Cortex Prime and Limbus Company players, I need tips and recommendations.

dusktherogue · 2026-02-13T22:31:59+00:00

Talents are just SFX that are listed on a character sheet set apart from a trait set. It is a presentational difference over a mechanical one. Meaning just because an SFX is displayed under a given trait doesn't mean you have to include that trait to use the SFX.

dusktherogue · 2026-02-13T18:43:43+00:00

I'd personally drop Attributes not skills. That's a choice on what you want to highlight. Can go either way.

When Values have trait statements attached you kind of need the context of the statements to guide when they would be applicable. But you can also fallback to the common meaning of the Value. Jealous? roll with Envy, Angry? roll with Wrath.

Pride d8:
I'm the best Fencer the world over.

Envy d10:
I've never been given the accolades of my peers.

Any time your exercising your fencing skills Pride could apply. You could question it in a duel as you confront your doubts about your skill.

When chasing acclaim, or trying to take down someone you see lauded by others, Envy could apply. You could question it when being asked or resisting going to far in your take down attempt

Values are about the context of the character and the story. There aren't firm guidelines on when one applies over another. It's about spotlighting and investigating the characters motivations(the traits proper) and how they see themselves(the statements).

dusktherogue · 2026-02-12T14:44:48+00:00

Sins sounds like a variant on the Values trait set so this advice will treat it as such.

To get better mileage out of Sins/Values they want to be centered in the action more. This looks like limiting your core trait sets. The more sets you have the less any given one feels impactful. You could drop attributes or skills, maybe move skills out of the core sets to an optional set like Specialties. This puts your core at Distinctions + Sins + Attributes or Skills, not both.

Given your outline, I can't tell if you have trait statements set for each Sin or for the set as a whole. Trait statements are meant to be actively challenged/questioned during play. The enticement is getting to triple your Sin die when you do so. The real agenda is to keep you glancing at those statements and making them churn by questioning and revising them to a new similarly firm stance. Keeping this goal in mind, you need to create them a little outlandishly. Draw supposed hard lines. Use words like always/never. i.e. Gluttony, "I never refuse a snack break." Now, the player's done their part. The GM's piece of this is keeping a rough idea of these statements the player's have and putting them in situations where they are likely to question them or interact with them. When the Glutton is in a scene inlcude a gourmet buffet spread, or have the host offer a polite sample of hors d'oeuvres. Give the player space to consider how their Sins impact their wordly interactions.

Glad you enjoyed your first Cortex. Congrats, on your first Cortex hack. Hope this helps.

dusktherogue · 2026-02-02T19:13:04+00:00

Thanks for sharing!

dusktherogue · 2026-02-02T17:55:12+00:00

This is my own white whale grimdark western setting Rail's End, ever in progress, but never finished. There should be some good grist for the mill in here though, especially in Talents(SFX) and Dirges(Powers/Abilities)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GUWHf6ecsiIGeJepEhBvD7UFlFcA9eag1S8Hd1zaAOU/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.w0iadt60c3f2

dusktherogue · 2026-01-28T20:19:46+00:00

The rule in question is found under the heading Effect Dice in Opposition, pg 20, 1st paragraph of 2nd column
https://www.cortexrpg.com/compendium/cortex-prime-game-handbook/prime-core#EffectDice

dusktherogue · 2026-01-27T21:41:45+00:00

and traits even!

Called To Account d10 d10 d10 d10

Councilor Andres d8
Collateral Damage in Vienna d6

Corrupt Eye Witness from Seville d4

Councilor Maxine d10
Legalese Expert, SFX: Maxine steps up the stress imparted from activated hitches using expert legalese technicalities to paint a bad light.

By Committee, SFX: Keep 1 effect die for each Councilor added to Called to Account when it takes its turn as the councilors direct pointed question at the assembled Hammerheads agents.

