Status Effects

Status effects represent conditions that hinder or empower creatures. Each status effect is categorized as either a Bane (negative) or a Boon (positive). The full catalog of individual Bane and Boon entries lives in /compendium/status-effects/ — the rules below govern how all of them function.

Tier Stacking

Some status effects build in tiers. Unless an effect’s own entry says otherwise, effects may stack up to 3 tiers. The effect’s potency increases as the tier rises. When a new instance of a tiered effect is applied, increase the tier by 1 (up to the cap). If an effect has a duration, new applications reset the duration to its full value.

A handful of effects explicitly override the 3-tier default with their own accumulation rule — Fatigued climbs to 10 tiers before killing you, Static’s charges have no cap at all. Where an entry states its own limit, that entry’s number wins.

Opposing Effects

Some status effects directly oppose others — Bolster vs. Weaken, Bleeding vs. Regeneration, Resistance vs. Vulnerable. When two opposing effects are present, subtract the lower tier from the higher. If both are equal, neither applies. If one effect is inherent to a creature (such as natural Resistance or Vulnerability), it cannot be removed by duration or cleansing — but it can still be reduced or canceled by its opposing effect.

Detected and Hidden

Some effects depend on whether a creature is Detected or Hidden. A creature becomes Hidden by succeeding on a Sneak (Agility) Trial against the target’s Mind DR. A creature may attempt to reveal another with an Awareness (Intellect) Trial against the target’s Ward DR — on success, the target is considered Detected. Effects that reference Detected or Hidden use this framework. See Hidden in the Status Effects catalog for the full entry.

Damage Adjustment Order

Effects that adjust incoming damage — Resistance and Vulnerable — apply only to damage that gets through. Resolve damage in this order: total the damage (weapon or spell dice, modifiers, and Success Band bonus), compare that total against the target’s Block Rating if the damage is physical, and only if the damage exceeds Block, apply Resistance or Vulnerable to what passed. Armor that stops a blow stops it entirely — a target’s vulnerability cannot push a blocked attack through, and Resistance cannot blunt a hit that was never going to land.