🎲 Powers in play

What happens after you press Roll. Reserve costs, recovery, Stays-On lifecycle, and how enchantments behave once they leave the workshop.

The basic cast

Using a power follows the same 3d6 ≤ target shape as any skill roll — see Dice rolls for the full mechanics. The target is built from your power skill and the relevant base stat, with any modifiers for level, range, and conditions.

What's different from a plain skill roll:

  • The roll has a reserve cost in pool points.
  • You need at least 1 point in your reserve to attempt the cast — the app disables the Roll button below that line.
  • The reserve is spent whether the roll passes or fails. The energy is gone the moment you reached for it.

Your power reserve

Your pool has a maximum — set by the base stat for your power type and any reserve points you've invested. Casting drains it; rest refills it. The current reserve is shown in the play UI and updates the moment a cast resolves.

Going negative

Spending more than you have is allowed. The reserve drops below zero and stays there until it recovers naturally. This matters mostly for enchantments — see further down — but it can also happen if you push a heavy cast at the wrong moment.

Recovery

Reserve recovers over time, paced to the size of your pool:

  • Small pool — about one-sixth per four hours.
  • Mid pool — about one-twelfth per two hours.
  • Big pool — about one twenty-fourth per hour.

A full day's rest returns the pool to its maximum. A deeply negative reserve climbs back the same way — there's no shortcut. Plan the big castings around the rest you can take.

Stays-On powers: a different rhythm

A Stays-On power that succeeds becomes active and stays that way without further rolls — but you keep paying the reserve cost each upkeep tick. The app surfaces this in two places:

  • In the power list, the row shows a small ACTIVE chip and a warning-coloured border.
  • In the detail view, the power gets a Stays On chip (with a · autonomous suffix when that toggle is on), plus two action buttons.

Continue

Continue pays the upkeep again and keeps the effect running. No roll is needed — you've already succeeded; the spell is just sustaining. If the reserve is too low to pay the upkeep, the app refuses and the effect ends. You'll see a toast telling you why.

Turn off

Turn off ends the effect cleanly. No further reserve is spent; the chip and the warning border disappear. Whatever the spell was doing is gone.

Casting an active Stays-On power again

Sometimes you'll want to "upgrade" the effect mid-scene — for example, swap conditions or shift target. Re-rolling an already-active power is treated as turn off, then re-cast:

  • The previous instance ends immediately.
  • The new roll is made. Reserve cost is paid as normal.
  • On pass: the new instance becomes active. Upkeep starts fresh.
  • On fail: nothing is active afterwards. The old effect is still gone.

In other words: don't roll Stays-On powers casually if you like the version you already have running.

Charge, Store, Permanence — at the table

Build-time costs and exclusivity live on Building a power. Once the item exists:

  • Charge — holder rolls a discipline check to release; charges deplete; last charge typically destroys the item.
  • Store — no roll; trigger the item. Single use unless you and the item say otherwise.
  • Permanence — the item just has the property. Triggered effects (Blast, Drain, Heal, Strike) may need a GM recharge interval.

Today, add the enchanted item to inventory with a description of the magic (and any extra damage the GM agrees to). A richer baked-in-powers model is on the roadmap.

Creating the enchantment still requires the roll. Fail and the reserve is spent anyway — with Permanence's huge reserve cost, that hurts. Don't craft on an empty pool.

Common mistakes

  • Forgetting reserve is spent on a failed roll. The energy left your character the moment they reached for the power. Plan your odds before pressing Roll.
  • Letting Stays-On run forever without checking the reserve. The upkeep cost is real. Two long Stays-On spells can drain a mid pool in a few minutes of in-fiction time.
  • Re-casting an active Stays-On power to "be safe". You'll end the version you already had — and if the new roll fails, you're left with nothing.
  • Crafting a magical item on the road. A Permanence cast on a near-empty reserve will leave the character deep in the red for a long time. Save it for downtime, prep, or a story arc with a payoff.

See also