If you’ve just bumbled in here and wonder what the what, check out Part One here. You’ll get back here eventually.
The Summing-Uppening
Zoom zoom zoom in the boom boom
The Past, Extracted
While writing this review, I’ve done some research online to see what other people think of Nimble. The response is varied. The people who’ve played it (almost) universally love it; those who’ve read it but haven’t played it think it’s intriguing; and those who haven’t done either are SUPER skeptical of the no-roll-to-hit mechanic. Most of the latter trot out all the other no-hit games and what they did wrong, and therefore this system must have the same problems and ugh no thanks I read a review of Into the Odd and it’s not for me.
But I think concentrating on that one aspect of Nimble buries the lede. What Nimble actually does, quite well I think, is give players agency even when it’s not their turn. The Action/Reaction three-action economy allows players to shove allies out of the way and take hits for them, give their friends advantage, reduce the rolls of enemies targeting them or their buddies (increasing the chance of a miss and making it impossible to crit), force the GM to answer one question honestly, and a whole bunch of other things, on demand, any time. You don’t roll your dice and then sit on your ass watching your friends and enemies bumble around for half an hour.
Nimble also has a lot of fun dice mechanics. I know that’s a shallow compliment, but it’s true. Rolling a bunch of clicky-clacks for Advantage or Disadvantage is fun. Counting dice from left to right is unique and kinda fun. Exploding dice is always fun. (One thing I didn’t mention earlier is that even if a monster has armor, if you crit, the extra dice are applied directly to their HP without armor being considered. That gets players hyped up.)
Anyway, back to the no-hit thing. HP in Nimble aren’t the be-all end-all. Reaching 0 HP does give you the Dying condition, which is bad, but any amount of healing fixes that. What you really need to keep track of are Wounds. If someone gets boofed to 0 HP away from the group, they’re not dead, but they’re SUPER vulnerable to more attacks that will kill ‘em quick. The rest of the group has to make Sophie’s Choices to either fix their friend or squirrel them off the battlefield.
Nimble modestly increases a character’s HP at the beginning, but doesn’t do a whole lot else to make characters survivable. This makes Nimble a little more deadly than D&D, especially 5e, which IMO errs too far on the side of caution. At higher levels particularly, most characters will need the support of their comrades and good tactics to survive what the system considers “tough but fair” fights. It’s not OSR deadly but it doesn’t hold your hand either.
My initial negative reaction to the Armor system has been lessened after going in depth on the martial classes (Commander, Berserker, Zephyr, Oathsworn, etc.). Most of them have ways to increase their number of Wounds, a one-time-per-fight ability to ignore a hit that would take them to 0 HP, limited abilities to heal themselves, and other ways to stay standing long enough to either get in the killing blow or get away. Meanwhile, Mages had just better hope nobody gets too close.
One special thing to note: Nimble doesn’t have opportunity attacks unless you’re a Berserker. Kiting is back, baby!
The Present, Examined
Nimble has a buck ton of support out there. I mentioned everything you get with the digital version. There’s also a very active Discord, support on about every VTT, more How to Play videos than you can shake your mystical staff at (oh is that what you kids are calling it these days), a homebrew zine called Nim+ which is up to five issues now, and a bunch of character generators and reference websites. The most popular “unofficial” one as of this writing is the Nimblenomicon, which not only lets you build a character but has export functionality to Foundry.
There’s a class which I didn’t mention in this review, the Hexbinder, which Evan came out with after Nimble’s first printing. I didn’t touch on it because, well, it’s not in the book yet. But it is now considered a full official core class. It’s mostly a debuff type which casts hexes and curses on things, Scarlet Witch style. Pretty cool if that’s your jam.
The Future, Expected
Evan recently finished up a Kickstarter for the first major Nimble expansion, Monsters & More. This book will contain a huge roster of new monsters and legendaries, plus … hold on to your hat … more. In particular, two new subclasses for every class, four new classes (Hexbinder, Psion, Artificer, and Revenant), a new Earth magic school, a bunch of new adventures, more loot, adventuring companions, standees, VTT tokens, an expanded GM’s screen, and more more more more. Geez, Evan, take care of your health, son.
Beyond that, who knows. I have a blog, not a crystal ball.
The Long-Awaited Summary
About time
Nimble is really cool. I liked it enough to write a six-part series on it. I suppose, comparatively, that means I like it 60% as much as Sword World. (But of course how could I choose. You’re all my precious children.)
It may well be my favorite take on heroic fantasy, rules-wise. It not only occupies a similar space as D&D, but it almost aggressively elbows its way in and pushes D&D aside by being the cool kid with the nifty mechanics. You just get out of here with your 50-year-old rules baggage, old man. We’re doing things different around here. *draws on a cig, blows smoke in D&D’s face*
One criticism I will levy is that it’s thin on anything not combat related. As I mentioned last time, I think that’s mostly due to combat requiring more rules to retain enough verisimilitude to keep everyone at the table. I’m not sure how to change that without just adding more rules, a.k.a. more pages. And it’d probably be unsatisfying to boot, like most social adjudication rules are.
Also the game world as presented is just like the most average thing in the universe, but I’ve already said my piece about that unflavored bowl of Quaker’s Oats.
Anyway, beyond those itchy bits, it’s a really good system, verging on great. Give it a shot. Two point four thumbs up.
You can’t have your pudding if you don’t have a GM
All right, entering the home stretch. The GM’s Guide is the longest book in the Nimble trilogy, so this may be the longest part of this review. Sorry ahead of time. Let’s go!
GMing Nimbly
The GM’s Guide pops right off with a chapter about Starting as a GM, gently reassuring newbies, at the first sentence, that GMing isn’t that hard. So after that lie, they move on to the rest of this section.
The advice they give is decent, actually: read the rules, get your friends together, and play the friggin’ game. Roll with the players’ actions and let them be creative. Stop as little as possible to look up rules. Don’t just straight up say “No.” Give everyone the spotlight. Be generous with information and telegraph danger. Do as much as possible to avoid the appearance of cheating. This section is only two pages long but it creates a healthy mindset for new GMs to carry into the game. I sure wish some of my GMs in the past had read this.
The next section, Advanced GM Tools, gives some extra tips and tricks for people who’ve GMed a few times. These include things like telling players things that their characters don’t or can’t know, like describing a foreboding figure watching them that their characters don’t see, or telling them what their characters could know but don’t. The example given is walking toward a goblin camp, blowing a Lore check, and telling them, “Gee, too bad, you might have known that goblins always set traps around their camps. Oh well. Make a DEX save.” How much the players are willing to buy into this kind of narrative shift depends on their tastes and tolerance, of course. The author seems pretty enamored with the idea though.
What they’re really hot for, though, are character vignettes. Two full pages of this section are taken up pitching the introduction of each character with a brief one-on-one RP sesh, with multiple examples showing how to tailor them to the characters’ backstories. I mean, it’s kind of a neat idea, but I dunno if it’s two pages neat, you know? Luckily it’s all optional. And maybe it tickles some enterprising GM’s imagination the right way.
Adventures
We segue into a chapter about Making Your Own Adventures. One thing that immediately stands out here is a tip I’ve more often seen in narrative-forward games: create problems, not solutions. The players will (the book says) come up with more creative solutions than you can, so let them cook and the chips will fall where they may. This feels oddly progressive for a game that has so much D&D in its bones. I don’t mind the sentiment, but some of my contemporary grogs may raise a brow.
Everything else here is more standard fare. Have bad guys to fight, cool places to explore, people to influence, traps to disarm, lore to consume, treasures to loot, all that. This isn’t an adventure generator or anything like that, just guidelines and suggestions.
The chapter ends with a page of what to avoid: dismissing things with “it doesn’t matter,” punishing curiosity, letting the players adjudicate game stuff, ruling too hard, rolling too much, talking too much or not enough (a balance found through experience, mostly), and cheating except when absolutely necessary. You know. Wink wink. Nah, I’m joking. *shakes head subtly*
Adventuring Rewards
This part is structured as a combination of theory and practice, with a small section about a certain game concept, then a few items which exemplify that concept. A couple of for-instances:
Release Valves: You might want to give a party a way to escape a possible TPK. Here are three magic items that do that in different ways: a Gem of Escape to physically leave the area, a Glacier in a Bottle to stymie nearby enemies briefly, and a Phoenix Helm to give a glorious resurrection to the person who dies wearing it.
Story Items: You may need an in-world way to give the players some info. Presenting: The Grimoire of Truths, a sentient book which knows much about the history of the world but secretly wants to lead the characters astray, the Hear-ring, which allows wearers to communicate across great distances, and the Pocket Cauldron, which can brew a potion that allows the user to see the past or the future.
