APEX

The Aether responds to your touch, flowing up your limbs in a strange, winding motion. Iridescent sparks jump between your fingers, and you find that controlling their movement is as simple as willing it. The power is intuitive and intoxicating, and the well you pull from feels limitless. You direct your energy to the star before you with a small gesture—a sea of liquid sunlight, the star parts, expelling its ambrosial power in one great wave. A billion voices cry out, then become fuel.

APEX is a tabletop roleplaying game about the Thessians, a race of eldritch beings. As Thessians, the players fight and scheme to bring about their world-spanning plans, whether this involves conquering the universe, building a utopia, or simply exploring the reaches of the unknown. This ruleset encourages narrative-heavy, one-shot style play. You'll need thirteen ten-sided dice (13d10), a completed character sheet, and somewhere to track your character's resources to participate.

Playing the Game

A game of APEX involves players, who control player characters (PCs), and a narrator who controls all other characters (NPCs) and sets the scene during play. Typical play cedes decision-making to the players, who determine their PC's actions and what activities to pursue. Given the overwhelming power of the PCs in this game, most actions require no adjudication on the narrator's part and occur without any dice rolls.


Should a player want to do something unlikely to fail—ranging anywhere from throwing a rock a few hundred yards to flying, changing their form, or consuming mundane poison—the narrator will give the player the go-ahead to describe the action (or describe it themselves, if the player prefers).


Dice rolls, and APEX's dice pool mechanic, only come into play when a PC attempts an action that has a chance to fail. This may include challenging tasks or actions that another character may contest. To resolve such occurrences, every PC has nine abilities that cover different kinds of actions and three approaches associated with those abilities.

Approaches and Abilities

An approach is how a PC attempts to perform some action. APEX categorizes approaches into three general categories: Psyche, Physicality, and Potency. A Psyche approach means a PC emphasizes using their mind and forethought, a Physicality approach means the PC relies more on their physical body, and a Potency approach means the PC uses their magic more directly.


As an example: Tracker wants to locate a runaway thrall. If Tracker hid a trace on the thrall before it escaped, she'd use a Potency approach. If Tracker went looking for footprints or broken branches, she'd use a Physicality approach. If Tracker imagined how the thrall might act and attempted to predict its movements, she'd use a Psyche approach.


The nine abilities are the broad categories a particular action can fall into and are used to describe the skill a PC has in that kind of action. Abilities are associated with a specific approach in groupings of three per approach.

Psyche Abilities

Composure. Stay calm under adversity. Withstand other wills. A PC's Composure is its ability to shrug off attempts to control or influence its actions and how well it can convincingly misdirect others. Some examples that use the Composure ability are avoiding being stunned by an EMP and convincing an inquisitor of your innocence.


Rhetoric. Convince those around you. Tempt the unwilling. A PC's Rhetoric is its ability to manipulate others and persuade them into actions in the PC's favor. Some examples that use the Rhetoric ability are tricking a noble into exposing his secrets in a high court and luring the son of the technocrat into hedonic life of sin.


Wit. Uncover new knowledge. Remember hidden truths. A PC's Wit is its ability to recall and learn information. Some examples that use the Wit ability are learning the true name of a formless anomaly on the rim, distributing esoteric truths to mortals in exchange for favors, and remembering the correct lever sequence to launch a slipship.

Physicality Abilities

Endurance. Withstand great pressure. Struggle against the impossible. A PC's Endurance is its ability to push through hostile environments, shrug off poisoning attempts, and exert itself over long periods. Some examples that use the Endurance ability are descending into the heart of a singularity and holding a continent above the ocean for millennia.


Agility. React to new circumstances. Move with haste.A PC's Agility is its ability to move with speed and grace. Some examples that use the Agility ability are slicing a paladin in half before he can draw his blade and piloting an imperial starcraft through a dense asteroid field.


Power. Shift people and worlds. Apply intense force. A PC's Power is its ability to exert pressure on objects or command fear and respect among its followers. Some examples that use the Power ability are shattering an ancient "unbreakable" artifact and swinging a lightblade through a large moon.

Potency Abilities

Shivers. Tune in to the Aether. Feel the world around you. A PC's Shivers is its ability to perceive the world around it and the effect technology or magic has on reality. Some examples that use the Shivers ability are seeking the location of the last rebels in their underground base and tracing the flow of mana in a broken magicircuit.


Volition. Manifest your will. Create something from nothing. A PC's Volition is its ability to generate or destroy matter and energy. Some examples that use the Volition ability are summoning a ball of fire in the middle of a priest's convocation and consuming the nuclear force in a burgeoning people's space station.


Interfacing. Manipulate complex systems. Speak with machines. A PC's Interfacing is its ability to connect with magical mechanisms and intricate machines. Some examples that use the Interfacing ability are convincing an autonomous turret to fire on its creator and modifying a clock tower to summon fiends when it strikes midnight.

