The ten-minute rulebook
Learn Into the Wood by playing with it.
Every game on Elrune has its own short guide: the core roll, a turn, health and harm, and how characters grow. Every roll here runs the same rules code as the table.
The dice of every game, in 3D, and how to type a roll
CHAPTER 1
The core roll
Most of the time you simply do things. When there is real risk you save: roll a D20 against STR, DEX or WIL, and equal to or under the score passes. A 1 always passes and a 20 always fails.
Attacks always hit. Roll your weapon’s die, subtract the target’s armour (never more than 3) and the rest is damage. Bad circumstances impair an attack to a D4, a daring position enhances it to a D12, and when several attacks land on one target only the highest die counts.
Try it · A save
Set it up, then roll.
A demo: rolled in your browser. At a table every roll is made on the server.
CHAPTER 2
A turn
There is no initiative roll. At the start of a fight each character saves DEX to act in the first round. Then the characters’ side acts, in any order, then their opponents, and a side’s results happen together.
On your turn you move up to 40 feet and take one action: attack, cast from a spellbook, stabilise a dying companion, retreat or something else the Warden allows.
CHAPTER 3
Health and harm
Damage comes off HP first, which is your ability to avoid harm. Damage beyond your HP comes off STR, and you save STR at the new score: fail and you take critical damage and are dying. Losing exactly all your HP leaves a scar. STR 0 is death.
A short rest restores HP. Lost attributes come back with a week of rest with a healer. Fatigue fills inventory slots, and with all ten slots full your HP is 0.
CHAPTER 4
How characters grow
There are no classes, levels or experience points. Characters change through what they find, carry and survive: gear, spellbooks, relics and scars. When the Warden grants it, you may reroll an attribute on 3D6 and keep the new score only if it is higher.
Ready for a table?
Elrune keeps the bookkeeping of Into the Wood: every roll on the server, the sheet worked out, the turn order and the harm tracked, so your table can tell the story.