Appendix B · Glossary

Momenta Core Rules · Appendices · Chapter B

Every game term, one line each, with a pointer to the chapter that defines it. These are identifications, not rules: the chapter is always authoritative.

• Action roll — The standard roll: a pool of d6s, each 5 or 6 a success. Rolling Dice
• Affliction — A persistent condition gained from Burdens; there are six named Afflictions, and they survive interludes. Conditions and States
• Archetype — A package of ranked abilities; every character has an ancestry archetype and at least one path archetype. Archetypes
• Area attack — An attack that affects every creature within a shape rather than a chosen target. Attacking
• Art — The verb of a spell — what it does. Combined with a Resonance to make a spell. Spellcasting
• Assist — Spend Resolve to add dice to an ally’s narrative action roll. Narrative Actions
• Attribute — POW, AGI, REA, INS, PRE, and LUCK; they set your dice pools. Characters at a Glance
• Auto-clear — A clear type: the condition loses a stack at the end of your turn. Conditions and States
• Basic Attack — The maneuver for attacking with an equipped weapon. Maneuvers and Reactions
• Basic path — The archetype class that defines a character’s trade: Warrior, Scholar, Channeler, and so on. Archetypes
• Beat — A unit of the mission clock; missions are measured in beats. The Mission Loop
• Blast, Cone, Line, Wall, Salvo — The shapes an area spell can take. Spellcasting
• BODY, MIND, SOUL — The three cores; each is the sum of two attributes and drives derived stats and mastery slots. Characters at a Glance
• Bond — A relationship with mechanical weight, grown through play and measured by Strands and intensity. Bonds
• Bond intensity — The five strengths of a Bond: Fleeting (1), Rooted (2), Enduring (3), Profound (4), Unbreakable (5). Bonds
• Bond Montage — A downtime action that grows a Bond. Downtime
• Bond target — The character, creature, place, or object a Bond is held toward. Bonds
• Bond Vignette — An interlude scene that grows a Bond. Interludes
• Brace — A free reaction that halves incoming damage at the price of Broken; not a reactive defense. Maneuvers and Reactions
• Broken — A condition that costs you your maneuvers and reactions until the end of your turn. Conditions and States
• Burden — Filled when Strain reaches its maximum; each Burden inflicts an Affliction. Damage, Wounds, and Burdens
• Called shot — Targeting Edge or Mark instead of Mass, at a dice penalty for a stronger effect. Attacking
• Campaign difficulty — The mission-level setting that governs merits and the mission clock. The Mission Loop
• Carry — In a group roll, covering an ally’s consequence with your own. Narrative Actions
• Cast a Spell — The maneuver for casting a spell from your repertoire. Spellcasting
• Catastrophic Failure, Failure, Success at a Cost, Success, Success with a Bonus — The five outcomes of a narrative action roll, read from the difficulty ladder. Narrative Actions
• Catch Your Breath — A full-turn maneuver that trades Resolve for Vitality. Maneuvers and Reactions
• Challenge class — An enemy’s weight: Grunt, Regular, Elite, Champion, or Nemesis. Building Encounters
• Champion — A challenge class: a boss with multiple turns, Wound slots, and telegraphed signatures. Building Encounters
• Clock — A segmented tracker for progress or pressure in narrative play. Clocks
• Combination weapon — A weapon in parts that share gear slots. Equipment
• Combo Limit Break — A Limit Break performed together by partners who share a mutual Bond 4 or higher. Bonds in Combat
• Come Back to Me! — The mutual Bond 4 maneuver that can bring back a Defeated or Lost partner. Bonds in Combat
• Concept line — The one-sentence description of who a character is, written at creation. Creating a Character
• Condition — A status with a clear type and, often, stacks; the full list is in one chapter. Conditions and States
• Consumable — A single-use item, tracked with consumable points rather than individually. Equipment
• Consumable point — The resource spent to use any consumable you have access to. Characters at a Glance
• Core — See BODY, MIND, SOUL. Characters at a Glance
• Counterattack — A reaction that answers a melee attack with one of your own. Maneuvers and Reactions
• Cover — Partial obstruction that limits which hit locations a ranged attack can target. Attacking
• Crisis — A state: you are on your last Vitality or Strain track. Conditions and States
• Cumbersome — A tag: attacks with this weapon cost more Vigor. Appendix A · Tags
