Your attributes define who you are. Your Active Stats define how long you last. These are the meters, pools, and trackers that change every round of combat, every exploration sweep, every mission. Know them, watch them, or find out what happens when they hit zero.

For your 12 base attributes, see Attributes. For combat defense rolls (AF/DF/EF), see Combat. For recovery, see Resting.

Active Stats

• Armour / DR: Blocks damage before it reaches your juicy insides.
• Bonds: Meaningful connections with squad mates. Spend them to save lives.
• Energy: Fuel for actions, dodges, and combat moves.
• Exhaustion: Physical depletion that eats into your Energy.
• Grind: Raw willpower to keep going when things get spicy.
• HITS: Your physical punishment meter.
• Luck: The universe throws you a bone... or doesn't.
• Psych: Mental strain; the kind that makes your eye twitch.

Armour

Characters may have a natural Armour score based on their Origin, this stacks with any armour granted from equipment, and is used to reduce the damage taken from attacks.

Armours have a DR rating for each damage type. When you take Hits of a specific type, matching DR absorbs Hits up to its current value; any excess passes through to your HITS track. Each time DR absorbs damage, it degrades by 1.

If you have no DR left for that type, the Hits pass through directly to your HITS track.

Armour recovers DR when it is repaired. Engineers can repair DR during Stim Breaks and Lockdowns, and Armor Patch Kit consumables can restore specific DR types.

Bonds

You and the player you bond with both gain a Bond when you have meaningful interaction. For example one of you takes a bullet for the other. You either have a Bond with a given player or not. You can have multiple Bonds with different players.

You can spend Bonds on Bonded Maneuvers such as Rally Comrades, or Take a Bullet. These are special moves that can be used in combat to help your team out, or to save a player from certain death.

Energy

Characters have a base Energy score of one point per Tier, this is used to perform significant actions in combat, such as dodging, or performing special moves. You regain Energy when you spend a turn doing nothing, and so generally start combat with full Energy. Training in Skill Tricks, Corp Talents and Origin Feats can give you extra Energy to use in certain circumstances.

Exhaustion

Exhaustion is the physical toll of sustained exertion; the weight of readied weapons, the drain of hostile environments, the accumulated cost of pushing your body without proper rest. Every point of Exhaustion directly negates one point of Energy.

How Exhaustion Works

• Each point of Exhaustion negates 1 Energy. If you have 2 Energy and 1 Exhaustion, you effectively have 1 Energy to spend.
• If Exhaustion exceeds your current Energy, each uncovered point applies Hindered(1) per point. If you have 1 Energy and 3 Exhaustion, you are Hindered(2).
• If Exhaustion equals or exceeds your Energy + Fortitude, you gain the Exhausted condition; Staggered, Slowed, and Distracted. You are on the verge of collapse.

Exhaustion Checks

When the GM determines that physical strain warrants it, you make a Physical save (d100 + Physical Save) against the Mission TL. On a failure, you gain 1 Exhaustion.

Common triggers include:

• Readied weapons during exploration, carrying weapons at the ready for extended periods. Small weapons are exempt; Medium weapons trigger checks after 6+ Sweeps, Large after 3+ Sweeps (see Exploration, ER)
• Extended marches; forced movement over long distances without rest
• Hostile environments; extreme heat, cold, high gravity, thin atmosphere
• Swimming in armor; moving through water while encumbered
• Sustained physical exertion; carrying casualties, forced labor, holding a position
• Sleep deprivation; operating beyond a standard duty cycle without Lockdown

The GM calls for Exhaustion checks as the situation demands. Not every physical activity requires a check; only sustained or exceptional strain.

Recovery

Grind

Grind is your character's ability to "Walk it off", to keep going when the going gets tough, or when you are shot clean through with an Assault Carbine and need to walk yourself to Medical.

You gain Grind when a Wound is Triaged, or when you are Critically injured.

The amount of Grind you can have is capped by your Rank. You lose Grind when a wound is healed, or when you burn it to ignore a Wound.

"Yes recruit that happens, Yes it hurts"

You can Burn a Grind point to ignore the effects of a Wound penalty for a given check. You can also Burn Grind to keep going when you would otherwise be required to deduct an Energy point; this includes Energy negated by Exhaustion. Burning 1 Grind negates 1 point of Exhaustion for the remainder of the current encounter or Sweep.

You can also Burn 1 Grind to ignore a single incoming hit; the damage and any on-hit effects simply don't land. Declare the Burn when the hit is resolved, before damage is applied. One hit per Burn; subsequent hits in the same turn require further Grind.

