Table of contents

The Basic Stats

Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Wisdom, Intelligence, Charisma, you know the drill.

Roll 2d6 for your stats in order, and add a fixed value from the array: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Once a number is used, it’s gone. Afterward, you can swap two stats.

Tip: Use the following command in the other-dice-rolls channel to easily roll your stats.

!roll 6 2d6! Stats

Mark one stat as your Primary Stat. You get to reroll your d20 when leveling up.

Hit Dice, Damage Dice, Protection Points

• Your hit die determines your HP at the start (HD+4) and on level up (+HD).
• Your damage die determines the damage you do when performing basic attacks.
• Protection Points represent your heroic luck, nimbleness, your 'plot armor', comic-book skill. When you fail to defend against a threat or attack and would take damage, you can use a Protection Point to ignore the attack (explain how you do it!). You regain your Protection Points at the end of the adventure.

A default hero has the following stats:

• Hit die: D8
• Damage die: d6
• Protection points: 2

You can modify this upon character creation. You can freely 'downgrade' or 'upgrade' these values, and 'allocate' the value somewhere else. For instance: Changing your hit die from D8 to D6 allows you to change your Protection Points from 2 to 3.

• Your hit die cannot be smaller than d6 or larger than d12. 
• Your damage die cannot be smaller than d4 or larger than d10.
• Your Protection Points can range from 0 to 4.

Choosing Powers

Any Power has a Grade and Usage Die. 

The Grade determines the potency of the power. 

The Usage Die determines the amount you have left in the tank, supplies, focus, charge, energy, whatever. Roll it after using a Power. On a 1-2, downgrade the die. If you roll a 1-2 on a d4, you cannot use this power anymore today.

When creating a new character, you have 5 'Power Points' to allocate. For 1 point, you can

• Add a new power at Grade 1, UD6.
• Upgrade a power by 1 Grade.
• Upgrade a power's UD by 1 tier (D6>D8>D10>D12)

This means you can

• Choose 5 different powers
• Choose 1 power and be really good at it
• Everything in between

Powers are purposefully abstract. Use your creativity! A Hero with Grade 2 Flight, Grade 2 Blast, Grade 1 Superstrength could be an Iron Man-like character in a powered suit, a Human Torch, a Captain Marvel, etc. etc.

Blast alone can be interpreted as lightning powers, a repulsor beam, a high-powered rifle, a compound bow with explosive arrows and so forth.

Origin Story

Next, think of your origins. Where do you get your powers from, and how did you get them? Some examples:

• Artificial: You were not born, but created. Perhaps you are a robot, android, golem, or undead creature.
• Born with it: Your powers awakened at a certain age, or perhaps they were always there. You might be a mutant, psychic, or magician.
• Gimmick: Your powers come from items, either magical or technological.
• Trained: You just trained a lot; you might be a masked vigilante, martial artist, or magician.
• Transformed: You were normal once until you were cursed/experimented upon/caught up in that freak accident.
• Visitor: You're not from around here; perhaps from another dimension, planet, or plane of existence.

MOtivation

Finally, think of a Motivation for your character. This is used to gain extra XP and level up. Your first Motivation is generally assumed to be "to be a superhero"; acting like a hero and saving people. Your second Motivation could be something like:

• Knowledge - to gain a deeper understanding of the world
• Vengeance - to get even
• Fame - to become loved by the public
• Fortune - to become rich
• Justice - to stick to the letter of the law
• Freedom - to not be limited by anyone or anything

A Motivation gives you XP but can also be a hindrance, for instance when it pits you against other heroes' agendas.

Superpowers have a Grade. This acts as a bonus. When playing in Roll20, the Grade becomes a negative modifier.

Apex, hero of the people, uses his Acrobatics. It's at Grade 2, and his DEX is 10. This means he needs to roll under 10+2=12. In Roll20, this is a -2 modifier.

Stalwart is based on the Black Hack. Its base rules can be found here, and might be called upon in case of situations not covered by these rules.

Movement & Distances

Rather than track precise numbers, we use 4 abstract ranges for measuring distances. Close, Nearby, Far-Away and Distant.

Melee attacks are made at Close range.

Ranged Attacks (including Blasts) are made at targets which are Nearby. Attack can be made at Targets which are Far Away but these are made at Disadvantage.

If a target is flying and Nearby, the character cannot move Close to them unless they also have an appropriate power.

Initiative

When combat breaks out, everyone must be sorted into order so they each get to act and react in turn. Every character tests their DEX or WIS. Those that succeed, take their turn before their opponents. 

Turn-Based Play

A character can Move and perform an Action during their turn (Attack or do something that takes a few seconds). You can choose to take your action before or after Moving.

You can move somewhere Nearby, or dedicate your entire turn to moving and move Faraway instead. Anything beyond Far-Away can be classified as Distant and would take 3 moves to get to (unless you have a power that allows quicker movement, such as Flight). Some movement-related abilities such as Flight allow you to ignore verticality when moving.

Attacking, Defending & Damage

When a character attacks a creature they must roll below their STR stat for a Melee Attack or DEX for a Ranged Attack.

Likewise, when an adversary attacks, the character must roll below their STR against a Melee Attack and DEX against a Ranged Attack to avoid taking damage. The GM will usually give the stat required for the test.

The damage an attack deals is based on the character’s class or the number of Hit Dice (HD) an opponent has.

