7. System

The entire purpose of a game system is to answer two questions: “How do the players determine whether they succeed or fail?” and “How well do they succeed or fail?” Basic Roleplaying answers those questions with a clean and intuitive system using dice rolls to simulate the probability of whether an action succeeds or fails, and qualities of success to determine a range of possible outcomes.

Routine actions in routine situations without challenge should almost always succeed. However, when the action becomes dramatic or extraordinary, it’s time to roll dice for the resolution. You will want to know if skills succeed when danger threatens, or if they fail miserably in the face of stress. Dice allow crises and decision points to be resolved impartially without the constant need for intervention of your StoryGuide.

Some skills, especially weapon skills, are inherently dramatic and dangerous, and always are rolled for, as are accidents such as falls. All rolls to determine success or failure use percentage dice (D100s), with lower being better. Other types of dice establish the damage done by various weapons or determine other supporting information. Chapter 6: Combat discusses attacking and defending in combat. 

Usually, your StoryGuide tells you when to roll and what sort of roll to make— whether it be a skill roll, a resistance table roll, a characteristic roll, etc., but this chapter is useful for everyone who wants to know how the game works.

Actions

Regardless of genre, all good stories (and roleplaying adventures) have one thing in common: conflict. Characters are called upon to accomplish all sorts of things against the odds, from finding and interpreting clues to overcoming enemies in deadly combat.

Percentile rolls determine the success or failure of actions whose outcome is in doubt. Other dice can help define the results of a roll (damage, etc.), but percentile rolls are the core of the system. To see if an action succeeds, roll D100 and compare the result to the chance, determined by the type of roll and its potential modifiers. If the percentile roll is equal to or less than the target, the action succeeds. Rolls higher than the chance of success fail.

Automatic or Impossible Actions

Not all actions require a die roll. Routine activities attempted under normal conditions should generally succeed unless they’re outside the ability of the characters. No D100 roll is necessary for any action your StoryGuide deems simple or routine, without challenge or conflict.

On the other hand, your StoryGuide may decide that truly overwhelming tasks, like performing heart surgery without medical training or building a computer out of coconuts are beyond the abilities of even the most accomplished experts. If your StoryGuide rules that a task is Impossible, no die roll will be sufficient—all attempts fail.

Evaluating Success or Failure

Sometimes your character’s efforts can have very different results: a good toss at darts will hit the board, while a lucky or exceptional throw hits the bull’s-eye. There are five degrees of success for any type of action roll. Ranked from worst to best, they are as follows:

Fumble

Bad luck or incompetence sometimes conspire to produce the worst possible result, a spectacular failure called a fumble. A roll of 100 is always a fumble, no matter what the skill rating is. Fumbles never yield any beneficial results, and always end up impeding or even harming your character and/or allies through disastrous or unintended results. Chapter 3: Skills and Chapter 6: Combat discuss the specific consequences of fumbled rolls.

Failure

Rolls higher than the base chance fail. Unless an action is Automatic, there is always some chance of failure: no matter how high the modified base chance, rolls fail on results of 96 or higher. Some failures cost nothing more than perhaps a little dignity, while others can be expensive in time, money, or physical damage. See Chapter 3: Skills for the consequences of failed rolls. The exception are resistance rolls, where a difference of 10 characteristic points is enough to make only a roll of 00 a failure.

Success

Any roll equal to or below the base chance qualifies as a success. Successes accomplish the action with average results. Weapon skills that achieve a success inflict the listed damage dice, and other skills have the results suggested in Chapter 3: Skills.

Special Success

Some results are better than average and yield extra benefits. Actions achieve special success if the roll is equal to or less than 1/5 the skill rating (20%). In combat, an attack that rolls a special success can inflict a knockdown or impale based on the type of weapon (see Chapter 6: Combat for additional detail), while the skill descriptions in Chapter 3: Skills provide guidance for special successes.

Critical Success

Sometimes your character will perform an action so well they achieve extraordinary results. A roll of 1 is a critical success. A critical success yields the best of all possible results. Weapons that critically hit utterly bypass the target’s armor and do maximum damage; while skill rolls achieve far better results than normal. Refer to Chapter 3: Skills to for suggested critical results.

