Gameplay Basics & Exploration

The Basics

Rolling the Dice

Legends of Nor'Ova uses stats and dice for gameplay. You have already experienced rolling dice and making stats while creating your character. This is a refresher as well as an explanation of some of the less common aspects.

The dice you will use are as follows:

• Percentile Dice (1d%): Not used as often as others. A set of percentile dice has a tens die ("00") and a ones die ("0"). Rolling them together gives you a result from 1 to 100.
• d20: The twenty-sided die is the main die in this system. Used for stat and trait checks, skill checks, and similar rolls.
• 1d3: Not common in most dice sets. Use a 1d6 with 1–2 = 1, 3–4 = 2, 5–6 = 3.
• 1d4: The four-sided die, often pyramid-shaped.
• 1d6: The standard six-sided die found in most board games.
• 1d8: Eight sides.
• 1d10: Ten sides; also one half of the percentile dice pair.
• 1d12: Twelve sides.

Dealing With Decimals

Occasionally you will come across decimals, especially in crafting. The rule is simple: round up. Here is how that works in practice:

• All values except weight and cost are rounded up to the nearest whole number.
• Weight and cost are kept to the nearest hundredth place (0.01).
• If a value is 1.1 or higher, round up to the next whole number - unless it is a weight or cost, in which case keep two decimal places.
• If a value is 1.01, it stays as 1 for most purposes, or rounds to 1.01 for weight and cost.

Duration

Many spells and status effects have a duration. It may be tempting to think that reapplying an effect before it expires would extend or stack it, however, this is not the case. You cannot, for example, increase the damage of an ongoing poison by applying poison again, nor can you extend a spell's duration by recasting it on the same target. If a target is already under an effect, that effect cannot be reapplied until its current duration has run its course.

Status Effects

Status effects are any effects that alter a character's status, positive or negative. They can come from spells, nature, traps, items, or a character's own choices. For a full reference of all status effects and their treatments, see the Status Effects page.

Stat and Trait Checks

A stat check determines whether your character can do or avoid something based on their stats. Trait checks work the same way but apply to individual traits, things like Focus, Endure, and React, rather than whole stats. Trait checks are far more common in play.

To make a trait check, roll a 1d20 and add the value of the relevant trait. For a stat check, add only the first digit of the stat (so a stat of 8 contributes 0, since stats are two-digit numbers). If your total beats the check's difficulty, you succeed.

Your GM determines when a check is needed and what trait or stat applies. A good understanding of what each stat and trait does helps the GM make these calls fairly.

Check Difficulty

Difficulty tells you how hard it is to pass a check. Your roll plus your trait value must meet or exceed the difficulty number to succeed.

Critical Success and Critical Fail

A Critical Success is rolling a natural 20 on the 1d20 before any modifiers are applied. This is an automatic success regardless of the difficulty. Depending on the situation, the GM may also double the effect or damage of whatever was being attempted.

A Critical Fail is rolling a natural 1. This is an automatic failure regardless of your total. The GM may apply additional consequences, or may allow a luck check to see if fortune saves you from the worst of it.

Aiding With Stat Checks

Another character can help with a stat check as long as they can meaningfully contribute to what is being attempted — helping force open a heavy door, backing up a persuasion attempt, or lending their knowledge to a skill check. To help, the aiding character declares they are assisting and adds the value of their relevant trait as a bonus to the active character's roll.

Traps and Obstacles

Traps can appear anywhere - roads, forests, homes, sewers, and ancient ruins. They need not be man-made; anything that could endanger a character or complicate an adventure counts. To disarm a trap, a character must have the appropriate ability and explain to the GM how they intend to go about it. The ability provides the knowledge; the character must still apply it.

You can also set traps, provided you have the relevant disarming ability for the complexity of trap you intend to set, plus the Set Trap skill, and the materials to do so. Work the plan out with your GM, who will determine difficulty and time required.

Obstacles take many forms beyond traps: rivers that require swimming, walls that cannot be climbed, locked doors, puzzles, and more. Many obstacles require backtracking through already-cleared areas. What traps and obstacles you face is always up to the GM.

Inclement Weather

Inclement weather is one of the most under-prepared-for perils in adventuring. It can force a party to take shelter in caves or ruins they weren't planning to enter, ruin supplies, delay travel, and pose direct risk to characters. Weather is entirely the GM's call and typically only affects characters traveling on the world map or in outdoor area maps. Interior locations are generally unaffected.