The next section is a page of Secret Spells. Turns out the school spells presented in the Core Rules aren’t all the spells out there, and the GM can introduce some of these new ones if they wish. These spells include Revive (Tier 3 Radiant), which can bring the dead back to life within 10 days; Speak with Dead (Tier 4 Necrotic), bidding a corpse to answer three questions; and Hearth & Home (Tier 3 Fire), which conjures an inn for 12 hours where the party can take a Safe Rest. Most of these spells have been made “secret” because they can unbalance a campaign in slight ways, so their introduction is left up to any GM that doesn’t mind letting a genie out of a bottle now and again.
We get a list of how much gold a character should have per level and what to do if they have too much of it, as well as a small table of Lodging Boons. These give characters temporary perks for spending extra money on luxurious rooms, like healing extra Wounds, a little temp HP or Speed, inspiration (reroll one die once), and the other sorts of advantages you’d expect from having stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night.
The chapter ends with a page about Boons. Rather than giving them stuff they can lose, the GM can just imbue PCs with permanent abilities directly, usually as a quest reward or a magic buff. Minor Boons are mostly just +1 bonuses, added to initiative, max mana, skill points, etc. Major Boons are bigger and better: select a second Ancestry Trait, gain +2 Armor, heal extra HP every time you’re healed, learn a cantrip in a school you don’t know, etc.
Topping the list are EPIC Boons (capitalization from the original), like Epic Defense (Shields have +3 Armor), Epic Stamina (rolling 4 or higher on a Hit Die during a Field Rest also heals one Wound), Epic Criticals (when rolling crit damage, replace on die with a d20), etc. They’re all, to coin a phrase, pretty great. Every class gains an EPIC Boon at level 19, too, so that’s neat.
Monsters
But my friends call me “Jim”
Now, at last, someone for the PCs to push around. This chapter is divided into five main parts.
Running Monsters: a discussion of monster armor (Medium armor uses just the dice of an attack without stat adds, Heavy armor halves the amount from Medium armor); Flunkies and Minions (Flunkies can’t crit, and Minions are taken out by any attack and all Minions attacking one target are combined into a single attack for Defending purposes); and monster stats. Stats in this game are boiled down to the absolute bone. By default, every monster has sensible defaults: medium sized, unarmored, speed 6, reach 1, and rolls 1d20 for saves. The monster listing only shows one of these stats if it varies. So for instance here’s the entire stat block of a standard Goblin:
Little shits
How fast is a Goblin? Well, that’s unlisted, so 6. What’s its various saves versus PC stuff? Not mentioned, so 1d20. All we get, and all we need, is its variant stats and abilities. All monster statblocks are formatted similarly. For most of them, you’re lucky to get even a single line of description. Nimble expects you to have a baseline understanding of fantasy monster types, and doesn’t stray far into anything esoteric. (At least until we get to Legendary Monsters; see below.)
Combat Encounter Guidelines: This section dives hard into balancing combat. Generally, the GM will base combat difficulty off the party’s combined levels, so e.g. four level 2 heroes will have a combined difficulty of 8. Fighting a group of monsters with an equal combined level of 8 would be a tough but fair fight (according to the rules, anyway). So they could be fighting two level 4 monsters, 3 level 1’s and a level 5, 24 level ⅓’s, however the numbers shake out. Less than this guideline will be an easier fight, going above will be tougher, and going way above would only happen if the GM did their level best to signal danger and the players stuck their noggins in the bee hive anyway.
A fair combat pace is ~2-3 combat encounters per rest, typically a couple of easy-to-middling ones (50-75% player level totals) and one hard one (100% level total). The rules do admit that combat isn’t always necessary, especially if the group is enjoying their role-playing and/or problem-solving.
For variety’s sake, the GM is encouraged to give a minority of monsters the equivalent of Medium or Heavy armor here and there, like a random Kobold with a shield or something. These little nuggets of extra resistance are expected to be somewhat uncommon but not immersion-breaking.
I kill, you die. Okay?
Fine Tuning Difficulty: This builds on the previous section. The first bit just advises to start easy, since it’s easier to increase difficulty in the middle of a fight than decrease it. The book goes on to talk about general tactics to change difficulty on the fly, like targeting the squishy characters, moving around which monsters act first, and how many minions is too many. Some good conversation here.
Unique Encounters: These two pages contain a trove of almost 40 different encounter ideas, from ambushes to puzzle fights to environmental catastrophes. The rules suggest saving most of these ideas for set pieces rather than feeling like you have to pick one every battle. Sometimes you just want to fight some skeletons.
Monster Builder: A nearly full-page chart of suggested stats for baseline monsters of all levels, which you can build on, add to, or subtract from to make something unique. There follows a page of Flavorful Monster Abilities which you can sprinkle on your custom darling, like Burning Aura (creatures adjacent to them take 1d6 damage), Flying (immune to opportunity attacks), Shifty (can move after being attacked), etc. There’s a lot of “feel” here, since loading up a monster with a bunch of extras can move it into a higher difficulty bracket. It’s not presented as an exact science, just … you know, be careful out there.
Bestiary
Smells like a zoo in here
The next section outlines almost 70 monster statblocks in Nimble’s super-terse style. They’re divided into categories: Kobolds, Goblins, Bandits, Snakemen, Dungeon Denizens (Stirges, Mimics, and Oozes), Hill & Field (Gnolls, Worgs, Hill Giants, Trolls, etc.), Undead (Skeletons, Zombies, Ghouls, Specters, etc.), Forest Denizens (Druids, Duskprowlers, Basilisks, etc.), Cultists/Horrors (Cultists, Stenchlings, Fiends, and Glabrezu), and Underground (Spiders, Cloakers, Worms, and Umber Hulks).
Turn around, bright eyes
Most but not all monster types have a small list of recommended encounter mixes per level, plus loot. The loot section gives an interesting insight into what the different monster types might accumulate, with potential story hooks tossed in. A Kobold nest, for instance, may have balls of twine, shiny objects, and a poorly but lovingly executed painting of a dragon. A Bandit camp may have some highly valuable item that someone else wants back, or a stolen wagon loaded with bales of wool. It’s not quite as fungible as a loot table giving out exactly 57 gp and a Potion of Dingleberries, but it does give a bit of inner life to the critters you just murdered.
Beyond rank-and-file foes lurk Legendary Monsters. Legendaries are meant to be fought solo unless the party is greatly overleveled. They have multiple Actions to choose from, which change depending on how many HP they have left, and they take turns after each player.
Legendaries can appear in boss battles as soon as level 1. They also don’t need to be “solo” as long as all units add up to a similar number of HP and actions:
Dealt it by smelt it
There are several Legendaries listed in this section, most with a big full-page image to go with their statblock. The art in Nimble is already pretty good but these pages are just *chef’s kiss.*
NO I DO NOT WANT A COPY OF THE WATCHTOWER
This whole part of the book provides a sparse but thoughtful cross-section of the kinds of foes you’d encounter in a fantasy realm. If you want more, a later chapter discusses converting monsters from a certain RPG which I’ve already named repeatedly but won’t here for some reason.
Adventures and Campaign
Monstrorum delenda est
Most of the remainder of the book is taken up with ten (!) different adventures. The first three are related and will take level 1 characters to level 3-4. The rest are for levels 3 to 5, except one that jumps to level 14 to show off what a more challenging adventure looks like.
All the adventures include some variety of dungeon crawl. Even the outdoor ones take place in a group of clearings connected by corridor-esque chokepoints. This isn’t exactly a criticism, except maybe of the genre as a whole. If you want something revolutionary, you’re looking in the wrong place.
The adventures are, in a nutshell:
A Tiny Rescue (level 1): Goblins kidnap a town’s good-luck fairy, get her back
Goblins of the Crystal Crag (level 2): Goblins came back and stole something while you were doing the first adventure, get it back (and learn that the plants in the area are getting violent)
Greenthumb’s Base (level 3): Nature itself attacked the village, go find out why and kill it
Vermin’s Vengeance (level 3): Rats are ransacking a city, go find out why and kill it
The Hidden Honey Cavern (level 3): A weird bug druid is making suspiciously good honey, the heroes are hired to go find out how (but not necessarily kill it)
The Lost Temple of Heytet-Seqat (level 5): A temple is unearthed in the desert, the heroes are hired to rescue someone who was exploring it
The Vanishing Caravans (level 4): Thief attacks are increasing on caravans in a mountain pass, the heroes are hired to find out why and kill it
Raid on the Royal Nest (level 4): Snakemen descend on a Birdfolk hatchery, intending to eat the eggs; the heroes are asked or hired to defend them
The Hag’s Legacy (level 4): A powerful hag has married Travis Kelce died and several forces swirl to fill the power gap, go sort things out
Beyond the Crimson Veil (level 14): A blood-red fog full of fiends is descending on nearby lands, go find out why and kill it
Along the way, we’re introduced to bits and pieces of the Valley of Hope, the default game setting. This green and pleasant land has two main settlements, smallville Merivale and metropolis Farhope, a.k.a. the Last Harbor. Surrounding the valley are an astonishing variety of terrains: swamps, hills, mountains, glaciers, forests, wildlands, deserts, oceans, Mordor, even a flying island. Wow. Quite the geographical marvel.
