RPG/Rolling

When your character performs an action that may or may not work depending on the skill of a character and the tiny factors of the environment, we must have a way of determining whether or not your character is successful. For this game, we use sets of different-sided dice. Any other random number generator should work, but dice are the easiest to find and most traditionally used, so we will assume that your players are using dice. Gaming dice are available in any gaming shop, likely where you bought this book. Dice are referred to in this book as dX, where X is the number of sides on the die.

There are 7 types of dice that you will need to play: d4s, d6s, d8s, d10s, d12s, d20s, and dt10s. The dt10 is a unique die that has ten sides, labeled 00-90. These dice are rolled in conjunction with a regular 10-sided die, and their results added to get a random number from 1 to 100. If the total comes up as 0, it is read as 100. The d10 is also labeled 0-9, when rolled separately the 0 is considered a 10. Most dice come in packs of 7, which include everything you need. It is recommended that you buy multiple dice, as most rolls in this game will require you to roll more than one die of the same type.

In addition, there are two elements to any dice roll: The number of dice, and the number of sides on each die. These are usually represented in XdY format, where X is the number of dice, and Y is the number of sides. 2d8, for example, means two eight-sided dice. When dice are rolled in MSF High, the result is the highest of those dice.

Example: If the 2d8 from earlier are rolled and they come up as 3 and 7, the result of that die roll is 7.

When we roll dice to determine whether your character accomplishes something, it is called a “skill roll”. The GM may allow you to choose which stats or skills to roll, or they might tell you to roll a specific stat and skill.

When you make a skill roll, you roll X amount of dice, where X is the number of the skill rolled after any modifiers. Anything that penalizes your character’s skill itself subtracts from the number of dice in each roll, not from the result of skill checks. If your character has 0 or less, due to lack of skill or modifiers on that skill, they roll two dice and take the lowest. This is called an unskilled roll. Otherwise, you will roll the dice and take the highest, as described above.

Example: Your character has 0 skill points in his roll and has a stat of 10 that gives a die type of d10 to the roll. To roll that skill with that stat, you would roll 2 d10s and take the lowest. If the dice came up 3 and 9, the result would be 3.

Y, or the type of die rolled on any stat portion of a check depends on stat your character is rolling for the skill check. The stat/die correlation is as follows:

Stat	Die Type
2	d4-2
3-4	d4
5-6	d6
7-8	d8
9-10	d10
11-12	d12
13-14	d12+1
15-16...	d12+2...
Every 2 onward	+1 Stacking

Example: A character whose skill for the check was 4 and had a 12 in the stat, which grants a d12, would roll 4d12 and take the highest.

Sometimes, a roll requires you to add the dice rolled, rather than take the highest. In this case, the format for rolling dice is X+dY.

Example: A roll of 2+d6 would have the player roll two six-sided dice and add the results. If the dice came up 3 and 5, the total would be 8.

When you roll any number of dice and any of them come up as the highest number that they can, you re-roll the dice that rolled that number and add the result.

Example: If a character rolls 4d4 and gets a 2, 1, 4, and 4, they re-roll the two dice that came up "4" by rolling 2d4. If the result of that roll was 2 and 4, they would re-roll the 4 again and continue to add. If, the third time the die rolled, it came up 1, then their total roll would be (4+4+1), or 9.

When your character’s die type includes a + or – a number, you add or subtract that number to every dice rolled.

Example: A character with a Strength of 16 (d12+2) hits an opponent with a weapon dealing 2+dStr damage. You would then roll 2 dice and add 2 to each dice rolled. If the dice come up as 9 and 7, the total would be (9+2)+(7+2), or 20.

When the roll itself is listed as + or – a number, you roll the dice as normal, and then add or subtract the number to the final result.

Example: If a spell deals 2+d6+4 points of damage, you would first roll 2 d6s, add the result together, and then add 4 to the final number. For instance, if a 3 and a 5 were rolled, you would add them to get 8, and then add 4 to get 12.

Occasionally, the GM will ask you to make a nonskilled stat roll. In this case, roll a single die corresponding to that stat. This die can be re-rolled on its highest result, like any other die rolled.

Example: If your Intelligence was 8, your die type would be a d8. If you were to make a nonskilled Intelligence roll, you would roll a single d8. If the die came up as 3, the total would be 3.

Now that you know how to roll dice and make skill checks, it’s time to make a character to play through the game. If you haven’t already, follow the character creation rules here to make your character. When you are done, return to this page.

Alright, now that we have our starting character and you understand the basics of rolling dice, we can play. The rules are pretty simple, just act as your character and make rolls when the GM asks you to. Some more complicated rules, such as combat, start here, but you do not need to know them quite yet. But before we begin, you need to learn the facet system and how to level in both it and your races.

Facets are like a chosen profession, and reflect a portion of your character's full potential. In MSF High, there is a lot of magic to aid characters in their learning, so much so that most students are unable to fully access their abilities without the aid of magic clothing. Racial levels helps a little to unlock your facets, but magic clothing can be expected to do most of the work. When you activate facet levels, you gain the abilities they provide. You can try to focus on a single facet to gain the power it can provide, or you could always use multiple facets to broaden your area of expertise. Racial levels are kind of like levels in facets, except they reflect a more permanent improvement to your character's power like HP, MP, additional skills, stat points, and even increased capacity for facet levels.