Keywords 

Keywords are recurring rules in Gauntlet Tales 

Blast: A blast affects the targeted space and all adjacent spaces. 

Bleed: See Damage over Time 

Blind: You can’t see. While blind, decrease your attack rolls and all other rolls that are rely on sight.

Buff: A buff is any temporary boost to your combat capabilities. Advantage doesn’t count as a buff.

Close: A close distance extends to the size to a room (relative to your size), or 5 spaces on a battlegrid. 

Cone: A cone affects everything in a 90 degree arc in front of you out to a near distance (3 spaces on a  battlegrid). 

Creative License: You temporarily take control of the story while you exercise your creative license.  Refer to Chapter 8: General Rules for a more detailed explanation. 

Critical Range: Subtract your combined critical range from 20 to find the new critical success range.  For example, a roll with +2 critical range will critically succeed on 18 or higher. 

Damage Over Time: A creature taking damage over time takes one-tenth damage on each of its turns,  ignoring block. This effect ends when the subject receives any healing, or after someone spends an action  tending to the wound. A creature can suffer from any number of damage over time effects at once, but it can’t have multiple instances of the same damage over time effect. 

Debuff: A debuff is any temporary penalty to your combat capabilities. Damage doesn’t count as a  debuff. 

Disarm: You send an item that the target is holding clattering a close distance away. You or an ally  along the item’s path can catch the item. 

Disease: A disease is an illness. Diseases cannot be removed by things that remove debuffs unless the  effect specifically states that it removes diseases. 

Ethereal: Your body and equipment is insubstantial. You can’t touch, attack, or bolster non-ethereal  objects or creatures, and they can’t touch, attack, or bolster you. You can phase through most materials  like a ghost, but you may be unable to pass through some magical barriers or spiritual wards. 

Far: A far distance extends to the size of several buildings (relative to your size), or 20 spaces on a  battlegrid. 

Firearm: Replaces Ranged tag on weapon, requires ammunition to fire and is loud. Damage dice are  capable of exploding, on highest face you can roll an additional die of damage and add it to your  previous damage equal to the amount of combat traits you have. E.G.: Duncan rolls to shoot a bandit  and gets a 12, since he has hit he rolls a d6 for his damage and gets a 6. Rolling that d6 again, getting a  three, and adding it to the 6 because he has one combat traits at level 3

On a 1 (ignore unless it's the result you are using, if taking the middle result and there's a 1,12,18 for  example): The firearm jams or becomes inoperable until an action is used to fix it. On two 1s: The firearm is damaged in a way that it would need to be fixed during a rest. On three 1s: The firearm is destroyed. 

The firearms keyword assumes a single shot before reloading, like a musket or a flintlock pistol. When you select one of your weapons to have the firearm keyword you can pick one additional keywords from the following list: 

Melee, Ranged, Accurate, Reach, Rending, Piercing 

Example: Taylor has decided that his other firearm tags will be melee and rending, because his weapon  is a serving fork that has a small gun built into it. 

Fly: You can fly, maneuvering about as well as a bird in flight. You have to continue moving in order to stay aloft. Your movement distance is the same while flying, so things that increase or decrease your  movement similarly affect your flying speed. You fall if you lose control or consciousness. 

Gigantic: A gigantic creature is larger than a two-story mansion. It occupies a 50-foot area or larger. 

Glide: You can glide through the air. You gradually lose altitude while gliding (generally 1 space per  turn). You can’t gain altitude from gliding unless there is a strong updraft. You have to continue moving in order to stay aloft. Your movement distance is the same while gliding, so things that increase or  decrease your movement similarly affect your gliding speed. You fall if you lose control or  consciousness. 

Grapple: You can decrease the damage of a successful melee attack to grapple the target. The two of  you can’t be physically separated until the grapple ends. If the two of you are about the same size,  either of you can move at 1 distance step lower (half speed) and drag the other behind you. If one is  significantly larger than the other, the larger creature can move normally and drag the smaller creature  behind it. Unwilling participants in a grapple can make one attempt on each of their turns to break free  (which doesn’t cost an action) by winning an opposed roll. 

Grasp: The number indicates how many extra spaces you can reach with your melee attacks. You can  grab or manipulate objects with your extended reach (grabbing a creature with a long tentacle, for  example). 

Haste: The distance you can move goes up 1 step, which doubles the distance you can travel. For  example, the distance you can move might increase from Close (5 spaces) to Midrange (10 spaces). 

Huge: A huge creature is approximately the size of a house. It occupies a 20-foot area. 

Hurry: When you start your turn, you can announce that you hurry. On that turn, you decrease all rolls  you make and the distance you can move goes up 1 step, which doubles the distance you can travel. For example, the distance you can move might increase from Close (5 spaces) to Midrange (10 spaces). 

Doesn’t stack with Haste. 

Lair: A lair is an area that serves as your dwelling. You can claim an uninhabited area as your lair after  living in it for about a day, which causes you to give up your claim to the old lair. A lair can be as small as a single room or as large as a fortress or cavern complex. 

Large: A large creature is about 2-3 times the size of a human. It occupies a 10-foot area. 