It’s a nice place to visit, but …
The adventures are passable (and it’s nice to get so many); the campaign world, utterly generic. It’s Fantasy RPG Setting A: That One Place Where Adventures Happen. It has some good detail in spots, but it’s like detailing a bucket of paste. Like the most finely crafted Bic pen. The hot dish of game worlds. It works fine as narrative glue, don’t get me wrong, but if any part of it blows your mind then you’ve never interacted with a fantasy franchise of any kind, ever.
5e Conversion
The book ends with a couple pages discussing how to convert content from the current version of D&D. It’s mostly about which of the old stats and skills map to the new ones, how to convert monsters, and how to pull your favorite spells over if you really want to. Quick and methodical. Hard to joke about. Very sad.
The Book Overall
Nimble’s Game Master’s Guide stands toe-to-toe with D&D 2024’s, and improves on it in some cases, while being about a third the length AND including what is essentially Nimble’s Monster Manual. Not only does it have a lot of good advice about all aspects of running the game from sessions to campaigns, it also highlights the game as a narrative back-and-forth between players and GM.
Since it’s so reduced, it does lack some of the more in-depth things, like the chapters on bastions, magic items, lore glossary, etc. There’s also not a lot of advice on playing non-combat scenarios beyond “it may be fun sometimes.” That, I think, is probably due to combat requiring more adjudication, and therefore more rules. The game is more than capable of letting players roleplay or think their way past a scuffle, but the briefness of the rules doesn’t allow for a lot of discussion. It doesn’t push combat but it doesn’t have time for much else.
The GM’s Guide is a good introduction to gamemastering and a very useful reference for all skill levels. The bestiary makes it essential. The ten different adventures are an unexpected bonus. Works for me.
Heroes, Part Three: Magic & Mayhem, Part Two: Jedi Academy
Songweaver
I believe you can get me through the night
Songweavers have been gifted with the ineffable power of music by a muse or a god or something. They’re … they’re bards. They’re pretty much bards. They begin with 13 HP and a d8 Hit Die, proficiency in cloth and leather armor and DEX weapons, have WIL and INT as their Key Stats, advantage on WIL saves and disadvantage on STR saves.
But who cares about that. Let’s sing! At level 1, Songweavers learn cantrips from the Wind school and one other school of their choice. Wind cantrips are Razor Wind (1d4 slashing damage, on a crit rolls two dice instead of one) and Breath of Life (restore 1 HP to a dying creature). They also get the unique fan-favorite cantrip Vicious Mockery, which does 1d4+INT psychic damage, ignores armor, and taunts the target for a turn.
A beginning Songweaver gains Songweaver’s Inspiration, which gives them the ability to allow their allies to reroll a single die for an attack or save, up to [2 x WIL] times per Safe Rest.
At level 2, they get a mana pool of INT x 3 + level to go with the Tier 1 spells of their schools. They can also play a Song of Rest which adds their WIL to their allies’ healing during a Field Rest, and Jack of All Trades allows them to move one skill point around every Safe Rest.
Level 3 garners them one Utility Spell from each class they know, plus a subclass: either Herald of Snark or Herald of Courage. Goons Snarkers get upgrades to Vicious Mockery, like double damage if an enemy missed an attack, or causing a target to be taunted by someone else (“Let’s you and him fight”). Courage … ians get upgrades to Songweaver’s Inspiration instead, like temp HP to all allies or granting an extra action to a target.
Songweavers have two lists of extra abilities. They start picking up Lyrical Weaponry at level 4, like Inspiring Anthem (granting all Dying allies within earshot 1 HP, which makes them not Dying anymore) or Not My Beautiful Faaace! (when Defending, force the attacker to choose a different target on a failed WIL save). They max out at four Lyrical Weaponry abilities by level 17.
At level 5, they gain the one-time boon A “People” Person. Choose two friends out of a list of four and summon each of them once per Safe Rest with a song. The guest list consists of Stompy the Hill Giant, Mal the Malevolent Imp, Gran Gran, and Linos the Everfriendly, each with their own monkey’s-paw abilities (except for Gran Gran, who’s a lovely person and definitely not a hag).
To rearrange their abilities, a Songweaver just needs to Perform! somewhere during a Safe Rest.
Stormshifter
Narrow doorways! My one weakness!
Stormshifters are sorta-druids, but almost more in a Daggerheart way than a standard D&D way (though not as overpowered). They get several front-loaded shapeshifting abilities but their spellcasting takes a while to mature. They start with 13 HP, d8 Hit Dice, proficiency with cloth or leather armor and staves and wands, WIL and DEX as Key Stats, and advantage on WIL saves and disadvantage on STR saves.
Out of the gate they gain Beastshift. This lets them transform into a harmless animal like a pigeon or a mouse [DEX] times until their next Safe Rest. Their new form continues until they drop to 0 HP, cast a spell, or will it to end for free. This ability rapidly evolves into Direbeast Form (a large beast with Gore and Fearsome abilities) at level 2, Beast of the Pack (a fast-running medium beast with an electrical Thunderfang attack) at level 3, and Beast of Nightmares (a tiny beast with an acid sting and inability to be targeted unless they attack) at level 5. What they transform into doesn’t change stats-wise, but they can choose whatever form suits their fancy.
Meanwhile they can cast Wind and Lightning cantrips at level 1, and tiered spells starting at level 2 with their new mana pool of WIL x 3 + level. This builds to Tier 9 spells by level 18. Compared to other classes, the spell progression is pretty vanilla. They gain Lightning resistance at level 8 and can max out Wind damage by spending a Beastshift charge at level 13, but that’s about it.
At level 3 they get their requisite subclass. Circle of Sky & Storm adds either the Ice or Radiant school of spells, allows spellcasting while shifted, can cast a free cantrip when they crit with a tiered spell, can use their master of the Wind to fly, etc. Circle of Fang & Claw lets them Beastshift for free at initiative and change Direbeast forms at will, makes it so beasts won’t attack them first, shapeshift into a beast and then teleport in a Ride the Lightning kind of way, hypnotize people while in their Beast of Nightmares form, etc.
Starting at level 6 they gain Chimeric Boons. These add animacular powers to their various beast forms, like walking on walls or having a prehensile tail or breathing underwater. Normally the Stormshifter can only use one Boon per transformation, but the Fang & Claw subclass allows up to three active at once.
To change their abilities around, the Stormshifter can Be Wild, spending a day with wild animals during a Safe Rest.
Zephyr
We trained him wrong, as a joke
That’s enough magic, let’s kick something. Zephyrs deliver unarmed punchy-kicky action that builds strong bodies twelve ways. Starting HP is 13, Hit Die is d8, proficiency with melee weapons but no armor, Key Stats of DEX and STR, advantage on DEX saves and disadvantage on INT saves.
Being unarmored is no big deal for a Zephyr, since they bring it with them. Their Iron Defense starting ability gives them STR+DEX armor while they’re unarmored. Swift Fists, meanwhile, means their unarmed strikes never have disadvantage for multiple strikes in one turn. Punch all you want, they’ll make more.
At level 2, they gain Swift Feet (+2 movement speed and +level initiative while unarmored) and Burst of Speed. This latter ability gives them [DEX] Bursts of Speed when they roll initiative, which can be spent on one of four abilities: Slipstream (one enemy auto-misses when the Zephyr Defends), Whirling Defense (apply armor to every attack this turn when they Defend), Swiftstrike (ignore disadvantage for a second attack of any kind, not just unarmed), or Windstep (ignore difficult terrain for a turn).
Level 3 gets them Ethereal Projection. Once per day, meditating for 10 minutes allows them to send a translucent projection of themselves up to 30 feet. They can see through the projection’s eyes but can’t interact with the environment. This power never gets an upgrade, so it seems pretty limited unless you really need to see what’s on the other side of a door.
Of course they also get a subclass, so it’s not a wash. They choose between the Way of Pain and the Way of Flame. (Fountains of Wayne will be in a future supplement.) With the Pain Way they Bring the Pain, turning any melee attacks against them into a crit, but only taking half damage while sending the other half back to the attacker sans armor. They can also Swiftstrike-attack multiple creatures at once, and gain advantage on their first attack and all saves when they’re at half HP. The Flame Way gives them Exploding Soul, letting them take a self-inflicted Wound to deal STR+Wounds damage and inflict Smoldering on a nearby enemy. They can also pass through enemies to inflict STR+DEX fire damage on them, do the Exploding Soul thing for free on a crit, and ultimately double all fire damage they deal.
