Stats and Pools
In Hexenritter, there are two kinds of stats that describe your character:
- Primary Stats, that are directly controlled by the player. They are used to describe your character's strengths and weaknesses, both mentally and physically.
- Derived Stats that are used for all rolls. Each derived stat is a combination of 2 primary stats to show the relationship between characteristics affecting a single action.
Prime Stats
Prime stats are the most basic elements of your character that propagate into each aspect later on. Prime stats never directly affect the game or your character, but rather are components of rolls later on.
Prime stats range from 0 to 3. Human average is 1-2.
- Strength (STR) - Physical brawn and toughness.
- Speed (SPD) - Finesse, quickness and coordination.
- Intellect (INT) - Intelligence, knowledge, and logic.
- Acuity (ACU) - Wits, creativity and perception.
- Resolve (RES) - Mental fortitude, courage, concentration.
At character creation, a character is allowed 7 points to spread evenly between all five prime stats
Derived Stats
Derived stats are the numbers used to determine your dice pool. Aside from bonuses and penalties, they determine how many dice you get to roll in any uncertain situation.
There are five derived stats, ranging from 0-6 with 3 being average. Each derived stat is based off of two prime stats.
- Athletics (STR + SPD) - Physical prowess. A mixture of finesse and power.
- Athletics is rolled for all Melee Attacks and Melee Defenses, as well as for running, jumping, climbing, and other acts of vigor and physical prowess.
- Reflex (SPD + ACU) - Speed and fine control of mind and body.
- Reflex is rolled for all Ranged Attacks and Ranged Defenses, as well as for lockpicking, piloting, and other acts of finesse and fine motor control.
- Mettle (STR + RES) - Physical and mental resolve.
- Mettle is rolled for situations that require mental and physical endurance. Resisting torture, not bleeding out, healing from wounds, acts of brute strength, and other similar rolls.
- Mettle is used to derive your starting Health Pool (Mettle +3).
- Insight (INT+ACU) - Cunning, intuition, social presence, and perception of your surroundings.
- Insight is rolled for perceiving your surroundings, bargaining, persuasion, deception, intimidation or other social interactions.
- Rationale (INT + RES) - Mental aptitude, Sorcery, memory and scholastic ability.
- Rationale is rolled for academics, knowledge, mechanics, alchemy, Sorcery, operating many devices and other sciences.
A derived stat of zero automatically forfeits any Roll.
Dynamic Pools
Dynamic Pools are numbers that track resources for your character. They tend to go up and down a lot over the course of a game session. There are three Dynamic Pools.
- Health - How healthy you are and the amount of physical abuse you can take before you die.
- Your maximum Health is Mettle + 5
- If your Health drops to zero (it cannot drop below zero) You are dying. See "Combat: Death and Not Dying Quite Yet" for more info.
- Action Points - How quickly and efficiently you can act in a combat situation.
- Your maximum Action Points is always 3 by default.
- You need to spend action points to roll dice in a combat round. This includes attacking as well as defense.
- When this reaches zero, you cannot act take Major Actions such as attacks,defense rolls or spellcasting.
- More on this in the combat section.
- Stun - The amount of subduing abuse you’ve taken.
- If Stun damage ever exceeds your current Health, you received the Stun Hazard