Abilities
From ThreadsOfTime
Contents |
Overview of Abilties
Abilities: Talents, Skills and Knowledges measure your character's capability to undertake specific kinds of tasks. Whereas Attributes measure raw potential in broad fields, each Ability is a much more focused area of knowledge or expertise. Abilities let your character use his potential most effectively and compensate for underlying deficiencies in some cases. A weak but experienced knife fighter can make mincemeat out of a big burly opponent who has no clue how to fight well, for instance, and a priest who lacks personal charisma but understands the principles of rhetoric can defeat a charming but unskilled opponent in debate.
Primary Abilities
Talents
Talents are matters of innate aptitude, requiring no training to develop, and they improve primarily or exclusively though experience. Characters get better at them by doing them regularly. It is possible to attempt action related to Talents that a character does not possess. The player simply rolls the character's Attribute dice pool without the benefit of Talent-based Dice, but also without penalty. Everyone or nearly everyone possesses a rudimentary grasp of each talent, even without the minimal competence required for one dot's worth.
Alertness
It is the ability to notice things that re going on in one's vicinity, with out without actively searching for them. Most Alertness rolls pair this Ability with Perception, and it generally applies to physical stimuli rather than matters of the mood, the soul and so on.
Athletics
It is aptitude for physical exertion, be it during relatively formal sports or simple in the course of an active life. Athletic feats that are directly related to combat are covered by Brawl, Dodge, Melee and other combat Abilities, except in the case of thrown weapons.
Brawl
It is the ability to fight unarmed, whether with a specific system of techniques or simply flailing away and relying on one's experience of where and how to strike. Brawling well requires coordination, speed and the ability to withstand pain and the willingness to deal out 'unfair' assaults, particularly against strong or quick opponents.
Dodge
It is the ability to get out of harm's way, whether in combat or in the face of other sorts of danger. It encompasses the use of cover and agile maneuvering, and it comes from the systematic training of a knight or the rough and ready experience and instincts of a thief or brawler. Dodge plays a crucial role in the survival of any character who fights often, greatly increasing his changes of escaping damage.
Empathy
It is the ability to understand others' emotional states and to present a suitable response - whether the character genuinely sympathizes with others or simply wishes to use them. It's crucial in unraveling motives and helpful in detecting dishonesty.
Expression
It is the ability to communicate clearly and appropriately. with words, be they spoken or written. Characters with high Expression rates makes their arguments persuasively, regardless of the extent to which they truth may support them. They can bring out subtle truths or convey subtle deceptions, depending on how they use their ability. Expression, although used when composing written texts, does not cover the ability to actually read and write as Academics does.
Intimidation
It is the ability to make others do what you want, not out of respect or conviction but out of fear of the consequences if they disobey. It may include the use of threats, physical force or purely psychological tactics, depending on the individual.
Leadership
It is the ability to make others carry out order. It does not change their underlying outlook or convictions; it lets the would be leader seem credible and worthy of respect based on whatever their standards are. It is usually rolled with Charisma rather then Manipulation to reflect this distinction.
Legerdemain
It is the ability to perform feats of manual dexterity, ranging from picking a purse from a belt, to juggling and feats of trickery such as palming objects. It encompasses the stealth and concealment involved in using that dexterity without being noticed, such as when palming an object or performing a conjuring trick.
Subterfuge
It is the ability to lie convincingly and to conceal one's own motives and feelings. It serves legitimate as well as criminal purposes. Diplomats and even confessors sometimes use it to draw out information from others.
Skills
Skills are all arts that people learn through apprenticeship or other disciplined instruction. It is possible to attempt actions covered by Skills without having enough training for one dots worth of the Skill in question, but the roll suffers a -1 difficulty penalty.
Animal Ken
It is an understanding of beasts' actions and desires. It allows on to predict their behavior, control them in difficult situations and train them. Animal Ken is a catch-all Ability.
Commerce
It is the ability to successfully bring goods to market, with all that it entails. It includes the ability to evaluate goods and to identify who would want them, a knowledge of trade routes and fairs and skill at negotiating prices. Commerce is a catch-all Ability, and you must choose one class of goods as a field of expertise when you first purchase. Other additional fields may be purchased. In this era, the line between legitimate and illegitimate trade is blurry to non-existent and Commerce comes into play just as much when buying cheese as when hiring mercenaries, soliciting a prostitute or selling stolen goods. As such, Commerce conveys a general sense of the shadier side of life - what modern folk might call being streetwise. Clothing, foodstuffs, livestock, mercenaries, relics, silks, slaves, spies, stolen goods, wine...etc are samples of goods.
