You can also use Empathy to discover what circumstances will allow you to make mental attacks on someone, figuring out their breaking points.
Defend: This is the skill to go to in order to defend against Deceive actions, allowing you to piece through to someone’s true intent. You can also use it to defend against those creating social advantages against you in general.
Special: Empathy is the main skill you use to help others recover from consequences that are mental in nature.
Empathy Feats
Lie Whisperer. +2d to all Empathy checks made to discern or discover lies, whether they’re directed at you or someone else.
Nose for Trouble. You can use Empathy instead of Spot to determine your turn order in a conflict, provided you’ve gotten a chance to observe or speak to those involved for at least a few minutes beforehand during the scene.
Psychologist. Once per session you can reduce someone else’s mental condition by one level of severity (severe to moderate, moderate to mild, mild to nothing at all) by succeeding on an Empathy roll. You need to talk with the person you’re treating for at least half an hour in order for them to receive the benefits of this feat, and you can’t use it on yourself (normally, this roll would only start the recovery process, instead of changing the condition level).
Gamble: Surmount/Get the Upper Hand/Attack
This represents your skill and experience with games of chance, including dice and dice, as well as your knowledge of horse racing and sports of all sorts.
Surmount: Use Gamble to surmount problems related to knowing the odds and making the appropriate bet. You can also use Gamble to detect attempts at cheating such as marked dice, loaded dice, and similar cons.
Get the Upper Hand: Use Gamble to get the upper hand related to winning at a game of chance, or to create a wager for high-stakes play.
Attack: Gamble is not typically used to attack, but a high-stakes game might put one’s nerves under a condition as his or her fortune may indeed be on the line. In such circumstances, Gamble can be used to attack in order to inflict mental conditions.
High-Stakes Gambling
In high-stakes play, each side stakes a wager consisting of a descriptor and a stakes value. This wager can be represented by staking Wealth, with a stakes value equal to the Wealth rank staked. For example, a character could use Business to sell off some land, creating the wager Pile of Cash. Characters involved in high-stakes Gambling roll their dice pool and score it as usual; the highest score wins, gaining the wagered Wealth (the sum of the dollar amounts) while retaining their own; the others lose their wagers.
Under some circumstances, high-stakes gambling becomes an outright conflict, with the wagers remaining on the table until all but one gambler is incapacitated or concedes. During such a conflict, the gamblers can use Spot, Deceive, Empathy, and Converse as well as Gamble and Will in order to attack and defend.
Gamble Feats
Poker Face. You can use Gamble in place of Deceive to bluff, stonewall, or otherwise rely on hiding your true intentions or disposition while interacting with others.
Winnings. You can spend a point of Vigor to produce wealth, representing previous winnings. Each point of Vigor you spend in this way creates a descriptor like Cold Hard Cash or Ready Money and raises Wealth by 1 rank.
Investigate: Surmount/Get the Upper Hand
Investigate is the skill you use to find things out. It’s a counterpart to Spot—whereas Spot revolves around situational awareness and surface observation, Investigate revolves around concentrated effort and in-depth scrutiny.
Surmount: Obstacles to Investigate are all about information that’s hard to uncover for some reason. Analyzing a crime scene for clues, searching a cluttered room for the item you need, even poring over a musty old tome to try to find the passage that makes everything make sense.
Racing against the clock to collect evidence before the constables show up or disaster occurs is a classic way to use Investigate in a challenge.
Get the Upper Hand: Investigate is probably one of the most versatile skills you can use to get the upper hand. As long as you’re willing to take the time, you can find out just about anything about anyone, discover nearly any detail about a place or object, or otherwise make up descriptors about nearly anything in the game world that your character could reasonably unearth.
If that sounds broad, consider the following as just a few of the possibilities for using Investigate: eavesdropping on a conversation, looking for clues at a crime scene, examining records, verifying the truth of a piece of information, conducting surveillance, and researching a cover story.
Investigate Feats
Attention to Detail. You can use Investigate instead of Empathy to defend against Deceive attempts. What others discover through gut reactions and intuition, you learn through careful observation.
Eavesdropper. On a successful Investigate roll to get the upper hand by eavesdropping on a conversation, you can discover or create one additional descriptor (though this doesn’t give you an extra free invocation).
The Power of Deduction. Once per scene you can spend a point of Vigor (and a few minutes of observation) to make a special Investigate roll representing your potent deductive faculties. For each level of success you make on this roll—Six Successes would be considered 4 levels, Five Successes, 3 levels, Four Successes would be considered 2 levels and a Three-of-a-Kind, 1 level— you discover or create a descriptor, on either the scene or the target of your observations, though you may only invoke one of them for free.
Leadership: Surmount/Get the Upper Hand/Attack/Defend
This is your ability to inspire loyalty and effectively direct others’ performance, particularly subordinates and, more generally, those inclined to defer to your authority.
Surmount: Use Leadership to motivate reluctant or flagging subordinates, rally wavering troops, or smarten up the household staff.