To make a Melee Attack an opponent must be Close. Ranged Attacks against Close opponents are possible, but the attacker suffers a Disadvantage.

Power Attacks

Power attacks represent going all-out against your opponent. They work as follows:

• You deal maximum damage, as if all dice rolled max value.
• Missing a power attack invokes consequences - either you leave yourself open to counter attack, or you cause collateral damage.

Critical Damage

If a player making an attack rolls a 1, they double the result of the damage dice they roll. If they roll a 20 when avoiding an attack, they take double damage.

Conditions

• Blinded - You can only move Nearby this turn, no attacking or using powers.
  
• Stuck - You can't move, otherwise, you act as normal.
• Paralyzed - You cannot move or take any actions.
• Dazed - All ability checks to attack are taken with Disadvantage.
• Stunned - All ability checks are taken with Disadvantage.
• Vulnerable - All damage taken is rolled with Disadvantage.
• Ongoing Damage - The creature takes damage equal to its Level (HD) at the start of its turn, an Ability Test (GM will determine which) should be made to see if the damage continues next turn.

Protection Points

Protection Points represent your heroic luck, nimbleness, your 'plot armor', comic-book skill. When you fail to defend against a threat or attack and would take damage, you can use a Protection Point to ignore the attack (explain how you do it!). You regain your Protection Points at the end of the adventure.

Powerful Opponents

HD represents a villain's level and the number of d8 rolled to determine their HP. For every HD above the character’s level, add +1 to every roll the player makes for any attribute test that would determine the outcome of a conflict between them and an NPC.

A level 3 Hero defending against a HD 5 Villain’s attack would add +2 to their roll. 

Death & Injury

When a Character sustains damage taking them below 1 HP, they are taken Out of Action. They are considered unconscious. When the fight is over, they are out of danger or are healed the Character rolls on the table below to see what happens to them. If the blow that took you to zero HP did more than your max HP damage, roll 2d6. Otherwise, roll 1d6. If they survive they regain d4 of the lost HP. 

OUT OF ACTION

Leveling Up

Stalwart uses an experience and level system. Generally, you gain experience by

1. Being a Superhero and being Heroic. This means you get experience points by
   • Completing Issues (game sessions). It doesn't matter whether you were successful or not; the greatest teacher, failure is.
   • Particularly heroic acts, such as self-sacrifice and protecting the innocent.
2. Following your character's Motivation.
   • A scientist motivated by Knowledge might gain XP by making discoveries.
   • A fame-seeking youngster might gain XP by giving a press conference.
   • A violent vigilante might gain XP by getting his vengeance.

You require an amount of XP equal to your current level to level up. Your XP resets when you level up. You cannot gain more than 1 level per Issue.

So, completing your first issue will give you 1 XP and cause you to level up. In your second issue, you'll want to complete it (for 1 xp) and follow your character's motivation (for 1 xp) to end up at 2 xp, your current level.

When leveling up: 

1. Roll a d20 for each of your stats. If you roll above your current stat, it increases by 1. You can reroll your primary stat. A stat cannot be higher than 20 (or, to be more specific, a 20 always remains a failure).
2. Roll all your Hit Die (including the new one you've gained on level up!). If the result is higher than your current HP, this becomes your new HP.
3. Choose one:
   1. Increase a Grade of a Power you have
   2. Increase the Usage Die of a Power you have
   3. Develop a new Power at Grade 1 and Usage Die 6.

Regardless of a choice, think of an in-universe explanation for your power-up or new power.

Stalwart takes place in Unknown, a modern west coast American metropolis. Superheroes and -villains are relatively common. Science produces marvelous wonders such as robots, shrink- and grow rays, and hover boards.

Superheroes are regulated by Unknown, who make sure that the right hero is assigned to the right threat: you don't want Paragon wasting his time on saving kittens when the city is being threatened by an alien invasion, or send a bunch of rookies against an extradimensional breach.

Every other day, you hear about a powered menace engaging in criminal activity, and the average person may have even been a bystander in such an event.

Public opinion

The general public respects powered heroes, but might also consider them as dangerous. Collateral damage is common, which is why the role of AEGIS is considered important. When working with AEGIS, superheroes operate within the law and are seen as valuable help by law enforcement. Newspapers and the nightly news are filled with coverage of the heroes’ exploits. Tabloids run stories filled with gossip about costumed hero relationships.

Danger

Stalwart is based upon an OSR ruleset. This means that combat can and will be dangerous. Some supervillains show no mercy.

Lines & Veils

Using the lines & veils system to describe Stalwart comes down to this:

• Lines: Torture, sexual content/violence, explicit gore. This does not occur in Stalwart.
• Veils: Violence & blood. (Super)villains use guns, but we will not feature explicit descriptions of gross gun wounds. There might be descriptions of dead bodies, but never for gratuitous purposes. 

Theme & Tone

There will be themes of power and responsibility, action and consequence. Making choices can lead to bad outcomes, and there will be villains out to test your moral philosophy. The tone aims to be more Batman: The Animated Series Joker than Suicide Squad or The Dark Knight Joker, however. Saturday-morning-cartoon, with a bit of The Venture Bros. mixed in. The main dynamic through which I want to explore the setting is interpersonal relationships: villains who turn good, heroes who turn bad, nemesis, rivals, friend and allies.