Momentum
Momenta Core Rules · Moment 1 · The Basics · Chapter 06
Momentum is daring rewarded — on the battlefield, across a negotiating table, or in the moment you tell the truth that costs you — and it lasts only as long as you keep moving. It’s a shared team resource that swells as the heroes seize the initiative, and it fuels their most powerful maneuvers, Limit Breaks.
Momentum
Momentum is a pooled resource shared by the whole party. It starts at 0 up to a maximum value determined by the following:
Max Momentum = Sum of every party member's SOUL + number of party members
For the purposes of calculating Momentum, only party members that belong to players are counted; NPC allies are not.
For example, if a party has 4 members, and they have SOUL scores of 1, 0, 3, and 3, then their Max Momentum is 11.
Momentum is earned through significant achievements and lost through genuine disasters. Glory comes from worthy foes and turning points. However, Momentum can never rise above the maximum value, or be reduced below 0.
Momentum persists across interludes within a mission and is reset to 0 at downtime.
Design Note: Having Momentum persist between combats encourages players to push on instead of frequently taking full rests by going into downtime.
Gaining Momentum
| Achievement | Momentum |
|---|---|
| Defeat a Grunt or Regular enemy | none |
| Defeat an Elite enemy | +1 |
| Defeat a Champion enemy | +2 |
| Defeat a Nemesis enemy | +3 |
| Finish an encounter by achieving the main encounter objective | +3 |
| Achieve a side encounter objective (i.e., encounter challenge) | +1 |
| Perform a cinematic or heroic act that swings the combat in the Allies’ favor | +1 (GM discretion) |
| Inflict the Broken condition on an enemy | +1 |
| Remove the Defeated or Lost condition from an ally | +1 |
| The party successfully overcomes a narrative challenge during an interlude | +1 / +2 (GM discretion) |
Other archetype abilities or masteries may also grant additional ways to gain Momentum.
Losing Momentum
| Disaster | Momentum |
|---|---|
| A player character or ally is Defeated or Lost | -1 |
| Fail to achieve the main encounter objective | -3 |
| Any other significant setback or disaster occurs | -1 to -3 (GM discretion) |
Spending Momentum
Momentum can be spent to support allies and shift the momentum of battle against the enemy.
| Spending Momentum | Momentum | Applies to |
|---|---|---|
| Limit Break - Perform a Limit Break maneuver. | 3 | Combat |
| Momentous Fortune - When a character tests their luck and receive an undesirable luck roll result, they can choose to reroll. This can only be done once per luck roll, and the character can choose the better result between the old and the new roll. | 2 | Combat / Narrative Play |
| Momentous Feat - Add successes to any ally’s roll. The character can decide to apply this after the roll is made. Up to 3 successes can be added in this manner on a single roll. This cannot be applied when testing your luck. | 1 per success added | Combat / Narrative Play |
| Momentous Development - Players can declare a fact into the fiction that one of the character’s Threads makes plausible. This can represent a flashback, or a serendipitous coincidence, or some other plausible development that helps the party’s current situation. | 1 | Narrative Play |
Momentum may also be spent to power certain special abilities, or spent out-of-combat in certain situations.