Get the Upper Hand: Leadership can get the upper hand reflecting the quality of inspired or highly motivated subordinates, companions, underlings, or staff.
Attack: Leadership is not typically used to attack, but in certain mass combat situations, you can use it to lead troops against a defending force.
Defend: Leadership is not typically used to defend, but in certain mass combat situations, you can use it to lead troops against an attacking force.
Extra: Troops and Crew
Permissions: A descriptor indicating that you are an officer in some military or otherwise hold authority over a body of troops or the crew of a vessel.
Costs: ReinVIGORate, if you want the troops or crew to have skills.
Troops or crew are defined by a name of their unit or another designation, such as 1st Battalion, Roberts’ Rangers or the Airship Sweet Chariot Crew. They begin with no skills, but you can spend reinVIGORate to give them a skill stack with a peak skill equal to the reinVIGORate that you spent—for example, spending 3 reinVIGORate gives them one rank 3 skill, one rank 2 skill, and one rank 1 skill (don’t worry, you can increase your base reinVIGORate beyond 3—see Physique). They will take action as you direct. Only enemies of comparable numbers can inflict condition upon troops or crew, so a lone character usually cannot. However, a single individual may be able to temporarily defeat a body of troops or evade them.
Leadership Feats
Unflappable. Your air of authority makes you difficult to faze. You can use Leadership in place of Will to defend or surmount in situations where you can fall back on your formal position or the performance of your duties. For example, if you have taken charge of an airship while it is under attack, and the attackers try to intimidate you into striking your colors—attacking you to inflict a mental condition—instead of defending with Will to keep your morale steady, you can defend with Leadership.
Here Comes the Cavalry! You can spend a point of Vigor to have your troops rendezvous with you per retroactively transmitted orders, showing up in circumstances when they would otherwise be too far
away to assist you.
Marksman: Surmount/Get the Upper Hand/Attack
The counterpart to Melee, Marksman is the skill of using ranged weaponry, either in a conflict or on targets that don’t actively resist your attempts to shoot them (like a bull’s-eye or the broad side of a barn).
Marksman refers specifically to gunplay; archery is part of Athletics. Marksman also includes the ability to operate heavy gunnery on vehicles.
Surmount: Unless, for some reason, you need to demonstrate your Marksman ability in a non-conflict situation, you probably won’t be using this skill for normal obstacles much. Obviously, contests involving Marksman are a popular staple of adventure fiction, and we recommend you look for the opportunity to have them if you have a character that specializes in this.
Get the Upper Hand: In physical conflicts, Marksman can be used to perform a wide variety of moves, like trick shots, keeping someone under heavy fire, and the like. You might even be able to disarm people and shoot their top hats off their heads—pretty much anything you’ve seen in an action movie. You could also make the argument for creating descriptors based on your knowledge of guns (like placing a Prone to Jams descriptor on an opponent’s gun).
Attack: This skill makes physical attacks. You can usually make them from up to 2 zones away, unlike with Melee. Sometimes the range will change with the weapon.
Defense: Marksman is unique in that it doesn’t really have a defense component to it—you’d use Athletics for that. You could use it to lay down some covering fire—which might act as a defense for your allies or provide opposition to someone else’s movement—though it could just as easily be represented by getting the upper hand (Covering Fire or Hail of Bullets, for example).
Marksman Feats
Called Shot. During a Marksman attack, spend a point of Vigor and declare a specific condition you want to inflict on a target, like Shot in the Hand. If you succeed, you place that as a situation descriptor on them in addition to hitting them for a condition.
Quick on the Draw. You can use Marksman instead of Spot to determine turn order in any physical conflict where shooting quickly would be useful.
Uncanny Accuracy. Once per conflict, stack an additional free invoke on an upper hand you’ve gotten to represent the time you take to aim or line up a shot (like In My Sights).
Melee: Surmount/Get the Upper Hand/Attack/Defend
The Melee skill covers all forms of close-quarters combat (in other words, within the same zone), both unarmed and using weapons. For the ranged weapons counterpart, see Marksman.
Surmount: Since you don’t really use Melee outside of a conflict, it’s not often used to surmount impediments. You might use it to display your fighting prowess in a demonstration, or to participate in some kind of regulated bout or sport fighting, which would allow you to use this skill in a contest.
Get the Upper Hand: You will probably use Melee for most of the upper hands you get in a physical conflict. Any number of special moves can be covered: a targeted strike to stun, a “dirty move,” disarming, and so on. You could even use Melee to assess another fighter’s style, spotting weaknesses in his or her stance or technique that you can exploit.
Attack: This is self-explanatory. You make physical attacks with Melee. Remember this is for close-in work, so you usually have to be within the same zone as your opponent.
Defend: You use Melee to defend against any other attack or get the upper hand with Melee, as well as pretty much any action where violently interposing yourself could prevent it from happening. You can’t use this skill to defend against Marksman attacks, unless you have a special ability that allows you to catch missiles or swat them from the air or use swords to deflect bullets, or something similar.
