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The Foundations

Core rules of grace, aspects, and rolls

In Warriors of the Covenant, you control your character’s choices while the GM presents the world and portrays non-player characters (NPCs). We play fiction first: say what you do in the story, then reach for the rules that fit.

Your Aspects set expectations for what you can reasonably attempt and shape how results are interpreted. Most people can’t treat a gut wound in the field—but a PC with a Healer’s Apprentice Aspect can try. When in doubt, check with your GM and the table.

Often you simply succeed—because the task is trivial or unopposed. When the situation is uncertain, opposed, or risky, roll the dice to find out what happens.

When to Roll

Ask three quick questions:

What’s stopping this?
What could go wrong?
How is it interesting if it does go wrong?

If you don’t have good answers to all three, it just happens. Drawing water at a quiet well? No roll. Slipping past armed sentries with a wounded companion? That’s a roll.

Taking Action (Step by Step)

Fiction first. Describe what you’re trying to do.
Choose a Skill and an action. Pick the most fitting core Skill (e.g., Exhort, Combat, Faith) and one of the four actions (you’ll find them in Actions & Outcomes).
Roll 4dF. Convert :plus-: / :blank: / :minus-: to numbers and sum them.
Add your Skill rating.
Apply modifiers, if any. Spend Grace Points to invoke relevant Aspects, and factor in any Stunts that apply.
State your total—this is your effort.
Compare to opposition. The GM sets a difficulty or an opposing character rolls Defend.
Read the outcome. Resolve the result using Actions & Outcomes, including ties, success, and success with style.

Tip: Your Aspects grant permission and leverage; Grace turns that leverage into mechanical impact. Keep the fiction clear so everyone can see why your invokes and Stunts apply.

Difficulty and Opposition

If your action pushes against the world—lifting a barred gate, reading a weathered inscription, surveying a guarded camp—the GM sets a static difficulty. Scene or character Aspects may justify nudging that difficulty up or down.

When your action pushes against a willful foe, that foe provides opposition by taking a Defend action. In those cases, the GM also rolls and applies the foe’s relevant Skills, Stunts, and Aspects. Any time you Attack a foe or Create an Advantage directly against them, expect that foe to roll Defend.

Opposition can be obvious or implicit. Grappling with a cultist for the ritual dagger has a clear defender. Straining to break a circle of ash laid by a false priest might be opposed by the ritual’s power itself (GM sets difficulty). Picking the locks on a caravan strongbox carries risk—are you rolling against the difficulty of the lock or the opposition of the patrolling guards? That’s the GM’s call based on what’s truly standing in your way.

Who rolls Defend?

• If a character is actively stopping you, they roll Defend with a Skill.

• If a hazard hits you right now (flash, crush, dread pulse), you make an Attribute Defend—a save on yourself.

• If you protect someone else, that’s a Skill Defend (e.g., Compassion to steady them, Combat to interpose, Agility to yank them clear).

Modifying the Dice

You can shape outcomes by invoking Aspects (spending Grace Points) for a +2 or a reroll, and by applying Stunts when their conditions are met. You can also invoke Aspects to aid an ally (page XX) or to raise an enemy’s difficulty when justified by the fiction.

Invoking Aspects (Grace Points)

When the dice come up short, your Aspects—and those on scenes, foes, and objects—give you leverage.

If an Aspect plausibly helps, explain how and spend 1 Grace Point to invoke it (or use a free invoke). What counts as “plausible” is governed by our table’s calibration check: anyone may say “that’s a stretch” to pause and sanity-check an invoke against the game’s tone and fiction. Resolve it by either:

Retracting or switching the invoke (choose a better-fitting Aspect), or
Making a brief case; if the table agrees, proceed. If not, retract and move on.

Use the calibration check to keep play on-tone and canon-safe—it’s a tool for fun, not a veto to win arguments. “Great at First Impressions” to lift a boulder is probably a stretch—unless you also have a Stunt that grants extraordinary strength and you’re opening a parley by clearing a path.

When you invoke an Aspect you may:

Add +2 to your roll, or
Reroll all four dice, or
Add +2 to an opponent’s difficulty (if fictionally justified).

You may invoke multiple different Aspects on the same roll, but never the same Aspect twice on one roll. Exception: you may spend multiple free invokes on a single Aspect in the same roll.

Common sources: your character Aspects, situation/scene Aspects, and hostile invokes of another character’s Aspect (page XX).

Note on Conscience: Some compels and choices that stretch your Personal Belief may offer Grace but risk Conscience Stress—see Stress & Conditions.

Using Stunts

Stunts grant focused, reliable edges—usually a +2 in a narrow circumstance with no cost, or a special permission that changes what you can attempt. They apply when their written conditions are met (specific action, Skill, situation, or target).

Line up your fiction with your Stunts. If a Stunt keys off Exhort against wavering crowds, frame your approach as exhortation—not brute force.
Use Create an Advantage to place Aspects that synergize with your Stunts’ triggers (page XX).

A few exceptional Stunts may require you to spend 1 Grace to activate their effect; the Stunt will say so explicitly.

Need examples? See Chapter 5: Stunts Catalog for ready-to-use options organized by Heart, Soul, Mind, and Strength.

Outcomes

When you roll, compare your effort to the target difficulty or opposition. The difference is measured in shifts (each shift = 1). Four outcomes are possible:

↓ Fail — your effort is less than the target.
⇄ Tie — your effort is equal to the target.
↑ Succeed — your effort is +1 or +2 shifts over the target.
⇈ Succeed with Style — your effort is +3 shifts or more over the target.

All outcomes should advance the fiction. You started fiction-first; end fiction-first by describing what the result looks like in the scene.

Example frame: You’re in a desecrated storeroom beneath the old shrine. A sealed coffer holds a ledger you need, while sentries patrol above.

↓ Failure

If your effort is less than the target, you fail. You can express failure three common ways: simple failure, success at a major cost, or take a hit.

Simple Failure

You don’t accomplish the goal and the situation shifts in a way that keeps play moving.

The bar doesn’t budge—and the iron scrape rings up the stairwell. Footsteps above. What now?

Success at a Major Cost

You get what you wanted, but pay a big price—position, time, alarm, leverage, or similar. The GM can declare this or offer it instead of straight failure.

You crack the coffer… just as a sentry’s lamp flares in the doorway. Ledger in hand, but you’re cornered.

Take a Hit

You suffer harm or a clear drawback—usually marking Stress or taking a Condition (Physical or Mental). This most often happens when you fail to Defend or when overcoming a dangerous obstacle.

The coffer pops—but a buried thorn jabs your palm. Take the Hurt (Mild) Condition.

(Spiritual backlash? You might take Shaken (Mild) instead, at the GM’s call.)

You can mix these: “success at the cost of harm” is perfectly valid when the fiction points that way.