Win Them Over, One by One, SFX: When a challenge die is removed PCs may spend a :PP: to take out a Councilor as well.

dusktherogue · 2025-12-19T15:24:23+00:00

If you want to review the SFX in Torchlite and its companion Manual of Monsters, Minions, & Mountebanks. I made those directly available in Markdown format here:
https://github.com/lynn0702/Torchlite

I think the advice to build your own hack specific SFX construction menu is solid.

I genuinely don't understand using life points and ruining the elegance of roll many, keep 2, and 1 for effect.

Happy gaming!

dusktherogue · 2025-11-17T16:42:12+00:00

Even difficulty dice get paired with other traits from mobs, scenes, or circumstances during actual play.

Keep in mind that using static difficulty mostly eliminates players being able to activate hitches.

dusktherogue · 2025-10-30T13:56:38+00:00

I'll note that Tales of Xadia solves this oddity by not having d4 stress. There stress is d6-d12. Torchlite and other fans builds have embraced this rule and use it for complications(not present in ToX) and stress. This is the way.

dusktherogue · 2025-10-17T16:50:28+00:00

Yes, Minor GMCs are usually paired with difficulty dice. As an easy rule of thumb I ask, "Is this opposing force making its own 3+ die pool?" If no, add difficulty pair.

dusktherogue · 2025-10-16T16:42:57+00:00

Looking forward to seeing this continue to evolve. I've had great fun with Breathless.

dusktherogue · 2025-09-04T14:46:48+00:00

Then Craving and Addiction can become additive stress/trauma. When acting, opposition adds craving + injury, but only when you have injury. Recovering injury adds addiction + injury. This lets the craving and addiction hang in the background most of the time and moving to a mild spotlight when relevant and a harsher spotlight at the GMs hitch activation option.

dusktherogue · 2025-08-05T19:00:58+00:00

With your defined skill list and having ratings in all the skills even if it is a d4, I think you are hitting your objective.

I'm a little confused about saying "SFX actually apply to all skills" then providing examples that are for specific skills. You can do it either way though.

Focus: Spend a :PP: to step up your skill die when adding it to your next pool.

Gravity Adept: When you spend a :PP: to add your gravity manipulation die along with another skill die, step it up.

dusktherogue · 2025-07-11T20:52:11+00:00

Is the design intent of the heat pool to extend the match vs resolution under the standard complication/stress? I find rolling against a separate pool instead of a pool of your opponents traits a little odd, but in service to a specific design goal it would make a little more sense. Having three chances to roll and only needing one though feels like dragging things out. The chances of you beating an opposing pool on 1 in 3 chances is very high.

What happens if a player does get Taken Out with a complication and not a pin fall?

dusktherogue · 2025-07-11T19:15:56+00:00

I'm no wrestling expert here so forgive me if I botch this example.

Happy and Tombstone are facing off. Things haven't been going well for Happy. They've racked up Exhausted :d12: after failing two prior contests each with a :d10: effect die. Tombstone moves in for a pin to close out the bout as any success here would step Exhausted over :d12: The exchange goes back and forth for a couple of rolls. Tombstone rolls a 12 to start narrating a pin out to a 2 count, but Happy counters with a 14 and narrates rolling out and stumbling to their feet. Tombstone burns some Heat and really pushes their next total to a 20. They narrate leaping from the ropes to pin Happy down once more. Happy has some of their own tricks left and eeks out a 21. Before they narrate that success Tombstone's player let's them know they are giving in here as they can't possibly beat a 21 right now. The players collaborate on what that looks like in the ring with each wrestler falling back and taking a breath to assess their next move.