• Cursed — A condition that turns your luck rolls into zero successes. Conditions and States
• Damage type — The kind of damage an attack deals — Slashing, Piercing, Crushing, Fire, and others — used by resistance and weakness. Attacking
• Defeated — A condition: you are out of the fight until something brings you back. Conditions and States
• Deflect — A reactive defense that turns an attack aside with a weapon or shield; also the tag that permits it. Maneuvers and Reactions
• Delivered range — The range step a spell is actually cast at; it decides whether the spell is a melee or ranged attack. Spellcasting
• Difficult terrain — Squares that cost extra movement. Maneuvers and Reactions
• Difficulty ladder — The four rungs of narrative difficulty: Routine, Tricky, Daunting, Insurmountable. Narrative Actions
• Dodge — A reactive defense using AGI. Maneuvers and Reactions
• Domain — The grouping a mastery belongs to (General, Martial, an archetype, and so on), which decides who can take it. Masteries
• Downtime — The long rest between missions: full recovery, advancement, and downtime actions. Downtime
• Downtime action — One of the activities each character takes during downtime. Downtime
• Edge — A hit location; a hit here hinders the target. Attacking
• Effortless — A narrative pattern (Triple) that refunds Resolve. Patterns
• Elite — A challenge class: a dangerous single enemy with Wound slots and multiple turns. Building Encounters
• Encounter — A combat, framed by objectives and won by achieving them. Building Encounters
• Encounter challenge — A side encounter objective; achieving one earns Momentum. Building Encounters
• Equilibrium rule — The limit on how far apart your highest and lowest cores can be. Creating a Character
• Exhausted — A condition that halves your Vigor refresh. Conditions and States
• Extra Success — A narrative pattern (Double) that raises the outcome of a roll one step. Patterns
• Faltering — The death-track condition gained on filling your last Wound slot; survive it turn by turn. Conditions and States
• Feint — A maneuver that makes a target Vulnerable instead of dealing damage. Maneuvers and Reactions
• Forced movement — Movement you did not choose; it never triggers Forestall but can trigger Intercept. Maneuvers and Reactions
• Forestall — A reaction that punishes an enemy leaving your reach. Maneuvers and Reactions
• Free action — An act that costs no Vigor and no maneuver. Maneuvers and Reactions
• Frightened — A condition: you cannot move toward or melee-attack the source of your fear. Conditions and States
• Full-turn maneuver — A maneuver that consumes your whole turn except the free Move. Maneuvers and Reactions
• Gear — Weapons, armor, and spell foci, limited by gear slots. Equipment
• Gear slot — A derived stat: how many pieces of gear you can equip. Characters at a Glance
• Grab — The maneuver that seizes a target; the target becomes Grabbed. Maneuvers and Reactions
• Grabbed — A condition: a grabber is holding you and neither of you can move freely. Conditions and States
• Graze — An attack reduced to zero successes; it still deals its lowest damage band but triggers no patterns. Rolling Dice
• Group roll — A narrative roll the whole party makes together. Narrative Actions
• Grunt — A challenge class: rank-and-file enemies that act in squads and never roll. Building Encounters
• Guard — A damage buffer that absorbs hits before Vitality and refreshes each turn. Characters at a Glance
• Hidden — A state: enemies cannot target you until you are found. Vision, Lighting, and Stealth
• Hide — The maneuver for becoming Hidden. Vision, Lighting, and Stealth
• Hindered — A condition that slows you and strips your ability to Dodge. Conditions and States
• Hit location — Where an attack lands: Mass, Edge, or Mark. Attacking
• Impaired — A condition: a dice penalty per stack on all rolls except luck rolls. Conditions and States
• Imprecise — A tag: the attack can only target Mass. Appendix A · Tags
• Indefensible — A tag: the attack cannot be met by reactive defenses. Appendix A · Tags
• Independent — A combatant on neither side, acting after everyone else. The Shape of a Fight
• Intercept — A reaction that strikes an enemy entering your reach. Maneuvers and Reactions
• Interlude — The short rest between encounters, with room for one meaningful scene. Interludes
• Interlude scene — A brief scene played during an interlude. Interludes
