Dice Overview

From The Undead Archive
Revision as of 15:29, 21 May 2026 by Niuf (talk | contribs)

The Archive Dice System is built for gritty, story driven survival roleplay.

Abilities and Skills

Abilities represent your fundamental strengths as a survivor. Each Ability governs a set of Skills.

Skills are always rolled with their parent Ability.

When you attempt an action using a Skill, roll the following:

d20 + its associated Ability + the Skill level

For example, if you have a +2 Morale and +2 Presence (its parent ability), you'd roll:

d20 + 2 (Morale) + 2 (Presence) 

Compare the total to a Difficulty Class, or DC, set by the narrator or the rules.

Physique
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
Aiming Using ranged weapons accurately.
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
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
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

Difficulty Class (DC) is the number that you compare your roll against. They are set by the rules or the narrator.

After rolling, compare your total to the DC.

Over 5 Below DC: Strong Failure
5 or Less Below DC Failure
Meets DC Success
5 or Less Above DC Success
Over 5 Above DC Strong Success

Examples:

DC: Strong Success Success Failure Strong Failure
5 10 and up 5-10 4-0 /
10 15 and up 10-14 5-9 4 and down
15 20 and up 15-19 10-14 9 and down
20 25 and up 20-24 15-19 14 and down

Narrator DC Guidance:

DC: Strong Success
1-5 Trivial tasks, minimal chance of failure.
6-10 Easy Tasks, most people would be able to succeed.
11-15 Doable Tasks, with some effort this should be doable.
16-20 Tricky Tasks, probably going to fail if you are untrained.
21-25 Hard Tasks, for those with experience.
26-30 Long Shot, Even with training it’ll take a lot of luck to get this done.
31+ Never, Impossible things should not be rolled for.

Advantage and Disadvantage

Some rules give a roll Advantage or Disadvantage. A narrator will tell you if one applies.

Advantage: Roll two d20's, pick the highest.
Disadvantage Roll two d20's, pick the lowest.
  • Advantage and Disadvantage do not stack.
  • If a roll has both Advantage and Disadvantage, they cancel out and the roll is made normally.

Statistics

When skills are mentioned in calculations (not just in this section) only use the skill level, the ability will be listed separately if used.

Health Points

HP = 5 + Physique + (Resilience / 2) rounded down.

If you have 2 Physique and 2 Resilience, then your HP would be 8 (5+2+[2/2])

Movement

Movement = 3 + (Athletics + Reflex) / 2, rounded down.
  • During your turn you may use 1 movement to move 1 tile.
  • Your movement resets to max on the end of your turn.

Stress

  • Stress represents psychological strain.
  • While resting, you lose 1 Stress at the end of each hour in-game.
Stress Cap = 3 + Presence
  • When your Stress reaches your Stress Cap, you must make a Morale Roll and resolve the result according to the table below.
Morale Result
1-5: Surrender: You surrender to your opponents.
6-10 Freeze: Your movement and AP reduced to 0 until the end of your next turn.
11-15 Flee: On your next turn you must get as far away as you can.
16+ Dazed: You are stunned until the end of your next round.