To play Paths to Eternity, describe what your character wants to do in the situations established by the GM. When you meet resistance or need to overcome a challenge, the rules or GM will ask you to “make a check” to resolve your chances of success. (You might also see the term “roll” - “roll” and “check” are often used interchangeably.)
During play, resolving an action (”making a check”) simply requires you to roll a d20 die and compare the result to a target number (usually an action’s Success Rating). Success ratings can vary by action — skills have Skill Ratings, weapons have Attack Ratings, and so on — but they all follow the same rules. If the d20 result ****is less than or equal to an action’s Success Rating, the action is successful. If the result is greater than the Success Rating, the action fails. In short, Paths to Eternity is a d20 Roll-Under Game System and making checks (comparing rolls to their success ratings) is the core mechanic of the game.
A Character’s Success Ratings for various actions are documented on their Character Sheet. Calculating success ratings will be discussed in later chapters.
Other kinds of Result
In addition to successes and failures, actions can also have Critical Successes and Critical Failures (which are more impactful but also more rare). Critical Successes occur when the result of a check is less than or equal to an action’s Critical Rating. Critical Failures occur when a result is greater than or equal to 20 (which can sometimes happen due to certain modifiers called Banes).
Like Success Ratings, a Character’s Critical Ratings for their various actions are documented on their Character Sheet.
While checks are the core mechanic of Paths to Eternity, what was described above is the simplest and most common case. Checks can also be modified by certain factors, and there are three main kinds of modifiers to be aware of:
Advantage and Disadvantage are modifiers that can be granted by various kinds of situational sources (such as the environment) or even by the GM. You will know if you have Advantage prior to rolling.
When making a check with Advantage, roll two d20 dice instead of one and keep the lower result. Disadvantage is similar, but you roll two d20 dice and keep the higher result instead.
Both Advantage and Disadvantage can have a significant impact on your overall chances of success.
Having Multiple Sources
If you have multiple sources of Advantage or Disadvantage active at the same time, the benefits or penalties add-up. I.e. If you have 2 sources of Advantage, this is called having “Double Advantage” (or “2 stacks”) - roll 3 d20 dice (instead of 2 or 1) and keep the lowest result. Similarly, having 2 sources of Disadvantage is “Double Disadvantage” - roll 3 d20 dice and keep the highest result.
If you ever gain 3 or more sources of Advantage on the same check at the same time, this is called having “total advantage”. In such cases, you don’t need to roll dice - simply treat your result as a 1.