Crafts
It is another catch-all ability covering skill at making and fixing things with your hands and evaluating such work by others. Skilled craftsman produce works known for their beauty as well as their utility. You must choose and +Note a field of expertise when you purchase crafts. In this era, the Crafts Skills covers what will in later centuries become applied sciences such as engineering. Architecture, armory, blacksmithing, boat-building, jewelry, masonry, sewing, embroidery, woodworking... etc fall under the Crafts Skill.
Etiquette
It is the understanding of social customs in the one or more cultures and the ability to behave as becomes one of their members. Characters begin with this knowledge as it applies to the land and class into which they were born. Master of Etiquette encompasses speech, movement, dress, furnishings and the like.
Melee
It is the ability to fight with hand-to-hand weapons from sticks and clubs to swords and more exotic weapons, depending on the details of the character's training. Like Archery, Melee includes the ability to maintain one's weapons and even to make them, but manufacturing metal weapons requires Crafts.
Performance
It is the ability to perform artistic feats. It covers both the technical aspects of the chosen form of expression and the social knowledge of what audiences like. Performance is a catch-all Ability, and you should choose a fiend of expertise when you first purchase it. Examples of fields are acting, dance, percussion, singing, musical instruments... etc.
Ride
It is the ability to travel astride a horse or other riding animal, keeping it under control in varying circumstances. Experienced riders can fight from horseback, tend horses' common ailments and evaluate the quality of their mounts and related gear.
Stealth
It is the ability to move without alerting others - to enter without permission, remain undetected while about one's self-appointed business and to leave without creating a stir. You generally roll this Skill in combination with Dexterity against observers' Perception + Alertness. It does not cover sleight-of-hand, which is the domain of Legerdemain.
Survival
It This is the ability to cope with the challenges of harsh environments: shelter, navigating to civilization, foraging for food and water, hunting and so on. It includes knowledge of the common threats posed by a particular sort of wilderness, such as forest or swamp. Stealth rolls in wilderness cannot include more dice from stealth than the characters has in dots of survival.
Knowledges
Knowledges are Abilities that require intellectual mastery of information. They almost always require rolls with Mental Traits, though some of other sort of Attribute may prove useful occasionally. Apart from the most general popular lore, characters who lack dots in a particular Knowledge cannot even attempt an action requiring it. Note that formal academic instruction is not the only way to develop Knowledge. Individual teaching and institutional tutoring in a non-academic contexts also let people learn this Abilities.
Academics
It covers the standard curriculum of the era learned by tutors and the few learning institutions; the University of Tiberium, University of Hellas, Scholar's Academy and Academy of Magical Studies. The curriculum generally includes Mathematics, Calligraphy, metaphysics, grammar, science....etc.
Hearth Wisdom
It is the lore of the people, as opposed to the academy. It is unsystematic, but in its haphazard way, it covers the body of knowledge accumulated by peasants, traders, and other people who do not benefit from servants or live in isolation. It includes mundane matters such as which plants and animals are safe to eat in the area, which herbs are good for cooking and for medicinal purposes, signs of impending bad or good weather, rules of thumb for resolving domestic disputes and folk wisdom. Unlike other knowledges, those characters without Hearth Wisdom can attempt feats that require it, but they do so at a +2 difficulty. Despite its diversity of topics, Hearth Wisdom is not a catch-all Ability with fields of expertise.
Investigation
It is the ability to systematically examine one's environment and analyze the results. It is the central tool for judicial inquiries, religious searches, and the like. It includes a grasp of the principles of research as well as an eye for detail.
Law
It is the body of knowledge about justice and its applications to practical affairs. Prisons do not exist as a formal institution and a criminal's rights are often whatever the local authorities feel like granting. This Knowledge allows characters to know what it locally illegal and know how severely infractions are punished.
Linguistics
It is the knowledge of languages. This MUX uses an Ability system based on language points. For each language you can speak you have a skill varying from 0 to 5. At 0 you don't know anything about the language (it's not even listed in your +stats). At 5, you speak it fluently. Based on your Linguistics knowledge, you get a number of extra points to spend: Linguistics 1 - 5 points; Linguistics 2 - 10 points; Linguistics 3 - 30 points; Higher - 10 points per dot (i.e. 2 fluent languages/dot). You get Hungarian for free in CharGen.
Medicine
It is the lore of the human body. It is very primitive by modern standards, covering trained healers, midwives, practical relief of trauma and injury, surgery, as well as the academic tradition based on anatomy and physiology. It even covers the knowledge of which herbs and plants are useful for remedying ills.
Occult
It is a catch-all dealing with local folklore, arcane texts, ancient legends and most other forms of facts and hearsay. The understanding of the more sinister side of the world includes knowledge of curses, rituals, magic, mysticism, and contains much that may be only speculation and fantasy.
