Complexity and Beginner Tag
Many features in this rule system have a complexity rating from 1 to 4. The complexity helps, especially new players, to narrow down their options to something more manageable while looking at the lists of Sub-Archetypes, features, abilities, or upgrades. This allows IWS to offer incredibly diverse options while still being beginner-friendly.
Dice
The dice used in IWS are d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20, and d100.
When somebody has advantage on a roll, they will roll the corresponding dice twice and pick the better result. In case they have disadvantage, they will also roll twice but have to pick the worse of the two results.
Resources
Your Character has four Resources that they can use. These are Vitality, Temporary Vitality, Willpower, and Narrative Momentum.
The Vitality of your Character represents their overall health. It is reduced whenever they receive damage. You do not immediately die when your Vitality drops below 1. Instead, you keep track of your negative Vitality, and you are Restrained. You also gain the Bleeding Status Effect. The DR Power of the Bleeding is 10. You stabilize and stop Bleeding if you roll at least a 20 on your DR against Bleeding. If somebody heals you or uses the Stabilize action (3 AP) while next to you, you also remove the Bleeding. You stay Restrained until you have at least 1 Vitality. You die if your Vitality drops below the negative value of your maximum Vitality.
Your Temporary Vitality works as a buffer for your Vitality. Any damage that you receive is first subtracted from your Temporary Vitality.
Your Willpower (WP) is an abstraction for your energy reserves. You use your WP as fuel for your Abilities. You can only use a number of WP equal to your Tier times two plus two on one Ability and during one turn. These limitations are called WP upcast limit and WP turn limit. Abilities allow you to achieve all kinds of powerful and useful feats. You can also use more Willpower than required to increase the power of the Ability with most of them. This is called upcasting, and an Ability will tell you what options you have to upcast it.
A Character can use their Narrative Momentum at any time to reroll any rolled dice and choose one of the two results. How much Narrative Momentum has to be used depends on the die that is rerolled. 1 for d4, 2 for d6 and d8, 3 for d10 and d12 and 5 for d20. You can also use 3 Narrative Momentum for a Cinematic Action or Reaction. You tell the GM what you want to attempt before you start your Cinematic Action (3 AP) or Reaction (2 RP). The GM determines if it is possible or not. Should the GM agree, you must then make a Skill Check determined by the GM. On a success, you perform your Cinematic Action and Reaction as intended. On a failure, you are unsuccessful, and the GM determines what happens.
Skills
Skills are a list of 33 areas in which your character can be trained. To make a Skill Check, the Player rolls a d10 and adds their Skill Level in that Skill and half of their corresponding Stat Bonus to it. They succeed if they roll at least as high as a number determined by the GM.
Combat
Each participant gets three Action Points (AP) during their turn. Each participant also gains two Reaction Points (RP) for the whole round. The order in which participants take their turns is determined by their Initiative.
| Name | AP | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Attack | 2 | You can make one weapon attack. It does not have to be during the same action, but it has to be on your turn. You can make attacks in any order you like if a feature or Ability (like Path of Attack or Multi-Wielder) allows you to make additional attacks with this action. |
| Defend | 2 | Attack rolls against you have disadvantage, and you have advantage on all your DR until your next turn. |
| Interact with Target | 1 | You make a simple and quick interaction with an object or creature, like pushing a button, picking up a weapon, opening a door, giving an ally an item, or trying to poke a creature. You can make one free Interact with Target action on your turn unless you have already used a free Switch Weapons action. |
| Move | 1 | You increase your movement by an amount equal to your Basic Movement. |
| Sprint | 3 | You increase your movement by an amount equal to four times your Basic Movement. |
| Stabilize | 3 | You can make a First Aid Check against 8. On a success, you can remove the Bleeding Status Effect from a creature within 1 m of you. |
| Switch Places | 1 | You can switch places with an ally that is standing next to you. They must use a reaction (1 RP), or this action fails. |
| Switch Weapons | 1 | You can change the weapons/shields and equipment that you are wielding. You can perform this action for free on your turn once if you are not holding anything in the hand that you want to use to draw a weapon or if you just want to sheathe a weapon without replacing it with another. You cannot make one free Switch Weapons action on your turn if you already used a free Interact with Target action. |
| Taking Cover | 1 | Your Evasion increases by 2 and your DR by 1, as long as you are in half cover until your next turn. You also no longer grant half-cover to creatures of the same size category until your next turn. |
| Use Item | 3 | Use a non-ability consumable, such as a stimulant. |
Attacks
Using weapons or some selected Abilities against a target requires you to perform an attack. You must target them and make an attack roll to see if you hit them. To make an attack roll, roll a d20 and add your weapon or Ability hit bonus. Your attack hits if you roll at least the same amount as the Evasion of your target. If you roll a natural 20 when you attack, you perform a critical hit. Critical hits with weapons increase the damage by 6. Critical hits with Abilities increase the damage by 6 plus an additional 3 for every Tier of the used Ability. You perform a critical miss if you roll a natural 1 when you attack. A critical miss always fails to hit the target, no matter how high your hit bonus is.
Defenses
Your Armor is subtracted from any incoming damage. Armor does not protect you from Poison or Psychic damage. Instead, these types of damage take the Constitution DR value (Poison) or Will DR value (Psychic) into account as if it were Armor.
There are many Abilities and features for which the user does not have to aim actively. Instead, the target needs to defend themselves against the effects. The target must make a Defense Roll (DR) in such cases. There are seven different kinds of DR. Each is based on one of the seven Stats in addition to one Skill. The target must roll a d20 and add the corresponding Stat Bonus and Skill Level. They succeed on their DR if they roll at least as high as the DR Power of the creature targeting them.
No Time to Make a Character?
Use one of the Starter Characters or generate one with the Random Character Generator.