Your type and focus give you abilities—unique things your character can do. For instance, if you’re a Barbarian, you have Wounded Fury, which improves one of your attacks each round if you’re hurt.
An ability has a simple description and statistics. Here’s how to understand what it’s telling you.
Every ability has a unique name, like “Frenzy” or “Wounded Fury.” This is just a game term so you and the GM know what abilities you have. Your character might have a different name for it, or not have a name for it at all.
If you must spend Pool points to activate an ability, the number of points and the Pool name appear after the ability name, such as “1+ Intellect” after Frenzy. This part is omitted if the ability has no cost.
If an ability has a+sign after the Pool point cost, it means you can spend additional points or levels of Effort in a special way, such as affecting additional targets or increasing the duration. The exact benefit is explained later in the ability in a separate Effort section. Each option in this section costs one level of Effort; if there are multiple options, you have to use separate levels of Effort for each. For example, if the ability says “additional target” and “increase range,” affecting an additional target costs one level of Effort, increasing the range costs one level of Effort, and doing both for the same activation costs a total of two levels of Effort. If the option costs points instead of a level of Effort, the point cost is listed in parentheses after the option, like “additional target (2 Intellect).”
Even if an ability doesn’t have a+in the cost, you can usually still apply Effort to ease the ability’s attack roll or skill roll, or to deal extra damage with an attack roll
This is what the ability does. If the ability has more than one effect or option, each is listed as a new paragraph.
In general, to affect an unwilling target with an ability, you have to make some kind of attack roll against them.
You can always end one of your abilities with an ongoing effect as an extra action on your turn, at no cost.
The last part of the ability description tells you how much time it takes to activate the ability.
There are some abilities in the game that have the same name but slightly different wording and effects. Always use the version of the ability from your own type and focus. The one from a different source might have been adjusted to modify or require an ability that you don’t have.
Sometimes your type and focus might give you the same ability, such as Wounded Fury from the Barbarian type and from the Howls at the Moon focus. Taking both of those abilities (or two abilities with different names that provide the same effect) doesn’t give you any extra benefit, so don’t choose an ability that’s a duplicate of something you already have. That’s why your focus gives you multiple options at each tier.
This section presents a vast catalog of more than a thousand abilities a character can gain from their type, flavor (if any), and focus. A character's type, flavor, and focus assign an appropriate tier to each ability. However, if you're creating a brand-new focus or type, we provide a couple of additional tools.
The first is a power grade for each ability, which tells you about how potent it is in relation to other abilities. Abilities appropriate for tiers 1 and 2 characters are called “low-tier” abilities. Abilities appropriate for tiers 3 and 4 are called “mid-tier” abilities. Abilities appropriate for tiers 5 and 6 are called “high-tier” abilities.
These abilities are further sorted into ability categories based on the kinds of things they do—abilities that improve physical attacks are in the attack skill category, abilities that assist allies are in the support category, and so on.
Abilities can be divided into several categories based on the kinds of things they do—improve your physical attacks, assist allies, provide defense, give you a special attack form, and so on. Under each of the following category descriptions is a list of abilities that fit that category, sorted into low-, medium-, and high-tier abilities.
The categories are mainly used by GMs when designing new foci for a campaign, allowing them to search a short list of abilities instead of trying to find something appropriate among the thousand or so abilities in this section. For example, the GM might have a custom focus in their campaign called “Is Born of the Swamp” and want a defensive ability for tier 5, so they can look at the high-tier abilities in the protection category and quickly narrow down what options are available.
It may be possible that a character gains the same ability from more than one source (such as from their type and their descriptor). Unless the two abilities are obviously additive (such as two abilities that each add 3 points to your Might Pool, which together would give the character +6 Might points), the duplicated ability might be improved in some way, such as having a longer duration or greater effect, or automatically providing an asset. Some abilities give suggestions on how to do this; otherwise, the player and the GM should work out whether and how the ability is improved.
The ability categories are not intended to be rigid or comprehensive. Some abilities fall into more than one category, and it could be argued that some abilities could be included in more categories than are listed here. These categories have some overlap with the focus categories in chapter 8. For example, there is a support category here and a support category in the Focus chapter. They aren't intended to be exact parallels and they don't mean exactly the same thing. That said, if you're creating a support-centric focus, many of the abilities in the support ability category would be appropriate choices.
Companion
Control
Craft
Cure
Environment
Informaation
Meta
Movement
Protection
Senses
Special Attack
Support
Task
Transform