Four small numbers in the fight
Stoic touches four of the values the combat AI builds for each hero:
| Value | Stoic change | What it governs |
|---|---|---|
| Courage | +0.12 | How long the hero keeps fighting as things go wrong |
| Recklessness | −0.06 | Appetite for risky options |
| Steadiness | −0.04 | How fast nerve drains (lower is better) |
| Poise | −0.03 | Extra misjudgement chance when hurt (lower is better) |
The last two are easy to miss because they do not appear in the usual trait tables. Both are built from Composure. For a hero with Composure 10, poise starts at 0.14: at half health that hero has an extra 7% chance per decision to hesitate and pick the wrong option. A Stoic hero with the same Composure is at 0.11, or 5.5%. Steadiness for that hero starts at 0.31 instead of 0.35, so their nerve drains about 11% more slowly while the fight turns against them.
Courage without the threat
The comparison that matters is with the other +0.12 courage traits. Brave gives the same courage with a +0.08 threat rider, and Iron-Willed with +0.06. Stoic carries no threat change at all. On a healer or a back-line damage dealer, where extra enemy attention is the last thing you want, that makes Stoic the cleaner way to buy nerve.
As party leader
You set the order for when a party should retreat (first, half, most or never). Most leaders bend it by temperament: bold traits push the order a step later, fearful ones a step earlier. Stoic sits in the game’s steady group with Methodical, Cool-Headed, Steady, Iron-Willed, Unbreakable and Stalwart, and a leader from that group follows your order exactly, whatever else they carry.
Stoic also changes how a party feels about the route. When a leader takes a side room at a dungeon fork, everyone else normally loses 2 morale for the risk. A Stoic leader (like a Charismatic or Inspiring one) takes that detour with no morale cost: “nobody minds the risk with them leading.”
Outside the fight
- Gatherings. In guild competitions Stoic adds +2 in wit events and −2 in crowd events.
- Grief. When a comrade dies, Stoic heroes get the “bold” set of grief lines, the same as Brave, Unbreakable, Stalwart and Dauntless. Flavour only.
- Flavour. Quest reports have Stoic lines, and on pair duty the hero speaks with the “quiet” voice.
Stoic is not one of the traits that halve the morale hit from a bad delve rating; that list is Cool-Headed, Steady, Iron-Willed and Stalwart. The hero card links Stoic to Composure and Resolve, but that link does not change the attributes.
Who should carry it
- Healers and supports, who gain nerve without drawing fire.
- Party leaders, because they keep your retreat order and make fork detours free of morale cost.
- Heroes with low Composure, where poise and steadiness start worst and the trait’s reductions matter most.
Conflicts and rarity
Stoic can never appear with Brittle, Hot-Headed or Sore Loser.
- Rarity: uncommon, positive · draw weight 45 of 6,365 · about 1 recruit in 57
- Founding draft: any card.
- In the wiki’s archive: present in the earliest archived build, 1.9.6.
Recruiting
A solid positive on any hero. It is worth most on healers and supports, who benefit from nerve but should never carry a threat rider, and on the hero you plan to put in the leader’s seat.