Types of Rolls

Skill Rolls

Most actions your character attempts are resolved with skill rolls. Here, the percentile roll uses your character’s rating in the appropriate skill as the chance of success. Any skill which normally has a base chance of 5% or higher always succeeds on a roll of 01–05 chance of success, even if difficulty, conditional modifiers, or other factors reduce the skill rating below 5%. See Modifying Action Rolls. See Chapter 3: Skills for more information about each skill.

Characteristic Rolls

Some actions are not easily linked to a specific skill: pulling oneself up a rope, for example. For these situations, use a characteristic roll, with a chance of your character’s characteristic multiplied by a number. CON, INT, DEX, and SOC are common characteristics to use, and most characteristic rolls have a ×5 multiplier. Your base characteristic rolls were defined in character creation. Depending on the difficulty of the action, your StoryGuide may use a higher or lower multiplier. See Difficulty Modifiers.

Special Skill Rolls

Special circumstances may require something other than a standard skill roll. These cases arise when two characters work together, work against each other, or attempt to do two things at once.

Cooperative Skill Rolls

Two or more characters can attempt to work together on an action, if reasonable. This is a type of augment. Your StoryGuide may impose restrictions on how many characters can contribute to a particular activity, as it may be limited by physical or other practical concerns. Some tasks simply cannot be assisted, depending on circumstances.

Whenever working together on an action, pick one character as the lead. All the other characters pitching in should make skill rolls. Take the best result or a fumble, if one occurs.

• Critical Success: Modify the primary character’s skill rating by +50%.

• Special Success: Modify the skill rating by +20%.

• Success: Modify the skill rating by +10%.

• Failure: If no helpers succeeded, the primary character’s skill rating is modified by –10%.

• Fumble: A fumble from any helper is so distracting that the primary skill is modified by –50%.

One reason for cooperative skill use is to increase the chance of the primary character’s success, as well as the chance of special and critical successes. If the primary skill roll is successful, everyone involved who made a successful skill roll can make an experience check. If not, no one gets an experience check. Another reason for cooperative skill use is when direct assistance is not possible, such as helping provide guidance from afar.  Some skills may not be able to be done cooperatively.

Contested Rolls

Sometimes a character tries to do something, and that action is contested by another. This will lead to a contested roll. Contested rolls are Skill vs Skill, or Characteristic vs Characteristic. When rolling a contested roll the two parties roll and compare results. The highest successful roll is the winner, unless a special or critical roll is rolled. A special beats a high success roll, and a critical beats a special. 

For example, Worric tries to push past an ogre in a tight hallway. The Ogre rolls a 78, and its Effort is 80, meaning it has a very high success roll, and looks to be the clear winner. Worric rolls a 12, and his Effort is 65. Worric’s success is special, so even though it is lower, it wins.

Heroic Actions 

A Heroic Action is a characteristic-based action that uses either a move or a standard action to perform. It is a contested roll vs another creature’s characteristic. Heroic Actions can never do damage, but they can add bonuses, based on the SG’s decision.

For example, Ruhm the berserker tries to pin Braggo the minstrel against the wall of the tavern using the table they are sitting at. Ruhm will use Brawl (45%) vs. Braggo’s Dodge (65%). Whoever rolls the highest while still being a success wins the opposed roll. Ruhm rolls a 43 and braggo a 27. Ruhm wins the Heroic Action.

Generic Heroic Actions

Sometimes, a character performs an action that is not directly contested but is still considered heroic. The player will roll a Characteristic check, and the SG will decide if it is easy, average, or difficult.

Opposed Skill Rolls

Sometimes, twoor more characters use skills in direct opposition to each other.

Let everyone involved in the opposed skill check roll as normal (with any applicable modifiers) and compare the results. The highest successful result rolled that is not a critical success is the winner. Any critical is an automatic winner, if multiple criticals are rolled, the active character wins (the one who initiated the action).

For example, if two characters have the same skill rating of 87% and one rolls an 86 and the other rolls a 22, the roll of 86 is the winner. Both rolls are successful, but one has a higher result than the other.

Heroic actions allow for many different types of actions vs. NPC’s and monsters, let your imagination be the limit!

Modifying Action Rolls

Some actions are easier or harder than others, and sometimes challenging circumstances or lucky breaks help or hinder a character. Skill ratings are often modified based on their circumstances.

There are two main ways action rolls are modified: difficulty modifiers and situational modifiers.