Melee Feats
Heavy Hitter. When you get Four Successes, Five Successes or more on a Melee attack and choose to reduce the result to a single success, you gain a full situation descriptor with a free invocation instead.
Backup Weapon. Whenever someone’s about to hit you with a Disarmed situation descriptor or something similar, spend a point of Vigor to declare you have a backup weapon. Instead of a situation descriptor, your opponent gets a one-time bonus, representing the momentary distraction you suffer having to switch.
Killing Stroke. Once per scene, when you force an opponent to take a condition, you can spend a point of Vigor to increase the condition’s severity—mild becomes moderate; moderate becomes severe. If your opponent was already going to take a severe consequence, he must either take a severe consequence and a second consequence or be killed.
Perform: Surmount/Get the Upper Hand
This represents your skill at dramatic or musical performance, including oratorical declamation as well as singing, playing an instrument, acting, and reciting poetry with true and tender feeling.
Surmount: This lets you deal with impediments related to the difficulty of the material to be performed or of piercing the jaded apathy of the audience.
Get the Upper Hand: A skillful performance can create a positive and powerful impression on members of the audience, or give you a reputation for taste and refinement.
Perform Feats
Virtuoso. Choose a mode of performance. +2d to Perform when surmounting obstacles related to the difficulty of this type of material.
Physique: Surmount/Get the Upper Hand/Defend
The Physique skill is a counterpart to Athletics, representing the character’s natural physical aptitudes, such as raw strength and endurance.
Surmount: You can use Physique to surmount any impediments that require the application of brute force—most often to surmount a situation descriptor on a zone—or any other physical impedance, like prison bars or locked gates. Of course, Physique is the classic skill for arm-wrestling matches and other contests of applied strength, as well as marathons or other endurance-based challenges.
Get the Upper Hand: Physique has a lot of potential for getting the upper hand in a physical conflict, usually related to grappling and holding someone in place, making them Pinned or Immobilized. You might also use it as a way of discovering physical impairments possessed by the target—grappling the old mercenary tells you that he has a Bum Leg or something.
Defend: Though you don’t generally use Physique to defend against attacks, you can use it to provide active opposition to someone else’s movement, provided you’re in a small enough space that you can effectively use your body to block access. You might also interpose something heavy and brace it to stop someone from getting through.
Special: The Physique skill gives you additional reinVIGORate—1 point per 2 ranks of Physique.
Physique Feats
Grappler. +2d to Physique checks made to get the upper hand on an enemy by wrestling or grappling with them.
Take the Blow. You can use Physique to defend against Melee attacks made with fists or blunt instruments.
Tough as Nails. Once per session, at the cost of a point of Vigor, you can reduce the severity of a moderate condition that’s physical in nature to a mild condition, or erase a mild condition altogether.
Provoke: Surmount/Get the Upper Hand/Attack
Provoke is the skill about getting someone’s dander up and eliciting negative emotional response from them—fear, anger, shame, etc.
To use Provoke, you need some kind of justification. That could come entirely from the situation, or because you have a descriptor that’s appropriate, or because you’ve gotten the upper hand with another skill (like Rapport or Deceive), or because you’ve assessed your target’s descriptors (see Empathy).
This skill requires that your target can feel emotions—automatons and zombies typically can’t be provoked.
Surmount: You can provoke someone into doing what you want in a fit of emotional irritation. You might intimidate them for information, anger them so badly that they act out, or scare them into running away. This will often happen when you’re going up against nameless NPCs or it isn’t worthwhile to play out t
he particulars. Against PCs or important NPCs, you’ll need to win a contest. They oppose with Will.
Get the Upper Hand: You can get the upper hand representing momentary emotional states, like Enraged, Shocked, or Hesitant. Your target opposes with Will.
Attack: You can make mental attacks with Provoke, to do emotional harm to an opponent. Your relationship with the opponent and the circumstances you’re in figure a great deal into whether or not you can use this action.
Provoke Feats
Armor of Fear. You can use Provoke to defend against Melee attacks, but only until the first time you suffer a condition in the conflict. You can make your opponents hesitate to attack, but when someone shows them that you’re only human your advantage disappears.
Provoke Violence. When you get the upper hand on an opponent using Provoke, you can use your free invocation to become the target of that character’s next relevant action, drawing their attention away from another target.
Give it Up! You can use Provoke in place of Empathy to learn a target’s descriptors, by bullying them until they reveal one to you. The target defends against this with Will. If the GM thinks the descriptor is particularly vulnerable to your hostile approach, you get a +2d bonus.
Rapport: Surmount/Get the Upper Hand/Defend
The Rapport skill is all about making positive connections to people and eliciting positive emotion. It’s the skill of being liked and trusted. Rapport includes knowledge of etiquette and formal social rules appropriate to your position and place in society.
Surmount: Use Rapport to charm or inspire people to do what you want, or to establish a good connection with them. Charm your way past the guard, convince someone to take you into their confidence, or become the man of the hour at the local tavern. For nameless NPCs, this is just a surmount action, but you may have to enter a contest to sufficiently ingratiate yourself to a named NPC or PC.
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