Stalwart Age Actual Play 1 (Warning: LONG post ahead)

Here are the characters I’m using for this play test….

 

Twilight Archer – Hero 3 (Actions 4) Resolve 3D6

    AC 21; Hits 35; Feat +9; Move 90’; Bow (+11/1d12+4/160’)

    STR 10 (+2); INT 10 (+2); PWR 5; DEX 16 (+4); CON 10 (+2); CHA 13 (+3)

    Body Armor; Trick Weapon;

    Effectiveness (Weapon x3); Fortitude; Sharpshooter; Precision (x3); Toughness (x2)

 

Vesper – Hero 3 (Actions 4) Resolve 3D6

    AC 16; Hits 33; Feat +9; Move 90’; Shadow Bolt (+9/1d12+5/190’)

    STR 5; INT 5; PWR 19 (+5); DEX 13 (+3); CON 13 (+3); CHA 10 (+2)

    Shadow Bolt, Shadow Control, Levitate

    Capacity (PWR x3); Effectiveness (Shadow Bolt x3); Precision (x3)

 

Hewn – Hero 3 (Actions 4) Resolve 3D6

    AC 22; Hits 41; Feat +9; Move 90’ (leap 210’); Punch (+14/1D10+8) + Found Weapon (+1D8+1)

    STR 21 (+5); INT 5; PWR 5; DEX 10 (+2); CON 17 (+4); CHA 4

    Body Armor; Invulnerable (4); Pummel

    Brawler (x3); Capacity (STR x3); Fortitude; Effectiveness (Pummel x2); Effectiveness (Found Weapons); Toughness (x2); Precision (x3)

 

Battle Master – Villain 5 (Actions 6) Tenacity 5

    AC 25; Hits 75; Feat +12; Move 120’; Battle Staff (+15/1d12+6)

    STR 13 (+3); INT 12 (+2); PWR 10 (+2); DEX 16 (+4); CON 16 (+4); CHA 16 (+4)

    Body Armor; Contacts; Counter Attacks; Danger Sense; Nemesis; Utility Belt; Weapon (battle staff)

    Brawler (x4); Capacity (each Attribute +1); Effectiveness (Battle Staff x3); Fortitude (x3); Martial Arts; Prowess; Precision (x5); Toughness (x3); Wealth

Setup:

Battle Master is doing something bad, like watching as a whole bunch of new recruits get jacked on Battle Juice. It’s a thing. The team breaks in and attacks him. Let’s just do a straight-up fight.

I’m going to give Battle Master the special foe ability: tenacity. He gets 5 opportunities each turn to neutralize an attack against him (attempt a Feat CR 20 as a free action). This is the villain version of resolve; you don’t get to do extra cool stuff; you just get to avoid an attack against you completely unscathed. Villains can use tenacity to shrug off mind control, knock aside a haymaker, or dance around an energy blast.

Combat begins. Initiative: I roll and the order is Vesper, Battle Master, Hewn, Twilight Archer. They are 150’ apart when combat starts.

Vesper gets 4 actions; we will have her lead off with four shadow bolts at Battle Master. She misses with 2, misses barely with 1 (rolled 16; needed 18) and hit with a natural 20. She will use a resolve die here to increase that 16; she rolls a 6 so gets the 2 points she needed. She deals 14 from her first attack and 20 from her second. Daaang. Battle Master decides to use 1 of his tenacity points against the 20 points of damage; he rolls 9+12=21, and barely evades that second bolt. He suffers 14, and is at 61 Hits remaining.

Battle Master gets to go. He’s going to close for melee with Vesper; he perceives her as the biggest threat (I am going to rule that he has not fought these heroes before so has no bonus from his Nemesis gift here).  He uses 2 actions to close the 150’ between them (it is beyond his movement, so he needs 2 actions), and then attacks 4 times; he hits all four times (her AC is 16; he gets +15 to hit; he only misses on a 1). He deals 7, 13, 19, and 14 points. She suffers a total of 43 Hits of damage; she uses her remaining resolve dice to soak as much of that as she can, rolling 2D6 and getting 8. She suffers 35 hits (she had 33) and is at -2 hits. Ouch. She is also out of resolve. She’s done for this fight.

Hewn leaps into the fray. He literally leaps (using 1 action) and then attempts to grab a found weapon; he does this as a free action, and rolls 19 on the die! He finds a big steel beam sitting around (because those are often laying around warehouses. Whatever) and starts swinging. He attacks three times, botching the first attack (he got too excited) and as a result loses the second; on the third attack, he misses entirely. That was humiliating.

