EXPERIENCE: XP are "cashed out" only when the party returns to camp. If the party has two encounters before returning to camp, and one of the characters dies during the second encounter, then the remaining party members divide amongst themselves the experience gained from both encounters; the dead character does not recieve a "share" of the XP from the first encounter, even though he survived it.
Story awards may grant XP to individual characters but generally XP from an encounter will be divided up evenly amongst all who participated.
Characters do not need training from a more experienced person to go up a level, but they do need a night's rest, and will not level up until the end of the adventuring day.
TIME:
As in B/X time is measured in 10-minute "turns." Each turn is divided into sixty 10-second combat rounds.
Doing anything in the dungeon outside of combat, such as moving, searching, etc, generally takes at least 1 turn. Any encounter involving combat will also take 1 turn - the remaining time after the combat is over is consumed by binding wounds, cleaning weapons, retrieving ammunition, and possibly doing a search of the area if you haven't been there before.
MOVEMENT:
Your combat move is the speed you can move and still make an attack. In a combat round you may also move three times that amount and do nothing else (running). If you are engaged in melee you can only move safely away (withdraw) at 1/2 speed.
Your out-of-combat movement has two speeds: RECKLESS speed (which will be 30 times your combat move if walking, or more if you are running), which you would normally move when you know there are no traps, etc., or CAREFUL movement (which will be 3 times your combat move) which assumes you are proceeding very slowly and checking for traps, secret doors, mapping, and so on.
If you want to be searching for traps and secret doors along a passage, you don't need to specify this specifically; just say you are moving carefully.
SEARCHING:
The chance to find something is always a certain chance in 6. Finding secret doors or traps is 1 in 6 unless your class gives a better rating. This means that anyone can search for traps, but some classes do it better than others. Hearing noise is 1 in 6 or 2 in 6 for demi-humans and for thieves (only thieves get better by level). Rolls for searching are done secretly by the DM.
As you move carefully or complete an encounter somewhere the DM assumes you are searching unless you have reason to be in a hurry. So this is done automatically. However, if you want you can always check again.
DM: "The door is covered in blood, and there is a carved skull on the lintel as well as an inscription that says 'PREPARE TO DIE'. (rolling) But you don't find any traps."
Players: "Yeah.... let's check for traps again."
* The second time you are searching for something, you spend 1 turn doing nothing but looking for that specific thing.
* The third time you spend 1 hour looking (if nobody finds anything) or 1d6 turns if someone does find something.
* The fourth time you spend 6 hours looking (if nobody finds anything) or 1d6 hours if someone does find something.
* After that, attempts may be made once per game day and take the same time as above.
Checking for magic and trying to identify items (assuming you are not using an actual spell) follows the same rules as searching for things. It will normally be sensible that those who have a chance to detect magic will examine items in downtime to see if they are magical.
LANGUAGES:
Literacy counts as a language. Without it you can speak and understand speech but cannot read or write.
There are no alignment languages.
COMBAT:
* Natural 20: A natural roll of 20 grants a "bonus hit." This allows you to roll again, with one of the following results:
* * A: if your first roll was not a hit, you may add the new roll to your old one to see if you hit.
* * B: if you hit but did not down your target then roll again and another hit does damage to the same target (as in a critical hit).
* * C (melee only): if you hit and down your target then you may make a free attack against another adjacent target (as in the 3.5 version of cleave).
* Cover: in ranged combat each character that is in between you and your target grants a -1 penalty to hit, to a maximum of -4. Likewise soft cover grants a -1 penalty to hit for every 25% of the target that is obscured, to a maximum of -4. Hard cover grants an additional -1 penalty to the values above, but obviously 100% hard cover negates any chance to hit.
* Blindness: being blind is effectively the same as a target having 100% soft cover as the target is not visible. A blind creature that is aware of the presence of an enemy can attack at -4 to hit. Likewise, invisible characters can be attacked at -4 to hit if the enemy knows they are there.
* Other Modifiers: Attacking a target that has high ground gives a -1 penalty to hit. Attacking from the high ground gives a +1 bonus to hit. Attacking when exhausted gives a -2 penalty to hit, while attacking a target that is exhausted gives a +2 bonus to hit.
AMMUNITION:
Ammunition can always be retrieved as long as the party holds the field after a battle.
Thrown weapons are always retrievable unless there is something like a chasm for them to fall into. You don't have to tell me that you are retrieving them. The same applies for sling bullets.
Arrows and quarrels however will tend to break when they strike stone, so for simplicity's sake we assume that 50% of all arrows or quarrels are retrievablle after any battle.
NON-PROFICIENCY:
If you aren't trained in the use of a weapon, you can still pick it up and attempt to use it. Any attacks with a nonproficient weapon are resolved as if you are a 0-level Normal Man. At 1st level this will only be a -1 penalty but it gets bigger as you gain experience. Thrown objects like flasks of oil and rocks do not require any proficiency.
HEALING & INJURIES:
* Rest: you recover 1 HP per level for every night of decent rest you recieve (a night full of interruptions probably won't count). If you rest for the full day as well, you gain another 1 HP per level.
* First Aid: after a combat it is assumed you spend some time binding your wounds. First aid can potentially heal 1 HP after a battle where the patient was injured, but a person can only benefit from this a maximum of once per day per level of the patient, and only once per incident where the character took damage.
If clean bandages are available, first aid automatically works. If clean bandages are not avilable, the patient must make a health saving throw; failure indicates that no benefit is derived from that instance of first aid.
Note: purify food and water could be used to sterilise bandages that are immersed in water, but if you have a cleric spell available you probably are going to cast cure light wounds.
* Mortal Wounds: If a character is reduced to 0 HP or less, they are mortally wounded. The character may make a health save; success indicates that the character survives for 1 round, though they cannot do much; they can crawl 5 feet, attack with a dagger or a crossbow, speak a few words, or if they are standing they can stagger along at half speed (but risk falling prone). At the end of the round the character takes damage equal to the damage of the original wound that mortally wounded him, and he saves again to survive another round.
This means that if you make the save it is possible that you can be saved after being reduced below 1 HP, but it better be fast because you keep taking damage and having to save. This also means that you could encounter a guy at -60 HP who is beyond being saved by magical healing but still has enough life left in him to deliver 'one last message.'
POISON: lethal poison always does HP damage and can therefore be mitigated with healing even if the healing does not neutralize the poison. "Poison Damage" is always multiplied by the victim's Hit Dice, so a 3 HD character that takes 3 points of poison damage takes 9 HP of damage.
Poison always takes at least 1 round to have any effect. Normally it will involve multiple saves over time.
MISSILE WEAPON RANGES (IN FEET)
Missile fire has three ranges: Short (which gives a +1 to hit), Medium (no bonus to hit), and Long (-1 penalty to hit). In an environment with low ceilings, long range fire may not be allowed.
Weapon Type
Arbalest 5 - 100 / 101 - 200 / 201 - 300
Heavy Crossbow 5 - 80 / 81 - 160 / 161 - 240
Long Bow, Light Crossbow 5 - 70 / 71 - 140 / 141 - 210
Short Bow 5 - 50 / 51 - 100 / 101 - 150
Sling 5 - 40 / 41 - 80 / 81 - 120
Javelin 5 - 30 / 31 - 60 / 61 - 90
Spear, Dart 5 - 20 / 21 - 40 / 41 - 60
Thrown Object 5 - 10 / 11 - 30 / 31 - 50
(Thrown object includes daggers, flasks of oil, throwing axes, rocks, etc.)
