Giving a card effects

A card’s effects are what happens when someone presses ▶ Play on it: the dice that get rolled, the damage that lands, the conditions that stick, the bonus that hangs around until the end of the fight.

You build them in the Effects tab — in the Card Studio when you want every card made from a template to share them, or on a single card when you want that card alone to behave differently.

Steps, in order

An effect is a short list of steps that run top to bottom. Most cards need only a few:

1. Trigger — when it happens. Usually on use: someone plays the card.
2. Targeting — who it affects. One creature, several, everyone in an area, or just yourself.
3. A roll, if there is one — an attack roll, or a saving throw the targets make.
4. What happens — damage, healing, a condition, a resource spent.

Order matters. Targeting comes before the things that need targets, and a saving throw comes before the damage it halves. Use the arrows on the left of each step to move it, and Add step to drop a new one in after whichever step is selected.

Tip

Starting from Template gives you a working effect you can edit — an attack, a save-for-half, a healing card, an aura, a rider, a random table. It is usually faster than building from nothing, and it shows you the shape a working card has.

Using the card’s own fields

Anywhere you can type a number or a formula, you can instead press the link button and point at one of the card’s fields. A damage step set to @damage_formula uses whatever that card says, so one template serves three hundred spells.

When you point at a field, you can also give a fallback — what to use if that card leaves the field empty. It is worth filling in: without one, a blank field falls back to the engine’s own default, which is rarely what you meant.

Routes: cards with options, and random tables

Some cards do different things depending on what happens. A saving throw succeeds or fails; a random table lands on a row; a prompt asks the player to choose.

Add a Route to a step to send one of its outcomes somewhere else in the list. The outcomes on offer are the real ones that step can produce — you pick from them, you do not type them — so a route always matches something that can actually happen.

• A card with options — add a Manual step listing the choices, then a route per choice.
• A card with a random table — add a Roll table step with its rows, then a route per row.

You do not need routes for the ordinary cases. Damage after an attack is already skipped on a miss, and a condition after a save already lands only on the creatures that failed.

Once a card has more than a couple of routes, a list stops being able to show you their shape. That is what the effects canvas is for — the same effect drawn as a map, where you draw a route by dragging it and can ask “what happens on a miss?” by hovering it.

Lingering effects

• Duration makes the effect last, and marks it as needing concentration if it does.
• Grant rider hangs a bonus on someone until it is used — extra damage on your next hit against a marked creature, or a die an ally can add to one later roll.
• Apply condition can carry an aura: a zone centred on the target that re-runs a small effect on anyone who starts their turn inside it.

Passive bonuses

Some cards do not do anything — they are simply true while you carry them. “+1 to Armor Class while attuned”, “resistance to fire”, “darkvision”.

Those are passive bonuses, below the steps, and they are a different thing from a step: steps run when the card is played, passive bonuses apply for as long as the card is equipped or the effect is in force.

Caution

A passive effect’s steps never run — only its passive bonuses apply. If you want something continuous, express it as a passive bonus. If you want something that happens when the card is played, set the trigger to on use.

Checking it works

Press Test Play in the Effects tab to run the card against practice dummies, with real dice, without touching a scene or a character. Change the dummies’ hit points and armour, roll it again, and watch each step resolve.

The Summary underneath the steps is the plain-English version of what you have built — it is worth reading before you save.

Why is my card doing nothing?

• The effect is disabled. Check the toggle on the effect itself.
• Its trigger is not on use. A passive effect never runs its steps.
• A red validation message. The effect will not run until it is fixed.
• You built it on the template but the card was made earlier. A card keeps its own copy of the effects it was created with. Open the card and use Copy & customise to take the template’s current version.
• An amber warning saying it will do nothing in this system. Some steps have no meaning in some systems — healing hit points in a game that has no hit points, for instance. The message says what will actually happen.