Twilight Archer needs to do something to get this battle under control. He wants to grab a stun arrow from his quiver. I am having him do random results for finding arrows (I like that in play better), so I have him roll a Feat to see if he finds a stun arrow. Nope. Shoot. Well, actually not shoot. Because he cannot shoot a stun arrow right now. That’s a pun. I digress. He is going to pepper Battle Master (who I want to keep abbreviating as BM, but that would give the wrong impression) and misses 4 times. Battle Master has mad crazy good armor class. He is the Battle Master after all. One of the attacks was close, so TA (that’s not as bad of an abbreviation as BM) uses a resolve die to bump it up; he rolls a 4 (needed a 2) and hits with one attack. He deals 6 points of damage. Ugh. Battle Master is fine with letting that go; Battle Master is at 55 Hits.

Round Two

It’s initiative; I’d like to find a way to get Vesper back into the fight, but there’s really no way to do it. She has exhausted her resolve, and is at -2 Hits. She has 9 rounds to go until she can get back in the fight. Twilight Archer suggests that he’s been working on a special dark energy arrow to go in his quiver. He asks if there is a possibility that A) he has one in his quiver, and B) that he could use it to actually heal his sister, since she is partially made of shadow energy. The GM allows this as a free action, but requires a CR 28 Feat. It’s a BIG ask. TA has to roll a 19 on the die (or use Resolve). He rolls 5. Nope. Even the best resolve rolls would still not reach the target. Sorry, Vesper. You are out.

For initiative, the order ends up as Hewn, Battle Master, Twilight Archer. 

Hewn rolls for a found weapon, and gets 13+9=22. He finds another steel girder. (What are the odds? Two of those sitting around?). He attacks four times, getting 15+14=29, 2+14=16, 2+14=16, and 13+14=23. He will use a Resolve die on that last miss (since he only missed by 2) and gets 2 (whew). He hits twice. For damage, he rolls 25 points and 15 points, respectively. Hmmm. Battle Master will use a Tenacity point for that first one (since it’s a LOT of damage) and he gets an 18 on the die. He manages to evade that one altogether, but he still gets walloped for 15 on the second hit, leaving him at 40 Hits remaining.

Battle Master is already tied up with Hewn, so he’ll stay here; plus, he is not particularly afraid of arrows (but maybe HE SHOULD BE… or not). He will take his attacks; trying to hit Hewn five times. He only needs a 7 on the die to get past Hewn’s AC 22, and he gets 6, 2, 8, 5, 8. That is the most pathetic set of attacks EVER. He only hits two times, dealing 9 and 16 points respectively. Hewn’s rocky hide soaks 4 from each, meaning he suffers 5 and 12 points, a total of 17. He is down to 24 Hits. Hewn will hold on to his remaining Resolve dice.

Twilight Archer’s turn. He thinks about looking for a snare arrow, but decides against it for now. He may need that to keep Battle Master at a distance next round; if he uses it now, and then it wears off before Battle Master closes for melee, it will be wasted. He will just fire four normal arrows. He needs a 14 or better on the die to hit, and he rolls 2, 14, 10, and 16. Two of these hit. He’s going to save his resolve dice; he rolls for damage and gets 7 and 13 points respectively; Battle Master could attempt Tenacity against that second attack, but he will accept the 20 points of damage (for NOW), and is down to 20 hits remaining. 

Status Check. At the end of round 2:

Vesper is out.

Twilight ARcher is at full Hits, but he has used 1 die of resolve; he has 2D6 left.

Hewn is at 24 Hits; he has used 1 die of resolve and is at 2D6 left.

Battle Master is at 20 Hits; he has used 2 Tenacity, and has 3 left.

Round Three

Vesper continues to sleep. For initiative, it is Twilight Archer, Battle Master, Hewn.

TA fires another volley of 4 arrows: 5, 19, 1 - and a botch on that 1 with a failed Feat, so he loses his last action. Grr. He hits once and deals 12 damage. He might use the Resolve here to try and finish the fight, and Battle Master knows this. So, both characters have an ‘instant’ effect option here; even the 12 damage is a bit much, but Battle Master can sustain it; however, if he doesn’t use his Tenacity, TA will use his resolve dice to try and finish the fight now. If Battle Master uses Tenacity and fails, TA is DEFINITELY going all in with his resolve to see if he can bump this up. Okay, Tenacity it is. Battle Master attempts a Tenacity check (it’s always a Feat CR 20) and gets 15 on the die; he catches that arrow in the air and snaps it in half. So much for that.

