Dice Overview
The Archive Dice System is built for gritty, story driven survival roleplay.
Abilities and Skills
Abilities represent your fundamental strengths as a survivor. They define how you endure danger, solve problems, and influence the world.
Each Ability governs a set of Skills. Skills are specialised and are always rolled with their parent Ability.
When you attempt an action using a Skill, roll:
d20 + its associated Ability + the Skill level
Compare the total to a Difficulty Class (DC) set by the narrator or the rules.
Skills cannot be combined with different Abilities.
Physique
Physique reflects raw physical capability.
Skills
- Athletics
- Climbing, jumping, swimming, lifting, and other feats of physical exertion.
- Melee
- Fighting with close combat weapons or unarmed strikes.
- Resilience
- Enduring pain, resisting poison or illness, and withstanding physical trauma.
Agility
Agility reflects speed, coordination, and control.
Skills
- Aiming
- Using ranged weapons accurately under stress.
- Stealth
- Moving quietly, hiding, and avoiding detection.
- Reflex
- Reacting quickly to danger, avoiding hazards, and resisting sudden effects.
- Finesse
- Precise manual control, delicate manipulation, or careful physical actions.
Reason
Reason reflects perception, logic, and applied knowledge.
Skills
- Awareness
- Noticing threats, spotting details, and sensing changes in the environment.
- Medicine
- Treating wounds, stabilising injuries, and managing illness.
- Technology
- Using, repairing, or understanding machines and electronic systems.
- Academia
- General knowledge, research, and recalling learned information.
Presence
Presence reflects emotional strength and force of personality. It governs morale, persuasion, intimidation, and self control.
Skills
- Morale
- Resisting fear, maintaining composure, and enduring psychological strain.
- Intimidation
- Coercing or frightening others into compliance.
- Persuasion
- Convincing others through reason, trust, or emotional appeal.
- Deception
- Lying convincingly, misleading others, or concealing the truth.
Difficulty Class and Outcomes
The Difficulty Class (DC) represents how difficult a task is. It ranges between 5 and 30, with the difficulty of the task determining the DC. A Narrator will tell you if the task you're trying to roll for is possible. If so, they'll give you your DC.
After rolling, compare your total to the DC.
| Your Roll | Outcome |
|---|---|
| 5 or More < DC | Strong Failure |
| 4 or Less < DC | Failure |
| 4 >= DC | Success |
| 5 or More > DC | Strong Success |
