Difficult and Impassable Terrain

Difficult terrain is a catchall description of terrain that is hard to move through or over. It can include tight passageways, slippery ice, thick undergrowth, loose rubble, shifting sand, or waist-deep water (or any number of other circumstances). Essentially, it’s terrain that characters move through with difficulty. Characters entering or moving through difficult terrain must perform twice as many maneuvers to move the same distance they would in normal terrain.

Impassable terrain is a description of terrain that is simply impossible to move through via maneuvers. This includes sheer cliffs, walls higher than a character can jump, and deep pits. Impassable terrain is not always an insurmountable obstacle, but it’s an obstacle that requires special skills to circumvent. Depending on the impassable terrain in question and the resources at the character’s disposal, the GM may allow the character to overcome impassable terrain by using a skill, probably the Athletics or Coordination skill (see Chapter 3: Skills on page 52). During an encounter, this means the character must spend at least one action (and possibly give up one or more maneuvers) to accomplish this.