INFINITE REALMS PLAYERS BOOK

Chapter Five – Adventuring

	So far you’ve learned about creating a player character and outfitting him, but the only type of adventuring touched on thus far has been combat.  Adventuring is much more than just combat, it is exploring new lands, making new friends and allies, carrying out secret, vital missions for monarchs and all the other things that make up the life of a hero.
	Roleplaying is about adventuring and what happens to the player characters as they adventure.  This chapter covers some of the things that will happen to a PC as he adventures in the Infinite Realms game.
A character will gradually grow more proficient at skills he uses frequently, he may also learn new skills and his attributes may improve, these possibilities are covered in this chapter under character improvement.
Many times a character will be injured in combat, sometimes seriously.  Time and appropriate medical help will heal all wounds, hopefully.  This is covered in recovery from wounds.

Travel Times

	For those times when it is important to know how long it takes to get from here to there, here's a chart that show average speed for different types of travel.  Miles per day takes into account the fact that a person or animal can walk more hours at a slower pace before becoming exhausted.

Travel Method	Miles Per Hour	Miles Per Day	
Slow Walk	1	10 - 16	
Brisk Walk	2	18 - 24	
Running and Walking	3	24 - 30	
Running	4	36 (must rest frequently)	
On Horseback	2	20 - 30	
On Horseback (Top Speed)	6	No more than 2 hours at a time	
Wagon 	1	10 - 16	

	Neither running nor riding a horse at top speed can be done for days on end, the fatigue factor would be too great.  The chart assumes a good horse, a lesser horse could not travel as fast and a faster horse could gallop at a somewhat better pace.
	The chart assumes good flat terrain and pleasant weather.  Mountainous or swampy terrain would dramatically reduce movement, miles per hour might be reduced by half and miles per day might fall to 1/3 normal.  Light forests and rolling hills would reduce movement somewhat, say 25% to 50%.

Character Improvement

	As a character adventures, his attributes and skills may improve and he may pick up new skills.
	At the end of each combat and each gaming session, experience points are handed out.  These experience points may be used to improve attributes, learn new zero level skills and improve current skills.  Just about any thing that could be purchased with creation points during character creation can be purchased with earned experience points.  The one catch is that 100 experience points are worth one creation point, so improving an attribute by one will require 200 earned experience points.

End Session Experience Points

	At the end of a gaming session, the GM will give each character in the adventuring party general experience points.  These points are based on the party accomplishing goals, traversing new lands, meeting new people and becoming involved in little adventures along the way to their goals and many similar things.  EP may also be awarded to PCs based on how well the player ran his character.  There is a complete section in the GM’s book that explains what to give EP for and has lots of suggestions.

Combat Experience Points

	PCs will gain experience points, EP, by defeating enemies in combat.  Each creature has an EP rating, this is the number of experience points that a character gains by defeating this creature in single combat.  If a character is fighting a number of enemies, then all the enemies who are defeated have their EP ratings added together for the total of experience the character gains.  If more than one character is fighting then the EP gained are divided between the characters.
	The first time a character fights a particular type of opponent he gains twice the normal number of experience points for that enemy.

Improvement During Off Time

	Sometimes a party may take time away from adventuring, for instance the winter is usually a difficult time to adventure so a party may split up for a couple of months.
	During this time, the characters may improve themselves.  The GM should grant between 15 and 35 experience points for each week of down time, depending on what the PC is doing.  If the PC is primarily involved in learning, such as in college or taking lessons from an expert, the GM should grant more points than if the character is primarily making money and the experience is secondary, such as if he signs on as an tutor for some lord’s children.

Cost for Improvement

	Increasing an attribute costs 200 experience points.  A zero level skill costs 100 times the zero level cost during character creation.  Improving a skill by one takes from 8 to 25 EP.  This depends on how many skill levels one point spent during character creation would buy.

Skill Number Increase Chart

1 creation point increases	EP needed increase	
12	8	
10	10	
8	12	
7	14	
6	17	
5	20	
4	25	

Non-Combat Injuries

Falling

	For every ten feet a character falls he takes 6 points of damage.  If he is hurled downward he takes twice the normal damage.

Drowning

	For every round a character stays under water after he has run out of breath he takes 6 points of damage.  If he resurfaces and can grab a breathe of air, the damage will cease until he again runs out of air.

Burns
	Being burned by a candle results in 1 HP lost per round.  A campfire will cause 5 points of damage per round, will a house fire would cause 8 HP in damage per round.

Exposure, Thirst or Hunger

	These are all relatively slow ways to die.  Exposure to extreme heat or cold, such as a desert or blizzard without proper precautions cause 2 to 5 HP to be lost an hour.  Thirst causes 1 HP damage every two hours after the first day.  Hunger causes 1 HP damage every six hours after the second day.

Recovery from Wounds

	Characters will sustain wounds from time to time.  These wounds will often occur in combat, but they may also be sustained in the natural course of adventuring.
	With time and if needed medical attention, these wounds will heal.

	Current Hit Points are over 50% of full HP :

	No binding of wounds is necessary and there is no chance of disease.  One HP, up to the normal maximum, will be regained for every four hours of light or moderate activity, such as walking.  One HP will be regained for every two hours of sleep.  Taking a full day to rest will heal all non-critical injuries fully, if the character has taken less than 50% of his maximum hit point total in damage.

	Current Hit Points are under 50% of full HP total but greater than zero :

	If the wounds are bound, they are treated as is if the character were at 50% of greater of his HP.
	If the wounds are unbound, there is a chance of disease for every 24 hours that the character’s HP are less than 50%.  One HP will be regained for every three hours of sleep.
	
Current Hit Points are zero or less, but more than the negative HP total :

	The character will lose 1 HP every minute, 4 combat rounds, until his wounds are successfully bound.  Until the wounds are bound, there is a chance of infection every five minutes, 20 rounds.  Once the wounds are bound they will heal with sleep at 1 HP every four hours.  There is a chance of disease every 24 hours.

Internal Bleeding

	If a character has a critical wound with internal bleeding he must have special healing.  This usually takes the form of surgery, but in magical worlds there are other cures.  Binding such a wound at a high difficulty will stop the continuing HP loss, but the character will not get better.
	Most cities will have a surgeon available.  For game purposes a surgeon in a smaller city might have a skill of 50%, in a large city he probably has a skill level of 75% or more.  The task level is probably quite high, but could go as low as easy if the surgery is performed in a clean hospital with assistants.
	Here are a few suggestions for success and failure on the surgery skill roll.
	A critical success means that the recovery occurs in a few days, with no negative effects.
	A marginal success indicates a recovery of about ten days.
	A partial failure means that PD and PD drop by 1 and PC drops 5 points.
	A critical failure means the patient died.

Infection

	If a character has a chance of infection, he must roll a 10 sided die, if it comes up 1 he may be infected.  A saving roll of the character’s resistance attribute must be made against a task level of 50.  If the saving roll is made there is no infection, if it is missed the character has a disease.

Disease

	Diseases sometimes sweep through medieval lands, sometimes drinking water or food is rotten and sometimes wounds become infected.  To ward off disease the character must make a resistance attribute roll.  The difficulty of the roll will depend on the infectiousness of the disease, the Black Plague might require a very difficult roll while making sure a simple sword wound doesn’t become infected might be very easy.
	Diseases have various affects.  Most can be shaken with time, a decreasingly difficult PC roll every day until the character is well.  Many will temporarily decrease Attributes.  A few diseases are terminal and a few diseases permanently decrease Attributes or prematurely age the character.  The effects of diseases are discussed at length in the GM’s manual.