Difficulty Modifiers

Some actions are simple enough that even an unskilled person succeeds without much effort, while others are challenging enough to give an expert pause. When an action itself is easier or more challenging than usual, adjust the skill roll by a difficulty modifier. The standard difficulty levels are: Automatic, Easy, Average, Difficult, Very Difficult, and Impossible. These levels can apply to skill rolls, characteristic rolls, or similar rolls.

DifficultyRoll Adjustment
AutomaticNo Roll Needed
EasyDouble Your Skill
Average0
DifficultHalf Your Skill
Very DifficultHalf your skill -10
ImpossibleNo Roll Needed

If something is deemed impossible, it can not be done unless some extraordinary tips the action in favor of the hero. Your StoryGuide is the ultimate authority about when an action receives a difficulty modifier.

Automatic Actions

Any activity that is so mundane, routine, or under the most favorable of circumstances and without any drama or conflict can be assumed to be Automatic, with no roll necessary to determine whether it succeeds. Everyday physical and intellectual actions attempted under average conditions always succeed, unless there is some reason they should carry the chance of failure. Your character should be able to perform Automatic actions at reasonable levels of competency in their chosen profession without needing to roll each time they wish to succeed—rolling for skills are at dramatic or difficult times, when success or failure is of importance to survival or destiny. Automatic skill use never yields an experience check.

Easy Actions

Some actions are Easy, even for the untrained. Sneaking in the dark when there are other loud noises, climbing a tree with many handholds, or recalling the most fundamental points of an academic discipline are all Easy actions. For an Easy action, double the skill rating for the active character. Easy characteristic rolls use a multiplier of ×10 or double the normal characteristic roll. However, success at an Easy skill roll does not merit an experience check.

Average Actions

Most actions fall within this category. If a skill or characteristic roll doesn’t have a modifier before—such as an Easy Listen roll—assumed it’s Average. Use the base rating for Average actions, though they may have circumstance modifiers.

Difficult Actions

Fighting an opponent you can’t see, climbing a smooth surface, or remembering obscure scientific minutiae are all Difficult tasks. To determine the skill rating or characteristic rating for a Difficult action, divide the appropriate skill or characteristic roll in half (round up).

Impossible Actions

As described above, truly overwhelming or ridiculous actions, like performing heart surgery without barber tools or building a bridge out of coconuts, are beyond the abilities of even the most accomplished experts. These are Impossible tasks. All attempts fail, no matter how well the player rolls. Your StoryGuide may allow a flat 01% chance of success, depending on the action being attempted, though it is only suggested if the chance of success is within reason, however improbable, the equivalent of a one-in-a-million lucky guess or freak occurrence.

Situational Modifiers

Special or unusual circumstances can affect any skill rating for better or worse. Dim light, loud noises, distractions, rain, or a lack of proper tools provide penalties to skill ratings, while exceptional tools or ideal conditions might provide a bonus. Whenever external factors might affect your character’s performance of an action, your gamemaster should weigh the circumstances and apply one or more situational modifiers to the base chance.

The difference between difficulty modifiers and situational modifiers is that difficulty modifiers are usually relating to the character and the attempted action, while situational modifiers are very specifically related to the subject of the action, or to external forces or influences.

If several conditions apply to a given action, apply them judiciously. Any situational modifier is applied after a skill is modified due to being Difficult or Easy. This way, the modifiers are not doubled or halved. However, any modifiers that are ‘permanent’, such as the bonus to Brawl from the Unarmed Combat power, are figured into the skill rating before it is doubled or halved. These sorts of modifiers are considered integral to the skill and are modified for difficulty along with the rest of the skill rating.

Take care not to get bogged down in the minutiae of determining situational modifiers. Your gamemaster should assess the severity of circumstances, determine the overall modifier, and let you roll as quickly as possible. Situational modifiers are intended to be tools that add drama to tense situations, not strict guidelines or a checklist attempting to simulate absolute realism.

