There are a few basic things you’ll need to prepare for your Critical Fit adventure: 

• A character sheet.

• A safe area to exercise in.

• A 20-sided die.

• Water or sports drink.

• A timer of some kind.

• Your imagination.

We also recommend the following items for ease of tracking hit points and consumables:

• A whiteboard and marker.

• A spindown 20-sided die.

Critical Fit is a game focused on letting your exercise performance decide the outcome of your encounters. For situations in which an exercise wouldn’t necessarily make sense, we use a single D20. Tables will be provided for the results of the various types of rolls you will have to make.

To create your Critical Fit character, first perform the fitness tests as described here:

Fitness Tests

Second, select your name, race, and hometown.

Third, select your character’s background: Gatherer, Crafter, or Battle. Select one ability from your chosen background’s starting ability list.

Ability List

Fourth, choose an attribute you want to improve.

You are ready to play!

Critical Fit uses hit points, or HP to define how hardy your character is. You can lose HP from enemy attacks or traps in dungeons. Once you are at 0 HP, your character falls unconscious. If you are playing alone, that means your quest is over and you will wake up at the nearest town (thanks to the kindness of another adventurer). If playing in a group, you may be revived by a healing Ability or Item.

You start out with 3 HP. You can increase your available HP during an Encounter by equipping Gear or using an Item.

The reps needed to perform your combat abilities may be reduced using aether crystals.  These materials can be found in the world via loot and monster bounties. For example, binding a push-up crystal to your gear will reduce the amount of push-ups needed to perform any abilities requiring that exercise by one.  This crystal has the same effect whether bound to weapons or armor.

The reps needed to withstand monster attacks may be reduced. Typically this will be in the form of monster material drops that are related to that exercise.  For example, because gryphons have a mechanic of planks, binding their feathers to your gear will reduce your plank time by 1 second.  These upgrades must be applied to armor.

Certain monster materials will grant you an elemental damage or resistance buff.  If you bind the material to your weapon, it will imbue it with the associated element.  This carries over to attacks with that weapon.  If you bind the material to your armor, it will grant you resistance to damage of that element.

 Gathering in Critical Fit is a simple process: you may make a gathering roll for every 10 minutes of cardiovascular activity performed in a single daily bout. This means if you go for a 30 minute walk, you may make three gathering rolls. The roll itself is an expression of your perception when traveling the land: you may gather any item that you roll at or above its difficulty rating.

Here is an example of a gathering session:

Humphrey goes for a 30 minute walk in the morning pre-training. When he returns, he rolls his d20 three times, getting a 6, a 12, and a 17. Humphrey knows he’ll need a Potion of Healing for his encounter later, so he opts to gather in a forest in-game. He consults the gathering table for Forests below:

• 1-5: Fresh Water

• 6-10: Binding Root

• 11-15: Blue Herbs

• 16-18: Red Berries

• 19: Stonetree Sap

• 20: Strongheart Truffle

A Potion of Healing can be crafted with Fresh Water, Binding Root, and Red Berries. Humphrey uses the 6 to take Fresh Water, the 12 to take Binding Root, and the 17 to take Red Berries. He can then set out to craft his Potion.

Once you’ve gathered the necessary materials, you can then craft them into essential items, weapons, and armor. To craft, you will be performing rehabilitation and prehabilitation exercises. These are designed to correct postural deficiencies, increase core strength, and counteract the habits that we often find ourselves locked into (such as sitting).

Start by picking a recipe. Most item recipes comprise simple ingredients and take little preparation. Some more complicated recipes require a multi-stage process to craft, such as weapons, armor, or more powerful potions. Both options will be described below.

Simple Recipes

To craft a simple recipe, simply choose an Upper Body exercise and a Lower Body exercise from the available options. Perform the required reps of these exercises to craft the item. If there is a difficulty rating on the item, roll a d20. As long as you roll at or above that number, you successfully craft the item. If you roll below the number, the craft fails and the materials are consumed.

advanced recipes

Crafting advanced recipes differs in process from crafting simple recipes. It is a three phase process, with a chance to gain a special fourth phase for more customization. Each phase features an exercise challenge and a d20 roll. If you pass the exercise challenge and the roll, you can move on to the next phase.

These phases are described below:

Preparation Phase
In this phase, you are collecting and refining your raw materials into workable components for the next phase. This die roll will typically be very forgiving.

Synthesis Phase
This is the main phase of putting together your final item, assembling your refined prepared materials into a cohesive whole. This roll will tend to be a little tougher than the preparation phase roll.

Finishing Phase
These are the final touches on your masterpiece - if crafting weapons or armor, these are the embellishments and markings that show off your skill. If you pass this more difficult roll, the item will be made high quality (HQ), which opens up the special fourth phase.

Augmentation Phase
In the augmentation phase, you can add effects to your items, weapon and armor if you have the requisite materials. The effect will vary by the material that you use to augment the craft - you can add elemental damage or resistance, status resistance, or even reduce certain exercise reps. No roll is required, only the exercise challenge.

Combat encounters are handled in our favorite manner - exercise! You will be powering all of your attacks through a Moveset of five exercises specific to your Class. Of the five exercises in your Moveset, you’ll pick a number of them to be your Rotation. This number of exercises will be dictated by the Encounter you are running.

The Rotation deals damage, or DMG, to the enemy you are engaged with. Your DMG number is determined by your equipped Gear.

The number of reps of each exercise in your Rotation is determined by the enemy type. This number tends to increase with the difficulty of the enemy or the Encounter.

Below are examples of the types of Combat Encounters.

Mob Battles are timed Encounters with a group of enemies. You will have a set amount of time to do as many Rotations as possible. If you do not meet the minimum Rotations, you will lose HP as determined by the Encounter.

Mob Battle: Pixies
Rotation Exercises: 3
To-Hit Reps: 4
Time Limit: 6 minutes
Minimum Rotations: 12
If Failed: Lose 1 HP

Boss Battles are endurance Encounters against a single enemy. Your goal is to reduce the boss’ HP to zero before they use their Enrage Ability. There are three phases to Boss Battles:

• Damage Phase: You will have 1 minute to deal as much damage as possible by performing your Rotation.

• Mechanic Phase: The Boss will force you to perform a certain amount of reps of an exercise in 30 seconds. If you fail to meet the check, you will suffer a penalty.

• Rest Phase: You will have 30 seconds to rest, resolve any penalties from the mechanics phase, and decide whether to use an Ability for the next Damage or Mechanic Phase.

Here is an example of a Boss Battle:

Stone Guardian
Hit Points: 20
Rotation Exercises: 2
To-Hit Reps: 6
Enrage: 9 minutes
Mechanics:
1st Mechanic Phase: Stone Fist - 30 mountain climbers. Penalty: Lose 1 HP
2nd Mechanic Phase: Petrification - 30 jumping jacks. Penalty: -1 DMG per Rotation in the next Damage Phase.

Once the Boss’ HP is depleted, the battle ends immediately.