Quick Start

Tenacity runs on a loop. A player fails a d20 test and earns a Mote. On a later failed roll, they spend Motes to raise the result by +1 per Mote. This page walks one round of that loop.

Your first Mote

1. A player rolls any d20 test from the character sheet: attack, ability check, skill, or saving throw.
2. The roll fails. What counts as a failure is configurable on the Settings page.
3. A green +N earned pill appears on the chat card, and the Tenacity badge on the sheet ticks up by one.

The badge tooltip reads 1 Tenacity. Spend it to turn failed rolls into successes.

A player cannot spend the Mote earned on the roll that earned it. That is the self-rescue rule.

See Earning Tenacity for the full earn rules.

Spending Tenacity

1. The player makes another d20 roll. It fails or lands short of the DC.
2. On the chat card, they click Spend (N). N is the Motes available for this roll: the pool minus any Motes earned on the same card.
3. The Spend dialog opens. When the DC or AC is known, it shows the gap and pre-fills the amount field with the minimum Motes needed to flip the result.
4. They confirm with Spend.
5. The chat card updates. A violet +X (now Y) pill appears, the roll formula expands to include the Tenacity term, and the total rises. If the new total clears the DC, the roll succeeds.

When the DC is hidden, the dialog hides it too and the player spends blind. They commit a number of Motes and you judge the outcome.

See Spending Tenacity for known-DC vs blind spends and the auto-min behavior.

What if it still fails?

Spending Motes does not guarantee a flip. If the raised total still misses:

• On known-DC rolls with auto-refund on, the system refunds spent Motes and posts Not enough. Refunded N Tenacity.
• On blind spends, the Motes return only if you click Refund on the card.

Refunded Motes remember which roll first earned them and stay locked against self-rescue.

See Refunds and Failed Raises for the percentages and edge cases.

At the end of the session

When the reset triggers, the Tenacity pool clears. With Tenacity to Inspiration Conversion on, a player whose pool meets or exceeds the conversion threshold at rest trades that pool for Heroic Inspiration instead of losing it. The reset trigger is configurable.

See Rest and Conversion for the conversion rules.

Where to go next

• Settings to tune failure detection, refund percentage, caps, and conversion.
• Midi-QOL integration if your table runs midi-qol, for live attack and save prompts plus post-hoc raises.