Modifiers¶

Sometimes (often) players want to build more advantage than just their Hero’s Boons would provide. In Gnosis, this generally means gaining access to a Boon they normally don’t have access to. There are a few variations on this, but they all adhere to fairly similar rules.

Working Together - Two or more Heroes work together and pool Boons.
Maneuver - Take an action to prepare or provide advantage.
Assess - Discover or notice something about the situation and use it for advantage.
Prop - Gear that has been found, bought or stolen, that a Hero has not bought as a Boon.
Circumstances - Exploiting environmental factors beyond the Hero’s control.

Conceptually Working Together, Maneuvers and Assess are grouped together as they all cost actions and only affect a single roll, while props and circumstances are free to exploit once during a scene. To exploit any of them other than Working Together additional times during a scene requires spending a Favor to activate it.

Working Together¶

Whenever two Heroes are working with the same Intent, they can pool resources. Just as a Hero can add a Companion to their Strategy, they may also add another Hero.

In practice this means that any Boons that any of the Heroes working together have access to may be used to build a Strategy. It uses the action of all Heroes contributing the Strategy.

Only one player rolls dice using the attribute dice of their Hero, which player rolls is up to the players to decide among themselves.

Any Consequences are evenly distributed among the Heroes that were working together. Any question about how to divvy up Consequences is determined by the Narration that resulted from the challenge.

Two junior Heroes work together to try and take down a hunter-killer android. The two decide that Alvin is going to get the android’s attention while Beth shoots it in the head from cover. Alvin contributes Bright Clothing to Possibility and Subdermal Armor to Power, while Beth adds Headshot to Precision.

The players decide that Alvin will roll the dice. Narratively, if they fail and there is one Consequence Alvin will take it since he’s the bait, but if they critically fail and there are two consequences, the android returned fire on Beth as well and both end up taking a consequence, in this case a point of Blood.

Maneuver¶

The character spends their action and does something to make a more advantageous environment.

The Hero makes an unopposed Attribute Roll, the result of the roll determines the Tier of the Circumstance that can be created. The roll is not made against the Pain Pool, so is usually easier, but it isn’t guaranteed to be a safe roll, it could still fail and result in Stress or Blood.

Result	Tier
16+	1
20+	2
24+	3

The Strategy can be anything that could change the environment in some way.

A gunfight broke out down the block, a Hero decides to jump into a car and pull it across the road so it can be used as cover. They use their Heavy Wrench, Ace Driver and Mechanical Aptitude for Power, Precision and Possibility respectively to smash a window, get the car started and pull it across the road.

They roll a 21, so the resulting Road Block circumstance is Tier 2.

As per normal Circumstance rules it can be used once, either by the Hero that created it, or by another Hero. The Hero can choose to spend a Favor instead of an action to create the Circumstance, if they do that, they may use the Circumstance any number of times, just as if they had spent the Favor on a pre-existing Circumstance.

Assess¶

Mechanically Assess is identical to Maneuver, the only difference is rather than creating and exploitable environmental circumstance, they know something about their adversary that they can exploit.

This may be something about their equipment, personality, tactics, etc. Whichever it is, the Hero can use it themselves or, if they can communicate, let one of their allies use the information.

Result	Tier
16+	1
20+	2
24+	3

Like any other Circumstance, it can be used once for free, to use it again, requires spending a Favor. Same rules about spending Favor to re-use the created Circumstance from Maneuvers apply.

A technician Hero, who is hiding in cover as far from the attacking power armor as he can be, makes an Assess action to know something about the powerarmor worn by the attackers. He rolls Doctor of Mechanical Engineering, Powerarmor Repair and Encyclopedic Memory and rolls a 22, so if he can communicate with his allies he can tell them about the Tier 2 Weak Left Knee Actuator that they could use.

Props¶

Props are gear/equipment that a Hero acquired without paying xp. It is the GM’s sworn duty to destroy or remove these Props from the Hero’s control.

Usually Props are equipment looted, scavenged or bought with money that is not Kit Gear. Props have a tier and can be used as Boon once during a scene for free. Subsequent uses require activating the Prop with Favor. One Favor will activate the Prop for the whole scene.

If the player can narrative justify it, a Hero can sacrifice a Prop to soak a single point of Stress or Blood, and the prop is destroyed by being sacrificed. Heroes that sacrifice a Prop recover a point of Favor.

A Prop can be converted to a Gear Boon by spending xp on it, or into Kit Gear by removing its tier.

A Prop can have any of the normal cirucmstance modifiers.

Circumstances¶

Circumstances are anything that gives a Hero an advantage, such as darkness, performance enhancing drugs, castle walls, etc.

Generally Circumstances can be exploited once without cost, to continue to use them requires spending a Favor. A single Favor will activate Circumstances for the Scene without further cost.

Circumstances have tiers like Boons, and are added to Strategies like any other Boon.

Circumstance Modifiers¶

The GM may put special modifiers on some Circumstances if they behaved differently than the general rules described above:

Slow Burn — Every use degrades them one tier, such as Weak Cover.
One Shot — One use, and they are gone, like a Car Dangling From A Crane. These Circumstances can’t be activated with Favor.
Session — Only usable once per session, such as Industrial Capacitor.

There are other possibilities, these are just some examples of possible modifiers.

It’s all Circumstances¶

Working Together, Maneuver, Assess and Props are all just special cases of Circumstances. They all may have special conditions on what it takes to use one and how long they are usable for, but fundamentally they all have:

A creation method or cost
Conditions necessary to use them

They all have a tier and may be used as if they were Boons. They are all are usable once if the conditions are met, and if it makes narrative sense, a Hero can spend a Favor and use them unlimited number of times until the end of the scene.

It’s all Circumstances, really.

Type	Creation Method/Cost	Condition	Examples
Working Together	2+ Heroes with the same Intent must spend their actions.	Ephemeral: Just while the Heroes are working together.	Flanking, Multiple engineers working together.
Maneuver	Take an action and make a Maneuver roll.	Scene: As long as whatever was done remains relevant.	Aiming, Good shooting position, Close to Castle.
Assess	Take an action and make an Assess roll.	Scene: Until the known thing no longer applies.	Dragon’s weak belly scale, a guard’s fondness for drink or a senator’s fear of snakes.
Prop	Found, looted or bought gear that the Hero didn’t pay xp for.	Until sacrificed, broken or lost.	Sword looted from a dead enemy or a radio jammer bought at the spy store.
Circumstance	Placed by the GM or Player spending Favor.	Scene: As long as relevant to the action.	Shadows to hide in, castle walls, high ground or patches of fire.

If a player is hoping to get more dice to roll, it will likely fit into one of those categories, or something sufficiently similar that the GM can massage it into similar rules.

Disadvantage¶

In the situation where a circumstance occurs which doesn’t seem endemic to the Pain Pool as a whole, nor that can be handled by effect the GM may inflict a level of disadvantage on a Hero.

This functions exactly as if the Hero had received an additional Wound, countering levels of advantage on a one-for-one basis. The only practical difference is the level of disadvantage is cleared when the circumstance no longer applies, rather than the Hero having to heal it.

Circumstantial disadvantage is not a Wound, so Edges that affect Wounds would not impact these levels of disadvantage.