Pools

Your character acquires points in several pools during character creation and upon sleeving into a morph. These pools reflect your character’s transhuman capabilities: augmented intelligence, enhanced physical prowess, elevated charisma. They boost your inherent talent and enable you to face down challenges, overcome obstacles, and achieve impressive feats.

Each pool is linked to a different group of aptitudes and skills and may be used in unique ways to modify your rolls or provide other bonuses to your character.

  • Insight pool is linked to mental capabilities: Cognition, Intuition, and their linked skills.
  • Moxie pool is linked to social interactions: Savvy, Willpower, and linked skills. It may also be used for Rep and Infection Tests.
  • Vigor pool is linked to physical efforts: Reflexes, Somatics, and their linked skills.
  • Flex is a wild-card pool. It can be used to affect dice rolls for any tests and for narrative control.

Using Pools

You may spend points from your pools to affect the tests you make; choose one of the following options. Each pool may only be used for tests that use their linked skills or aptitudes (i.e., a Vigor point can be used on a skill test or aptitude check linked to REF or SOM). Flex may be used on any tests.

  • Before Roll: Ignore all modifiers to the test.
  • Before Roll: Add +20 to the test’s target number.
  • After Roll: Flip-flop a d100 roll. For example, 83 becomes 38.
  • After Roll: Upgrade a success to a superior success (or one to two).
  • After Roll: Downgrade a critical failure to a regular failure.
  • Ongoing (Insight/Moxie/Vigor Only): Receive +5 (1 point) or +10 (2 points) to all skill tests linked to one aptitude for 24 hours or until your next recharge.

Unless otherwise noted, only 1 pool point may be spent per test. Pool spent for an ongoing effect (the last bullet point above) counts as affecting a test.

Various enhancements (ware, drugs, sleights, etc.) provide bonuses to your pools. These are cumulative, up to a maximum bonus of +5 points to any single pool.

Insight

Your mental pool may also be used for one of the following effects:

  • Take the Initiative: Go first in an action turn if you are only taking mental or mesh actions and no physical movement. If multiple characters choose this option, they go in Initiative order before everyone else.
  • Extra Action: Take an extra complex mental or mesh action (or 2 quick actions) in an action turn. These actions may only be taken after everyone else has gone. If multiple characters choose this option, they go in Initiative order after everyone else has taken their turn.
  • Acquire a Clue: Gain a hint or lead through investigation, research, or analysis of the facts at hand, without needing to make a test.

Moxie

Your social pool may be used to affect Rep Tests and also for one of the following effects:

  • Ignore Trauma: Ignore the effects of 1 trauma for 24 hours or until your next recharge.
  • Refresh Rep: Restore rep network favors at a cost of 1 point for a Minor favor and 2 points for a Moderate favor. Major favors cannot be refreshed this way.
  • Acquire a Clue: Get a tip or lead by gathering information via social interactions without needing to make a test.
  • Control Your Infection: Avoid making an Infection Test when using a psi sleight (asyncs only).
  • Negate Gaffe: Ignore a player’s social gaffe that the character wouldn’t make.

Vigor

Your physical pool may also be used for one of the following effects:

  • Take the Initiative: Go first in an action turn. If multiple characters choose this option, they go in Initiative order before everyone else.
  • Extra Action: Take an extra complex physical action (or 2 quick actions) in an action turn. This action may only be taken after everyone else has gone. If multiple characters choose this option, they go in Initiative order after everyone else has taken their turn.
  • Ignore Wound: Ignore the effects of 1 wound for 24 hours or until your next recharge.

Flex

Your wild-card pool may also be used for narrative control:

  • Introduce NPC: A new or existing NPC joins the scene. Their presence must be plausible. You may define one aspect of this NPC: their morph, factional allegiance, a noteworthy skill, a specific trait, etc. The GM determines the other details.
  • Introduce an Item: A previously unnoticed item is added to the scene. Its presence must be plausible. The item cannot be offensive (no weapons) and it must be of Minor (not Rare or Restricted) Complexity. It can be a useful tool, a necessary piece of gear, or even a clue. The GM determines its placement within the scene and the nature of any clues.
  • Define the Environment: You may introduce an environmental factor to a scene. Its presence must be plausible. It should provide a new detail that does not drastically alter the scene. Examples include hiding spots, cover, distractions, shelter, or exploitable elements such as a ladder or window.
  • Define a Relationship: You may introduce a new, plausible relationship between your character and an existing NPC. This should be a loose/minor connection rather than a close/serious tie. For example, you may have a common friend, shared history, or old but mild rivalry. You may define the rough basics, but the GM determines the finer points and the NPC’s attitude towards your character.

Recharging Pools

You recover the points you have spent from pools by taking a recharge action to rest and recalibrate. You can’t increase a pool above its original rating; unspent points are lost. There are two types of recharge actions: short recharges and long recharges.

  • Short Recharge (2/day): Short recharges are a task action with a timeframe of 10 minutes. You may take two short recharges per 24-hour period. Each short recharge restores 1d6 pool points; you decide where to allocate them. Some gear or psi sleights may provide bonus recharged points.
  • Long Recharge (1/day): A long recharge is a task action with a timeframe of 4 hours (8 for flats and other biomorphs without biomods). You may only benefit from one long recharge per 24-hour period. A long recharge completely recharged your pools to their full value.

While recharging, you may only engage in light, non-strenuous activity: eating, browsing the mesh, talking, reloading, taking watch, etc. Recharge timeframes cannot be shortened or interrupted; if they are, the time invested is lost.

Temporary Pools

Some effects, such as drugs and psi sleights, provide temporary pool bonuses. These points should be considered extra points that are expended before any of your regular pool points. These bonus points may be restored with a recharge, but only if all of your normal pool points are restored first. If you do not spend bonus points before the duration of the effect ends, they are lost.

Zahiri has an arachnoid morph with Insight 1 and Vigor 3. They also have neurachem ware thanks to their soldier gear pack, which gives them +2 Vigor, for a total Vigor pool of 5. They also have 1 ego Flex.

While approaching an exhuman nest on a remote asteroid, Zahiri spends 1 Insight to get a +20 bonus on a Perceive roll. Unfortunately they also flub a pair of Free Fall Tests as they cross various crevasses on the asteroid, getting a 71 and an 85 against their Free Fall of 60. In both cases, they spend a Vigor point to flip-flop the die roll, getting a 17 and a 58 respectively instead, succeeding on their tests. Once inside, they take a short recharge, roll 1d6 and get a 6, recovering all 3 of their spent points.

Zahiri then has an encounter with some exhuman predators. They spend 1 Vigor to take the initiative in the first turn and 4 more Vigor during the fight for extra actions. This depletes their Vigor pool, so they take another short recharge, but roll only a 2, so they only get 2 Vigor pool back.

Zahiri took 3 wounds during the fight. As a synthmorph, they can ignore the effects of one wound. Zahiri doesn’t want to be hindered, so they spend their 2 remaining Vigor to ignore the other wounds for 24 hours or their next recharge. That leaves them only their 1 Insight and 1 Flex for the challenges they still face until they take a long recharge.

Don’t Hoard!

With expendable resources like pools, it can be tempting to avoid spending them in case you need them later. While this can sometimes be a wise tactical decision (perhaps you are out of short recharges and suspect a boss fight is coming up), we strongly encourage you to avoid hoarding for the sake of it — spend your pool when you need it.