Situational Modifiers Table

ConditionDescriptionModifier
Task ComplexityUnfathomably complex with no apparent solution or guidance–50%
 No clear solvable condition and/or needlessly complex–20%
 Relatively straightforward, the solution somewhat apparent+20%
 Simple, with an obvious solution+50%
EquipmentNo equipment when equipment is required–50%
 Poor or improvised equipment–20%
 High-quality equipment and superior supplies+20%
 Advanced or high-tech equipment and supplies+50%
Environment Distracting environment, highly unstable ground, pitch black, stormy, etc.–50%
 Unpleasant or unsanitary conditions, unsteady footing, darkness, bad weather, etc.–20%
 Favorable conditions, good footing, plenty of space, relative quiet, etc.+20%
 Pristine or immaculate environment ideally suited for the task at hand+50%
FamiliarityCompletely alien and beyond human experience–50%
 Strange and using unfamiliar principles–20%
 Relatively well-known subject matter+20%
 Routine and completely familiar+50%
Range Far beyond the normal range–70%
 Outside the range of comfort–20%
 Well within range+20%
 Perfectly placed and ideally situated for the attempt+50%
TimeNowhere near enough time to perform the task–50%
 Rushed and stressed about it–20%
 Plenty of time+20%
 Activity can be done at leisure, with contemplation and deliberation+50%
UnderstandingNo common means of interaction with subject–50%
 Limited methods of communication available–20%
 Subject is familiar and amenable to interaction+20%
 Subject well-known, enthusiastic about interaction+50%

Fate: Saga Points and Spirit Points

Saga Points

When a character does something amazing, succeeds or fails at a daring Heroic Action, or makes the other people at the table gasp in awe, the SG may award them a Saga Point.

Saga Points can be used to adjust any dice roll that affects your character. You can use them to fix that natural one you rolled or adjust a low-damage roll. It can also be used to adjust a foe’s roll as well. The player spending the Saga Point can determine which of the two dice rolls is the one that counts. A Saga Point can only be used to change a roll once. Saga Points can carry over from session to session. A player who starts the game with zero Saga Points gains at least 1 Saga Point. Saga Points can be used for leveling at the end of a session.

Suggested ways to gain Saga Points:

  • A daring Heroic Action that has a high risk to the hero, success or fail, should award them a Saga Point.
  • A roll of 100 on a percentile roll, which is a fumble, gives a Saga Point if the fumble is taken and not re-rolled for any reason.
  • Strongholds grant Saga Points based on their level. Heroes gain these Saga Points after spending the night in their stronghold.

Spirit Points and Their Uses

Sometimes, you and your StoryGuide are not willing to let the results of a roll be the ultimate arbiter of your character’s destiny. If your StoryGuide wishes to allow more player agency in outcomes, Spirit Points can be used as a resource to affect the results of rolls and the narrative itself. This allows greater control of die results, and increased effectiveness in play.

Following are some suggested uses of Spirit Points to manipulate rolls or narrative:

  • Spend 3 Spirit to gain a Bane or Boon. During a skill check, a boon gives you +1d6 to a skill, while a bane gives an opponent -1d6 to a skill check.
  • Spend 3 Spirit Points to ignore 1d4 points of damage from a single attack. These damage points are simply ignored; they do not count toward knockback or other effects. Your StoryGuide may ask you to provide an explanation about how the damage was not suffered, such as ‘The steel coin in my front pouch deflected the arrow’ or some other reason.

Any use of Spirit Points for these is handled normally, so if reduced to 0 Spirit Points, your character is exhausted and faints until regaining at least 1 Spirit Point.

Time Scales

Time in the game setting is rarely equivalent to time actually spent playing. Sometimes, your StoryGuide may need to summarize the events of many days in a single sentence, such as “It takes you a week to reach Kowal” while at other times, particularly in combat, a few seconds of time can take several minutes or longer to resolve.

In general, the primary scales of time are narrative time, a scene, the turn, and a combat round. The Significant Time Intervals Table lists common things that can happen in play, with how long each takes.

Narrative Time (variable)

Due to its flexibility this is the most nebulous of the time scales. It is the time your StoryGuide may be narrating or when you and the other players are out-of-character discussing plans and the situation your characters are in. Most game play occurs in narrative scale. Unless there is a specific reason for it, most actual roleplaying takes place in the narrative time scale as well. When you and your StoryGuide are roleplaying conversations, the narrative time scale most closely resembles real time, where a conversation takes as long to have as it takes to play.

If a game session includes lengthy travel, or periods of activity where exact time is not relevant, time is compressed greatly, generally unobserved outside of narration, and days or even weeks can be skipped over in a line of narration. If large amounts of time are being dealt with in this fashion, your StoryGuide should allow your characters to perform any activities that could fit into this timeframe, within reason. If your characters are free to act during these jumps in time, your StoryGuide should ask you to account for your character’s activities in that period.

