Questions

What level do connected Abilities act at?

Let's assume someone's got the Invulnerability Ability (page 108) at d10, with the "Recover your Injured or Exhausted Stress" Special Effect. They take some Injured Stress, raising Injured to d8. They spend a Plot Point, invoke the Special Effect, which eliminates the Stress entirely, since the level of the Ability (d10) is higher than the level of the Stress (d8). If the Stress had been equal to or greater than the Ability level, it would only have been stepped back one level. Got that?

OK, now let's assume someone's got the Kryptonian Heritage (page 100) at d10, but hasn't taken the Invulnerability Ability. They get some Injured Stress at d8, and add a die to Trouble to use the d8 Kryptonian trigger (Add a d6 to the Trouble pool to use a Special Effect from a connected Ability you don't have) to get use that same Invulnerability Special Effect.

So here's the question: Does the Recover ability act at the d10 level of the governing Heritage, and eliminate the Stress? Or does it act at d4 level, as if the character had just right now acquired the Invulnerability Ability, and therefore just step the Stress down to d6?

Exactly what does "a Special Effect from a connected Ability you don't have" mean?

So, Growth happens, and that second person, the one with the Kryptonian Heritage, gains the Invulnerability Ability, and takes that same Special Effect, letting them Recover Injured or Exhausted Stress for a Plot Point instead of having to add a d6 to Trouble. Now, can they still use that Kryptonian Heritage add-a-die-to-Trouble d8 trigger to use other Invulnerability Special Effects?

Taking the phrase "a Special Effect from a connected Ability you don't have" literally, they can't, because Invulnerability is no longer an "Ability you don't have". But that seems ridiculous, that they lose access to Invulnerability Special Effects by taking Invulnerability. In fact, it seems kinda weird that they can use Special Effects from Abilities they'd don't have, but not from Abilities they do have, even if they took those Abilities in character creation. Maybe this trigger should actually read (Add a d6 to the Trouble pool to use any Special Effect you don't already have from any connected Ability, whether you have that Ability or not). I don't know if this breaks anything; I suspect tempting the players to add to Trouble is a useful thing, but maybe it causes problems if there's too much of it.

This trigger doesn't replace the need to spend a Plot Point to use a Special Effect; it just grants access to that Special Effect. (Page 99)

What happens to Shutdown Drives if they're left stepped back?

According the The Watchtower Report (page 56), if you challenge a d4 Drive (thus stepping it down), it gets Shutdown (because there's no smaller die size to step it back to) until either the tag scene at the end of the episode, or something happens to step it up.

And when you've stepped back a Drive, you have a choice in your tag scene: either step it back up and rewrite the statement, or leave it stepped back and keep the old statement.

But what happens if you choose to leave it stepped back in your tag scene? In the case of a Relationship, it's not unreasonable to assume that it gets removed from your sheet — you no longer care about that Feature. But what about a Value? Does that stay Shutdown? Do you no longer have a Rating for Justice (or whatever)?

OK, in this forum thread, Cam says you have to rewrite such Traits, which implies that you're restoring them to their pre-challenge levels.