Actions
Next, you’ll determine the action ratings for your character.
Your character starts with 5 points in actions that are already determined by their role and specialty. These are represented by the bolded circles on your sheet.
Drives
In Candela Obscura, three different drives (Nerve, Cunning, and Intuition) encompass the nine actions you can use to overcome the challenges of an assignment.
Each action has a rating between 0–3 that represents the number of dice you will use when attempting that action. This reflects how well your investigator generally performs this type of behavior under pressure.
Each drive has a number of points between 0–9. You can spend any of these available points to add an additional die (+1d) when rolling with an action within that drive. The collection of dice you use for a roll is known as a dice pool. For example, you may spend Nerve to add +1d to a
roll, or Intuition to add +1d to a roll.All drives have a maximum, which determines the highest number of points your character can have in that drive. They also have an amount currently available, which will decrease as you spend them.
When your drive is empty, you cannot spend any more points until you refresh that drive.
You may also spend drive to assist another investigator in your scene.
Next, fill in the drives that your character starts with. Your character starts with 3 points in drives that are already determined by their role and specialty. Then, distribute 6 additional points in drives however you’d like.
You may not start with any of your drives above 6 during character creation.
Gilded Dice
Some of your actions will be gilded, denoted by a filled-in diamond. Utilizing this action can help you earn back spent drive points, and narratively represents a skill that reinvigorates your character. When you are rolling with a gilded action, you replace one of your standard dice with a gilded die (a d6 of a different color). If, after you make the roll, you choose the result of the gilded die, you can refresh a point in the drive that encompasses that action. For example, if you take the gilded result on a
roll, you earn back 1 point in Intuition.Why wouldn’t you always choose the gilded result? You might roll a 6 on a standard die and a 4 on a gilded die. Instead of taking the full success, you could choose to take a mixed success. You may prefer to recover 1 drive point, sacrificing a cleaner narrative outcome for a mechanical benefit.