Starting at level 4 they begin to accumulate Martial Arts. These include Bodily Discipline (take an action to end any condition on themselves), Quickstrike (when they Interpose, punch the attacker for free), and I Jump On His Back! (jump on a creature’s back to gain advantage on attacks against it, and any damage avoided or Defended goes to the carrying creature instead). Ultimately the Zephyr will have eight Martial Arts abilities by level 18.
To choose new abilities, they can Focus in a secluded, wind-swept place during a Safe Rest.
Story-Based Subclasses
So I told him, “Have a heart!” Get it? Get it??
Sometimes, while the game is underway, the story your character lives takes them down a weird tangent. The Oathsworn breaks their oath. The Commander abandons martial might and takes up magic as a shortcut to power. The Shadowmancer’s patron betrays them. A monster adopts the Hunter and refuses to leave. In these cases, the book presents four alternate classes: Oathbreaker, Spellblade, Reaver, and Beastmaster.
These classes are funhouse reflections of the main class, replacing their powers with new conceits. For instance, the Shadowmancer-turned-Reaver loses their Shadow Blast power, but gains a stolen summonable weapon called a Bonescythe which does 2d12+DEX necrotic damage instead. The Hunter-turned-Beastmaster loses their first two Thrill of the Hunt abilities, but gains an animal companion which they can order to attack enemies or defend allies once per encounter. They all trade off one or two things like this.
These aren’t really classes you can play from level 1. They’re more appropriately grandfathered in during mid-levels, usually with great fanfare. Ideally the player would work with the GM so the circumstances can be arranged to make the change happen diegetically.
Analysis and Synthesis
Thoughtfulness? In Trump’s America?
The way classes level up in Nimble reminds me very strongly of D&D 4e’s paradigm of giving everyone something new and/or strong and/or interesting at every level, yet without that D&D feeling that you have twelve gazillion things to keep track of. Part of that is due to Nimble’s terseness. That neat new ability doesn’t take up half a page to explain. You get maybe two sentences, easy to digest and easy to retain.
Martial classes tend to get a bad rap in D&D-adjacent properties, since mages often ramp way up in power at high levels while martial classes (Fighters etc.) scale more linearly. It’s true that magic types in Nimble have some specific advantages. There’s nothing that e.g. a Commander could ever do that would inflict d88 damage on four foes at once like a Mage’s Seething Storm spell can. Meanwhile, the Commander can tank a hit that would reduce that Mage to gumbo. Magical defense is highly effective but costs mana and only lasts a turn, while armor and shields can block one attack per turn forever.
The main factor that levels the playing field between martials and mages, though, is Wounds. Hit Points exist in Nimble almost exclusively to prevent the loss of Wounds. Most everyone only has six, and healing them is a big deal. HP? Pssh, 80% of classes have ways to replenish those. Heck, sit quietly in a corner for 10 minutes and you can get some back without trying. But healing a Wound takes special time and effort. Even healing HP to max won’t make you any less nervous about an approaching enemy when you’re sitting at five Wounds.
Martials get a lot of HP, and consequently don’t have to worry about taking Wounds nearly as much as magic types. Martials also tend to get abilities that temporarily prevent dropping to 0 HP, heal Wounds one or twice during combat, or increase Wounds permanently. This gives them amazing survivability. Magic types are very squishy in comparison.
What I’m getting at is that power in Nimble is well scaled. Played competently, every class is equally viable through their entire 20-level breadth.
Now I will take back one kadam, to honor the Hebrew God whose Ark this is, by saying that you mostly have to play a class straight to maintain that competency, especially early on. I highly recommend being boring with your stat choices, putting all your high numbers in your class’s Key Stats and increasing them with a strict eye to the future and an agenda to min-max. Failure to do so will hamstring your character for many levels down the road. A sub-par build could even make it so you can’t use important abilities. That might be fun if everybody does it, but you have to have a real tolerance for that.
Masters of the elephants elements, Mages are all about those spells. Gimme them spells. Spells! So many spells! Aahahahaha! They start with 10 HP and a d6 Hit Die. They’re proficient with cloth armor and blades, staves, and wands, not that they’ll use them much as weapons. Mages have INT and WIL as their Key Stats, gaining advantage on INT saves and disadvantage on STR saves. Poindexters.
But of course that’s all secondary to magic. Mages start out with Elemental Spellcasting, which gives them knowledge of all the cantrips from the Fire, Lightning, and Ice spell lists. (I say “all,” but there are only two cantrips on each spell list.)
Cantrips are about where you’d expect, power-wise. Fire cantrips are Flame Dart (1d10 damage at 8 range, inflicts the Smoldering condition on crit) and Heart’s Fire (give one nearby ally an extra Action). Ice cantrips are Ice Lance (1d6 damage at 12 range, gives the Slowed condition on hit) and Snowblind (1d6 damage within reach, inflicts the Blinded condition on hit). Lightning cantrips are Zap (2d8 damage at 12 range, hits the caster instead on a miss) and Overload (2d8 damage to everyone within 2 squares, but the caster must have the Charged condition first, which they get if they’ve received Lightning damage within the past 10 turns).
Notice that you don’t add any of the caster’s stats to a cantrip’s damage output. You get what you get. Cantrips slowly grow as the caster levels up (Flame Dart gains +5 damage every 5 levels, for instance), but that barely keeps up with the foes they’ll face.
At level 2, Mages unlock all Tier 1 spells and awaken to their mana pool. This is equal to their INT x 3 + level. Spells usually cost their tier level in mana to cast, and can be Upcast for more mana when the Mage achieves higher tiers. Upcasting usually gives greater range or increased damage. Mana is fully restored on a Safe Rest.
Right away, we see there are no spell slots and no spell memorization. Hooray, I say. In return, each magic type only has one spell per Tier. Also, each spell type may skip tiers. They all have spells up to Tier 5, but Ice spells (for instance) don’t add any new spells until Tier 8. Fire spells go from 5-7-9. Lightning jumps from 6 to 9. So you always get something for reaching a new Tier, but you don’t always get everything. The Stones wrote a song about this.
While there aren’t a lot of spells, there are too many for me to list without boring you to tears (more than usual). So here’s a sampler:
Ignite (Fire Tier 1): One nearby target with the Smoldering condition bursts into flame, taking 4d10 damage.
Cryosleep (Ice Tier 3): Creatures in a 2×2 area nearby are dazed and must make a STR save. If they miss, they fall asleep for two turns.
Ride the Lightning (Lightning Tier 6): Teleport up to 12 squares, potentially swapping places with a willing creature. Anyone adjacent to their landing place takes d88 damage. If they survive, they must make a STR save or be thrown back 3 spaces, land on their butt, and be deafened for a day.
Each spell list also has three Utility Spells. At levels 3, 6, and 14, Mages learn all three of these cantrips from one chosen list. Examples include Ice Disk (Tenser’s Floating Disk with the serial scratched off), Kindle (either ignite a small unheld item nearby or buy an e-book create a small visual illusion), and Spark Buddy (conjure a tiny electrical helper entity for an hour which can fetch small items, open unlocked doors, illuminate small areas, etc.).
Deep cut
At level 3, Mages get their subclass. An Invoker of Control can Demand Control and choose from a short list of effects: I Insist (cast a cantrip for free), Elemental Affliction (impose Charged, Smoldering, or Slowed on a nearby foe), No (one creature of the player’s choosing cannot harm another creature of their choosing during its next turn), or Lose Control (do all three, but the GM chooses the targets). The Mage can only do each option once per combat or until they’ve exhausted all the other options. At higher levels, this subclass can learn one spell and cantrip from the Necrotic school, automatically succeed at a failed save once per Safe Rest, and ultimately do each Demand Control option twice per combat.
Alternatively, they can be an Invoker of Chaos. This garners them Force of Chaos, which lets them cast spells for 1 less mana at will, with the caveat that if it crits, the GM gets to roll on the Chaos Table. Players ostensibly aren’t supposed to see the Chaos Table, but that’s kind of a gentlemen’s agreement. Suffice to say it runs the gamut from very bad (you turn into a squirrel and your main priority is nuts) to really great (your skin turns to diamond and you can Defend for free). At higher levels, the Chaos Mage can learn a spell and cantrip from the Wind school, Invoke Chaos twice and choose which one to keep once per Safe Rest, and other interesting weird stuff.
Every few levels, Mages get Spellshaper abilities. These allow them to spend extra mana to customize their spellcasting with effects like Echo Casting (cast a spell on two targets for 2x mana cost), Precise Casting (ignore one target in an area effect spell per 1 extra mana spent), and Elemental Transmutation (change the damage type of a spell to another type).
If they don’t like where they’re at, they can Study! During a Safe Rest, study arcane books or get tutored by a high-level Mage to rearrange their options for free.
Oathsworn
On my honor I will do my best to do my duty
Astride the border between being holier-than-thou and shoving a sword through monsters’ guts stands the Oathsworn. Starting with 17 HP and a d10 Hit Die, they have proficiency with all armor types and STR-type weapons (hammers, swords, glaives, etc.). Key Stats are STR and WIL, with advantage on STR saves and disadvantage on DEX saves.