Scene (variable)

This term describes any sequence that takes place in a specific location and time frame. A scene is an encounter or an instance of story time, where the players begin and end an activity. Scenes can be long or quite short, depending on what and how much happens. Essentially, a scene begins when it is important to pay attention to combat or roleplaying (leaving narrative time) and the scene ends when the characters re-enter narrative time.

Part of or an entire scene can be measured in narrative time, game turns, and combat rounds (described below), or any combination of one or more of the three. Most scenes contain narrative time, while some do not necessarily need to contain game turns or combat rounds. Some scenes, however, might be nothing but combat rounds and/or game turns.

Combat Round (10 seconds)

The combat round defines what happens moment-by-moment in an action sequence (not just combat). It consists of 10 seconds of fast-paced activity. When it’s important to keep track of what happens in what order, use combat rounds. These are repeated until the combat or action sequence is over and there is no more need for such detailed consideration of time.

See Chapter 6: Combat for more detail on what is possible in combat, and Combat Round Movement for more information about how fast characters can move in a combat round. Other creatures move faster or slower during a combat round (see Chapter 11: Creatures).

Significant Time Intervals Table

Following are useful examples of significant measures of time for things that happen in games:

ActivityAmount of Time
Narrative timeVariable, time spent roleplaying or describing actions
SceneVariable, can include narrative time, turns, and combat rounds
Game turn (or just ‘turn’)Five minutes, or 25 combat rounds
Combat roundTen seconds
Travel timeCharacters can usually travel ten hours of time without significant difficulty, depending on mode of travel, terrain, weather, etc.
TurnSee Game turn, above
UnconsciousnessUsually around one hour, depending on cause
Regenerate 1d4+1 hit pointsFour hours of rest.
Regenerate 1 Spirit PointOne hour of rest.
Regenerate all Spirit PointsOne game day (24 hours, or an equivalent) of rest.
Regain half manaFour hours of uninterrupted rest.
Regain all manaEight hours of uninterrupted rest.
Training roll, combat skillsApproximately three game weeks
Training roll, non-combat skillsApproximately 12 game weeks or less
Experience rollsEnd of the game session

Rest

Rest is 8 hours of sleep and relaxation. Heroes gain back health, mana, and Spirit Points during rest. Rest must be uninterrupted and the hero most not be focused on other tasks, such as keeping watch, crafting, or other skills. Some species need less rest, and their recovery times are changed based on their resting needs. A character can not rest in any medium or heavy armor unless they have an ability or talent that allows it.

Time and Movement

Movement Rates by SIZ

Movement is generally rated by the SIZ of a character, but can change based on Talents, terrain, or other factors. Below is a chart of Average MOV rates based on character or creature size.

Average MOV Rates by SIZ

SIZ12-34-67-1920-2526-3030-50
MOV (Speed)10’15’20’25’30’35’40’

It is often important to know precisely how far your character can travel in a game month, a week, a day, an hour, a turn, and most importantly, a combat round. Movement is classified into three categories: combat round movement, local movement (hour), and regional movement (day).

• Combat round movement is relatively concrete. It is simply the amount of time your character can move in a Move Action. Combat round movement rates are further described in Combat Round Phases in the Chapter 6 Combat.

Combat Round Movement

Your StoryGuide can also temporarily lower your characters’ MOV attribute based on circumstances, such as being overburdened, fatigued, cautious movement, etc.

Movement Rates Table

General Movement
SIZ12-34-67-1920-2526-3030-50
Combat Speed per Action10’15’20’25’30’35’40’
One Hour (Overland)
Walk (On a flat road)1 mi1.5 mi2 mi3 mi4 mi5 mi6 mi
Jog (On a flat road)2 mi3 mi4 mi6 mi8 mi10 mi12 mi
Walk (Trail, hilly, or mountainous) 75%.5 mi1 mi1.5 mi2 mi3 mi3.5 mi4.5 mi
Walk (Difficult terrain: no path, steep, swamp) 50%.25 mi0.75 mi1 mi1.5 mi2 mi2.5 mi3 mi
One Day (Overland)
Walk (On a flat road)8 mi12 mi16 mi24 mi32 mi36 mi45 mi
Walk (Trail, hilly, or mountainous)6 mi9 mi12 mi18 mi24 mi30 mi36 mi
Walk (Difficult terrain: no path, steep, swamp)4 mi6 mi9 mi12 mi18 mi24 mi30 mi

Encumbrance

Encumbrance measures how much weight your character can carry. A character’s Strength determines their Carry Capacity. This is how much equipment and goods a character can carry before becoming encumbered. Characters who are encumbered with a Medium or Heavy Load have their Movement and Dexterity Bonus limited.

