How it plays

Simple at the roll. Deep in the choices around it.

Wound Bound keeps its core mechanic plain on purpose. The depth comes from what you spend, when you act, and what you're willing to risk to make the roll matter.

The one roll

Roll 2d12. Add your modifiers. Meet or beat the target.

Your modifiers are your Tier, an ability, sometimes an Affinity bonus from your Principle, and sometimes an Experience you can argue applies. Difficulties run on a fixed ladder: Easy 12, Normal 18, Hard 24, Near Impossible 30.

Advantage rolls three dice and keeps the best two. Disadvantage keeps the worst two. Doubles are a critical, either way. Double ones always fail and double twelves always succeed, whatever the numbers say.

Normal is meant to be a real risk. At Tier 1, rolling your best skill, you'll make it about three times in five on the dice alone. Stamina, or a friend's help, is how you swing those odds.

Difficulty

Your modifiers

Dice

Ready+6 against Normal 18

The odds at +6, rolling 2d12

Difficulty	Succeed
Easy 12	93%
Normal 18	62%
Hard 24	19%
Near Impossible 30	1%

Three wounds

Three different ways to break a person

Every threat in the game can come at you down any of the three tracks. A cultist doesn't have to cut you to take you out of the fight.

Track	What it represents	At zero, you are
Body	Physical injury	Dying. Roll each turn to stabilise; fall to −3 and you're dead.
Mind	Mental strain	Stunned. You can't act until an ally helps you back.
Soul	Spiritual strain	Numbed. You can't act until an ally helps you back.

Armour soaks physical Body damage. It never touches Mind or Soul, and it can't stop what gets inside you: poison, smoke, drowning water.

Stamina

Push past your limits

Every turn gives you one move and one action. Stamina buys more: an extra action, a held reaction, a boost to your defences, a Martial manoeuvre. How often you can spend it each round is capped, so every spend is a decision.

Opportunity

The world pushes back

Most tactical spends hand the GM an Opportunity: a bonus enemy turn, banked up to three, cashed in whenever it hurts the party most. The harder you push, the more the GM has stored up against you.

Spotlight

The table picks the order

At the start of each round, and after every player turn, the players decide who goes next. The GM takes one adversary turn in between, and announces what it's about to do before rolling.

Building a character

Two choices, twelve classes, about ten minutes

Pick a Class Principle. Pick a Secondary Wound. That places you in one of twelve classes. Assign six modifiers from +3, +2, +1, +1, 0, −1, write two Experiences, and you're ready to play.

Primary: Body

Martial

Fights with weapons and Strength.

Prowess

Turns an ordinary hit into a trip, a disarm or a cleave with the same blow. A Martial shapes the fight with the weapon in their hands.

Primary: Body

Nimble

Fights with Agility, speed and position.

Exploit

Free footwork nobody else gets, and paid Exploits that are never rolled. A Nimble shapes the fight with where they stand and when they move.

Primary: Mind

Cerebral

The arcane caster. Casts with Focus and pays for spells in Mind.

Overclock

Once a round, pay a spell's cost in Stamina instead of Mind. Where Spiritual lands harder, Cerebral casts for longer.

Primary: Soul

Spiritual

The divine caster. Casts with Presence and pays for spells in Soul.

Grace

Adds Intellect to every die a spell rolls, healing and harm alike, and to every target an area spell catches.

Principle	Secondary: Body	Secondary: Mind	Secondary: Soul
Martial	Warriorbruiser	Championtactician	Templarpaladin
Nimble	Duelistskirmisher	Rangertrickster	Rogueevasive mystic
Cerebral	Blood Mage	Aether Mage	Mystic
Spiritual	Warden	Sage	Priest

Body: what you pay

Sacrifice

Once a round, pay 1 Body before an attack or a cast to roll it with Advantage. It can never take you below 1. Nobody spends themselves to death.

Mind: when you act

Interrupt

Once a round, before you've taken your turn, pay 1 Mind to act the moment the GM announces an adversary's move. Hit it first and it acts with Disadvantage, or not at all.

Soul: who you act for

Shelter

Once a round, when an ally nearby takes damage, take any part of it yourself, as Soul damage.

Magic

Every spell in the game costs the same way

Wound Cost = Tier Base + Size + Range

Bigger costs more. Further away costs more. Choose the effect, choose its shape (a ray, a line, a cone or a solid block), and pay. Once you know the formula, you can price any spell in your head, and a caster who is genuinely dangerous is also genuinely fragile. Every fireball is a decision about how much of yourself you can afford to spend.

Tradition	Paid in	What sets it apart
Blood Magic	Body	The only magic that can heal a wound.
Aether Magic	Mind	Cerebral casters' native tradition.
Divine Magic	Soul	Spiritual casters' native tradition.
Elemental Magic	Fuel	Draws on the world around you: cheaper in a storm, a river or beside a forge, and free when the conditions are right. Any class can train in it.

Skill Challenges

Skills that are as tactical as a fight

Not one roll the GM narrates. Picking a lock is a Moment: one beat, one roll. Repairing a broken wagon is a Track: lift the body, fit the axle, attach the wheels, harness the team, each hurdle cleared before the next, until too many failures sink it. A chase is a Sequence: a chain of Moments and Tracks where each success or failure decides what comes next.

AttemptFree

The baseline roll against the obstacle.

Push1 Stamina

Lean into an Attempt for +2.

ProbeFree, replaces an Attempt

Study the obstacle to find an easier way through.

AssistFree, replaces an Attempt

Give a partner Advantage this round.

Steady1 Stamina, reaction

Cancel a failed check outright.

Growth

Three Tiers, not twenty levels

Characters advance through nine Ranks across three Tiers. Every Rank deepens the wound track your class is built on. Every new Tier is a big moment: deeper wound pools, a better ability, a new Experience, and a higher Tier on every roll. The maths never runs away from the table.

Looms

The rules are the warp. A world is the weft.

Wound Bound separates its rules from its settings. A Loom is a world to play in, with its own themes, places, gods and sometimes its own rules, all written in the core game's terms. The Lands of the Inner Sea is the first.

Visit the Inner Sea