Skills Checks

A player character must perform a skill check whenever they want to use a Skill, Combat Skill, or Influence Skill. This is when the player rolls dice to see if they succeeded or failed. All skills checks are pit against a task of varying Difficulty Rating. The higher the skill score, the better the chance of pulling off that particular skill.

Number of Dice to Roll

To figure out how many dice to roll, check the skill against the Trait score or Influence score. That score tells you how many dice to roll. It will be a number between 1 and 10. Player will roll that many d10 dice.

Successes

The skill point for the skill being used indicates what a player must roll under to achieve success. The more difficult the challenge, the more dice must be under the skill point. Every dice that rolls under the skill score is counted as a success. If the successes equal or exceed the task's Difficulty Rating, the attempt is a success.

Bonuses

If a player has any + bonuses tied to the skill, they can use these to "help" achieve successes on individual or multiple dice. For example, a +1 bonus to a skill can change one die by one increment (changing a 5 to a 6, for example). A +3 bonus would allow a player to change 1 die by three increments, or they can break it up into 1 increment and 2 increments, or 3 individual increments (changing a 4 to a 7, changing a 1 to a 3 and a 7 to an 8, or changing three fives to three sixes, etc.)

Degrees of Success

A player can also achieve varying "degrees" of success:

• Critical Success - the number of success dice exceeds the task's difficulty rating. This is a slam dunk, and the skill was executed perfectly!
• Basic Success - the number of success dice exactly meets the task's difficulty rating without using any bonus points. The desired effect is produced, but nothing spectacular.
• Barely Succeeding - the number of success dice does not meet the task's difficulty rating unless bonus points are used.
• Barely Failed - the number of success dice missed by a narrow margin: 1 dice for DR <=5, 2 dice for DR >=6.
• Failure - the character didn't barely fail, but not enough to cause any disastrous effects.
• Disaster - the character rolled 25% or less than the required DR (1 success for a DR of 4, for example). Disasters have adverse effects.

Example Skill Roll

A player character is attempting to pick a lock that has a difficulty of 4. Lockpicking falls under the Dexterity trait. The character has a Dexterity score of 7 and a Lockpicking score of 5. This means that to succeed, the character rolls 7 total dice, and must have 4 dice be a 5 or lower (4 is the task's difficulty level, 5 is the character's skill score).

• The player rolls 7 dice. 5 dice land on 5 or lower, exceeding the Difficulty Rating of 4. This is a success!
• The player rolls 7 dice. 3 dice land on 5 or lower; it does not match the Difficulty Rating. This is a failed attempt.
• The player rolls 7 dice, but has a +1 bonus to the skill. 3 dice land on 5 or lower. Player uses the +1 bonus to change a roll of 6 to a 5, meeting the criteria for a success. This is considered "barely" succeeding.
• The player rolls 7 dice and gets: 9, 9, 8, 7, 6, 6, 5, 1. They have a +3 bonus. Since only two dice succeeded, they use the bonus to change a 6 to a 4 and the other 6 to a 5. This is considered "barely" succeeding.