Encumbrance Chart

StrengthLight LoadMedium LoadHeavy LoadLift over HeadLift off groundPush or drag
310 lb or less
4-516 lb or less14-33 lb
6-723 lb or less24-46 lb47-70 lb70 lb140 lb350 lb
8-930 lb or less31-60 lb61-90 lb90 lb180 lb450 lb
10-1138 lb or less39-76 lb77-115 lb115 lb230 lb575 lb
12-1350 lb or less51-100 lb101-150 lb150 lb300 lb750 lb
14-1566 lb or less67-133 lb134-200 lb200 lb400 lb1000 lb
16-1786 lb or less87-173 lb174-260 lb260 lb520 lb1300 lb
18-19116 lb or less117-233 lb234-350 lb350 lb700 lb1750 lb
20-21133 lb or less134-266 lb267-400 lb400 lb800 lb2000 lb

Encumbrance Loads

LoadDexterous Skills and Speed PenaltySpeed (Top Row is Base Speed)
Light-010’15’20’25’30’35’40’
Medium-55’10’15’20’25’30’35’
Heavy-101’5’10’15’20’25’30’

Character Improvement

Your character’s skills and characteristics can and should improve in play, especially when participating in adventures that take more than a day to resolve. These can be raised through training and research, but the primary means of improvement is through successfully using the skills in hazardous situations.

Skill Improvement

Successful use of a skill indicates that your character might be able to improve their rating in that skill. Note that the term ‘skill’ is used here but refers to anything rated like a skill other than a characteristic roll. Thus, this method also works for magic spells, passions, and even personality traits.

Whenever your character successfully uses a skill in a dramatic situation such as combat or when something is at stake, place a checkmark in the small box next to that skill on your character sheet. This checkmark is called an experience check. If a skill roll was Easy, no experience check is allowed. If there is no box next to the skill percentile, then the skill cannot be increased through normal experience. (For skills that cannot be increased through experience, black out the checkbox on the character sheet.)

An experience check for a particular skill is made only once per adventure, no matter how many times the skill is successfully used. Skills used before or after the ‘adventuring’ time are not eligible for experience checks, nor are skills used to augment another if the primary skill roll fails.

If a skill is used successfully, you almost always get an experience check. Something that later undoes the results does not remove an experience check. Your StoryGuide should almost always allow experience checks whenever skills are successfully used in stressful situations. An attack against a helpless target is not a stressful situation and does not deserve an experience check. Likewise, taking an hour to pick a lock in your workshop is not a stressful situation—but doing the same task in one combat round, as guards approach, is a stressful situation, and deserves a check.

In addition to earning experience checks through successful rolls, your StoryGuide may tell you that your character automatically earned a check in the experience box, usually through significant exposure to the skill being used successfully.

For example, this might be due to being immersed in a foreign language environment for a prolonged period and ‘soaking up’ some of the basics, or assisting an expert in that skill, paying close attention to what they say and do.

What Does “After an Adventure” Mean?

Your StoryGuide determines when experience checks are made; this is usually after an adventure or significant pause between events, when your characters have had some downtime. If in doubt, assume it’s a week. During a long evening’s play the characters may earn several moments where they can see if their skills improve.

In this downtime, you may make an experience roll for each experience check on your character sheet.

Making an Experience Roll

The experience roll is a normal percentile roll. Your character’s experience bonus (equal to 1/2 INT, rounded up) is added to the die roll when determining whether the experience roll succeeded. If the result of an experience roll is higher than your character’s current skill rating, then the experience roll succeeds.

The experience bonus is not added to the actual skill points gained, just to the roll to see if there is improvement.

Increasing Skills by Experience

After a successful experience roll, add 2 to the skill rating. 

Skill Training and Research

Though experience is often the best teacher, it is not the only way to improve skills. Instruction from masters of a skill can also increase your character’s ability with a skill or even decrease it. Your character can train to improve a skill by getting instruction in it from another character with a higher rating in the same skill. This other character can belong to another player but is usually a nonplayer character. Each skill takes a different sort of teacher and costs different amounts of time and money to learn. Training to high skill ratings can be a lengthy, costly process.

