Goal: settle the engine every other system is built on. Almost every class, spell and feat references these rules, so changing them later means rewriting everything. This phase is mostly about making decisions, not writing new content.
Milestone: M1: Core locked
Resolution and numbers
- Choose the core die for checks and attacks (d20, pools of d6, or something else) → Core Mechanics
- Define how advantage and disadvantage work with that die
- Define stunts (matching dice on a check) or drop them → Skill Challenges
- Confirm the difficulty ranks (5–50) fit the chosen die → Skill Challenges
- Decide how critical hits work (threat range, crit effects, beating the target by 10) since many abilities change the crit range
- Define “test”, “check”, “save” and “TV” and use one set of words everywhere
Turn structure
- Decide the starting Action Points: 3 or 4 → Action Points
- Decide when AP refresh: start of round or end of your turn → Action Points
- Decide whether AP are rolled as action dice each round, or drop the idea → Action Points
- Define swift actions, reactions and free actions and how many you get
- Write rules text for every action on Combat Actions
- Write initiative and surprise rules → Combat
- Write the attack of opportunity rule (Vanguard classes get it) → Class Roles
Attributes and progression
- Pick the six attribute names → Attributes
- Decide whether an attribute can be 0 → Starting Attribute Arrays
- Decide whether the Heroic array stays → Starting Attribute Arrays
- Decide whether characters have levels as well as tiers, and map levels to tiers → Tiers
- Write boosting and pushing: cost, effect, recovery, Surge and class points → Boosting and Pushing
- Decide what each attribute controls (spells known, skill points…) → Attributes
Defense, health and conditions
- Design the two defense systems (one against damage, one against status effects) → Defense
- Define DV, DR, and how armor and shields feed them → Defense
- Define hit points, Class Dice, bloodied, dying and stabilizing (“marking a vitality”) → Exhaustion and Wounds
- Write exhaustion and wounds → Exhaustion and Wounds
- Merge the two conditions lists into one and define every condition → Conditions and Statuses
- Define the elemental blights and link each to its damage type → Elemental Blights
- Finalize damage types, damage values [A]–[E], and the status each applies → Damage Types
- Write death saves, the Wounded rule and Death’s Door → Exhaustion and Wounds
- Rewrite cover and obscurement in Wayfarers terms (DV, Awareness) → Cover and Obscurement
Time and recovery
- Finalize short and long rests: Class Dice, the interrupted-rest check, Well Rested → Resting
- Define what refreshes per scene vs per rest → Scenes
- Write Fate Points / Waypoints, or cut them → Fate Points and Waypoints
Exit criteria
- Every design question on the pages above is answered, and each decision is recorded in the Decision Log.
- Core Mechanics reads as a one-page summary a new player could follow.
- The glossary terms (AP, DV, TV, tier, scene, boost) have fixed definitions.