Magic, Psionic and Task Rules

Take into account that each case is situational and that the particular circumstances, conditions, and environment might affect the difficulty rating. In such cases, a normally simplistic task might be considered average instead, or a task commonly considered easy may become simplistic.

To accomplish a task or magic/psionic objective where there is no form of resistance:

- 1. Decide which Trait bonus applies.
  2. Decide which Skill bonus applies (if any)
  3. Decide if there are any other bonuses that apply (ie: Racial Bonuses.)
  4. The GM determines the difficulty rating of the task from chart above (often not telling the player)
  5. The player rolls a pair of dice with no modifiers, unless they are trying to achieve a spell or task that can only succeed or fail. Then they roll one die, this is determined by the GM.
  6. The GM then adds what bonuses apply to the first roll.
  7. If the rolled number meets-or-exceeds the difficulty rating, the task was successful. If not, it fails.
  8. See the damage charts below, damage is based off of trait and skill level.

To accomplish a task or magic/psionic objective where someone or something might defend themselves:

Offensive/Attacker:

- 1. Decide which Trait bonus applies.
  2. Decide which Skill bonus applies (if any)
  3. Decide if there are any other bonuses that apply (ie: Racial Bonuses.)
  4. The GM determines the difficulty rating of the task from above (often not telling the player)
  5. The player rolls a pair of dice with no modifiers.
  6. The GM then adds what bonuses apply to the first roll.
  7. If the rolled number meets-or-exceeds the difficulty rating, the defender is allowed to roll resistance.

Defensive/Opponent:

- 1. Decide which Trait bonus applies.
  2. Decide which Skill bonus applies (if any)
  3. Decide if there are any other bonuses that apply (ie: Racial Bonuses.)
  4. The player rolls one dice with no modifiers.
  5. The GM then adds what bonuses apply to the roll.
  6. If the rolled number meets-or-exceeds the difficulty rating (the other players roll), the attempt failed, if not the attempt succeeds.
  7. See damage charts below, damage is based off of trait and skill level.

Critical Success and Failure:

There are two exceptions when a player rolls a Critical Success or a Critical Failure.

Critical Success:

is where a player rolls a 20 without any bonus modifiers. In the case of a Critical Success, the character always succeeds, leaving the opponent no option to defend. A Critical Success does not mean that the attacker accomplishes exactly what they were striving to do, in the case where what was being attempted is nearly impossible and not rationally within the character's scope of abilities the GM should use logic.

Example: A low-level mage tries to create a powerful tsunami. In this case, the GM would logically conclude that at the mages current level they were only able to create a few impressive waves.

Critical Failure:

is when a player rolls 1 without any bonus modifiers. In the case of Critical Failure, the character always fails. Once more a GM should use logic to consider how extensive said failure is.

Spell/Task Damage or Repair Chart:

Spell or task damage/repair/duration can be determined by adding the character's trait + applied skill/2 and then finding the correlating number on the chart. The damage or repair bonus will be added to the overall damage or repair number.

Example: Roy's Psyche trait is 50, he's used his Healing skill of 50 to heal another character in the group. Combined (50+ 50)/2= 50. Let's say that Roy's Psyche bonus is 5. Adding 50 +5=55. So, Roy potentially heals 55 points of damage. However; we must now take the second roll into account, which is where spell or task power comes into play.

Power of Spell or Task:

The second roll is always used to determine how powerful a spell/task is. This assumes that the spell/task succeeded in the first place. The resulting number will then be found on the chart.

Roll Power

01-19 ¼ effect or duration, 0.25x

20-39 ½ effect or duration, 0.5x

40-49 ¾ effect or duration, 0.75x

50-84 Full effect or duration, 1x

85-89 125% effect or duration, 1.25x

90-94 150% effect or duration, 1.5x

95+ Double effect or duration, 2x

Complex Actions:

Complex actions are things that take longer than 1 time frame, such as overhauling an engine or building something complex. The difficulty rating is 5x the difficulty rating of a standard action; the character rolls a pair of dice multiple times (with bonus modifiers that apply) and adds them up, each roll represents a block of time, until the difficulty is reached. A failed attempt doesn’t mean that the whole project is a failure, but five failed attempts raises the difficulty rating by one step, making it that much harder to achieve. Each five failures raise the difficulty rating another step. In the case of two critical failure rolls during this time, the character fails and must start over from scratch. In some situations, or dire situations, a GM may require a time limit. In these instances a GM will decide in how many rounds the task should be completed successfully, if the character doesn’t complete their task in that limit then something occurs. (Example: An explosive device will go off in 6 minutes, the GM determines that the device is an easy one and gives the character 5 rounds in which to accomplish their task or an explosion occurs.)

An example is overhauling an engine. The GM determines that it is Hard, making the difficulty rating 100 (5 × 20). The Engineer then starts rolling, and the GM determines that each roll represents an hour’s (this may be days/months/years depending on the task) worth of work. If it takes 5 rolls to reach 100, then it takes 5 hours to complete the task. Five failed attempts would raise the difficulty rating to Formidable and 130. A complete failure is when a player reaches an overall difficulty that is beyond their level of achievement even with modifiers. In the case of total failure the character has to start completely over from scratch.

Assistance:

Another character can help a character out if it’s possible. In some cases it is impossible for a character to achieve their goal alone. It is up to the GM to decide if another character can assist or not, as well as how many can assist at one time. Assistance falls into two categories: Direct Assistance and Indirect Assistance.

Direct Assistance:

When two or more characters can combine efforts directly. In this case, characters roll as usual taking the higher of the rolls and using their combined modifiers. Example: Two characters trying to pry open a malfunctioning sliding door on a ship.

Indirect Assistance:

When one character can only offer aid to another character. In this case, rolls are not added together, instead, both characters roll and the highest roll is used. Example: A nurse assisting a doctor, or an unskilled character offering assistance to a skilled character.

Magical/Psionic Fatigue:

The use of magic or psionic abilities takes a toll on a character. Because of this a mage/psion only has a given number of magical/psionic casts per day. Once play/session is concluded, or the character has slept, the accumulated total is started over.

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