Strain and Ascension
Strain is a five-box track and it is the most important resource you have. It is how you exceed yourself, and it is the only road to permanent power in this game.
The three gears
| Action | Cost | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Push | 1 Strain | +3 dice on any roll |
| Overclock | 3 Strain | Act at Scale +1 for one exchange — declared before you roll |
| Break | Fill the entire track, and take Backlash | Act at Scale +2 for a single action |
Overclock is the gear you will use most. Three Strain buys you one exchange a full band above yourself — enough to turn a gap of 2 into a gap of 1, which turns "no roll, you lose" into an actual fight.
Break is different. Break is not a tactic. Break is the thing you do when the alternative is unacceptable, and it costs you the whole track and whatever comes back.
Backlash
When you Break, something comes back. The GM picks, or rolls:
- Your powers go offline for the rest of the scene
- You damage something you were protecting
- Heat +2
- You take a Wound
- The power permanently changes
Most powers carry a signature Backlash of their own, and it is usually worse and more interesting than the generic list.
Clearing Strain
One box per downtime scene. The whole track in a scene spent with a Tie.
That second one is not a convenience. It is the system telling you where recovery comes from in this game: not from a med-bay, from the person who knew you before the mask. If you never spend a scene with your Ties, you will run the whole campaign on a nearly full track, and you will find that out the hard way.
Ascension
When you Break and survive the Backlash, mark an Ascension. On your third Ascension, your Scale permanently increases by 1 and your Strain track clears.
That is the only way to gain Scale. It is not on the XP table. You cannot buy it, save for it, or find it in a box.
You get stronger by being pushed past your limit on-screen, at a real cost, in front of everyone at the table — and then getting up. Three times. Then you are permanently something else, and the GM will make a scene of it: something visible breaks, and people look at you differently afterwards.
Expect roughly one Scale per arc. A full campaign takes you from Scale 1 to about Scale 5.
What that feels like from the inside
At Scale 1 you are working stairwells and worrying about one bullet. By Scale 3 the Authority has a unit for you and @Missing file has a line item. At Scale 4 the things that can still hurt you are not people any more — and the things that can still reach you are all named on your Ties list.
The climb is the plot. That is the design.