Skill System

Skills are the heart of this game. Your character doesn't just do things. Your character does things well, does them with style. Your character is a Badass. Or will be with enough XP. But the long road to glory is paved with Skills and the mastery of them. Whether you're trying to craft a pair of leather boots, hack into a corporate server, or conjure the raw power of magic you need Skills to get the job done. Everything you can do has been listed in the Skill Index and if it isn't, see your lazy DM.

Here's where the Dice meet the Paper.

Dice Pools
You’ve picked out some nice stats but why? Well to determine what you can do and how well you can do it. We decide that through rolling dice for your actions. Every action that could result in failure has a skill that will enable you to do it. You just have to decide what skill makes the most sense and roll the appropriate dice. Roll above a certain number (more on that later) and you win. If you roll that number or less, it’s considered a loss on your part. And if every die you roll comes up a ‘1’ then you’ve Botched. Bad things happen to those who Botch. For this reason it’s important to try and gather as many dice into a single roll as you can, reducing the chance of a Botch while increasing your chance of success.

And that’s what you roll, dice. As many as you can justifiably get your hands on. When you roll any number of dice, be it a single d4 or a fisful of d12’s, that’s called your Dice Pool. The bigger the pool, the better your odds. Although you’re rolling lots of dice in a Dice Pool only the largest number counts (usually, there’s special rules we’ll get into later).

Skill Tests
Skills can derive their Dice Pool from Career, Background, and Talents. Talents are just that, skills you’ve picked up some experience in using outside your Career & Background educations. It could be learned in the field, passed on by an old master, or part of a correspondence course. However your Talent is acquired, it is included in your Skill’s Dice Pool whenever that skill is rolled. For every Talent invested in the skill you increase your Talent dice by one size. A skill with one Talent has 1d4 for its Talent Dice. A skill with six Talents invested would have 1d12+1d4 for its talent dice. And these dice can also gain additional dice from Career and Background!

Skills are almost always rolled with a Trait die, one of the Big Four traits specifically. Just which Trait should be included depends on the skill and how you are attempting to use it. Most melee attacks, like a Punch, will use the Speed trait to hit a target. To make the attack, you roll your Speed dice and your Fighting, Unarmed dice together. Attacks are pretty set in stone but some skills are more flexible.

A character trying to bound stealthily through the shadows will probably roll Speed + Stealth dice, that’s fairly obvious. But what about someone trying to hide in one spot? Speed no longer makes sense, they’re not moving, but it takes nerve to hold still under threat of discovery so now Will + Stealth is the roll used. That same character may need to shadow someone through a crowd. They can’t stay still & hope for the best. Sudden, nimble movements would draw too much attention. The better strategy is to watch the surroundings and try to blend in as a face in the crowd with Wits + Stealth. Not every trait makes sense with every skill in this way. It’s unlikely Body + Stealth will ever find a use. Players should feel encouraged to try new combinations and use their skills in unexpected, and creative, ways. It’s not just what you know but how you use it in this game.

Skill Ranks
Sometimes it's nice to have something other than strings of numbers to describe a thing. These titles have no game mechanic value but thye can help you judge approximately how skilled someone is. The title used indicates that a given NPC has at least that many dice assigned to that skill."Green - 1d4""Competent - 1d12""Veteran - 2d12""Expert - 3d12""Master - 4d12"

Difficulty
Now that we know what we’re rolling, what do we roll against? This comes with two answers, either dice or a set number. As a rule of thumb, if you’re rolling against another player or NPC then you’ll be rolling your dice against someone else’s dice. This is called a Contested Roll. If there’s no one to contest against, say you’re trying to pick a lock, then the DM will give you a Target Number. This is called an Uncontested Roll and below are example numbers your DM may use. For example, damaging an unarmored target is a Trivial (3) thing."3-Trivial""4-Simple""5-Routine""6-Difficult""7-Complicated""8-Expert""9-Heroic""10-Legendary"While it’s not super important to remember the terms Contested and Uncontested for now, just keep in mind that you may roll against dice or a number. A good rule of thumb is if it can think, it can roll against you.

When you roll, your highest number rolled from your Dice Pool is the number that counts. If you roll higher than your opponent, or Target Number, then you win. A tie or less is a loss to you. Right away you can spot where this is good to know in a fight, ties go to the defender.

Overwhelming Success
Sometimes you will roll exceptionally well, or you roll well against laughably simple odds. When you beat your opponent’s dice or Target Number by 4 or more then you have achieved Overwhelming Success. This means you didn’t just achieve your goal but gained some small extra reward. Maybe you didn’t just convince the guard to take a bribe but made a new friend in the process. Maybe you didn’t just get the car running but now it runs better than ever. Maybe you didn’t just hit the Orc but knocked him down too. It’s up to the DM in the end just what Overwhelming Success means but if a Botch is the worst possible outcome then this is the best.

Bonus & Penalty Dice
You can see how it’s to your advantage to roll lots of dice. More chances to roll big, more chances against rolling a Botch. While XP can buy you lots of dice there are things in the heat of the moment creative players can do to give themselves an edge and that edge is called your Bonus Die.

You may only have one Bonus die per roll but the size of that die depends on your advantage. A slight advantage is usually a d4 where a significant edge would be a whopping d12, or any size in between. Typically for every extra advantage you can create on a roll the Bonus die will increase by one size, what’s typically called a +1 bonus. So if your DM tells you that an action has a +3 bonus then you roll your Dice Pool with an extra d8 added (d4 -> d6 -> d8). These bonuses must be declared and used before you roll. Once the die is cast, the action is in motion.