Rolling and Resolving Actions

Each approach has one to three pips (⦿) associated with it, representing how good a PC is at a particular approach--with more pips being better. Similarly, each ability has one to six pips. When a PC attempts to perform an action that might fail (or succeed with consequences), the narrator asks them to perform an ability check. The narrator determines which approach and skill best fit the attempted action and sets the check's difficulty from two to nine. The player rolls a quantity of d10s equal to the approach's pips plus the ability's pips and counts the number of successes: the dice that rolled a six or higher. The action succeeds if the number of successes equals or exceeds the difficulty. If the number of successes is greater than half the difficulty, rounded down, the action partially succeeds or succeeds with consequences. Otherwise, the action fails.


For example, Anger and Despair want to drive their captives to jump into the spike pit in their cell. Despair shows the captives scenes of their loved ones dying and their world melting in an attempt to rob them of their will to live. The narrator asks Despair to roll a Psyche(⦿⦿)+Rhetoric(⦿⦿⦿) roll and sets the difficulty at three. Despair has five pips between her approach and ability, so she rolls five dice. She gets two successes, which doesn't match the difficulty but passes the half mark; while some of the captives do self-impale, the rest bolster themselves against her words. Seeing this, Anger gets bored and teleports into the chamber, trying to throw the prisoners in one by one. The narrator asks Anger to roll a Physicality(⦿⦿⦿)+Power(⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿) roll and keeps the difficulty at 3. Anger rolls nine dice and gets six successes. As such, he successfully throws the remaining captives into the pit.

Player Resources


Health Points

While Thessians are the apex of life within the Astra, they are still bound by the rules of the world and its underlying Narrative. Powerful beings (such as the PCs) must maintain a high local information density to manifest and control their physical body. Every PC has up to 10 Health Points (HP), representing the maximum information density a character can safely lose. When a PC's HP is reduced to zero, the character loses coherence and temporarily ceases to exist.


Coherence Loss and Death

A Thessian is powerful enough that the prospect of killing one is nigh impossible and, as such, cannot occur during a typical session of APEX. Death is not the only possible negative outcome, however. Coherence loss renders a PC immobile, unable to act until aided by an ally. Fortunately, the great power in a Thessian's physical form can be harnessed in a potent final burst when a PC falls, causing beneficial effects unique to each character (as detailed later in this document).

Action Points

In addition to their HP, each Thessian has latent energy that they can harness to increase their natural ability. This energy is represented by Action Points (AP), which a PC can have 2-10 of. In a session of APEX, a player may spend their AP on one of two things: they may Push the Narrative, or they may Activate a Power.


Push the Narrative

Whenever a player is asked to make an ability check, they may expend some of their AP to Push the Narrative and gain an edge. For each AP spent before the roll, the player may add one additional die to their dice pool. In exchange for this significant boost in ability, a PC strains the Narrative, causing it to rebound later in the session. For each AP spent in this fashion, the narrator gains their own AP, which may be used to empower adversaries encountered during play.


Activate a Power

Each Thessian has a handful of Powers -- unique combat abilities that encourage varied playstyles and gameplay niches. During combat, players may spend an AP to activate one of their Powers. Spending an AP this way does not have a negative consequence like Push the Narrative might. The Powers available to your character are detailed in the character creation portion of this ruleset.

Recovering Resources

There are a few ways to recover a PC's HP and AP. The simplest method to borrow from an ally: a Thessian may donate their resources to a close ally, though this will take time in combat. Also, a player may choose to convert their resources between the two pools at a 2:1 exchange rate. However, the most efficient way to replenish resources is to take them from others. Whenever a player slays a foe in combat, a d10 is rolled. If the die lands on a four, five, or six, they regain one HP. On a seven or above, they regain one AP. The last method to recover resources is on revival--if an ally aids an incoherent PC, they return to life with half their HP and AP rounded up.

Combat

Combat in APEX is structured into rounds and turns. When a round begins, all Thessians take a turn in any order they like. Once the PCs have gone, the enemies take their turns as one group. After the enemies complete their actions, a new round begins.


During their turn, a PC can move and take one action. Movement in APEX is abstract--a target may be in one of three ranges. If the target is at most a few steps away, it's Close; if it's within 100 feet, it's Near, and anything further than that is Far. During a turn, movement allows the PC to move one increment towards or away from a target.


An action is anything a player chooses to do during their turn. This is typically Activating a Power, but if the player doesn't want to spend an AP, they can instead perform a Freeform Action: anything that might require an ability check. Freeform Action are less resource-intensive but have a chance to fail or backfire depending on the difficulty of the act. Besides those two options, a player may aid an incoherent companion and donate resources.


An example player round might look something like this: Hunger, Honor, and Mania are leveling the capital of a country that insulted them. Honor marks the general and one of the larger platoons with his passive Power, then spends an AP to swap the positions of Mania and an enemy tank, placing her right in the middle of combat. Mania spends an AP to force the enemy to fire upon itself, taking out two platoons at once, then leaps into the air to avoid enemy fire. She gets an HP drop and an AP drop from her two kills. Hunger wants to consume the nearest battle mech, which the narrator sets at a difficulty three Physicality(⦿⦿)+Endurance(⦿⦿⦿⦿) check. Hunger rolls four successes and eats the mech. No drops are rolled from the battle mech.


