It may have already been answered, but seems like such a basic question not covered in the rule books that I'm surprised it wasn't covered in the FAQ:

Can you play Action cards during Story Mode? It makes sense that you can, but then how does recharge or duration work?

Thanks!

A question of some debate; some say that if you want to use an action card then you should probably be in encounter mode as whatever you are trying to do must be relatively important.

Others point to a section of the GM's ToM which talks about no clear definition of what a "round" is, so you could run an investigation in a city in "encounter mode" where each round is an hour of time, and you recharge your tokens after each hour of game time.

Others just go with the flow and let actions be used but have them recharge at some GM defined rate (end of act, when fortune pool refreshes, straight away etc etc)

So this hasn't been clearly defined in the rules as yet, and i wonder if examples for this might be included in the new players guide.... still for now go with your gut insitnct...would be my advice.

Yes you can use action cards and talent cards during story mode. It's their refresh rate that becomes up to the gm. One rule of thumb is that an action card can only be used once per scene, which comes from some dialogue in the rules about using healing spells outside of encounter mode. But ultimately it's up to your group and the situation at hand.

In my game, I tend to restrict action cards from triggering unless the characters get a "rush of adrenaline" or are put in some stressful situation (read: back into encounter mode where they begin recharging as normal), or they get a bit of relaxing downtime - basically any change of mental or physical state may trigger a point where they can recharge.

Spells are more restricted, especially priestly magic. With a rousing speech, prayer, or good roleplaying justification, I'll let them happen outside of encounters, but if someone's life or well-being isn't on the line, it takes quite a bit for a priest to start making requests of their faith!

Thanks everyone for the clarifications. It would seem this is something that will need to be addressed in the GM and/or Player's Guide.

Waxfire said:

Yes, hopefully it will get some attention in the new hardbacks just to clear some things up and perhaps give us a look into the design intent.

another option similar to one mentioned earlier but slightly more defined would be to allow characters to recharge skills used in storymode during the rally step. I think that would work out fairly well and stay fairly circumscribed within the rules as written. Just a thought.