These guys are Lancelot from the get-go. At level 1 they gain the abilities Radiant Judgment (roll 2d6 Judgment Dice when attacked, deal that amount as radiant damage on their next attack if they hit) and Lay on Hands (gain a pool of HP healing equal to five times their level; as an action, transfer any amount of that via touch to another target). Judgment Dice, by the way, slowly increase over time to 3d20 by level 14.
At level 2 they pick up the cantrips and Tier 1 spells of the Radiant school and gain a smallish mana pool equal to their WIL + level. The Radiant spells they start with are Rebuke (1d6 damage to a nearby foe, ignoring armor, x2 if it’s undead), True Strike (give someone advantage on their next attack), and Heal (heal someone by 1d6 + STR or WIL, whichever’s higher, at the cost of one action and 1 mana). Oathsworn get the Zealot ability at this time, with which they can spend mana on a regular weapon attack and either deal +5 radiant damage or decrease the enemy’s armor by a step (we’ll talk about enemy armor when we get to the GM’s Guide). They also get advantage on Influence checks when they’re telling the truth, and disadvantage when they lie.
At level 3, Oathsworn choose a subclass between Oath of Vengeance and Oath of Refuge. Both oaths give them an aura which extends up to 4 spaces away from them. Vengeance types call this their Aura of Zeal; if an enemy is attacked inside it, it triggers their Radiant Judgment if it hasn’t been set off already. Refuge Oathsworn have an Aura of Refuge, and can perform an Interpose Reaction for any ally who is attacked inside their aura. Normally a character can only Interpose within two squares, so this is a bit of an upgrade.
The Oath of Vengeance also gives abilities that increase or max out Judgment Dice. The Oath of Refuge increases the blocking power of shields by the Oathsworn’s WIL score, and at higher levels will prevent anyone within their aura from dropping below 1 HP, instead marking off a Wound directly. Characters still croak at 6 Wounds, of course, so they need to stay wary.
Also at level 3, Oathsworn start gaining Sacred Decrees. These include abilities like Blinding Aura (once per encounter, blind all enemies within their aura. Makes sense), Reliable Justice (roll Judgment Dice with advantage), and Stand Fast, Friends! (all allies gain the Oathsworn’s STR+WIL as temporary HP at the start of combat).
To swap out abilities, they must Serve Selflessly during a Safe Rest. It’s pretty much what it sounds like.
Shadowmancer
Me and my shadow(s)
Shadowmancers are the mall goths of the fantasy adventure world, all dying their hair black and wearing eyeliner and using phrases like “I’ll put some dirt in your eye” and “Dig on this.” They’ve made an unholy pact with Something Man Was Not Supposed to Know and use that eldrich power to fart around with shadow monsters.
They start with 13 HP and a d8 Hit Die, just like Hunters, with INT and DEX as their Key Stats. They get proficiency with cloth armor and blades and wands, with advantage on INT saves and disadvantage on WIL.
These folks get a couple of unique Necrotic cantrips at level 1, Shadow Blast (1d12 + higher of INT and DEX) and Summon Shadows. Notice the emerging theme. The latter spell summons one Shadow Minion per action spent and/or lets them command all their summoned minions to move and attack for 1d12 damage. These minions use the same rules as monster minions: 1 HP, can’t crit, and multiples attacking the same target are treated as a single [group]d12 attack. They can’t act unless the ‘Mancer spends an action, and vanish instantly after combat ends.
At level 2, the ‘Mancer’s infernal master grants them knowledge of Necrotic cantrips and Tier 1 spells. However, Shadowmancers don’t have mana pools, instead stealing power from their patron. The patron will put up with this DEX times per Safe Rest. After that, they’ll knock off half the Shadowmancer’s max HP as payment. Tough but … unfair.
As they level up, they gain higher tier spells as you’d expect. However, they can only cast spells at their highest unlocked tier. For instance, a ‘Mancer who unlocks Tier 3 spells will always involuntarily Upcast Tier 1 and 2 spells to this level. This isn’t always a bad thing, since they don’t have to worry about mana, but there’s no downshifting or “just knocking off one die of damage as a warning” or whatever. All gas, no brakes, that’s the Shadowmancer way.
At level 3, THE PACT IS SEALED. This nets them a subclass and a Lesser Invocation. The subclasses are Pact of the Red Dragon (access to Fire spells at the same tier as Necrotic, shadow minions become flaming wyrmlings which can inflict Smoldering, cast a couple of Fire spells without their patron’s ire, etc.) and Pact of the Abyssal Depths (access to Ice spells, minions become nightfrost beings who give the ‘Mancer temp HP when they would crit, regular attacks inflict Slowed and/or generate generous amounts of temp HP, etc.).
That Lesser Invocation I mentioned comes from a list of Invocations split into Lesser and Greater. By level 18, they’ll have three Lesser and five Greater Invocations under their belt. The Lesser ones include Abhorrent Speech (communicate with aberrations and undead), Gaze of Two Minds (touch a creature and experience through its senses while concentrating), and My Favored Pet (one shadow minion can tolerate the ‘Mancer’s existence outside of combat and hangs around like a creepy sidekick). Greater Invocations are powers like Hungering Shadows (if a minion would crit on an attack, instead the Shadowmancer can cast one tiered spell for free), Shadow Rush (instead of rolling a minion’s attack, they just do max damage and die), and Vengeful Blast (when a minion dies, immediately cast Shadow Blast as a reaction).
To switch powers mid-game, the Shadowmancer must Supplicate to their patron during a Safe Rest. A little groveling never hurt anybody. The patron may ask for something in return depending on their mood.
Shepherd
Bosh’tet
The temptation is to just write Shepherds off as clerics, and they do fill a similar role, but they’re a little more nuanced than that. They get 17 HP and a d10 Hit Die, pulling up even to Oathsworn and Commanders. They get proficiency with mail armor and shields, STR-type weapons, and wands. Their Key Stats are WIL and STR, and they get advantage on WIL saves and disadvantage on DEX.
At level 1, Shepherds hop on both the Radiant and Necrotic spell tracks by gaining all their cantrips, plus a unique cantrip called Searing Light. This beam either heals [WIL]d8 HP to a Dying creature nearby or inflicts [WIL]d8 damage to undead or any enemy with half hit points or lower.
I haven’t talked much about Radiant or Necrotic spells. Radiant spells have names like Condemn (Tier 4, damage 30 against an enemy that crit the character or any allies last turn, next attack against that enemy has advantage) and Vengeance (Tier 5, 1d100 damage to a creature that attacked a Dying ally last turn). You know, real Wrath of God type stuff. Necrotic all come at you with Ye Lyvelyest Awfulleness, doing things like Withering Touch (cantrip, 1d12 damage and target is considered undead for one round, making them extra vulnerable to several Radiant spells) or Gangrenous Burst (Tier 5, 3d20 damage to all damaged creatures nearby, half on STR save). The conceit for Shepherds is that they will defend their friends by any means necessary. Even really gross means.
Level 2 Shepherds unlock Tier 1 spells and the mana to cast them, in the amount of WIL x 3 + level. They also get a unique Tier 1 spell, Lifebinding Spirit. A small-to-tiny intangible spirit companion springs into existence and follows the Shepherd around. What this looks like is up to the Shepherd; it could be a dog, rabbit, winged fairy, Mr. ZIP, whatever.
I HAVE BEEN SUMMONED
This spirit can heal friends or attack enemies nearby for 1d6+WIL healing/damage, respectively. Once it heals as many times as the mana spent to summon it, it vanishes.
They get a subclass at level 3, deciding between Luminary of Mercy, upgrading most healing spells, or Luminary of Malice, upgrading most harmful spells. At level 5 they get their first Sacred Grace ability, which includes Assist Me, My Friend! (add the Lifebinding Spirit’s damage to their first melee attack each round), Illuminate Soul (one creature selected by the Shepherd starts to glow, and all attacks against it have either advantage or disadvantage, Shepherd’s choice), and Vengeful Spirit (their spirit turns into a raging vortex which damages all enemies nearby, lasting for as long as it had healing charges left, then vanishes). A Shepherd maxes out at four Sacred Graces by level 14.
To switch out options, a Shepherd may Serve for a day during a Safe Rest. This is somehow different from the Oathsworn’s Serve Selflessly. Or maybe not. I dunno.
Dibs on Masi Oka … okay, fine, I’ll be Greg Grunberg again
Okay, I lied. I was going to move on to the GM’s Guide, but controversy erupted after my review of the Core Rules. So let’s start in on the Heroes (classes) book instead, after which my agenda for this switch will become clear.
