How Skills Work

When you use a skill, make a skill check to see how you do. Based on the circumstances, your result must match or beat a particular number to use the skill successfully. The harder the task, the higher the number you need to roll. (See Checks, page 9, for more information.)

UNTRAINED SKILL CHECKS

Generally, if you attempt a task requiring a skill you don’t have, you make a skill check as normal. Your skill modifier doesn’t have a skill rank added in because you don’t have any ranks in the skill. You do get other modifiers, though, such as the ability modifier for the skill’s key ability.

Many skills can only be used if you are trained in the skill. Skills that cannot be used untrained are marked with a “No” in the “Untrained” column on the Skills table and listed as “Trained Only” in their descriptions. Attempts to use these skills untrained automatically fail.

INTERACTION SKILLS

Certain skills, called interaction skills, are aimed at dealing with others through social interaction. Interaction skills allow you to influence the attitudes of others and get them to cooperate with you in one way or another. Since interaction skills are intended for dealing with others socially, they have certain requirements.

First, you must be able to interact with the subjects of the skill. The subjects must be aware of you and able to understand you. If you don’t speak the same language, or they can’t hear you for some reason, that’s the same as working without the proper tools, a –4 on your skill check. Interaction skills work best on intelligent subjects, ones with an Int score of 3 or better. You can use them on creatures with Int 1-2, but with a –8 penalty; they’re just too dumb to get the subtleties of your point. You can’t use interaction skills at all on subjects lacking one or more mental ability scores. (Try convincing a rock to be your friend—or to be afraid of you—sometime.) The Immunity power (see page 89) can also render some characters immune to interaction skills.

You can use interaction skills on groups of subjects at once, but only to achieve the same result for all. So you can attempt to use Bluff or Diplomacy to convince a group of something, or Intimidate to cow a crowd, for example, but you can’t try to convince some individuals of one thing and the rest of another, or to intimidate some people and not others. The GM decides if a particular use of an interaction skill is effective against a group, and may apply modifiers depending on the situation. The general rules for interaction still apply: everyone in the group must be able to hear and understand you, for example, or you suffer a –4 on your skill check against them. Mindless subjects are unaffected.

MANIPULATION SKILLS

Some skills, called manipulation skills, require a degree of fine physical manipulation. You need prehensile limbs and a Strength score or some suitable substitute (such as Precise Telekinesis) to use manipulation skills effectively. Characters lacking the ability to use manipulation skills can still have ranks in them and use them to oversee the work of others (granting an aid bonus, for example, see Aid, page 154).

SPECIALTY SKILLS

Some skills cover a wide range of knowledge or techniques. These skills are actually groups of similar skills, called specialty skills. When putting ranks into one of these skills, you must choose a specialty, a particular aspect of the skill your character knows. For example, you might choose the physical sciences specialty of Knowledge or the mechanical specialty of Craft. Skill ranks in one specialty of a skill do not imply training in the skill’s other specialties.