Status Conditions, though those Abilities will usually only inflict the Conditions as a Fleeting Condition instead of Persistent Conditions like a Wound does.

Use your Character Sheet!

The list below is in the same order on your Character Sheet. The exact order does not matter so long as Bloodied is the result of getting a Critical Failure and 'No Effect' is the result of getting a Critical Success.

The Wound Test is made with no Modifier:

[0!] Gain a stack of Bloodied.
[1] Gain a stack of Blunted.
[2] Gain a stack of Charmed.
[3] Gain a stack of Dazed.
[4] Gain a stack of Frightened.
[5] Gain a stack of Restrained.
[6] Gain a stack of Silenced.
[7] Gain a stack of Slowed.
[8] Gain a stack of Susceptible.
[9] Gain a stack of Vulnerable.
[10!] No Effect.

Supplemental Fleeting Conditions

There are many other Fleeting Conditions. Some of the supplemental Fleeting Conditions will simply be defined as a combination of the Core Fleeting Conditions. In these cases, you will simply mark each listed Core Fleeting Condition with the number of stacks described. The stacks of each Core Fleeting Condition are not strictly tied together and your various Abilities may alleviate or prevent those Status Conditions individually.

Blinded

Blunted and Vulnerable.

1 Stack: You can only partially see.
2 Stacks: you cannot see.

Persistent Conditions

Persistent Conditions stay in effect until a given condition is met. The ending condition could be things like waiting a certain amount of time, applying a certain item, successfully performing a certain Ability on your turn, etc.

Occasionally you will see a Fleeting Condition that gets inflicted as a Persistent Condition. In those cases, the Condition has the same effect, but its Stacks will not go away at the end of your Turn and must instead be alleviated according to the rules described by the source of the condition.

Several of the core Persistent Conditions are centered around the Grapple Ability. Any character can attempt to Grapple another creature.

The core Persistent Conditions are as follows:

Grappling

Your Abilities that target anything other than yourself or the target of your grapple have a Disadvantage.

This condition ends if:

You use a Free Action or a Reaction to end the grapple.
You and the target of your grapple are no longer in Swinging Distance of one another.
You fall Unconscious.
The target of the grapple succeeds a saving throw against this grapple.

Held

You have been grabbed or picked up by another creature.

1 Stack: You are immobile. Your Movement is 0.
2 Stacks: You are Blunted. The source of this condition can carry you by spending double Movement.

You may retry the Grit Save against the source's Fighter Stat as:

An Action on your Turn.
A Free Reaction when the source of this condition takes damage.

Mounted

A creature has jumped on your back, got you in a chokehold, or has hitched a ride on you in some way.

1 Stack: The source of this condition is attached you to you and shares a square with you. When you take Movement on your turn, the source can use a Free Reaction to move with you.
2 Stacks: You are Blunted and [Appendix/Conditions/Slowed|Slowed] and can be Choked.

You may retry the Edge Save against the source's Fighter Stat as:

An Action on your Turn.
A Free Reaction when the source of this condition takes damage.

Choked

When someone Mounts and then successfully Chokes you, you will gain one Stack of this condition. This increases by one Stack if you are successfully Choked again. If you are successfully Choked a third time, you fall Unconscious. When you break free from the source of the Choking condition (be that breaking free from being Mounted, underwater, or trapped in a cloud of toxic gas), you can recover 1 stack of Choked immediately and another at the end of your next turn. (If you have already fallen Unconscious, that condition will need to be removed separately.)

Choked(1)
- You cannot speak or make any other vocal noise.
- You cannot cast any Ability that requires a verbal component.
Choked(2)
- You are Vulnerable for the duration (meaning you can only use your Base Defense to mitigate incoming damage.)

Next Up: 2.6. Luck Box