Berserker
Would you like some making DEATH
These guys are just pure DPS. Their whole schtick is killing bad guys before they have a chance to kill them, or raise their weapons, or blink. They get the highest starting HP (20) and Hit Dice (d12) in the game, which is good, since they have no armor proficiency. Berserkers’ Key Stats are STR and DEX, and they get advantage on STR saves and disadvantage on INT saves.
At the cost of one action per turn, they can Rage: roll 1d4 (the “Fury Die”) and add that as a damage bonus to every STR-based attack. They can have as many Fury Dice active as the higher of their STR and DEX, and lose them all if they don’t attack in a turn or drop to 0 HP. They can also expend an active Fury Die to reduce an incoming attack by STR + DEX. At level 2, they roll a Fury Die for free each turn if they’re already Raging. At level 5, they roll two dice at the start of their Rage. Fury Dice slowly increase in size as they gain levels, up to d12s at level 17.
At level 3, a Berserker can choose a subclass. The basic rules list two subclasses for each class, which each add new abilities at levels 3, 7, 11, and 15. The Berserker’s are Path of the Mountainheart, which increases their Fury/Rage Dice defense by the amount on the sacrificed die, among other resilience features; and Path of the Red Mist, which maxes out their Fury Dice when they crit or kill something, allows them to do opportunity attack Reactions the moment an enemy enters their range coming or going, and just makes them better at all that kill maim murder business.
Every two levels from 4 through 16, Berserkers get to pick one ability from their Savage Arsenal. This list of special moves include Mighty Endurance, which increases Wounds to 10 (!); Whirlwind, which lets them attack every enemy within the reach of their weapon at once; or Rampage, which allows them to apply the same damage from one attack to a second target without Disadvantage for the cost of one action. There are 12 Savage Arsenal abilities, but a character will only have seven slots by the end.
If they find that their current setup isn’t quite working for them, they can invoke Wrath & Ruin. Perform a notable act of destruction or epic feat of strength during a Safe Rest and they can change their Savage Arsenal choices for free. Most classes have this option with a different name and trigger condition.
The Cheat
Meh!
Wait, I mean
Meh!
These are the rogues, the thieves, the lonesome liars, the midnight riders, the ramblers, the gamblers, the backbiters. Cheats start with 10 HP and d6 Hit Dice, with proficiency with leather armor and DEX weapons. They have advantage on DEX saves and disadvantage on WIL. Key Stats are DEX and INT.
A large percentage of The Cheat’s abilities involve structured cheating. Like, meta-game, dice-related cheating. One of the level 1 abilities they gain is Vicious Opportunist, which lets them change the Primary Die while attacking a distracted opponent to whatever they want, once per turn. If they change it to the max, it even crits. (So why wouldn’t you?) Pair The Cheat with someone good at taunting and watch those enemies melt away.
If they pick the standard loadout, The Cheat begins the game with two daggers (1d4+DEX and throwable). This gives them advantage on one attack per turn. It doesn’t have to be the first attack either, so they could attack twice and use this advantage to cancel the disadvantage of their second attack.
One of the interesting things about d4 weapons is how they have the highest probability to both fail AND crit. Now they do have to crit several times to reach the damage potential of something like a Greataxe, but there are abilities, particularly spells, that confer special effects on a crit. So who would a hypothetical Mage rather cast that spell on, the 10%-critting Berserker, or the 25%-critting Cheat? On the other hand, could they possibly be wasting their mana on the 75%-hitting Cheat versus the 90%-hitting Berserker? Decisions, decisions.
On top of all that, any time The Cheat crits, they add 1d6 to the attack’s damage in Nimble’s version of Sneak Attack. Sneak Attack damage increases every few levels, up to +3d20 sneak damage at level 17.
At level 2, The Cheat really comes into their own. Once per round, they can either Move once or Hide for free; rolling less than 10 on Initiative becomes a 10; they can change one skill check, of any type, to 10+INT once per day; and they have advantage on checks involving betting or games of chance. Just don’t get caught.
The Cheat selects their subclass at level 3. One choice is Tools of the Silent Blade, with abilities like turning effectively invisible when an enemy dies from a Sneak Attack, gaining advantage on all Sneak Attacks when at full health, and (at level 15) straight killing anything that has fewer max HP than them on a crit. The other choice is Tools of the Scoundrel, which has Pocket Sand. There are more abilities, sure, but … Pocket Sand.
It’s a Gribble of an ability
Scoundrels get other stuff too, I guess. Low Blow has them spend two extra actions to incapacitate an enemy for a turn, and taunt them to boot. Sweet Talk gives advantage on all rolls to influence NPCs until they meet them a second time, at which point they have disadvantage on all influence rolls.
The Cheat’s special moves, which they get every even level from 4 to 18, are called Underhanded Abilities. “Creative” Accounting lets them steal up to INT actions from their next turn, every other turn. How’d YOU Get Here?! lets them “teleport” up to four spaces to a spot adjacent to a Distracted enemy and hit ‘em. If they crit, they can “teleport” another four spaces in any direction. Trickshot makes thrown weapons return to their hand at the end of the turn; on a hit, it will travel up to two more squares to strike a second enemy for half damage.
During a Safe Rest, they can Talk Shop, spending a night swapping stories with other thugs, thieves, and rogues, and switch in different Underhanded Abilities for free.
Commander
Why didn’t anyone tell me I had spinach in my teeth?
Commanders bonk people on the head while inspiring other people to also bonk people on the head. They have d10 Hit Dice and start with 17 HP, tying with Oathsworn for second place. Commanders gain proficiency with all martial weapon types and mail armors, advantage on STR checks and disadvantage on DEX, and STR and WIL as their Key Stats.
These guys have one big list of Combat Abilities divided into two medium-sized lists, Commander’s Orders and Combat Tactics. The main difference is that Combat Tactics take advantage of Combat Dice, a Rage-like ability Commanders start receiving every even level from level 4 to 14. They begin each combat with [STR] number of these dice and expend them to perform Tactics. Many Combat Tactics add extra damage to maneuvers equal to what they roll on a Combat Die, but some just require them to give a die up to trigger the action.
The first Order they receive is Coordinated Strike! at level 1. This gives them and one nearby ally a free attack, up to [INT] times per Safe Rest. As they level, they’ll continue to accumulate Combat Abilities, including things like I Can Do This All Day! (once per encounter, if they drop to 0 HP, expend one Hit Die immediately and regain that many HP), Commanding Presence (spend a Combat Die to shout a one- or two-word command at a monster, who will [if they understand it and fail a WIL save] obey it until the end of their next turn), and Move It! Move It! (give themselves and one ally advantage on the Initiative roll and +3 movement for the first round).
Every few levels, Commanders gain Weapon Mastery for one type of weapon, like slashing or bludgeoning. This usually involves reducing or eliminating the effectiveness of enemy armor while using that type of weapon.
They choose their subclass at level 3, either Champion of the Bulwark or Champion of the Vanguard. Bulwarks get proficiency with plate armor, can Defend twice with a shield, do extra damage equal to their armor score when they do a Coordinated Strike!, and tank the hell out of everything. Vanguards get unique upgrades to Coordinated Strike!, like extra participants, extra movement, more uses per Safe Rest, and permanent advantage on their strikes.
A Commander can engage in Rigorous Training with other soldier-types during a Safe Rest to rearrange their abilities, like the other classes.
Hunter
I thought this was washable paint
Red in tooth and claw (and short sword and arrow), Hunters are the ultimate nature boys. Maybe even more so than Stormshifters, who at least get magic powers for all their rolling around in the mud. Hunters start with 13 HP, which feels slightly low, and d8 Hit Dice. They have proficiency with leather armor and DEX-based weapons. Key Stats are DEX and WIL, with advantage on DEX saves and disadvantage on INT.
Right off the bat at level 1, a Hunter gains Hunter’s Mark, which marks someone as their quarry for up to a day or until they mark someone else. Attacking their quarry gains either advantage or +their level in damage.
Next level, they pick up two Thrill of the Hunt abilities. Now having a quarry becomes more interesting, since attacking them in melee, critting them at range, or having them die gains charges which can be spent to activate these abilities. They include Addling Arrow (attack a target at range; its next attack must be against the closest creature, chosen at random); Hail of Arrows (two actions to shoot all creatures in a 3×3 area, also halving their movement for a turn); and Pinning Shot (spend three actions shooting their quarry, restraining them until they can save to escape). Best of all, Thrill of the Hunt abilities never miss. Just spend a charge and make it happen.
If they don’t care for their current setup, they can Remember the Wild during a Safe Rest. Spend a day alone in the wilderness and come back with all new skills.
A Hunter’s choices for subclass are Keeper of the Shadowpath and Keeper of the Wild Heart. Shadowpathers can use Hunter’s Mark without spending an action at the beginning of a fight, have advantage on tracking, never get lost, and at higher levels can mark two creatures at once. Wild Hearters get +5 HP and d10 Hit Dice (that’s more like it, I say), are better herbalists and healers, and gain the ability Ha! I’m Over Here! which, if they would drop to 0 HP, instead lets them move away for free and take no damage, once per Safe Rest.