• Lightning Storms: A character wearing a full suit of metal armor in a lightning storm is a rod waiting to be struck. Each hour of outdoor exposure during a lightning storm requires a Hard Luck check. Failure results in 2d12 damage.
• Hail Storms: Caught in the open during a hailstorm, make a Hard Luck check each hour. Failure deals 2d8 damage.
• Tornadoes: Getting caught in a tornado deals 2d20 damage automatically. Seek shelter immediately upon spotting one.
• Sand Storms, Snow Storms, and Dust Storms: Visibility drops to near zero and movement rates decrease by ¾. Snow storms additionally require Normal Endure checks each hour to avoid Frost Bite.
• Wind Storms: Heavy debris can require Normal Luck checks to avoid 1d10 damage per hit. Movement rates are decreased by ¾.

Battles

No matter where you are in Nor'Ova, there is always a chance of finding yourself in a fight. Combat is one of the most important parts of the game and has its own full section. See Combat for complete rules.

Movement and Exploration

Whenever you travel from one location to another, whether crossing a continent on the world map, exploring a town, or crawling through a dungeon - the same core movement rules apply. What changes is the scale and context.

Movement Abilities

The following movement abilities apply across all environments including world map travel, civilized areas, and dungeons alike.

Climbing

Climbing is an Athletics check. The difficulty and Power cost depend on the surface:

Swimming

Every character in Nor'Ova has basic swimming ability while unarmored. Swimming while wearing armor requires the Swimming While Armored ability. Power cost and movement impact depend on the water conditions:

Running

Every character can run. Running costs 2 Power per movement and increases your movement rate by half. Running downhill increases movement rate by an additional half.

Racial and Special Movement

Racial movement abilities such as flight or short-range teleport can be used during travel. Their effect and cost apply once per hour.

The World Map

Whenever you travel between locations such as from a town to a castle, a ruin to another settlement you are moving on the world map. World maps cover large areas and are typically measured in miles.

World Movement

Each character has a World Movement rate representing how far they can travel in miles per 10-hour cycle. When your character has traveled their full world movement rate, one 10-hour cycle has passed.

Since most play happens in groups, the party's effective world movement rate is determined by the slowest member. The group travels together at the pace the slowest character can sustain.

Movement on the world map is measured using a ruler in millimeters, though if you are designing your own world you can use any consistent measurement system. Grid-based movement works equally well.

Terrain

Travel across the world map is rarely unobstructed. The following terrain types affect your world movement rate:

The GM has final say on what terrain applies in any given area.

Camping and Rest

If you cannot reach your destination within two movement cycles, you will need to make camp. Camping lets characters rest and recover lost stats. When stopping to camp, remove the day's food and water from your inventory.

Every hour of sleep restores your Vitality, Soul, and Power by your secondary Gen Dice roll. You cannot recover past your full stat value. The GM may also use rest periods to check for random encounters.

Foraging, Hunting, and Fishing

Camping cycles can also be used to gather food and supplies.

• Foraging: Each hour of a camping cycle allows a check to find berries and materials. The check type and what can be found is up to the GM, though the equipment section's alchemical ingredients and materials lists are a good reference.
• Hunting: Requires the Hunting ability. Each hour of the cycle provides a chance to use this skill; success yields a small killed animal of the GM's choosing.
• Fishing: Requires proximity to water and fishing gear (pole, line, hooks, and bait). Each hour of the cycle allows a Luck check. Success yields 1d4 fish.

Civilized Areas

Civilized areas are any locations with other people living in them. These include villages, towns, cities, castles, forts, farms, and remote inns or shops. These communities make up the majority of civilized gameplay.

Exploring Communities

Not every community needs to be fully mapped. If a town exists only to provide rest and shopping, detailed description is usually sufficient. When mapping is needed, keep the following in mind:

• Movement in area maps uses your Move trait, which measures how far your character can travel in one hour. Unlike the world map, area movement is measured in feet.
• The GM decides how to track time in a community by dictating elapsed time, counting movement actions, or following the dungeon exploration rules.
• Locals are all played as NPCs by the GM, who determines if and when your characters encounter them and how those encounters play out.
• Shopping needs no special interaction. Equipment is considered ready and usable as soon as it is purchased, though roleplay here can be entertaining and even a useful plot device.
• Resting at an inn for a full cycle fully restores Vitality, Soul, and Power.
• Taverns serve as gathering points for rumors, quests, and NPC interaction. What happens there is entirely up to the GM.
• Communities also contain government locations such as elder homes, mayor offices, jails, and the like which become more numerous and complex the more important the settlement is.

Questing Within Communities

Quests can absolutely take place within civilized areas. It can be hunting a criminal through a city, retrieving a lost heirloom, or more morally complicated work. If the quest leads characters into uncivilized sub-areas such as sewers or buried ruins, switch to the dungeon exploration rules. Otherwise, community rules apply throughout.

