There is a standard list of 12 skills. Your character will do best with skills they know. They may attempt tests with skills they *don’t* have but they will do so at a disadvantage (more on this in a bit).
All skills are have a Skill Rank. You initial choice of Skills and Skill Ranks will be determined during character creation. During play you may acquire new skills and improve the ones you know.
Someone who has just picked up a skill begins at 1 (Familiarity), a Novice is 2. Competence is a 3 or 4. Mastery is 5+. It is theoretically possible to have a Skill Rank as high as 8 but a score higher than 6 is very rare and indicates amazing ability.
- To make a Skill Test roll 3D12 against a Difficulty set by the GM.
- Typical Difficulties: Easy 7+ / Average 9+ / Hard 11+
When you make a Skill Test you may (but do not have to) re-roll one die whose result is equal to or less than your characters Skill Rank (the new roll stands even if it was lower than the original roll).
You may re-roll a re-roll as many times as you have the ability to do so. Each time, the new roll stands. Your Skill Rank only allows you one re-roll but there are abilities that can give you more.
- If only 1 of the dice equals or exceeds the Difficulty you score a Partial Success which means you accomplished some but not all of what you means to do or didn’t do it as well as you would have liked.
- If 2 of the dice equals or exceeds the Difficulty you Succeed.
- If all 3 dice equal or exceed the Difficulty you score an Exceptional Success. In general this means you did very well. In combat it has a more specific meaning (see Combat for details).
IMPORTANT: Skills with a social element (Deception, Intimidation, Leadership, Persuasion) can never be used against another PC.
Unskilled Tests
If you need to test a skill that you don’t have, you only roll 2 dice instead of 3. That means you can’t score an Exceptional Success.
You can’t ever test a magic skill you don’t have.