Nimble is a D&D-5e-alike-but-not-really-but-sorta-but-nah-unless? developed by Evan Diaz and the creatively named Nimble Co. Nimble started out in 2023 as a D&D 5e hack (now known as “Nimble 5e”), but came into its own as a full-fledged system in 2025 (sometimes referred to as “Nimble 2,” though that’s not what they call it themselves). The latter is what we’re looking at today. Advertised with the tagline “Slay TTRPG Slog,” Nimble has been much touted lately as a minimalist, quick-playing, rules-tight, semi-drop-in replacement for 5e.
The base game comes at you three books deep: Core Rules, Game Master’s Guide, and Heroes, a.k.a. the classes book. The books are between 52 (Core) and 115 (GMG) pages long, with generous spacing and lots of illustrations. Nimble or not, it’s certainly light on its feet. I don’t own the print version because I’m not made of money, but pics make the books look almost comically thin.
Aww lookit the little guy with its tongue hanging out. Bleh!
Meanwhile, the digital version gives you a big honkin’ heap of files, including the above books (page and spread versions), the 5-panel GM screen, the Quickstart, and action cards, spell cards, item cards, and monster cards, both in color and printer friendly B&W versions. It also comes with a directory full of Markdown files ready to open in Obsidian, which is a real above-and-beyond gesture. You can supplement all this with a free ZIP file of VTT-ready maps for all of the adventures in the GM’s guide from their website. Their site also contains several video tutorials narrated by Evan himself.
They really want people to play their game.
Of course, all that is pretty worthless if the game itself isn’t any good. Let’s figure out if this actually has substance or if it’s just another heartbreaker.
Cracking the Books
I am speed
The obvious starting book is the Core Rules, since it begins with a section literally named “Start Here.” This brief, mostly introductory text segues into a page titled “How to Be a Good Player.” Their advice boils down thus: act heroic, engage with the game, and don’t be a jerk. I mean, I’ve heard worse. There’s also a bit at the end about being nice to your struggling GM, who’s spent hours slaving over a hot table to lay out this nice game for you and yet you hardly show any appreciation. Would it kill you to say thank you every once in a while? You’re breaking your mother’s heart.
Now we jump right into the meat of the matter. Every character in Nimble has four Stats: Strength (STR), Dexterity (DEX), Intelligence (INT), and Will (WIL). Each class designates two of these as their Key Stats. For some class-based calculations, the player can choose either Key Stat to roll with. Stats run from -1 to +5, sloughing off the old 3-18 system which has been increasingly vestigial for years.
These stats provide the baseline scores for ten Skills: Arcana (INT), Examination (INT), Finesse (DEX), Influence (WIL), Insight (WIL), Might (STR), Lore (INT), Naturecraft (WIL), Perception (WIL), and Stealth (DEX). To make a skill check, the player rolls 1d20 and adds the relevant skill versus a Difficulty Challenge (DC) determined by the GM. Gee this sure feels familiar.
Meanwhile, saves use a d20 roll plus the character’s base stat score. Each class has one advantaged save stat and one disadvantaged save stat, like for instance the Berserker’s STR+, INT-. When rolling saves, the player would roll the STR with Advantage, INT with Disadvantage, and saves from the other two like normal.
While Nimble has fewer stats and skills than D&D, the way they work is still instantly familiar. Calculating DCs uses the exact same guidelines as D&D. If a published D&D adventure says doing a thing is a DC 12 check, you have nothing to convert. It may not always be the same skill, but it should be obvious which one fits.
The first real quirk Nimble throws at us is how its versions of Advantage and Disadvantage work. Adv/Dis can be applied to any die roll, not just checks. So you could, for example, roll 3d6 with Advantage, which would involve rolling 4d6 and dropping the lowest. Adv/Dis can have multiple levels, too, so rolling 2d8 with Disadvantage 2 involves rolling 4d8 and dropping the two highest.
And devil take the hindmost
Hit Points work just like D&D … until you drop to 0. At that point, you take one Wound and gain the Dying condition. Wounds are serious injuries that take extra time and care to heal. A character can take six Wounds before they actually die die. While Dying, actions are limited, concentration is broken, attacking or casting a spell requires a STR check or you take another Wound, and you take more Wounds if you’re hit again. Healing HP is easy (and ends the Dying condition), but healing a Wound requires taking a Safe Rest away from danger for a while.
The next two pages blast through the rules for Range & Speed, Concentration, Cover & Hiding, Grappling, and Conditions. There’s nothing really odd here for a 5e player, just pared down to their essence. F’rex, the Speed rules fix everyone’s movement to 6. Six what? Six spaces on the map. Are those meters or five-foot increments or what? Who cares, just go 6. Don’t have a grid? Measure from your thumb to pinky. That’s about six inches. Good enough.
Shaka, brah
Combat
The bigger they are, the harder they hit
I just want to break in here and mention that the rules started on page 5; we are now on page 13. Nimble doesn’t mess around.
Tactical combat is where things really diverge from 5e. For one thing, characters get three Heroic Actions per round, Pathfinder-ishly. On their turn, they can spend these actions to Attack, Cast a Spell, Move, or Assess. (There are other situational actions too, which we’ll see later.)
Here we learn the One Big Takeaway about Nimble: there are no to-hit rolls. When you Attack a foe within range, you roll damage dice and apply the total directly to their HP, unless you roll a 1, which is a miss, or the die’s maximum value, which is a Crit. If you’re rolling multiple dice, the die that lands to your furthest left is the Primary Die used to count these misses and crits. Crits explode as long as you keep rolling max values, and ignore monster armor too.
Now this isn’t the first RPG to go to-hit-less; Sentinel Comics, Into the Odd, the various Bastionlands, even classic Tunnels & Trolls forgo hit rolls. This is the first D&D-alike I’ve seen that goes this route, though. I would even posit that it’s closer to D&D’s rationale that Hit Points are an abstraction of fatigue, little cuts that gradually bite deeper, etc. than D&D itself gets. HP here are essentially padding before you start taking Wounds and really get hurt.
Characters can spend multiple actions to Attack more than once per turn, though each additional attack gains one level of Disadvantage. They can also Move repeatedly, so that 6-space move can become 12 or 18 if they need to book it. Spells have an action cost between 1 and 3, and may also cost Mana; we’ll get to that in a bit.
The Assess action allows the player to make a DC 12 skill check to do one of three things: ask the GM a question about the current situation which they must answer honestly, create an opening against a foe to gain a bonus to attack them, or anticipate danger, which reduces all dice rolled against the character by 1 point until their next turn. The skill you use for the Assess check depends on what you want to do. Assessing whether there are hidden enemies nearby would be a Perception check, while a sneaky character who wants to anticipate danger might roll Stealth and use shadows to make themselves a poor target. This injects a little environmental forwardness into the game mechanics, which I think is neat.
After a character’s turn ends, they immediately get all three of their actions back. This allows them to use them as Reactions when it’s not their turn. Basic reactions are Defend (reduce one incoming attack by your Armor score), Interpose (push someone in danger out of the way and take the hit for them), make an Opportunity Attack (attack with Disadvantage if a foe moves away), or Help (give an ally Advantage by taking some kind of action within the story). Unlike Actions, you can only perform each type of Reaction once per turn. So a character could both Interpose and Help in their off-turn, but they couldn’t Help twice. Also, each reaction costs one action, so e.g. someone who Defends will only have two actions left to use for their next turn.
Here we find my first real beef with Nimble.
The Defend reaction reduces incoming damage, as you’d expect. But! No matter what sort of armor you’re wearing, you can still only defend against one attack per turn. This is fine if you’re being attacked by a single ogre or something, but being surrounded by goblins would shred you up. Oh sure, a GM could describe how your attention is divided and all those little jerks are stabbing between the armored parts, but we won’t be fooled by that, will we, folks? Lord Murderdeath in his full dragonscale armor shouldn’t be so vulnerable to low-level mobs. I’d probably at least give a small passive armor bonus (like ¼) to characters in their big expensive armors, and leave Defend as is for that one big guy with the club.
At the beginning of a fight, the GM asks players to roll Initiative. Everyone throws a d20 and adds their initiative bonus (usually DEX). If they roll a single digit number, they only get one action on their first turn. If they roll 10-19, they get two actions, and all three on a 20+. No matter how many actions they have to start with, they get all three back after their turn.
There’s no dice-driven initiative order. The PCs almost always go first in a round, unless they’re caught completely flat-footed, and they (usually) all act before the monsters get their turn. The first player to act is the one who’s ready to go first, and then play continues clockwise.