===Politics is the theory and practice of governance: what ancient and modern governors have written and how people respond to authority of various sorts. It includes insights into how people gain power, how they maintain it and how they lose it. High levels include more theory and more information above the practices of realms far from home.
Seneschal
It is the ability to administer holdings, from household to kingdoms. It covers the knowledge of physical assets and their needs, from crop harvesting to the maintenance of buildings, and the social skills to coordinate others' labor, resolve disputes, keep those who must be paid satisfied and so on. A skilled seneschal can evaluate the state of others' holdings based on personal experience and theoretical knowledge too.
Theology
It is the study of religion in it's many facets. It combines historical records with verbal, logic and a measure of artistic expression. Theology by itself does not make a character articulate, nor a priest, but it can provide the information necessary for effective persuasion and it's crucial in evaluating or participating in many social matters as well as a cornerstone for those who take to the cloth.
Secondary Abilities
Talents
===Seduction=== is the Talent to lure, attract and command the attention of others in a sexual manner. By the way you hold yourself, how you look at someone and even by the tone of your voice, you are able to arouse and excite those upon whom you practice your wiles. Once you have fully seduced someone, he will be willing to do nearly anything for you. Examples of specialties are Witty Conversation, Opening Line, Innuendo, Alluring Look... etc.
Skills
Knowledges
Restricted Abilities
Lores
Demonology
You are versed in the lore of angels, demons, devas, devils and otherworldly beings. You may be familiar with the traditional Western schools of thought (black magic, diabolism, witchcraft), or possess insights into the methodologies of other cultures (Arabic, Eastern, Persian, Semitic etc.). With sufficient training in this Knowledge, you may even have access to a number of covenants, cultist practices and secret rituals. Demonology is unlike Hearth Wisdom in that most of what you 'know' is actually true (though certainly not all of it).
* Dabbler: Your knowledge consists largely of speculation and hearsay.
** Student: Although you have a hard time separating truth from rumor, you know a few relevant facts.
*** Learned: You possess basic knowledge of the nether realms and their inhabitants.
**** Scholar: Your knowledge pertaining to various incarnations of the celestial and infernal is expansive and encyclopedic. You possess a considerable repertoire of rites and rituals -- which may or may not work.
***** Savant: The very manner in which you perceive reality has been altered by your eldritch understanding. The breadth and depth of your knowledge rivals that of the ancient masters of the hidden arts.
****** Visionary: Your command of the great secrets is beyond the ken of mere mortals. You are known to many of the greater powers who dwell Outside -- and know them in turn.
Gypsies Only
Bujo
You have learned the true art of the well-planned swindle. The bujo involves convincing people to freely give you their money and valuables so that you can aid them in "cleansing their souls" or "removing their bad luck." It is the mark of a true artist to be able to pull off a successful bujo. This Skill involves establishing some sort of fortune-telling business and then tricking clients into giving large sums of money to your character. (An example of this is given in Chapter two.) Characters with this Skill can raise a sum of money equal to $5,000 times the number of successes on a Wits + Bujo roll against the target's Wits + 4. The character must spend at least one week per $5,000 desired priming his mark for the swindle. A botch indicates the character's swindle has been discovered by the mark. The results of a botch vary from the mark's leaving in a huff with all his money to being raided by the police while the character is in the middle of making the final switch.
* Novice: Can get change for the subway.
** Practiced: Telemarketer
*** Competent: Sweet little old ladies are just dying to give you their money.
**** Expert: Televangelists give money to you.
***** Master: Could convince an M.D. that the cure for cancer involves giving you all his worldly goods
Diversion
You have learned the art of directing the attention of others where you wish it to be. Some- times all eyes are drawn to you by even your subtlest gesture, while at other times your glance causes those around you to look elsewhere. You find that when you control the attention of those around you, all sorts of opportunities present themselves to you and your companions. This Skill enables a character to direct the attention of those around her. This Skill is similar to Sleight of Hand, except on a far great? scale. This Skill is most often used by one Rom to draw attention to herself while her partner takes advantage of a mark's sudden inattention to her merchandise. It is also invaluable to those who wish to leave an awkward scene without attracting attention to themselves. The character's Diversion number of dice should be added to any Manipulation rolls made involving distracting others.
* Novice: Look! It's Godzilla!
