Earning Tenacity

An actor earns a Mote by failing a d20 test. Watched rolls are ability checks, skill checks, tool checks, saving throws, concentration saves, death saves, and attack rolls.

What counts as a failure

The Failure Detection setting decides which failed rolls grant a Mote:

• Critical Failure: only a natural 1.
• Automatic: a natural 1, a roll below its known DC, a single-target attack below the target’s AC, or a death save below 10.
• Manual: nothing is granted on its own. You hand out Motes with the +1 Tenacity button.

Concentration saves and death saves earn only while Allow Concentration Save Raises and Allow Death Save Raises are on.

Blind and GM-only rolls

A roll is hidden when it is blind or whispered only to GMs. The Blind Roll Behavior setting decides how a hidden failure is handled:

• Exempt: no Mote is granted, and the Spend dialog does not open automatically.
• Grant, No Prompt: a Mote is granted, but the Spend dialog does not open automatically.
• Normal: the roll earns like a public roll.

The grant flow

The primary GM’s client grants the Mote and adds a +1 earned pill to the roll card.

With Grant Button on, roll cards show a GM-only +1 Tenacity button for handing out a Mote on a roll the system did not catch.

With Automatically Prompt on D20 Test on, the Spend dialog opens for each connected owner of the actor after a watched roll, when the actor holds a Mote spendable on it. The primary GM gets the dialog when no owner is connected. The dialog does not open when the roll already meets a known DC or AC. See Spending Tenacity.

The self-rescue rule

A Mote earned on a roll card, including one from its +1 Tenacity button, cannot be spent on that roll. When every Mote in the pool came from the current card, its Spend button is disabled.

Starting and maximum Tenacity

Starting Tenacity is granted when a character is created. A character that already holds Tenacity is skipped. A character built in Hero Mancer with its Tenacity grant configured receives Hero Mancer’s amount instead.

Maximum Tenacity caps the pool. Grants past the cap are lost. A per-actor Personal Cap on the sheet badge overrides it.

Pools clear on the Reset Trigger. See Rest and Conversion.

NPC support

The NPC Support setting controls whether non-character actors participate:

• None: NPCs never earn or spend Tenacity.
• Linked Only: NPCs with linked tokens participate.
• All: every NPC participates.

An allowed NPC earns and spends like a character. Starting Tenacity applies only to characters.