And that’s it for the basic combat rules. We’re now on page 16, taking a one-page diversion to discuss rest and healing. There are two types of rest, Field and Safe. A Field Rest can either be Catching Your Breath (take 10 minutes to regroup, rolling your Hit Dice to heal up a little) or Making Camp (similar deal, but takes eight hours and gives you the maximum value of your Hit Dice without rolling). A Safe Rest has you going to an inn or other safe haven for several days, restoring all your HP, mana, and Hit Dice and healing one Wound.
Safe Rests can also involve downtime activities like shopping, working, mentoring, etc.
Building Character(s)
The measure of a man
The character sheet is as compact as you’d expect. The normal version fills up only half a page, though there are other versions that take up a full page in either portrait or landscape orientation. You wastrel.
Character creation is about as quick as everything else.
Select your class, and take note of which stats are the Key Stats for that class. Classes are touched on very briefly here, but not fleshed out until the Heroes book. So equally briefly, here are your choices, along with which D&D class they’re wink-nodding:
None of them are exact 1:1 comparisons but they all carry a heavy fog of familiarity.
Choose an Ancestry and Background. That’s the subject of the next chapter, but all the classics are there, as well as some … interesting exotics. Your ancestry choice may alter some of your starting scores. Apply as directed.
Use one of the following arrays to fill in your stats: Standard (+2, +2, +0, -1), Balanced (+2, +1, +1, 0), or Min-Max (+3, +1, -1, -1). Also find your class’ advantaged stat and mark a little arrow triangle printed at the top of the stat box as a reminder, then mark the bottom triangle for the disadvantaged stat.
Fill in the skill boxes with the numbers from their respective stats, then add four extra points between them.
Write in your Max HP and Hit Dice (provided by your class), number of Hit Dice (equal to your level), Initiative (default DEX), Speed (default 6), max Wounds (default 6), and inventory slots (10 + STR).
Either equip up with the standard loadout given to you for your class and background, or take 50 gp and go shopping.
Choose your languages, mark down any other weirdness that comes from your life choices, and you’re ready to roll.
Leveling up involves rolling your Hit Die type with advantage for more HP, gaining another Hit Die for rests, adding one skill point, and picking up new class features. Every new level in a class gives you a new ability to play with. No leveling doldrums here.
Spoiler from a future book: Leveling in Nimble is milestone only.
Ancestries and Backgrounds
Who is your daddy and what does he do
The list of ancestries (a.k.a. races, heritage, folk, whatever term satiates the wolves baying at the door) reads like a hybrid of half a dozen other games’ race rosters smashed together. Let’s hit it.
Human – hey, it’s us! Gets +1 to all skills and initiative to make up for being boring.
Dwarf – gains 2 Hit Dice and 1 max Wound, but takes -1 Speed.
Elf – advantage on Initiative and +1 Speed.
Halfling – +1 to Stealth, and can choose to succeed a failed save once per Safe Rest.
Gnome – have the power of Optimism, allowing allies nearby to reroll one die. Tra la la.
Bunbun – okay, here we go with the odd ones. Little rabbit people. Once per encounter, can leap up to their Speed in any direction without expending an action.
Dragonborn – gains one point of armor and can inflict extra damage split among multiple targets, thus aping a breath weapon without summoning Hasbro’s legal team.
Fiendkin – wow I wonder what this ancestry is supposed to be reminiscent of. Change one neutral save to advantaged.
Goblin – skittery little fellow. Can move two spaces for free after being targeted by an attack or negative effect.
Kobold – Western lizard types, not Eastern dog types. Once per encounter, can force an enemy to reroll an attack. Also gets a bonus to Influence friendly characters, and gains advantage on any dragon-related check.
Orc – wait, I thought you were on their side. Once per Safe Rest, can reset any 0 HP result to their current level. Gets +1 to Might rolls.
Birdfolk – I really think we should wait for Jarnathan. Can fly, but crits against them have advantage and forced movement (pushing etc.) moves them twice as far.
Celestial – proof that angels can get bizzay. Their disadvantaged stat becomes neutral.
Changeling – a whole new you. Gets two shapeshifting “skill points” which they can add to any one skill each time they shift.
Crystalborn – rock rock on. Once per encounter, can deflect part of one attack back on their attacker.
Dryad/Shroomling – I can dig it, man. When hit, emit airborne spores which can daze opponents.
Half-Giant – bane of low ceilings. Can force an enemy to reroll one crit per encounter, and gains +2 Might.
Minotaur/Beastfolk – our friends against fascism. Can get a running start and knock people around the map.
Oozeling/Construct – I know what kind of man you are. Has a weird body that raises their Hit Dice by one step (d6 becomes d8, for instance) and always heals the maximum amount, except for magical healing which does the minimum.
Planarbeing – wasn’t even supposed to be here (in this dimension) today. When performing the Defend Reaction, they can mark off one Wound to phase out of existence and take no HP damage at all.
Ratfolk – well somebody likes little furry guys. Gain +2 armor if they moved in the last turn.
Stoatling – … but this is getting sad. Deals additional d6’s when attacking something larger than itself. Suffers the same from larger attacks.
Turtlefolk – on the half-shell. Get +4 armor and -2 Speed. Ayyyyup.
Wyrdling – odd folk full of raw magic power, causing surges around them. Nearby casters can roll on the Chaos Table for free once per encounter.
Backgrounds answer the “where did you come from?” question, but also have a mechanical component. “Made a BAD Choice,” for instance, gives you an additional 1,000 gp or equivalent magic item at start, along with a powerful curse or an enemy who knows you have it and wants it back. “Back Out of Retirement” takes away one Wound permanently, but also lets you take a Wound at will to use an ability or spell at one level higher. “Bumblewise” requires you to have 0 or lower WIL, but any natural 1 on a WIL-based save or skill check counts as a natural 20 instead. Backgrounds all give with one hand and take with the other. It’s a cool idea, decently implemented.
Optionally, a player can choose from a page of adventuring motivations. You’re trying to get home, you were betrayed by your bestie, your king sent you forth for some reason, you want to see what’s at the bottom of all these deep holes, whatever. These are mostly hooks for the GM to yank on at opportune times, but they can help with roleplaying too.
“If [a player] asks, ‘What’s my motivation?’ I say, ‘Your [loot].’”
Equipment
I got a rock
Equipment must be important in this game, since this chapter is eleven whole pages long. Woo.
This section has your typical tables of monster mashers and glimmering gewgaws, interspersed with just enough equipment rules that you can’t really skip reading it. Here we find proficiency rules (proficiencies come with your class, unproficient weapons don’t crit, and defending with unproficient armor costs two actions), dual wielding (wielding two light weapons gains you one extra die on one of them), unarmed strikes, improvised weapons, etc.
There are a couple pages of magic items here, including a Weapon of Many Hands which gives you two extra arms while you wield it, a Pocket Cauldron which can brew potions that let you see into the future or relive a past memory, and the ever-popular Ball of Spiders which generates a carpet of illusory bugs which skeeves monsters out. We also learn about scrolls and wands which allow even non-mages to cast spells (with a DC check, of course). There’s not a whole lot of stuff here, but it’s enough to get you started. If you want a huge list, you can convert them over from The Other Game.
Ride the Snake
Spells
Bibbidy bobbity boo-wah
There are six main schools of magic in basic Nimble: Fire, Ice, Lightning, Necrotic, Radiant, and Wind. Each school contains a couple cantrips, seven combat spells, and three utility spells. That’s it. That’s all you get. (Barring hidden spells … shh …)
The various classes gain access to a limited selection of schools. Mage gets Fire, Ice, and Lightning; Oathsworn gets Radiant; Shadowmancer gets Necrotic; etc. Some of the schools get multiple dips, so for instance Shepherds also get both Radiant and Necrotic. This is mitigated by each class’ other features, so it’s not like Shepherds make Shadowmancers obsolete.
Spells have Tiers, starting at Cantrip and rising through Tier 9. They also have an Action cost from 1 to 3, and many have a Mana cost as well. Generally, spellcasting classes start with all the Cantrips of their school and gain one Tier every two levels. Utility spells are chosen one at a time by the player as the character reaches certain levels.
There are no spell slots. The main limit to casting is Mana, which is acquired differently for each class. This book doesn’t go into any detail and so neither will I (until we get to the Heroes book, anyway).
Most spells, including Cantrips, can be Upcast once you reach a higher Tier. This costs extra Mana but gives each spell a unique powerup, like extra Reach or damage.
So, about that relatively small number of spells. Players who enjoy picking from a huge list of funky spells may balk. Nimble, though, takes their spells and massages them into something unique with class features. You’ll … have to trust me on that for now. You’ll see what I mean when we get there. GMs might have to make the same case to skeptical players who’ve only read to this point.
And the rest
Altered states
The last couple of sections discuss optional rules and edge cases, like multiclassing, knocking people off cliffs, playing dead, healing multiple Wounds during Safe Rests, customizing weapon dice, and such like. There’s a page with illustrations about how to measure areas of effect, cones, and lines on a grid, then a glossary, and then we’re out.
