Focus

This page has a simplified version of the tables and lists most commonly used during a session of Dead Weight. If you are unsure about a rule, always check the original tables and list, since they might have a more complete explanation.

Afflictions

Afflictions
Afflictions	Effect	Getting rid of *
Hungry	Wounds do not heal.	Eat food.
Parched	Cannot recover fatigue.	Drink water.
Bleeding	Receive one fatigue point every turn.	Use bandages or some other form of first aid.
Sleepy	Can't use extra effort or help friends on tests.	Camp or drink coffee, or receive a wound in combat.
Angry	Can't reroll your dice with proficiency.	Drink a cup of tea or hot chocolate.
Shaken	Can't use the Catch Breath action in combat or during exploration.	Rest in the camp phase.
Nauseated	During combat, you have one less action.	Some potions and tonics. Healed in the interlude phase.
Terrified	Rolling a 4 on attribute tests doesn't count as a success.	Drink wine or other alcoholic drink, or defeat a challenging foe.
Hopeless	Rolling a 5 also causes fatigue.	Escaping alive from the dungeon or survive a challenging fight.
Cursed	Wounds do not heal by resting. Can see ghosts.	Only removed by magic or miracles.
Plagued	Coughs constantly. When receiving fatigue, receive a wound instead.	Only removed by magic or miracles.
Doomed	When the doom tracker moves, it moves one extra point.	Only removed by magic or miracles.

* Not exclusive, always check item and spell descriptions for more ways to remove afflictions.

Attack notation

Weapon Effects
Symbol	Effect
B	Causes the Bleeding affliction.
P	Pierces through Armor.
R	Can't be reduced, except by armor.
N	Non-lethal. Ignore any damage that would kill or mortally wound a character.

Combat Actions

If the player has one or more stunned tokens, they can only do a recover action until there are no more tokens left.

Attack (1 action)

Choose a weapon and a target. Read the weapon description for any special rules.
Test the weapon attribute to hit.
For each dodge and shield token the defender spends, they may choose a die and force the attacker to reroll it.

Recover (1 action)

You may remove one shield token or dodge token. If you do, also recover one fatigue point from a chosen attribute. You may remove one stunned token from the character.

Move (1 action)

Move to a new position - the maximum number of tiles is your current number of dexterity die x2. Adventurer's cannot move diagonally. Moving will remove any unused shield tokens, but will keep dodge tokens.

After moving out of a square adjacent to an enemy, the adventurer must immediately stop the movement.

Catch breath (1 action)

Recover one fatigue point for each attribute.

Defend (1 action)

Requires a shield or something that can be used as a shield. Place the number of shield tokens noted on your equipped shield. Characters can't have more than 5 shield tokens at any time.

Dodge (2 actions)

Make a dexterity test, place 2 dodge token on a success. Add another one on a great success on your character.

Cast spell, invoke a prayer or perform a combat maneuver (1 or 2 actions)

Choose an available spell, prayer or maneuver and tests the appropriate attribute specified in the description. Unless specified in the description, this costs 1 action and has close range. Execute that effect.

Use item or change equipment (1 action)

Equip and/or use an item for its effect. You can also give or use an item on someone on the same tile if they have inventory space.

Help another (2 actions)

Next turn, an ally will receive an extra dice from you in all their actions; can only be used on allies that are on the same tile, or an adjacent tile. Check Receiving Help for more information.

Exploration Actions

Move (1 turn)

Move to a different location inside the dungeon.

Loot (1 turn)

Looting a location does not require a test: the GM just lists what they find in that location and the adventurers can choose what to pick up. Looting can only be used in a safe location, with no enemies or traps. If the players want to try something riskier, it's a freeform action, and may require a test.

If the location has a trap, the adventurers may fall for it.

Parley (1 turn)

Talk to someone or something in the dungeon.

Start Combat (1 turn)

Start a combat. The whole combat only counts as one exploration turn.

Catch your breath (1 turn)

Restore up to one point of fatigue for each attribute. Players may also choose to use any items tagged as quick, too, such as bandages, light torches and drink water.

Look for traps (1 turn)

Looking for traps requires the infiltration skill, and an explanation of how they look or at least some kind of tool, like a pole.

Use a quick item (free)

Any item tagged as quick can be used without using a turn.

Use a slow item (1 turn)

Each character can use one item that is tagged as slow. Items tagged as camp cannot be used.

Cast a spell or prayer (1 turn)

Choose an available spell or prayer and perform the appropriate tests specified in the spell or prayer description. Execute that spell effect.

Freeform (1 or more turns)

It allows the adventurers to do pretty much anything they want and require some improvisation of the GM. Freeform actions usually involve interacting with the ambient, creative thinking and solving puzzles.

Set up Camp (1 turn)

Starts the camp phase.

The whole camp phase counts as 1 exploration turn.

Take a free action (free)

Some actions will not trigger a turn.

Players may rearrange their adventurer's equipment, equipping and un-equipping items.
Adventurers may use any item tagged as quick.
Snuffing out torches or other equally simple actions.
Talk to each other.

Camp

Setup

Add 1 action if the adventurers are camping in a dry and stable place.
Add 1 action for each camping supply item used.
Add 1 action for each adventurer with the survivalist skill.
Add 1 action if the players decide to make a fire. It requires a camping supply or firewood.
Add 2 actions and advance the doom tracker if the players decide to take a long rest.
Subtract 1 action if the location is particularly filthy or unhealthy. (Cold, flooded, littered with corpses, etc.)