• Invisible — A condition: you are always hidden, and those able to locate you treat you as obscured. Vision, Lighting, and Stealth
• Invoke — Spending Resolve to bring a Bond to bear on a roll, in a scene or a fight. Narrative Actions
• Knowledge — What a character simply knows, decided by their Threads and Bonds. Threads and Knowledge
• Limit Break — A signature full-turn move powered by Momentum or by Crisis. Limit Breaks
• Line of sight — A clear line from your square to the target’s; required for ranged attacks and many abilities. Attacking
• Lost — A condition: your character’s mind is lost and the GM controls them. Conditions and States
• Luck roll — Testing your luck — a roll of your LUCK dice that no modifier can touch. Rolling Dice
• Maneuver — An action taken on your turn, paid for with Vigor. Maneuvers and Reactions
• Mark — A hit location; a hit here hurts more, and a Wound here also Breaks the target. Attacking
• Mass — The default hit location: the body. Attacking
• Mastery — A slotted ability that customizes a character; found in the Masteries catalog. Masteries
• Mastery set — A group of masteries that grants a bonus when equipped together. Masteries
• Mastery slot — A derived stat: how many masteries of each type you can equip; wildcard slots take any type. Characters at a Glance
• Melee N, Range N — Tags: the attack is melee with reach N, or ranged with maximum range N. Appendix A · Tags
• Merit — The advancement currency, awarded for objectives and banked for ranks at downtime. Merits and Tiers of Play
• Mission — The unit of story: objectives, a mission clock, and a campaign difficulty, ending in downtime. The Mission Loop
• Mission clock — The beats a party has to complete a mission. The Mission Loop
• Momentous Development — Spend Momentum to add a true fact to the world, anchored in a Thread or Bond. Narrative Actions
• Momentous Feat, Momentous Fortune — Spend Momentum to add successes to a roll, or to reroll a luck roll. Narrative Actions
• Momentum — The party’s shared pool, earned by objectives and dramatic play, spent on Limit Breaks and Momentous abilities. Momentum
• Move, Shift — The maneuvers for moving your speed and for stepping one square. Maneuvers and Reactions
• Narrative play — The half of the game played in scenes, with dice only when the outcome is in doubt. Narrative Actions
• Nemesis — A challenge class: the campaign’s great enemy, immune to most control and able to shrug off conditions. Building Encounters
• Opposable — A spell tag: the target resists with a free opposition roll. Spellcasting
• Opposition roll — A roll made to resist another roll; successes cancel. Rolling Dice
• Over-Guard — Guard above your maximum, from effects that grant it. Characters at a Glance
• Pattern — A combination of matching dice that triggers an extra effect; players choose how to allocate their dice. Patterns
• Penetrating — A tag: the attack bypasses Guard. Appendix A · Tags
• Persistent — A clear type: the condition ends only by its own rules. Conditions and States
• Point-blank — The penalty for ranged attacks against an adjacent target. Attacking
• Precise — A line in an enemy’s tactics that permits called shots. Building Encounters
• Provoked — A condition that punishes attacking anyone but its source. Conditions and States
• Push the Craft — A Scholar casting maneuver: take Strain for extra dice on a spellcasting roll. Spellcasting
• Push Yourself — Spend Resolve to add dice to your own narrative action roll. Narrative Actions
• Rank — A character’s level; ranks are gained with merits and raise attributes, slots, and Vigor. Advancement
• Reaction — An act taken outside your turn in response to a trigger, paid for with Vigor. Maneuvers and Reactions
• Reactive attack, reactive defense — The two families of reaction: strike back, or turn an attack aside (Dodge, Deflect). Maneuvers and Reactions
• Realized — An archetype at its third rank. Archetypes
• Reflexive — A tag: the weapon can make Forestall reactions. Appendix A · Tags
• Regular — A challenge class: standard enemies that roll but never clear roll-to-clear conditions. Building Encounters
• Repertoire — The Arts and Resonances a caster knows. Spellcasting
• Resistance, weakness — Halving or doubling the damage of a type that gets past Guard. Attacking
• Resolve — Personal grit, spent to push yourself, invoke Bonds, and recover; restored at downtime. Characters at a Glance
• Resonance — The substance of a spell — fire, light, mind, time, earth — combined with an Art. Spellcasting