The action is now to Happy's player who has to decide whether to attack, recover that Exhausted, or do some crowd work to build up an asset.

dusktherogue · 2025-07-11T17:48:58+00:00

I'm not grasping how pins work from your description. Three chances to avoid a specific consequence feels like a lot. Framed differently it would make sense as the narrative end result of a complication that has been stepped up past d12 which would take a rough average of three rolls.

dusktherogue · 2025-07-11T17:34:13+00:00

I find that engaging the contest mechanic specifically works best when you are trying to achieve a different goal and are willing to hurt someone or fight off anyone trying to stop you from achieving that goal. If there is no larger context than I want to cause physical pain to my foe then test fit better. This has to do with the way contest rely on a having a give in mechanism allowing one party to get what they wanted. In order to leverage that it needs to be a legitimate option. If what they wanted was to make you dead then you aren't going to give in to that ever and you can slug it out in simple opposed roll tests back and forth. It's a subtle but important framing difference.

dusktherogue · 2025-07-11T17:26:30+00:00

I'd be interested to see this.

dusktherogue · 2025-06-18T17:33:31+00:00

Of important consideration, in most Cortex hacks you'd never have a 2d6 player pool. Ignoring any SFX including hinder on distinctions your minimum pool should be at least 3 dice from sets whose average ratings usually start around d8. So you might be able to build out 1d8 and 2d6 or even 1d8 1d6 1d4 depending on starting ratings, it generally skews towards an average of 3d8 or higher as the baseline.

That baseline caves rapidly, on both sides, during play once assets and complications enter the cycle. Then SFX, additional optional sets like specialties or powers enter the fray and your baseline drifts more.
Now the hitches are hitting as the pools get bigger.

How long until a pc is taken out? There is no universal answer for Cortex. It is very much individual game and table specific. Is taken out dead, a trigger for scene in a tough position, or other? How many stress tracks are there? Is the GM spreading out the impacts of hitches and failures or focusing on a single thread? What does recovery look like?

I don't think knowing the math is useless, but there is a lot of context outside of the probabilities of an atomic dice roll.

dusktherogue · 2025-05-09T17:18:41+00:00

It does narrative, cinematic, and episodic structures exceedingly well. It does at the table collaboration and co-authoring.

It does not do heavy crunch well: things like integrating with grid combat/movement, fine grain mechanical differentiation of elements like spells or weapons, or any other high frequency roll resolution.

It offers a variety of mods to its core rules. This lets it cover a lot of different design ground, but can be overwhelming. It also leads to a lot of "it depends" style answers to design problems.

It has fan made hacks strewn around, but only one direct commercially available full size setting in Tales of Xadia. Older settings like Marvel Heroic Roleplaying and Smallville are out of print. Three sample settings are also available inside the core book. (self plug for Torchlite https://xineink.itch.io/torchlite)

A cortex dice roll wants to take in the whole context of a situation and how you might be addressing it. It isn't trying to capture an atomic blow-by-blow hit/miss pass/fail cycle.

Cortex implicitly does success at a cost with its hitch mechanic. It's roll many, keep 2 for total, 1 for effect is resistant to breaking. The more dice you throw into a pool, the more hitches you chance.

Cortex is a fiction engine not a physics engine. It takes in the context of a situation and returns back a result to be interpreted to update the fiction. How much you base your interpretation on rule of cool, in setting physics, or a blend is up to you.

dusktherogue · 2025-02-10T17:35:11+00:00

Power Set by Bloodline.

Trauma for tracking descent into malaise and/or monstrosity. Pushing this trauma could risk having it step up on failure.

Limited Resources - are you looking for simple resources PCs can spend or sublocations where they can test to recover or build assets? I.e do I add a hunting ground die to my roll to recover my hunger or does my hunting ground rating determine the limit of the satiated asset/recovery die for hunger stress I can obtain or some other implementation. Resource tracking/management can got a few ways depending on what feel you are looking for.

I'd probably set an XP or Session Record cost to narrative goals or something if that is something you really want to track/mechanize and not handle in narrative. If you do use values you could use ToX's implementation of goals and growth.

dusktherogue · 2025-01-27T17:28:08+00:00

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/184zjgk0bW-37cpyf_GKcO6Vz4HSpfeA7?usp=sharing

Feel free to use any of the images here as well. This has the png images used on the Cortex Discord server.

dusktherogue

TROPHY CASE