"I was once stuck groundside on the Ice Rim belt of the Kelplar system, The Environment was taking its toll and I had no energy left, I was shot clean through with an Assault Carbine and I had to walk myself to medical, I did it on grind alone, I was 12, It was my Birthday."

HITS

"Right Health, we check you, scan you and probe you before you get in past the front door. What? No recruit you are still standing out here in the rain, No you are not at the front door yet, are you! No that was the Janitor, that was not part of the official medical, yes he is a dirty alien. When you get to medical ask for the blue pill."

Your HITS represent how much physical punishment you can take before going down. HITS are determined by your Fortitude, Mass, Rank, and Specialist Core:

HITS = 8 + Fortitude + Mass + (Rank × HITS per Rank)

HITS per Rank reflects how close to the front line your specialist operates; combat specialists gain durability much faster as they rank up:

The more Fortitude you have, the bigger you are, and the more combat-focused your Core, the harder you are to take down. Combat specialists pull ahead significantly at higher ranks; a Rank 10 Combat operative has 20 more HITS from rank alone than a SysOps operative of the same rank.

HITS by Origin and Core

The table below shows HITS at Rank 1 / Rank 5 / Rank 10 for each Origin and Core combination:

Range: 11 (Om SysOps/Overwatch R1) to 47 (Silicoid Combat R10). At low ranks the gap is modest, but combat specialists pull away hard; a Rank 10 Combat operative has 20 more HITS from rank scaling alone than a SysOps operative.

As you adventure, you will take Hits; mark them on your HITS track. When all your HITS boxes are marked, you go DOWN and gain a Wound. See HITS and Combat for details on what happens when you go down.

Recovery Tiers

There are three rest tiers during a mission, plus R&R between missions. See Resting for full details.

R&R also recovers temporary attribute reductions, clears all conditions (unless stated otherwise), reduces Psych, and restocks consumables.

Tension & Luck

"The universe is keeping score. You just can't see the board."

Tension and Luck are two global pools shared by the entire table. They rise and fall as the session unfolds; every critical success and every calamity shifts the balance. The GM tracks both pools; all players can see them.

Tension

Tension is the universe tightening its grip. It represents mounting pressure, compounding misfortune, and the slow creep of entropy that turns a bad op into a catastrophe.

Gaining Tension

• When a player rolls a natural 1–5 (Critical Failure / Calamity) on any d100, the Tension pool increases by 1. Every calamity ratchets up the pressure; there is no cap.
• The GM can also manually add Tension to reflect narrative pressure: a timer running out, a hull breach, an NPC betrayal.
• When the GM toggle is set to GMs, GM rolls also affect the pools; but inverted. A GM rolling a natural 96–100 (crit success against the players) adds 1 Tension instead of Luck. The GM rolling well is bad news for the squad.

Spending Tension

The GM allocates Tension from the pool to the next player roll. Each point of allocated Tension adds −1d10 to the roll. The allocated amount is visible to all players before they roll.

• Tension is consumed after the roll; the allocated amount is subtracted from the pool.
• The GM chooses when and how much to allocate. It's a tool for pacing: small doses to maintain pressure, large doses to make a critical moment feel desperate.
• Unallocated Tension remains in the pool between rolls. It's a looming threat the players can see building.

Luck

"Fill your bag of skill before you empty your bag of luck."; graffiti on the wall of every recruitment office from here to the Rim.

Luck is the universe's way of rewarding the bold. It's a shared resource; when one player earns it, the whole squad benefits. Spend it to push through when the dice aren't enough.

Earning Luck

• The pool starts at 0 each session.
• The first time a player rolls a natural 96–100 (Critical Success) on any d100 during a session, the Luck pool increases by 1 and that player is recorded as having earned their Luck. Each player can only earn Luck once per session; but the GM can clear the earner list during long sessions so players can earn again.
• The GM can also manually add Luck to reward cool, inspiring, selfless, or spectacularly in-character actions; especially ones that cost the player something.
• When the GM toggle is set to GMs, GM rolls also affect the pools; but inverted. A GM rolling a natural 1–5 (crit fail) adds 1 Luck. The GM rolling badly is good news for the squad.

Spending Luck

Any player can spend from the global Luck pool when making a skill roll. Each point spent adds +1d10 to the roll. The spent amount is immediately subtracted from the pool; once it's gone, it's gone until someone earns more.

The Balance

Tension and Luck are two sides of the same coin. Calamities build Tension; critical successes build Luck. The GM can spend Tension to punish and players can spend Luck to push through. Over the course of a session, the pools naturally ebb and flow; a string of bad rolls makes the universe more dangerous (Tension rises), but also gives the squad opportunities to earn Luck when someone finally breaks through.