Lumbering: Lumbering creatures are much slower than normal for some reason (they’re incredibly  massive, they have awkward anatomy, their muscles are rotting, etc). They move a near distance (3  spaces) rather than the default close distance (5 spaces). They are immune to slow and they cannot  hurry. 

Maim: You inflict a debilitating wound (break bones, sever an arm, gouge out an eye, etc) that is permanent or semi-permanent. An effect can’t heal a maimed wound unless it specifically states that it can. The GM decides the mechanical consequences, or they may allow the attacker to choose the consequences. Options are limitless, but the most common consequences are:


Medium: A medium creature is approximately the size of a human. It occupies a 5-foot area. 

Midrange: A midrange distance extends to the size of a building (relative to your size), or 10 spaces on a battlegrid. 

Minion: A minion is a non-player character who willingly obeys you. You can gain a minion through  virtually any means (you hire a mercenary, you convince somebody to help you for several weeks, a  soldier is required to obey your commands, etc). Anyone can gain minions; you don’t need to have a  special trait to gain minions. 

Natural (Melee or Ranged) Weapons: Your body is a weapon of the listed type. You are always  considered to be using a weapon of that type, so you get the weapon damage bonus (+2 damage  without a shield or +1 damage with a shield) when you normally wouldn’t. This doesn’t stack if you are using a real weapon. If your natural weapons are ranged, you can make ranged attacks and you have d8Ud ammunition per day with those weapons. 

Near: A near distance extends several steps (relative to your size), or 3 spaces on a battlegrid. 

One-tenth: This is one-tenth of a creature’s maximum life. To determine that value, remove the right most number from the creature’s maximum life. For example, one-tenth of 149 maximum life is 14,  and one-tenth of 55 maximum life is 5. 

Reach: The number indicates how many extra spaces you can reach with your melee attacks. You can’t  grab or manipulate objects with your extended reach (hitting a creature with a long spear, for example). 

Resistant: When a creature becomes resistant to something, it can’t be affected by that thing again until after it gets a full night’s rest, at which point it loses all of its resistances. Resistance does not affect  pre-existing conditions; it only prevents you from acquiring new effects. 

Safe Fall: By default, you can fall 5 spaces and not take damage when you land. For every space you  fall after that, you take 5 damage (ignoring block) when you land. If you have Safe Fall, add that number  to the number of spaces you can fall before you take damage when you land. Multiple sources of Safe  Fall stack with the default 5. For example, if you have Safe Fall 10 from one trait and Safe Fall 5 from  another trait, you can fall 20 spaces and not take damage when you land. If you fall 21 spaces, you would take 5 damage when you land. 

Safe House: Safe houses are buildings that look mundane (a legitimate business, a home to a simple  farm family, a Saloon, etc), but the owners are actually criminals in disguise. The true purposes of safe  houses are carefully guarded by criminals. If a safe house is ever unveiled, it is quickly abandoned and  the local criminals work to establish a replacement safe house. People who live near safe houses will  never report the comings and goings of safe house inhabitants, and people in safe houses cannot be  tracked or located by any means. Each civilized area has at least one safe house. 

Shrine: A shrine is a structure that serves as a divine conduit. Each shrine is devoted to a specific god.  Shrines generally range in size from a piece of furniture to a huge building, but they can be much larger or smaller. Shrines can be destroyed like any other feature of the environment, but doing so typically  invokes the wrath of the god it represents and its followers. Anyone can touch a shrine to gain its bonus as long as he is not despised by that god. You don’t need levels in the Faith theme to use a shrine. 

Slow: The distance you can move goes down 1 step, which halves the distance you can travel. For  example, the distance you can move might fall from Close (5 spaces) to Near (3 spaces). If you already  move a Near distance and you are slowed, you can’t move at all. 

Small: A small creature is approximately the size of a human child. It occupies a 3-foot area. 

Soak: Soak counts as life with a few exceptions: soak can’t be healed, it wears off after about 1 minute, and you always lose soak before losing life. Soak can exceed your maximum life, but you can only  have one source of soak at a time; if you gain soak from multiple sources, keep whichever one gives  you the most soak. 

Stun: Stunned creatures can’t act. They remain standing and can still hold onto items while stunned,  but they stop doing anything that’s more complicated than that (climbing, casting a spell, holding aloft  something heavy, etc). 

Surprised: If you attack a creature that has no way of knowing that you are going to attack it (you  strike from the shadows, you attack a sleeping creature, you attack a creature that completely trusts  you, etc), that creature is considered surprised by you for 1 turn. Increase your attack rolls against  creatures that you surprise. 

Temporary Trait: A temporary trait is a trait that you have under special circumstances, or for a short  period of time. Temporary traits do not affect your level, they do not contribute towards gaining  passives, and they do not affect which theme is considered your primary theme. 

Terror & Terrified: When a creature becomes terrified, it immediately moves in a safe path in order to get as far away as possible from the thing that it fears. While terrified, it can’t willingly move closer to  the thing that it fears or attack it. 

Tiny: A tiny creature is the size of a housecat or smaller. It occupies a 1-foot area or less.