Hero Feats & Checks

Every so often the heroes should encounter a difficult obstacle to overcome. A door to smash, a cliff to climb, or a maze to go through. These obstacles are overcome through hero feats.

Hero characteristics

Heroes have three main characteristics.

💪 Strength — the power of your muscles, used for brute force feats. Smashing through a wooden door, lifting heavy things, throwing objects over long distance, cracking open chests, and so on. 

✋ Agility — the finesse and nimbleness of the hero. Used when heroes have to climb or descend a cliff, assemble fine clockwork, hop on stones to cross the river, aim with precision, sneak silently, and similar.

🧠 Smarts — the mental power. Used to remember a path of a maze, to overcome frightening encounters, to trick and charm characters which heroes encounter, and more.

One of these characteristics will be marked for each hero as their Primary characteristic and is used in combat to determine the results of an attack. 

Feat difficulty 

Not all feats are of the same difficulty. Smashing through a flimsy old wooden door us much easier than bashing through thick oak door studded with metal braces.

When facing a feat players roll a single dice 🎲, add to that number a required characteristic depending on what kind of a feat it is, and compare the result with the feat target number. Here's a general recommendation for feat targets. 

3+ — Very easy feat. This feat is automatically passed if a hero proficient at solving that feat attempts it. A knight with  💪2 will smash through the flimsy door even if 1 is rolled on the dice.

4+ — Easy feat. 

5+ — Average feat. 

6+ — Difficult feat.

7+ — Very difficult feat. This target also means that heroes who have 0 in a particular characteristic cannot ever do this feat (unless helped by magical items). For example, a Ranger with 💪0 can never smash through a tough door. And this makes sense, some feats should simply be out of range for particular heroes in order for teamwork and coordination between players to happen.

8+ — Almost impossible feat. Getting a result of 8 is difficult even for the heroes who are naturally inclined towards that feat. Target of 8 should be reserved only for absolutely epic challenges.

How to deal with failed feats

Failure happens and it's up to the leader to determine what happens when heroes fail. Sometimes the consequences are simple, like heroes simply fall into the river and get wet. However, if a climbing feat is failed, it could mean the hero falls from height and receives 1 point of damage — 💔1. It's up to the creativity of the leader to determine what happens. It's a good practice to tell players in advance what are the consequences of failure, so they can determine themselves are they willing to do this feat or not.

Some feats can also be done more times. Throwing a stone to hit a small target (a feat of Agility) even if failed can be done again. A hero can simply pick up another rock and try to hit the target again, why not? Of course, it's up to the leaders to determine can a feat be attempted more times, until successful, or not, and what happens each time it's failed.

Some hints

Some feats could be done as a teamwork. Pushing a large boulder with joined forces means that the 💪 of all of the involved characters is added to the dice roll.

It's good to vary the feats between those that all heroes have to do (all of them have to climb down the cliff to reach the next area), and those where just one hero can perform the feat and heroically save the day.

Not all events require feat checks. If heroes want to climb a simple tree, just let them do it, no need to roll the dice.