Psych

"It's not the bullet that gets you. It's the sound it makes on the way in, and the silence after it stops."

Psych is the thing that's still happening after the shooting stops. The quiet arithmetic your brain runs at 0300 when it tallies up everything you've seen, done, and failed to prevent, it's the red eyes in the darkness, blink, gone. It's not death that breaks people out here, death is just the last line on the form. It's the things that don't kill you that scar, the sound the hull made, it held, the half-second, your hand on the wrong airlock control, the look on someone's face when they realised you chose who to save, it wasn't them. Knowing the version of you that walked onto the ship isn't the version walking off. Psych.

Gaining Psych

You gain Psych when the universe reminds you what you are; small, fragile, and a long way from anywhere safe. Stress, trauma, pressure, watching the flatline, opening a bulkhead door; finding what's left of the crew who opened it last. It was still waiting. You get Psych when the moment warrants it. The moment warrants it more often than you'd like.

Your Psych Maximum is equal to your Willpower + Harmony. That's your ceiling; the amount of horror your mind can absorb before the architecture starts to fall in on itself and the lid comes off the Jar.

The Spiral

Every point of Psych inflicts a stacking Bother (-5%) to all rolls. Not some rolls. All of them. Your hands shake. Your focus drifts. The crosshair won't stay still. At 3 Psych, you're operating at -15% to everything. At 5, you're a liability. At 7, your crew is having a quiet conversation about whether to sedate you.

Breaking Point

When your Psych exceeds your maximum, make a Willpower check. Pass, and you hold it together; barely, temporarily, with white knuckles and a thousand-yard stare. Fail, and you gain the Unhinged condition. The lid comes off. The thing that's been growing in the dark behind your eyes crawls out, and what it does with your hands isn't up to you anymore.

Every point of Psych above your maximum triggers another Willpower check. There is no plateau. There is no stable decline. There is only the spiral, and it tightens every time.

Pushing Through the Dark

Here's the devil's bargain: you can choose to take Psych points to gain a stacking Boon on a saving throw or skill check. One point of Psych buys Boon(1). Two buys Boon(2). Three buys Boon(3). All the way up to your maximum.

You're borrowing clarity from your own sanity. Succeed, and the screaming gets louder. Your mind works overtime until it doesn't, and the moment you push past your threshold, something behind your eyes starts making decisions without you. Every operator who's been in the field long enough knows someone who pushed too hard, too often, and came back from the mission but didn't come back from the mission.

Recovery

Field Coping; The Unofficial Method

R&R is the official way to reduce Psych. Then there's the way everyone actually does it.

Drugs, booze, companionship, loud music in a port bar where nobody knows your name or your rank; the classic field coping package. It works. Psych goes down. The screaming goes quiet for a night. But the universe charges interest, and the invoice arrives in creative ways.

Challenges (Saving Throws)

The sum of the attributes under each category forms your Physical, Mental, and Meta saving throw bonuses.

Roll d100 + Save Value against the source's TL. Save values are the raw sum of the four contributing attributes; no divisor, no rounding. This keeps saves in the same numeric range as AF/EF and scales naturally with a d100 roll.

Failing Forward

Unlike most RPGs, skills in Cybercore do not have a fixed key attribute. When you spectacularly botch a skill roll, you can attempt to recover by rolling against a raw attribute; your natural prowess pulling you out of the hole.

This is a flat TL 50 + (Tier × 5) check. Roll d100 + your attribute × 4 against it. A single raw attribute is too small to matter on a d100, so it is weighted ×4 to sit in the same range as Saves and AF/EF (a one-attribute check is, in effect, a quarter of a four-attribute Save scaled back up). At base TL 50, a total greater than 50 succeeds; 50 or lower, you fail.

You can be creative about which attribute you burn; as long as you can justify it to your GM. Want to use Allure to save you from an Engineering mishap? Maybe there's another Engineer you can convince to fix it... or take the fall. The permanent Allure loss from a burst acid pipe? That's just character development.

Succeeding Backwards

In dire situations, like when your only ride off-planet is melting in atmosphere, a player can declare they're leaning into an attribute before the roll. Add the bonus, but then lose a point from that stat.

• Temporary burn: Lose the point until R&R.
• Permanent burn: Lose it forever, but it guarantees a Critical Success.

If you choose Succeeding Backwards, Failing Forward is off the table. Though if you failed under these circumstances, you probably got permanently promoted into the Dead Book anyway.