The enemy response might look like this: The general and the larger platoon cannot act due to Honor's mark, so they do nothing. A smaller platoon is still near Mania, so they unload their weapons and deal 1 Harm to her. One of the battle mechs near Hunger detonates its energy core in a last-ditch effort to stop the Thessian. Hunger takes 2 Harm and fails a difficulty two Physicality(⦿⦿)+Composure(⦿) check, losing an AP as a result.

Creating a Player Character


Portfolios

A Portfolio is a collection of powers that differentiates any Thessian from another. Each PC has one Portfolio, which will largely dictate the role that character has in combat. Each Portfolio has a passive power (which activates for free when certain conditions are met), four active powers, a Coherence Loss event, and a selection of 17 specializations.


Specializations are minor modifications a player can make to their character and are split into two categories: General specializations and Power specializations. General specializations apply to a Portfolio as a whole, while Power specializations are applied to a specific Power.

Building your Character

To begin building your PC, you must start with a theme. All Thessians have a theme or ideal that they represent and inherit their name from. This can be a kind of creature (Dragon, Beast, or Angel), a concept (Archival or Endless Night), or an emotion (Hunger, Vainglory, and Monotony).


Once you have your theme, it's time to select your resources. You start with 2 HP and 2 AP, and have eight points to distribute between the two of them.


Next you select your Portfolio. Each Portfolio comes with a series of Powers and a selection of specializations. Select one, and four specializations from that Portfolio. If you choose any Power specializations, remember to choose which Power they apply to!


Finally, you make your ability scores: distribute your aptitudes, assign pips to abilities, and select a specialty. First is distributing aptitudes--every player character is excellent at one approach, good at a second approach, and okay at the third approach. Assign three pips to one, two to another, and one to a third. Next is assigning pips to abilities. Each character starts with one pip in every skill, and 18 free pips can be assigned to any ability. The maximum number of pips set to any one ability equals two plus the associated approach's number of pips. Finally, select a specialty. Every PC has one ability they're particularly good at. Add one pip onto any skill--this pip ignores the maximum limit from the previous step.


For example: Caregiver likes to redeem her foes and take care of them even in their afterlife. She chooses a 8 HP/4 AP split and the Grim Portfolio. She wants her thralls to be a little hardier, so she takes the Builder specialization. She wants to be able to command multiple thralls at a time, so she takes the Marionette specialization and applies it to her Puppet Power. She'd like to use Haunt often, so she takes the Efficient and Rallying Cry specializations as well, and applies both to Haunt.


For her ability array, she wants to be wise and magically powerful but not particularly physical. She assigns three pips to Psyche, two to Potency, and one to Physicality. Since that makes Psyche associated abilities have a max of five pips, she puts five in Composure and Rhetoric and three in Wit. Physicality associated abilities have a maximum of three pips, so she arranges two in each. Potency associated abilities have a max of four pips; she puts three in Shivers and Volition and two in Interfacing. Finally, she selects Composure as her specialty, bringing the pip total to six for that ability.


Phenomenon
Radiant
Weaver
Bulwark
Pox
Grim
Variable
Sanguine
Accursed

Phenomenon


You are a living natural disaster, and once you're set in motion, the destruction you bring is rapid and indiscriminate.


Passive Power

Hazardous Aura

Merely being in your presence is harmful to most. Deal 1 Harm to a Close enemy at the start of your turn.


Active Powers

Unrelenting

You inexorably hunt down your foes. Deal 2 Harm to an enemy at Close range, or 3 Harm to them if you moved before activating Unrelenting.

Overflow

You let your divine energy radiate outward. Deal 1 Harm to all enemies within Close range.

Elemental Storm

You streak across the ground like wildfire, dealing 1 Harm to every injured enemy within Close or Near range of you.

Trace

You hurl a projectile at a Far enemy, dealing 1 Harm. At the start of the next round, you can instantly teleport next to that enemy.


Coherence Loss

Self-Destruct

Choose a single enemy at any range. Move to Close range and deal Harm equal to your Physicality + Potency.


General Specializations

Wellspring

+1 AP

Hardy

+1 HP

Hardy

+1 HP

Mercury

You may move twice in a round.

Honed

+1 Harm to Hazardous Aura.

Quick-Strike

Hazardous Aura can target two enemies.

Retaliate

Hazardous Aura activates every time you take Harm, as well as at the start of your turn.


Power Specializations

Finder

+1 Range

Lethal

+1 Harm

Lethal

+1 Harm

Efficient

Costs no AP

Prepped

First time this power is used in combat, it doesn't count as an action.

Overclock

Spend 1 extra AP to double the Harm.

Sweep

Unrelenting affects all enemies Close to target as well.

Smoldering

Enemies hit by Overflow take 1 Harm if they act that round.

Phase-Shift

Harm for Elemental Storm equals Potency instead of 1.

Pinned

Target of Trace cannot act this round.