Treasures can be found in communities including loose coins, hidden boxes, clues. Perils include thieves, pitfalls, unstable buildings, and untrustworthy locals. Use your skills: con, influence, perceive, haggle. There are no rules dictating how your character must speak or barter. Play your character, accept the consequences of their actions, and have fun with it.

Interacting with Locals

All locals are played by the GM as NPCs. How they react to your characters depends on how you approach them and what they think of you. They may give valuable hints, offer aid, lie through their teeth, or fight. Always play in character when interacting with locals, and do not take anything said personally. It is roleplay.

Stat checks, skills, and abilities are all fair game: Haggle for a better deal, Detect Lies to see through a deception, use Influence to shift someone's attitude. Perceive checks can reveal body language or subtle cues the GM plants for attentive players.

Dungeons and Ruins

Much of your active play will take place in what the rules call dungeons. These are any uncivilized, typically abandoned area, whether a literal underground dungeon, an ancient ruin, a collapsed tower, or a monster-infested cavern. These areas use area maps and area movement. They are dangerous, often loot-filled, and require preparation. The well-prepared adventurer emerges richer and more powerful; the under-prepared adventurer often does not emerge at all.

Movement in Dungeons

Dungeon movement uses the same rules as civilized area movement, measured in feet. One inch on a physical ruler equals one space. The same climbing, swimming, and running rules apply as described above in Movement Abilities.

Ascending and Descending

Dungeons frequently require navigating stairs, ladders, ropes, and ledges. The following table covers the most common situations:

Searching for Traps

While exploring a dungeon you should actively search for traps, not just man-made ones, but weak floors, unstable rooms, and any other hard-to-see hazards. Searching requires a successful Perceive check. Failing to beat the difficulty means you notice nothing beyond what is already obvious. The GM determines what is obvious, what requires a check, and any modifiers that apply. You may attempt perceive checks as often as the GM allows.

Searching for Hidden Treasure

Rooms in dungeons often contain drawers, pots, crates, or other places where small things might be hidden including loose coins, notes, keys, clues. Tell the GM where you are searching. The GM may ask for a Luck check; success might mean you found something, or simply that nothing bit you when you reached into that dark jar. What you find, whether you find anything at all, and how long it takes is up to the GM.

Resting in Dungeons

Resting in a dungeon works the same as camping in the world. Remove the day's food and water from inventory, and every hour of sleep restores Vitality, Soul, and Power by the secondary Gen Dice. The GM may use the rest period to check for a random encounter. You cannot recover past your full stat value.

Keeping Track of Time

Time moves in Nor'Ova just as it does in the real world, though not at the same pace. Tracking game time matters for status effect durations, skill timers, travel planning, rest needs, and story pacing. It also ensures fair play time when characters are operating independently.

How Time Passes

Time in Nor'Ova is tied to actions and environment rather than real-world clock time:

• World Map: Each completed movement cycle equals one hour of game time. Resting for a full cycle passes ten hours.
• Area Maps (towns, civilized areas): The GM determines how time passes. If tied to movement, each completed move action equals one hour.
• Dungeons: Each completed move action equals one hour of game time.
• Battle: Each participant's turn equals 10 seconds of game time. A full round with 12 participants lasts 120 seconds — two minutes.

A game day on Nor'Ova is 30 hours long, broken into the following cycles:

• 0:00 — Midnight: Beginning of the new day.
• 25:00–5:00 — Night Cycle: Divided into early night, midnight, and late night.
• 5:00–12:00 — Morning Cycle: Divided into early morning, mid morning, and late morning.
• 12:00 — High Noon
• 12:00–25:00 — Afternoon Cycle: Divided into noon, afternoon, and evening.

The Chacepheran Calendar

Most cultures and nations in Nor'Ova use the Chacepheran calendar to track time. A Chacepheran year contains twelve 40-day months, each beginning on the new moon and ending the day before the next. Due to the very regular orbit of Nor'Ova's large moon, every month is exactly the same length. There are 480 game days in one game year.

The months are organized by season, with each season associated with a runic element. Because Nor'Ova has two suns, even if one is a less noticeable "Morning Star", winter is shorter than the other seasons on average though the true length of each season depends greatly on distance from the equator. The calendar below reflects northern hemisphere seasons; southern hemisphere campaigns would swap them accordingly.

Example Month

Every month in the Chacepheran calendar follows the same 40-day structure, with moon phases marking its quarters:

Interactive Calendar

You can use the interactive calendar for your gameplay tracking. 

Interactive Calendar