Stress die

Rolling a stress die refers to a method of the Ars Magica game mechanics to determine the outcome of an action or event under stressful circumstances. A stress die carries with it the possibility of spectacular success or catastrophic failure.

First, you roll a single ten-sided die, which is typically numbered 0 through 9. A zero is special: there is a chance the character will Botch, and the player must roll botch dice to see whether that happens. Even if no botch occurs, the roll is treated as zero.

A 1, on the other hand, allows the player to roll again, doubling the result of the next roll. Additional 1's multiply the next result by four, eight, sixteen, and so forth, until a number other than 1 is rolled. All other numbers (2-9) count as their actual values. On the second and subsequent roll, a zero stands for a value of 10.

• Example: You roll 3. The result is 3.
• Example: You roll 0. The result is 0, and you must roll a certain number of botch dice determined by the Storyguide to see if you botch.
• Example: You roll 1, roll 0. The result is 0, and you must roll a certain number of botch dice determined by the Storyguide to see if you botch.

Unlike a Simple Die that is used in relaxed situations, a Stress Die is used to reflect stressful circumstances. Combat and most spell casting are both examples for the use of a Stress Die. Due to the open-ended multiplication from rolling consecutive 1's]], a stress die can (rarely) yield spectacular results.

References

• Stress Die (inset) ArM5, page 6
• Stress Die, ArM5 page 6 column 3

See Also

• Botch
• Botch die
• Simple die
• Quality die
• Low die

Legacy Page

The history of this page before August 6, 2010 is archived at Legacy:stress_die