Rules Summary
LIMINAL HORROR
ABILITIES
STR: Physicality, brawn & toughness.
DEX: Speed, sneaking & precision.
CTRL: Willpower, charm & weird.
SAVES
Roll d20 equal to or under target Ability. The party at most risk in a contested action makes the save.
HIT PROTECTION
HP reflects a character’s ability to avoid damage (both from damage and stress).
HEALING
A quick rest fully restores HP but can leave the investigators exposed. Ability loss requires a week’s rest with medical intervention or magical means.
DEPRIVATION
Deprived keeps a PC from recovering HP. Being deprived for more than 24hrs adds Fatigue to a PCs inventory. Fatigue takes up one slot and lasts until they can recuperate. This can happen multiple times
INVENTORY
PCs have 10 inventory slots. Most items take up one slot. Bulky items take up two slots and are awkward or difficult to carry. All 10 slots being in use lowers HP to 0.
MAGIC
A new spell is created each morning. It is random or is a copy of one the previous day. Spells take up one item slot. Spells cost one action to cast. One may attempt a CTRL save to retain the spell. If deprived or in danger, a CTRL save may be required to avoid dire consequences.
ACTIONS
On their turn, characters may move 40ft and take a single action. Actions are casting a spell, attacking, additional movement, or some other reasonable action. These take place simultaneously.
Retreating from a doomed situation requires a successful DEX save and a safe destination.
For the Start of Combat round, characters must pass an DEX save in order to act.
Subsequent turns have players acting, then adversaries.
COMBAT
All attacks automatically hit. Attackers roll their Stress or Damage die, subtract any protections from Armor (damage) or Stability (stress), and deal the remaining total to the opponent's HP. Excess damage is dealt to STR and excess stress is dealt to CTRL.
If there are Multiple attackers, or one using two weapons, roll all damage dice together and keep the single highest die.
Unarmed attacks always do 1d4 damage. Impaired attacks (position of weakness) reduce damage die to 1d4. Shooting into cover is Impaired. Enhanced attacks (position of advantage) increase damage die to 1d12. Blast affects all area targets, rolling separately for each.
DAMAGE
Damage that exceeds the remaining HP applies the excess to STR. They must then make a STR save to avoid critical damage. Failure drops them out of combat, dying if left untreated.
Having STR 0 means death; having DEX 0 is paralysis; having CTRL 0 they are lost.
STRESS & FALLOUT
Player chooses from the Stress Fallout table when either:
- A PC takes critical stress (when they fail a CTRL save after it takes Ability damage)
- Can only be chosen once at the table (unless denoted).
- Consumes an inventory slot.