**Practiced: Can move through crowds unnoticed.
***Competent: Proficient at three-card monte.
****Expert: Can manipulate the attention of whole crowds.
*****Master: People see what you want them to see.
Fortune-Telling
When it comes to gazing into crystal balls, making tables rise and rolling your eyes back in your head, you know your stuff. The gaje eat this junk up, even though it doesn't have a thing to do with real magic or the Sight. But it's a good way to get information and money out of the gullible, and anyone who falls for these tricks needs to be taught a lesson! This Skill is simply the ability to convince others that your character knows how to tell fortunes, read palms, etc. Characters with this Skill can set up a fortune-telling business and make some money at it. Additionally, characters can add their Fortune-Telling dice to their Manipulation rating when attempting to gain information from one of their clients.
* Novice: You can make your way around a tarot deck.
** Practiced: You look convincing muttering into a crystal ball and have the "tall, dark stranger" bit down pat.
*** Competent: You are very familiar with all the major fortune-telling devices and how to employ them.
**** Expert: You are able to use many different fortune-telling devices, and are practiced at telling people what they want to hear.
***** Master: You could convince the Uncanny Danny that you're the real thing.
Romany Lore
Romany Lore is is possessed by Rom only. You are knowledgeable in the lore of your people, the Rom. You have listened with care to all the old tales, and can recount the history and legends of your people. This skill reflects the character's knowledge of the position Gypsies hold in the world, of the Seeds of Knowledge, and of their role as wildcards in the upcoming Convergence. The higher the character's rating, the greater her Knowledge of such secrets.
* Novice: You know as much as a Rom child: You know basic Rom history (but not necessarily gaje history!). You've heard simple versions of the legends of Deanna and Sareth, as well as famous Rom personalities. You know the Rom have great magic and that the gaje fear them, which is why they run them out of cities so often. You also have heard rumors that some Rom have met vampires, faeries, and the like, though you're not sure how true that is. You understand the structure and function of the kumpaniya and know that Rom elders have lore about almost everything. You understand the concept of "purity" and marhime, and know that all dead and undead things are unclean.
** Practiced: You know as much as a Rom adolescent: You have a thorough knowledge of Rom history, particularly the various persecutions against your Blood. You know Rom traditions. You understand the source of gypsy magic and know its basic forms. You know the major Rom families and are aware that there are vampires of Rom descent; these are particularly dangerous creatures, as they can develop a taste for Rom blood. The Ravnos family is known to deal with them. You know there are lupines that are related by blood to the Rom. You've heard rumors of the Convergence.
*** Competent: You know as much as a Rom adult: You know the major families of the Rom, and the special powers and/or supernatural creatures associated with each. You know of the kumpaniya traveling in your region. You know the history of your own kumpania, including cities and individuals who have harmed your group in the past. You know that the Ravnos have phralmulo in their family, that the Tsurara hunt mulo, and that undead of the Gangrel family have had friendly relations with many gypsies. You know the fine points of the legends of Deanna and the Children of Sareth. You have heard that lupines venerate freedom, nature, and mother earth. You have heard of the Convergence and understand the role the Rom are to play in it.
**** Expert: You know as much as a Baro: You know the names and family background of Baros in your region, and the vurma of their kumpaniya. You know the names of some well-known Rom elders who can serve as sources of lore.
***** Master: ou know as much as an elder: You know the names and families of other elders and where to seek them. You know the legend of Ravnos, and understand the relationship between the mortal Ravnos and their phralmulo kin. You have limited knowledge of kindred and lupine society. You know the names and families of most Baro. You have access to any information in the Rom clan book not otherwise listed.
The Talith
You have learned how to use the Romany weapon known as the talith. The talith is a heavy scarf, or diklo, of some 5-6' in length, with weighted hooks and barbs along each end. You can use the talith to disarm your opponents, or you can attack them, slashing with the barbed hooks. The advantage of reach combined with its concealability make this weapon one of your favorite forms of attack. A character must be skilled in melee in order to learn this specialized form of combat. The úk talith is a difficult weapon to master. It requires good coordination and a lot of practice. Although it does not do much damage compared to a firearm, the talith is practically impossible to detect as a weapon, and it can be used to blind or disarm opponents. The greater the character's Skill with the Talith, the more varied the special maneuvers and attacks of which the character is capable.
* Novice: Can blind opponent, giving her a +1 target modifier.
** Praticed: Can use talith as an actual melee weapon.
*** Competent: Can use talith to disarm opponents. Opponent must then make a Strength roll (diff 6). If the Rom makes more succ's on a Dex+Talith roll (diff 6) than her opponent, she successfully disarms him.
**** Expert: Can use the talith as a second weapon in melee (two attacks per action.) However, all difficulty numbers are raised by +1.
***** Master: Can entangle opponent with talith. Opponent must make a Dex roll diff 6 to avoid entanglement. If the Rom has more successes she successfully entangles her opponent, causing him to lose his next action.
