Sentinels RPG is so new that it hasn't even come out yet! Here I will try to explain the overall rules as I understand from various beta reviews. Once the materials are available I will update this section with the real and final information.
Overview
Sentinels is a dice pool system where you assemble three dice from your character: Status + Power + Quality.
Status is equivalent to a "health" pool where you go from Green -> Yellow -> Red -> Out. Powers are your active/passive abilities while qualities are typically either personality quirks or skills & knowledges that you know.
Your skill level or status level is represented by a numbered die, so a lower ranked skill might be a d3 or d6 while a higher ranked skill or quality might be a d10 or d12. When you perform your action you justify your choices by making an explanation of how this skill or that power is affecting your action and then assemble your dice and roll.
Dice Rolls
Once your 3 dice are gathered you make your roll and in general you get the results from the middle die (MID). Some abilities or situations lets you pick the highest (MAX) or lowest (MIN) or some combination (for example, MAX + MIN).
The total from that die or dice is the results of your actions. This number is used to determine the success or failure of your actions.
Actions
On your turn, you can take one of the following 5 actions:
Actions
On your turn you can choose one of the following actions:
- Attack - Roll your dice pool and by default use the MID die (unless otherwise specified due to powers or situations). Every attack action automatically hits however if the defender has some kind of defense or armor they might get a roll to reduce or ignore the damage inflicted.
- Overcome - This is a generic action that you use to overcome an obstacle. Disarm a bomb, catch the falling reporter, slow down the runaway train etc. Roll your dice pool, take the MID die and compare the results to the following table:
- 0 or less: Action utterly, spectacularly fails
- 1-3: Action fails, or can succeed at a major twist (see below)
- 4-7: Action fails, or succeeds at minor twist (see below)
- 8-11: Action succeeds
- 12+: Action succeeds beyond expectations
- Boost/Hinder - This allows you to create a bonus or penalty [MOD] to a target. Perhaps you're running really fast and kicking up dust to cloud an enemy's vision or you're going to throw your scrappy brawler super hard at the enemy to give their punch an added kick. You can specify when the bonus is applied (-2 MOD to their next attack) or you could give out a bonus that players can spend at a later time (i.e. have a +3 MOD Sword).
- 0 or less: No result
- 1-3: +/- 1
- 4-7: +/- 2
- 8-11: +/- 3
- 12+: +/- 4
Note that these bonuses/penalties only last a single action unless they are [Persistent]. If [Persistent] then they last to the end of the scene. Some MODs are [Exclusive] and cannot be used with other [Exclusive] mods to modify a roll. A non-persistent mod can be extended to 2 uses at the cost of a minor twist and 3 uses at the cost of a major twist.
A hero can use an Overcome action to dispense with a hinderance (you wipe the sand from your eyes, you take a second to use your hearing or sense of smell to find the invisible commandos etc.)
- Defend - reduce damage you take by your result die (default MID). You can elect to defend other targets and they receive the Defense effect instead of you. If you ever are under the effect of multiple Defenses then you take the highest result instead of combining. Finally, you can take a Defense action as an out-of-turn reaction at the cost of a minor twist.
- Recover - You can take this action if you have an ability that explicitly allows it. In that case it will always tell you how much health you recover. Take that action, recover that much health.
Augmenting Actions
In addition to taking actions there are some additional modifiers that come into play. One is Powers. Almost every power or ability is tied to an action so throwing a fireball might modify your attacks while being an expert thief will modify your Overcome actions.
You can also elect to take a Risky Action if you want to perform an effect that isn't granted by your abilities. For the cost of a minor twist you can do things like:
- Hit two minions instead of one
- Use MAX die instead of MID for a single attack
- Uses the MIN die as an additional effect like an AoE or hinderance MOD on the target
- When doing an Overcome also use MIN die to deal damage to a single target
- When doing a Hinderance also removes the target from combat for a single turn
- When Defending also uses MIN die as a Boost to one ally
Twists
Twists represents side effects and repercussions from the encounter. Twists are either Minor or Major and the exact nature of a twist is heavily dependent on a hero's principles. A technology based hero might have equipment malfunctions while a psychic hero might get migraines that disrupt their focus.
When a twist occurs the player and GM work together to both describe what the twist was as well as assign a mechanical penalty. Some examples might be:
Note that twists do NOT negate success of an action and twists ONLY occur on a successful result.
Minor Twist
- The hero loses Health equal to the Mid die.
- The hero is Hindered using the Max die.
- The hero must make a difficult choice as part of the action.
- The hero succeeds, but not as well as planned.
- The hero must reveal a treasured secret, an embarrassing weakness, or otherwise bargain
something away to succeed at their goal. - The scene escalates 1 space towards a more dangerous state.
- The hero is separated from the rest of the group as a result of the action.
- The hero draws attention in the form of a new minion equal to their Mid die.
- The hero loses access to one Green ability.
- One of the hero’s powers or qualities is reduced in die size.
Major Twist
- The hero loses Health equal to Max+Min dice.
- The hero is Hindered using Max+Min dice, and that penalty is persistent.
- The hero must sacrifice something important (at least until the end of the issue) in order to succeed at their goal.
- The scene escalates spaces towards a more dangerous state.
- The hero is separated far from the group and the current action.
- The hero draws attention in the form of a new squad of Mid die sized minions equal to
number of heroes. - The hero loses access to multiple abilities.
- The hero loses access to one or more of their
powers and qualities.
In general minor twists are inconveniences and wrinkles that get in your way while Major Twists can be game changing and very punishing completely turning the tide of a scene.
If a player doesn't like the twist presented they can decline the twist in favor of completely failing the task.
Scene Tracker
Some scenarios put the heroes up against the clock. Whether it is escaping an exploding volcano, disarming a bomb, rescuing hostages or stopping a building from collapsing there is some kind of "time limit" that is put on the scene and this is tracked via the Scene Tracker.
In general, scenes 8-9 "boxes". During each round, eventually the "environment" gets a turn and one box is ticked off. In addition some heroic/villainous abilities advance this faster and it can advance faster still due to major/minor twists.
The boxes are marked Green/Yellow/Red and this is used to establish what intensity level a scene is at with better and more intense abilities unlocking later in the fight. This help simulate the growing tension that the comic book readers are feeling as the heroes race against the clock to save the day.
The scene ends immediately when a box needs to be ticked off but there are no more boxes. If there is 8 boxes and no other modifiers then the scene ends at the end of the 9th round.
A Hero can take an Overcome action to stabilize the scene. If successful then it avoid the Scene Tracker from advancing on the environment's turn but cannot stop twists/abilities from advancing it.
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:18, Tue 18 May 2021.