Where the DM allows you may combine ideas for larger bonuses. Suppose you need to fix a car. You could try to repair it where it broke down but getting it towed to a garage would make the work easier, that’s +1. And then you spend some time researching the problem, finding schematics to the car, and reading through how other people solved the problem. That’s another +1. If you get your car mechanic friend to assist that could be another +1. With a little preparation, you’ve added a +3 bonus, a whole d8, to your Dice Pool before you even rolled.

The flipside is the Penalty Die. For every unfortunate turn, every step of poor planning, there is the Penalty Die. Like the Bonus Die, the Penalty Die comes in sizes from d4 to d12, or +1 to +5. This die is added to your opponent’s pool against your own roll. If you’re rolling against a Target Number, then the die is rolled and used only if it is larger than the Target Number.

Suppose you’re trying to hit a fixed target with a crossbow and the Target Number is 4. Someone plays a prank though and sets the fixed target to bobbing up and down on a wire, giving you a -1 Penalty. Further sabotage becomes apparent when you find your bolt’s fletching has been tampered with for another -1. Although your die pool is rolling against the Target Number 4, there is also a d6 (-2) Penalty Die against you. If that die should roll a 5 or 6 then your Target Number would no longer apply, you’d have to outroll the Penalty Die’s higher number!

Clever players will have noticed that Bonus Dice and Penalty Dice are separate Dice Pools and this is for a reason. It’s possible to have both a Bonus in your favor and a Penalty against your opponent. This could net you not one but two extra dice in your favor for a little creative play! Of course the door swings both ways and unfortunate players may find themselves not only facing a Penalty of their own but be up against someone who’s worked out a Bonus as well!

Skill Assisting
One of the ways to get a bonus is through the power of teamwork. Any character with at least one die in a skill may attempt to help on a Skill Roll as an Assistor. All those Assisting first roll their Dice Pools (usually against a 4). Those who succeed grant a +1 bonus while those who fail do not. Once all the Assistants complete their rolls the actual Skill Roll is made by the Primary with all bonuses applied. The Bonus Die still can’t go higher than a d12 but this is a quick way to rack up bonuses in your favor. Players be warned though. If any Assistor should Botch their roll then the whole attempt fails outright, possibly with spectacular results.

Favorite Use
Skills allow you to do a lot of things and someone with the same skill can do those things too. Not everyone will have the same Favorite Use. There’s a certain something you’re better at doing than the next guy with the same skill but it’s up to you (and the DM) what that is. Maybe a Performer is especially good with the Lute. Maybe a wizard is really good at Fire Spells (and property destruction). These are just some examples of your Favorite Use.

Every skill may have 1 Favorite Use, no more. The use must be specific enough to not come up every time, but it should come up often enough to be seen occasionally. A good Favorite Use for the skill Fighting, Big Hammer might be “Concussing Monsters on Headshots”. You don’t always get the benefit unless you’re able to hit the monster on the head. Conversely the Favorite Use of Fighting, Sword “Swing mah sword!” would not be an acceptable Favorite Use as it’s too generic. Instead try “Fighting Legiana” as a Favorite Use.

Favorite Uses apply to any and every skill as a way to reflect your character’s natural inclinations and interests through game mechanics. Any skill may have 1 Favorite Use chosen at the time when the skill is taken or later during the game. The only restriction (apart from making reasonable sense to the DM) is that your skill must have at least a d4 of Talent invested into it first and it cannot already have a Favorite Use. Even if you have a d12 each from Career and Background in a skill, you still need to invest XP into that first d4 to get a Favorite Use. Of course if you choose a Favorite Use like Craft “Tiny Paper Cranes” and decide this was a silly choice, you can spend some XP to change the Favorite Use. After all, people’s tastes are dynamic.

So why worry about a Favorite Use? Bonus Dice. Any time you roll your skill’s Dice Pool for your Favorite Use of that skill gain a +1 bonus on that roll. It’s an easy way to help your character shine in specific situations, even if you should have no other advantages. For Favorite Uses related to combat skills decide if the use applies to Attack or Damage rolls when you pick the Favorite Use. For example, someone with Fighting, Sword & Board might pick the FAvorite Use “Tailchoppin!”. It’s specific enough to be valid but they need to decide if they mean their character is good at hitting people’s tails or, once they hit, they’re good at dealing enough damage to cut the tail off. You only get one Favorite Use per skill so this kind of decision making often results in pretzeled lobes.

Cumulative Success
Sometimes a task takes more than one skill roll to complete. Rebuilding a car is going to use Engineering but it’s more than one task. While a savvy DM could look up all the steps needed to resurrect your ride and make you roll for each task, that’s a lot of work. It’s easier to set a Target Number and then a Success Counter.

Success Counters are just that, the number of successes you roll against your Target Number. You can roll your skill as many times as needed to reach that number, adding the number of new successes to previous successes. Also you can score multiple successes per roll depending on your Dice Pool.

For example, let’s say you have the Skill Engineering to rebuild your car. The DM decides it’s not complicated just time consuming, so the Target Number to beat is 4 and the Success Counter is 15. You have a Dice Pool of d12+2d6+d8 based on Talents, Mind and your Career. You roll the following: 9, 4, 3, 5 on your first try. Ties don’t help you so only the 9 & 5 count as successes, that’s 2 out of the 15 you need. But that 9 is an Overwhelming Success so it should be counted twice here. That means you have 3 out of 15. You then roll your Dice Pool again, counting up the number of successes and adding them to the 3 you previously earned until you reach 15 in all.

There are limits to Cumulative Success. You might only have so much time before something bad happens, limiting the number of attempts to reach your Success Counter. Also any roll that Botches, it rolls all 1’s, sets you back to square one with all successes so far removed. That’s a major setback for a large project.

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