The second method is research, working alone either with a self-designed course of study, deep immersion in the background of the skill, or a rigorous, self-guided disciplined regimen of exercise and physical training to improve one’s ability in a physical skill. The StoryGuide should judge whether the resources are adequate for training oneself, and in some cases may rule that a skill cannot be trained alone, such as some Perception skills.

Skill Training

First, your character should find a trainer, ideally between adventures but potentially as a part of one. Some sort of compensation should be arranged, if appropriate, in money, goods, favors, patronage, or in any other acceptable item or service. The type of teacher can range anywhere from a college professor, a wise master, to an interactive holographic tutor.

Your character must then train for hours equal to their current skill rank with the skill. An average character has 50 hours of time per week available for training, but full-time non-stop study is possible. More than double this amount is grueling, and such extended studying hours are counterproductive or have negative effects on other skills or even physical and mental health.

At the end of the training session, the teacher must attempt a Teach skill roll. If their roll is successful, your character improves the skill rating by +1D6 points. A failure equals no benefit from the instruction, and a fumble is counterproductive, with the teacher causing self-doubt and contradicting your character’s prior learnings, reducing the skill by –1D3.

Your StoryGuide may use a dice type to indicate better or worse training opportunities, or even automatically grant an amount increase based on factors in the setting (skill downloads, psychic implanting, past life memories, etc.).

Mastery of a skill requires actual experience outside of the ‘classroom’. No skill can be trained above 75%, no matter how good the instructor. Any increase above this must come through successful use of the skill in challenging situations, such as found during an adventure. The StoryGuide may determine that this is not true in a particular setting, such as with secret scrolls of mastery or implanted skills, but the 75% maximum is the default.

Researching

Any skill that can be increased through training can also be increased through research. Research is best described as either self-help or self-tutoring: delving into ancient tomes, scouring databases; disciplined exercise; holographic instructors; or neurological or neuromuscular implanting. In most settings, some form of research is possible for any trainable skill.

Dedicated research takes as much time as training but does not incur the same cost. You should determine any costs based on the setting and the type of training being undertaken.

Researching a Knowledge skill may require additional rolls for appropriate skills like Language, Literacy, and Research. Your character may even need to make a successful roll in the very skill to be researched, to find relevant resources or to be pointed in the right direction. Unless these skills are performed in challenging or hazardous circumstances, no experience checks are awarded for skill rolls made while researching other skills.

After the required time is spent, make an experience roll as normal. If the roll succeeds, increase the skill by 1D6–2 points, or choose to add 2 to the current skill rating. Unlike training, researching allows your character to improve more than 75% in a skill, though your StoryGuide may require you to get ‘out in the field’ from time to time to alternate book learning with practical experience.

Increasing Characteristics

Skills are not the only things about your character that can improve. Your character can improve their Characteristics through a variety of means. Most Characteristics that can be trained and leveled except for Size, which tends to stay the same for a character, though you and your StoryGuide may find a way or reason for a SIZ change as well.

Any increases to characteristics cause any associated attributes to increase accordingly, including characteristic rolls, damage modifier, experience bonus, hit points (and total hit points and/or hit points by location), major wounds, fatigue points, Spirit Points, etc. as appropriate. 

Characteristics can not improve beyond 21.

The amount of hours that it takes to increase a Characteristic is equal to the Characteristic multiplied by 20. A character normally has 50 hours per week during downtime to train, research, and work on improvement.

Talents

A StoryGuide awards the heroes with Talent Points at the end of Story Arc or Adventures. These points can be used to learn new Talents. One or two Talents points per adventure would be the standard reward in a SagaBorn heroic game.

Mana Increases

If a character has mana, it increases whenever it has been used during a game session. A character gains 2 mana when Experience rolls are made.

Characteristic Increases

Your character can train their characteristics to improve them. 

Characteristic Increase through Training

Your character may attempt to train their characteristics, taking an amount of time in hours based on the value of the current characteristic. The exact number is the current value for the characteristic multiplied by ×25. This sort of training is rigorous and requires dedication for the entire period: one cannot break it to go adventuring or spend more than a handful of hours a day dedicated to anything else.

At the end of the training period, add +1 to the current value of that characteristic.

You and your StoryGuide should work together to determine the exact type of training required to gain this increase. Your StoryGuide may allow SIZ to be trained, representing a radical change in diet or exercise to increase or decrease mass (if not height, which is usually unable to be modified without surgery).