Phase (PSR Supplement)

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During periods of exploration or preparation, it may be helpful to divide time into phases—in a similar way to how encounters are divided into rounds.

Each phase is meant to be about 10 minutes, but characters in this world likely don't wear clocks or otherwise track time by the minute. It needn't be so exact.

If an encounter breaks out, it resolves within a single phase.

Sometimes it can become important to count phases. For example if you discover a pirate raid is imminent, your narrator might announce you only have 3 phases to prepare the coastal town's defenses.

There are 24 phases in shift, and 6 shifts in a day.

Phase Activity

During every phase, each player broadly describes their protag's actions with an activity.

Activities are deliberately more open-ended than encounter actions. Often you and your narrator will improvise what your character does over a phase. Some straightforward activities include the following options.

• Assist. You assist an ally of your choice in their activity. Once during this phase when your chosen ally makes an ability check, just before the die is cast you can give advantage to the ability check.
• Break. At the end of the break, your hit points are restored up to half their maximum (rounded down), but no higher. If for example your max hit points are 10 and you currently have 3, taking a break only restores you to 5.
• Change Attire. You doff or don any amount of attire. Except for items worn on your head, changing any piece of attire takes more than a single Use action.
• Deduce. Just like during an encounter's Deduce action, you make an ability check using Knowledge or Perception. The longer time scale gives you the space to make a check to search an entire room at once or gain insight into an entire group of creatures.
• Improvise. You attempt to improvise an activity you describe to your narrator. Your narrator determines if the activity is possible and what kind of d20 roll—if any—you must succeed to perform the activity. If your narrator deems the activity isn’t possible, this doesn’t expend your phase activity.
• Influence. Just like with the Influence action, you affect the attitude or behavior of one or more creatures using a a Charisma check. The longer time scale may make success more likely. Whether with action or activity, you can’t attempt to Influence a creature repeatedly. Usually, you only get one chance per creature per day to make a significant impression.
• Sort. You manage a group of items. You sort through all bodies on a battlefield for any goods, recover an array of dropped items, or take potions from your mule’s bags and hand them out to your allies, for example. You can activate dozens of items that each normally require a separate Use action.
• Repair. If an object is damaged but not destroyed, you can restore its hit points with a successful Knowledge check made using the right artisan's tools if you're proficient with them. If the check result is 10 or higher, the object regains a number of hit points equal to the result.
• Ritual Cast. Cast a spell as a ritual, as detailed under spells.
• Travel. You move to a different area nearby, such as a bar down the road or the next room in a dungeon. At a steady pace in ideal conditions, half a mile mile can be crossed in a phase. Difficult travel might require an ability check to make progress. You can sneak as part of this travel, as if taking the Hide action, though in some instances this may reduce the distance you traverse.

Danger d6 (Optional)

When exploring a dangerous location like a dragon's cave or a haunted house, at the end of each phase your narrator might roll a d6 on the chart below. This represents incoming and unpredictable dangers, giving consequences to how you spend your phases.

1. Expire. All items or effects that can "expire" do so. This includes lit torches going out, and some spells ending unpredictably.
2. Hazard. The protags are beset by a trap or challenge specific to the area. If none, each protag must succeed on a mark 15 Will save save or suffer 1d6 psychic damage.
3. Climate. In an extreme climate, each protag makes the relevant save. Otherwise the weather, terrain, or climate changes either with travel or due to a fluke of the area. If the area doesn't have a sensical change, there might be only environmental noise like wind, sounds, temperature changes, falling debris, fleeting illusions, or tiny critters.
4. Encounter. The protags encounter creatures native to this region, which are usually violent.
5. Clue. The protags locate clues to local, usually hostile creatures—such as a fresh corpse, or recently shed scales. If the protags don't move on from this vicinity, these creatures will be encountered at the end of the next phase (no roll).
6. Secret. The protags find a hint to nearby treasure, a hidden room, or another secret in this area. If navigating to a destination, the destination is reached (or progress is made; perhaps Secret must be rolled twice for a longer journey). If nothing applies, the protags are safe this phase.