Camp Actions

Keep a lookout (1 actions)

Remove 1 ambush dice.

A well deserved rest (1 actions)

Recover all of the party's fatigue points.

Removes the Shaken affliction.

Un-exhaust all prayers.

Use items (free)

Adventurers may use as many items tagged as Slow or Quick as they want.

Use camp items (1 action)

Each adventurer can use one item tagged with Camp for its effects.

Cook some food (1 action)

Cooking, different than other items has an special action, and requires a fire and at least one camping supplies to have been used during this camp.

When cooking one ration can feed 2 adventurers. If someone has the cooking skill one ration can feed 3 adventurers.

A regular ration will remove both the hungry and parched afflictions. Regular rations can also be consumed raw, feeding only one adventurer, with the use item action.

When using special ration, the ration will not remove the hungry affliction, but may cure other affliction instead. Special rations will also remove the parched affliction.

Tea or hot chocolate removes teh angry affliction.
Coffee removes the sleepy affliction.

Memorize spells and prayers (1 action)

Wizards and Clerics may memorize and forget spells and prayers.

Sleep (2 actions)

Recover all fatigue points of the whole party. Removes the Sleepy and Shaken afflictions. Everyone heals 1 wound.

Un-exhaust all prayers.

Add 1 ambush dice.

Skills

Animal Affinity: You have advantage when testing for anything that involves taming, understanding or tracking wild animals.
- Beastmaster:(advanced) You have advantage for anything that involves fighting, taming, understanding or tracking animals. You have a pet that follows you around (medium ally).
Ward the dead: May perform a ritual using 1 exploration turn to ward the dead vigil from setting inside a circle with 1 meter radius. Does not affect anything that the dead vigil has already set, only stops it from happening.
Cooking: Each ration can feed an extra adventurer in the camp phase. You get 1 free ration at the start of the interlude.
- Master Chef:(advanced) Each ration can feed two extra adventurers in the camp phase. You get 3 free ration at the start of the interlude.
Crafting: You have advantage when testing for crafting things. During the camp phase you can repair 2 points of armor automatically.
Duelist: You may perform a feint action in combat (1 action). Discard all shield and dodge tokens from your enemy.
- Swashbuckler:(advanced) If your feint removes a shield token, your opponent may not attack next turn.
Fearless: Once per combat you may heal one presence wound.
Haggle: During the interlude you can re-roll the price of an item once. You must use the new result.
- Trade network: During the interlude you can re-roll the price of an item once. You must choose to use the new or old result. You may also reroll the item availablilty roll once.
Holy Rites: You have an extensive knowledge about the new gods, prayers and the saints. You may make holy water using clean water and 1 exploration turn.
Infiltration: Allows the search for traps action without proper tools during expeditions and an advantage when sneaking.
Intimidate: You may perform an intimidate action in combat (2 actions), attacking with PRE 1N all nearby enemies. Only one intimidate action can be used per combat.
Loremaster: You have an extensive knowledge about the world history, languages and different cultures.
Pilfer: You earn 1d6 silver coins at the start of the interlude.
Occult Studies: You have an extensive knowledge about old gods, magic and the occult.
Ritualist: During camp you can spend 1 action to remove one point the omens tracker or doom tracker.
Shield Expert: Add 1 extra shield token when defending.
- Shield Master: (advanced) Add 1 extra shield token when defending. Moving does not remove shield tokens.
Stalker: Before combat, if undetected by an enemy you have a free critical hit.
Street Wise: You do not get robbed in the interlude and you have one extra daily action. You may reduce the price of common items by 1 silver (to a minimum of 1).
Surgeon: During the camp phase you may perform an Intelligence test to heal one wound of each character in your group.
Survivalist: 1 extra proficiency point for anything that involves surviving in the wilderness. Adds 1 extra camp action.
Slippery: You may spend dodge tokens during the enemy turn to move one tile.
Veteran: (1 explorer action) Test presence, on a success you will know how much doom this location currently has and how much doom is required to trigger the next step.

Weapon and armor use depends on the character arsenal skill. Using an equipment without the proper skill all tests you make are made with disadvantage.

Weapon master: Can use any weapon or armor.
Basic weapon training: Can use one handed melee weapons, any staves, any ranged weapons and leather armor.
No weapon training: Can use only small one handed weapons, any staves and no armor.

Special Traits

Berserker: During combat, ignore strength fatigue and wounds when rolling tests. You still take wounds and fatigue normally, and so your character will collapse in exhaustion if your available dices go lower than zero.
Bad omens: Every time you have a critical fail on a test, advance the omens tracker.
Battle trance: Every time you kill an enemy you get an extra action.
Cold blood: You may back-stab enemies that are engaged in combat to another character or distracted, for that you may use Dexterity to hit with weapons that would require Strength. Enemies can't use resistance to reduce your damage and you cause one extra wound.
Divine mandate: You may cast prayers. You require a holy symbol and to have previously memorized them. Check the prayers section for more information.
Hardened: When receiving wounds from an attack, you may test strength, on a success, resist 1 wound. On a great success resist 2 wounds.
Magic user: You may invoke spells. You require a magic conductor and to have previously memorized them. Check the spells section for more information.
Rejected by death: If your character would get mortally wounded, roll 2d!, if triggered, ignore the mortal wound.
Dauntless: When you get a success on a test, you may roll 2 extra dice and add them to this test. This increases your great success and fatigue chance.
Third eye: You can see the omens tracker.