The most common actions that characters in the game take are the use of skills. As mentioned before, skill rolls have a modifier of the primary skill attribute, subtracted by skill difficulty and added to the number of ranks purchased in the skill.
A Note from the Designer[]
In this game, certain players may suffer from Analysis Paralysis . It is important to realize that sometimes not everything is important - in fact being a jack of all trades can be detrimental in some cases.
The important thing is to select your skills based off of your own view of the character; not what would make you the most badassed, needs no one else player in your group.
Skills General Rules[]
Skill Ranks[]
Skill ranks represent the level of a particular skill the player character has. Skill ranks cost EXP to purchase, the cost of which gets progressively higher as the number of ranks increases.
- Ranks 1 & 2 - 1 XP each rank.
- Ranks 3 & 4 - 2 XP each rank.
- Every two ranks doubles the previous cost.
So, for a character to reach 4 ranks in a skill, it would cost 6 XP total (1+1+2+2=6).
Number of Skills[]
The amount of skills a character can have is limited to the same numeric value as the character's Memory attribute. For example, a character with a Memory of ten can only purchase ranks in ten different skills (though there is no limit to how high the ranks can go).
Difficulty Factor[]
All skills have a difficulty factor. This represents how hard or easy it is to perform the skill and is determined by what the skill involves. This reduces the base attribute for determining what your final modifier for the skill is prior to adding in the ranks.
Deterministic Attributes[]
All skills in the game are based off of attributes that are associated with its use. However, some skills have the capacity to be based off of a couple of different attributes of the players choosing. The difficulty factor is usually different - this represents, for example, that the use of Dexterity in some melee weapons has a greater chance to hit due to finesse with the weapon, but you can still try to just use Strength to overcome a lack of such grace.
Trained Skills[]
Many skills are considered "Trained Skills". These skills are ones in which the character must actively have sought out official training in the use of the skill beforehand. This is because some skills do have formal proper techniques that can be detrimental to the proper use of the skill if not known. Any character attempting to roll for a trained skill they don't know has it's difficulty factor multiplied by 3 (skills with no difficulty will simply gain a -3).
What this also means in game/role play terms is that a player cannot choose to put skill points in a trained skill the character doesn't already know at will: they must first have their character seek proper training. This is ignored during character creation, as it is assumed that character's selected skills at creation are from prior training and experience. This is the GM's discretion of course, based off of the campaign they are running, but is generally true most of the time.
Sub-Skills[]
Some skills rely on other skills for their effectiveness. These are known as sub-skills and instead of being based off of attributes, they are based off of the total accumulated value (attribute - difficulty + skill ranks) of another skill, and are then reduced by their own difficulty.
Skill Success and Failure[]
Whenever rolling a d20 for a skill a roll of a 1 is always a failure, no matter what the modifier was. Generally though, a player will be rolling off against either an opposed check by the GM or another player, or against a set difficulty value. In the case of opposing rolls whomever's (roll + skill) is higher will be the winner - except if the values meet, then the GM must decide a draw or favor whomever has the highest skill modifying their roll. In the case of set difficulty, the player is only trying to roll to meet or beat the set value given.
Success With Time[]
Whenever a character is in a situation where they have a decent amount of time in which to work, the GM should allow the player automatic success at attempting a skill the character knows. These skills must be reasonably argued that, given enough time, the character can succeed (for example, a character picking a lock whose difficulty value could be met or beaten by the player as long as their skill level would have meant that a roll of a d20 would eventually have let them beat the value anyway. If this is not the case, or there is some form of danger involved in failure or from their surroundings, the GM should not allow automatic success of this nature.
Skill List
For the list of skills, see the Skill List page