Threat Overview
Threat Overview
AX.C.13.01
Threats are the adversaries, hazards, and obstacles that challenge the player characters. They range from disposable foot soldiers to forces of nature that reshape the world around them. Unlike player characters, Threats are built for a purpose, they exist to create tension, test different aspects of the party and give the events of the story weight.
Threat Types
Threats are organized into broad categories based on their nature, origin, and behavior. These categories help the GM quickly communicate what kind of threat the characters are facing and set expectations for how it operates. Categories have no universal mechanical weight, they are tags that Genre Catalogs use to define interactions, resistances, or special rules appropriate to their setting.
Each Genre Catalog defines its own threat type taxonomy. Some examples:
- Fantasy: Beast, Construct, Dragon, Elemental, Humanoid, Magical Beast, Undead, Aberration
- Sci-Fi: Synthetic, Xeno-form, Rogue AI, Augmented, Mutant, Swarm
- Modern: Criminal, Paramilitary, Hazmat, Cult, Rogue Agent, Megafauna
- Horror: Revenant, Corrupted, Possessing Entity, Predator, Manifestation
When no Genre Catalog category applies, the universal fallback is Creature (biological), Construct (manufactured) or Entity (supernatural or undefined origin).
Threat Power Tiers
Every Threat belongs to one of five Power Tiers, which define the total number of Attribute dice used to build them. Tiers provide a shared language for encounter design: when a GM says "three Standard threats," every player at the table has an instinctive sense of what that means.
| Power Tier | Total Attribute Dice | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Minion | 3–4D | Weak threats encountered in numbers; their danger is collective |
| Standard | 5–7D | Average threats that match typical adventurers one-for-one |
| Elite | 8–10D | Powerful threats that require tactical attention and planning |
| Champion | 11–13D | Major threats capable of challenging an entire party alone |
| Legendary | 14D+ | Forces of nature; treat as an environment as much as an enemy |
Minions: A single Minion is rarely dangerous. Their threat comes from overwhelming action economy — many small attacks, many opportunities to apply conditions, many bodies standing between the party and the objective. Build Minion encounters around numbers.
Legendary Threats: A Legendary Threat may not register that the characters exist. Drawing its attention is itself an outcome, not a given. Characters who attempt to engage a Legendary Threat directly should understand that retreat, evasion, and clever use of the environment may be the only viable strategies. These encounters are rarely traditional combat — they are survival situations.
Building and Running Threats
For the mechanical process of building individual Threats — Attribute distribution, Health, Defense, and stat block construction — see AX.C.13.02 (Threat Building) and AX.C.13.03 (Stat Block Reference).
For Threat behaviors, intelligence tiers, and how to adjust difficulty during play, see AX.C.13.04 (Threat Behaviors & Tactics).
For encounter composition and power budgeting when designing a session, see AX.C.14.04 (Adventure Design).