Future Imperfect chapter 5
Contents
Chapter 5: Skills
Yang Neuman: Skill has nothing to do with this. It's gonna take pure luck this time.
Isamu Dyson: Luck is one of my skills.
--Macross Plus
Traits are the raw materials of a Hero, while skills are the programming. The essence of a Future Imperfect encounter is task resolution, and tasks cannot be effectively resolved without skills.
Each skill has an associated trait. When rolling dice for a given skill, use the type associated with the trait. Roll a number of dice equal to the level of the skill.
Sid Scorpio isn’t the most nimble-fingered merc out there; his d10 in Dexterity is impressive, but his training with Dexterity is 2, meaning his chances at strait Dexterity checks can still be all over the map because he is only rolling two dice when making Dexterity checks. He is a crack shot with a laser pistol, though, having the shooting: handgun (lasers) skill at level 5. When firing his laser, he uses the die type associated with the skill (in this case, Dexterity), and his dice pool is equal to the level in his skill. When he fires, he rolls 5d10 to hit. If he did not have the skill at all, he would roll 2d10 and halve the result of the highest die (or the number drawn on an action card.
The skills listed below are most commonly associated with the trait they are grouped under, but they can sometimes be associated with other traits.
Stonewall Krantz slips behind the controls of the hover taxi he liberated in the last battle with the fiendish Ace Cab Corporation. He turns the contra-grav on, and cruises down the street hunting for ACC CorpSec. Little does he realize that loyalist cabbies have planted a bomb in a recess of the undercarriage, and the Master decides to give Stony an opportunity to notice before it blows. For extra flavor, the Master asks Stonewall to make a driving roll using Acuity instead of Dexterity because the electronics in the bomb are interfering with the CG unit. Stonewall uses his driving level 3 and his trait value for Acuity instead of Dexterity because he is being asked to notice something about driving instead of performing a driving maneuver.
Skill Points
Your starting skill points are determined according to the table on page XX of chapter 2: Building a Hero. The rank you place in skills determines your initial starting total, normally from 18 to 40 points. When creating your character, each skill level costs 1 point. To purchase a skill at level 1 costs 1 skill point. A skill at level 5 costs 5 skill points. The max starting point for skills is level 5, though. Skills at 6 and above are near-legendary, and you only start out as a mere Hero. You’ll need to do some adventuring to get that kind of game going!
Specializations
The skills will be organized by their associated trait. Some skills are a bit too broad and must be broken down into two or more specializations. Not every skill has any specializations, but when it does, you must choose one. If you would like to have another of the skill’s specializations, you may purchase it for a cost of 1 skill point.
Harold Funkhouser considers himself to be the consummate tech. As such, he wants to have equal skill in both mechanics and electronics (specializations of the General Technical Aptitude skill). He invests 4 points in one, and spends an extra skill point to get the other specialization, so that he doesn’t have any penalties when tinkering with either machines or electronics.
Associated Skills
Some skills are similar enough to be used in the place of another at a reduced proficiency. If you have a specialization in a skill, you can usually use it in place of another specialization at a -2 penalty to your die roll. This may seem harsh, but it generally beats making an unskilled trait check.
Sid Scorpio is great with a laser pistol, but after escaping his cell at the backwater IPA detention center, he finds that their jailors are only armed with needler pistols! He lifts one from the guard he knocked out. If he uses it, he can use his shooting: handguns (lasers) dice pool of 5d10, but he’ll subtract 2 from his roll.
Unskilled Checks
If you do not have the skill required or an applicable associated skill, you may be able to make--at the Master's discretion--an unskilled check to try and accomplish a task. Some tasks are simply too complex for a lay person to even attempt, and an unskilled check should not be allowed. For an unskilled check, you would use the associated trait to determine the die type rolled. The trainings associated with the trait would be your dice pool. When attempting an unskilled check, the result is halved, rounding down. Most characters will have a minimum of 2 trainings in any trait, which often leads people to ask what the point of having level one skills is, if you only get to roll one die as opposed to 2 or 3 or even 4 for an unskilled check. This is one of the reasons people gamble--because our brains are sometimes terrible at dealing with statistics. Unless you are looking at the simplest of tasks (TN 3), you are more likely to succeed rolling one full die than two or more dice and halving them. It doesn't feel it should be that way because you are rolling more dice, dammit, but sadly, it is so (For example, trying an unskilled check at TN 9 with a 1d6 trait gives you a 1 in 216 chance to succeed. Even if you have 4d6 in your trait, its still far less likely to succeed than having one skill point in that skill which would then require you to roll a 6 followed by a 3, 4, 5 or 6, or a 1 in 9 chance to succeed). But hey, people have been drawing to an inside straight for ages, too, right?
Assisting
Sometimes a complicated endeavor can be more easily accomplished if a person has a little help. This is also a good way for one of the Heroes with duplicate skills to make themselves useful. With Master approval, additional characters may assist in a skill check. The hero with the highest skill level will be the "primary." Their card draw will determine the cause number. If both/all heroes have the same skill level, the one with the highest trait value will be the primary. If a hero is assisting, the player must state before the action card draw if their character is boosting the cause or the effect. If two heroes are assisting the primary, both cause and effect can be boosted, but the players should state which hero is boosting what, in case skill levels are different. When the primary attempts the task, an assistant boosting cause will add their skill level to the primary's cause result. An assistant boosting effect will add their skill level x 2 to the effect result.
Common uses for skill assistance are astrogation/FTL pilot checks, merchant tasks, maintenance/repair tasks, medical rolls, strength feats and some social interactions (uses of persuasion, argument, intimidation, blather or bureaucracy).
Tarod and Cal are attempting to sell a load of goods on Baast III. Both Cal and Tarod have the same skill level and trait, so either of them can be the primary. Being a major Mekpurr world, Cal doesn't want her crass associate to offend the natives, so she opts to be the primary. Tarod has no doubts the charismatic feline can make the sale, so he opts to assist by boosting the effect. The TN for selling their goods is 5 (as they are medium-risk items that are on the demand matrix for the world), and Cal draws her card, an 8. Cal checks the 1d10 cause and finds an 8, meaning they have found a buyer. They have 3 units to sell, and the demand for Gold on Baast is currently d10, so for the effect, they check 3d10 and find a 19. The sale EN for gold is 5, so normally they would only make 3 income shares of profit (19/3 = 3.75, rounded down to 3). But since Tarod is boosting the effect, he adds his skill level (1) x 2 to the effect, for 21. 21/5 = 4.25, rounded to 4. With Tarod's assistance, the crew of the Bedeviled Coterie is able to make an extra profit share from this cargo.
Default Skills
Every Hero has a set of default skills for no cost. These are Awareness 1, Language (own) 2, plus any granted by the racial type and any campaign skills as defined by the Master.
Skill Lists by Trait
Strength Skills
Acuity Skills
Dexterity Skills
Knowledge Skills
Presence Skills
Reflex Skills
Essence Skills
Advanced Martial Arts