• Roll-to-clear — A clear type: roll the named attribute at the end of your turn to shed stacks. Conditions and States
• Round, turn — A round is everyone acting once; a turn is one combatant’s action. The Shape of a Fight
• Scene — A unit of narrative play framed by the GM. Narrative Actions
• Scene action — An encounter feature that acts on its own turn. Building Encounters
• Scripted defense — An enemy’s fixed, no-roll answer to attacks, used in place of reactions. Building Encounters
• Seeking — A tag: the attack ignores Cover. Appendix A · Tags
• SEN, SPD, SIZE — Derived stats: how far you perceive, how far you move, and how much space you occupy. Characters at a Glance
• Shake It Off, Steady Yourself — Shed a stack of certain conditions, or spend a full turn to clear half your Max Strain. Maneuvers and Reactions
• Shield — A tag: the weapon can Deflect any melee attack, including spells. Appendix A · Tags
• Shove — A maneuver that pushes a target with forced movement. Maneuvers and Reactions
• Shrouded — A condition that collapses your senses to a single square. Conditions and States
• Slowed — A condition that pushes you to the end of the turn order. Conditions and States
• Solid Hit — The universal combat pattern (Double): extra damage equal to the matched face. Patterns
• Specialist path — An advanced archetype class with prerequisites, such as Ninja or Magus. Archetypes
• Spell — An Art combined with a Resonance, cast at a chosen shape and range. Spellcasting
• Spell focus — Gear that supports spellcasting. Equipment
• Spell-shaping — Paying Vigor to upgrade a spell’s range, area, duration, or targets above its basic shape. Spellcasting
• Squad — Up to four Grunts that act as one turn. Building Encounters
• Stat block — An enemy’s full write-up. Building Encounters
• Stay With Me! — The Bond 2 maneuver that calls a Faltering or Unraveling ally back from the edge. Bonds in Combat
• Strain — The mental track; it fills upward, and a full track inflicts a Burden. Characters at a Glance
• Strand — The unit of a Bond’s growth; enough Strands raise its intensity. Bonds
• Stressed — A state: your Strain is at least half its maximum. Conditions and States
• Surge — A maneuver that converts Strain into Vigor. Maneuvers and Reactions
• Surprised — A condition for combatants caught unaware as combat begins. Conditions and States
• Tag — A keyword on a weapon, attack, or spell that changes how it behaves; all tags are listed in one place. Appendix A · Tags
• Tandem partner — A character with whom you share a mutual Bond 3 or higher. Bonds in Combat
• Tandem Strike, Tandem Defense, Tandem Advance — The three Tandem Maneuvers: act out of turn alongside your tandem partner. Bonds in Combat
• Telegraphed attack — An enemy signature declared a turn ahead, giving the party time to answer. Building Encounters
• Thread — A chapter of a character’s past, written as a short phrase; the source of knowledge and narrative bonuses. Threads and Knowledge
• Tier of play — The four bands of ranks: Novice, Seasoned, Veteran, Paragon. Merits and Tiers of Play
• Touch — The range step at which a spell is delivered as a melee attack. Spellcasting
• Turn order — How sides alternate turns within a round. The Shape of a Fight
• Unarmed Attack — The weapon every character always has equipped. Equipment
• Unraveling — The death-track condition of the mind, gained on filling your last Burden slot. Conditions and States
• Use Consumable — The maneuver that spends a consumable point. Maneuvers and Reactions
• Vigor — The action currency, refreshed each turn and spent on maneuvers and reactions. Characters at a Glance
• Vitality — The body track; at zero you take a Wound and it refills. Characters at a Glance
• Vulnerable — A condition that gives the next attack roll against you extra dice. Conditions and States
• Weight class — A weapon’s size — Light, Medium, Heavy, Superheavy — which sets gear-slot cost and who can wield it. Equipment
• Wildcard slot — A mastery slot that accepts any mastery type. Characters at a Glance
• Wondrous item — A magical item equipped into a wondrous item slot. Equipment
• Wondrous item slot — A derived stat: how many wondrous items you can equip. Characters at a Glance
• Wound — Filled when Vitality reaches zero; each Wound rolls a consequence. Damage, Wounds, and Burdens
• Wracked — A condition that deals typed damage at the end of each of your turns. Conditions and States
• Zero-dice rule — What happens when a pool would be zero dice: roll two and keep the lowest. Rolling Dice