Battle Master wants to finish up with Hewn. We’ll see how that goes. He needs a 7 on the die (still) and attacks five times, getting 20 (!), 6, 20 (!), 18, and 8. WOW. Good thing Hewn has some Resolve left… that might keep him from dying. We’re going to back this up a little… because he may forfeit attacks (or even go to his own bag of tricks) if Hewn falls earlier in the phase. For the 20, he deals 18 damage, and Hewn soaks 4; Hewn suffers 12 Hits and is down to 12. He uses a resolve to soak part of that, and gets 3. He uses his final resolve die as well, and soaks another 1 (insert sad face emoji here). He’s actually at 16 Hits. On that second natural 20, Battle (we’ll just call him that) deals 13, and Hewn soaks 4, suffering 9. He’s at 7. Hewn makes a mental note to buy more resolve. For the 18, Battle rolls 9 damage, meaning that Hewn suffers 5. He’s at 2 hits; on that last attack, Battle deals 14 damage; Hewn soaks 4, and then takes 10 right to the jaw. He’s at -8 Hits, and joins Vesper on the ground.

Hewn uses his actions to drool.

End of round three:

Twilight Archer has all of his hits, and 2D6 resolve left.

Battle Master has 20 hits, and 2 Tenacity left.

Round Four

Battle Master wins initiative, and TA knows that this is pretty much it for him. Since he only lost by 3, he uses a Resolve die and hopes for a good roll; he gets a 2. Of course. He has to use his final resolve, and gets 6. NOW he gets that good roll. GRR. Okay, TA gets to go first, but he’s out of Resolve. 

On his phase, Twilight Archer tries to find that snare piece. He attempts a Feat, and gets 4 on the die. Stupid dice. Stupid game. Stupid stupid stupid. Okay. Normal boring arrows it is. He fires four of them, and needs 14 or better on the die to hit; he gets 11, 3, 3, and 1. That 1 is a botch (failed Feat) and Twilight Archer will automatically lose initiative next round. Not that it’s going to matter.

Battle leaps at the archer. (haven’t been tracking how far, so we’ll see if he can make a Feat to close the distance in one action). Battle makes the Feat with an 18 (because of course he does) and is able to lay the beat down on the poor Twilight Archer. He only needs a 6 on the die to hit, and he rolls 7, 11, 9, 2, and 18. He hits 4 times, and TA can do nothing to stop it, because he’s out of Resolve. Battle deals 11 (TA down to 24), 15 (TA down to 9), 13 (TA at -4)... and has one more successful hit left.

Okay, so this is interesting from a story perspective. Because I didn’t add this mechanically to Vesper, but it’s part of her whole character schtick; she has a ‘Dark Vesper’ persona that is linked to the realm of pure shadow. She also has a psychic link to her brother… so, Battle has won the fight, and has a decision to make… but first I want him to make an INT check. If he makes it, he knows that landing that last attack could kill TA and trigger Dark Vesper. He rolls and gets 11+12 = 23. He knows. Oh, he knows…. Since I was just play testing, I didn’t think this through ahead of time, but does Battle want to capture these heroes, kill them, or does he actually WANT to trigger Dark Vesper? LOVE the storytelling options here. 

For now, I’m going to say that he captures them all, and has won this fight. He doesn’t land a death blow, killing Twilight ARcher, and possibly triggering the emergence of a goddess of shadow energy that will try to pull the entire earth into her shadow realm. So that’s good. 

Analysis:

WOW this is awesome. I mean, mechanically it does everything. It FEELS like a superhero fight. There were a lot of options with resource management that were easy to track. The new rules for villains and Tenacity are perfect; the idea that he grabs the arrow out of midair and snaps it in half is SUCH a comic book moment. The mechanics of how Tenacity works allow this to happen. There were genuine strategic choices that characters had to make, and options that changed the flow of the fight depending on what they did and how they managed their resources. Best of all, this was easy and clear - I was never unsure of how to mechanically resolve something. Sure, I went with more specifically structured powers (Vesper didn’t get a chance to show off shadow control because she went out so early), but it was still a pretty good cross section. The fact that Battle Master won, but that it was a tight battle, makes a LOT of sense. He’s level 5; he is the equivalent of four level 3 characters, and he fought three, so he should have the advantage here. He’s equal to Doc Stalwart in terms of overall power.

I cannot explain how much I love this game.   

Next time I will play out the cover battle, with Eldritch vs. Prototype. That should be a little different