List of Skills

ATHLETICS measures  the  total  capacity  of  a character to focus their strength on highly mobile physical activity.

Athletics  difficulties  are  modified  by  the     conditions  of  the  environment  quite  regularly, often  by  as  much  as  ten  points.    Slippery        surfaces,  high  winds, stormy waters, and many other factors can contribute to raising or lowering the difficulty of Athletics checks.    

Besides the three uses listed here, Athletics can also  be  used  as  the  appropriate  skill  for  any physical activity where strength is, overall, more important than agility and dexterity, though these added uses, as always, are left in the hands of the GM to create and build sensible rules.

• Climb: With each successful check, you can advance up, down, or across a slope or a wall or other steep incline (or even a ceiling with handholds), one-fourth of your speed. A slope is considered to be any  incline  of  less  than  60  degrees;  a  wall  is  any incline  of  60 degrees or steeper.  A failed Climb check means that you make no progress, and a check that fails by 5 or more means that you fall from whatever height you have attained. Climbing at one-half your speed is a full-round action.  Moving half that far (one-fourth the character’s speed) is a move action.  
• Jump: This skill is used to jump up so you can grab things, to jump down from high places, and so on.  The listed distances assume a ten-foot  run  up;  without  this,  halve  the  distance  jumped.    If  they have ranks in the Jump skill and succeed on a check, they land on their feet (when appropriate) and can move as far as their remaining movement allows. Distance moved by jumping is counted against maximum movement in a round. Characters can start a jump at the end of one turn and complete it at the beginning of the next.
• Swim: While swimming and attempting to move under your own power, (or just keep your head above water) make this check each round  (you  may  make  it  twice  as  a  full-round  action).    If  you succeed,  you  may  move  up  to  five  feet,  and  are  under  your  own control.  For each full point by which  you beat the DC, you may move one additional foot (often broken into five-foot increments).  If you fail, you go underwater and start to drown.

Task	Difficulty	Time
Climb a Slope	10	Move Action
Climb a Wall	20	Move Action
Long Jump	2 per foot	Move Action
High Jump	5 per foot	Move Action
Swimming	5	Move Action

AWARENESS measures  the  total  perceptive abilities  of  the  character,  and  is  used  both reactively  (to  spot  things  when  they  move  or make noise) and actively (when searching an area or attempting to determine distances and the like. As  well  as  the  uses  listed  here,  Awareness may also be used as the general skill to use for detecting and perceiving The GM will often modify Awareness results based on distance, lighting, ambient noise, and on other environmental conditions, often by as much as  ten  points  in  either  direction  -  in  extreme  situations (trying to find the proverbial needle inthe  haystack,  or  trying  to  hear  a  pin  drop  in  a crowded room), difficulties may even be altered by twenty points or more.

• Listen: This  is  a  check  that  is  normally  opposed  by  the  Stealth check of someone or    something . The GM may make the Listen check so that you don’t know whether not hearing anything means that nothing is there, or that you rolled low. In the case of a group trying to be quiet, the worst result of the group is the one that you must defeat.  

• Spot: Spot is used to detect characters or creatures who are easily missed  or  are  hiding.  Typically,  Spot  is  opposed  by  the  Stealth check of the creature trying not to be seen.  Sometimes a creature isn’t intentionally hiding but is still difficult to see, so a successful Spot check is necessary to notice it, at a   difficulty set by the GM. As a full-round action, you may attempt to spot something that you failed to spot previously.

• Defeat  Disguise: This check will allow you to determine if some-one is in disguise, and, if successful, allow you to make a normal reputation check to recognize them.

• Thorough Search: This check is made to search an area about the size of a room ten feet on a side, containing a moderate amount of furnishings and such, and find a small, unlabelled, out-of-the way object.  Difficulty or time should be raised for larger areas, better-hidden items, or greater density of things to search among.

• Sense Enchantment: You can tell that someone’s behavior is being influenced  by  any  effect  against  which  they  received  (and, generally, failed) a Will save, even if that person isn’t aware of it herself.

Task	Difficulty	Time
Listen	Opposed (Stealth)	Reactive
Spot Movement	Opposed (Stealth)	Reactive
Defeat Disguise	Opposed (Stealth)	Reactive
Thorough Search	10+	1 Minute
Sense Enchantment	25	Reactive

BEASTKEEPING measures  the  ability  of  the character to deal with animals.  Given time, it canbe used to change a wild animal under the control of  the  character  into  a  domestic  one,  by “gentling” the animal in question.  It can also be used  (though  with  far  greater  difficulty)  as “diplomacy for wild animals”.  

The main uses of Beastkeeping, though, are to teach tricks to animals, and to be able to get an animal  to  perform  those  tricks  (see  “known trick”in  the  table)  on  command.    When  dealing with an animal  that  is gentled  and  is  physically capable of performing a trick, but doesn’t know it, this skill can also be used to “push” the animal into  performing  the  trick,  though  this  is  some-what harder. An animal can learn up to (Intelligence + 3) tricks. Tricks include, but are not limited to, the following.

• Attack  (DC  20): The  animal  attacks  apparent  enemies.  The character may direct the animal to a specific  enemy.  
• Come  (DC  15): The animal comes to the hero, even if the animal normally would not do so.
• Defend (DC 20): The animal defends a location, person, or object (or waits to defend the it if no threat is present)
• Fetch (DC 15): The animal goes and gets something. The character must point out a target, or else the animal fetches a random object.
• Heel  (DC  15): The animal follows the character closely, even to places it normally wouldn’t go.
• Perform  (DC  15): The animal does various simple tricks such as sitting up, rolling over, and so on.
• Seek  (DC  15): The  animal  moves  into  an  area  and  searches  for something  of  interest.  It  stops  and      indicates  the first  thing  of interest it finds. What constitutes an item of interest to an animal varies, but animals almost always find other creatures interesting.  
• Stay  (DC  15): The animal stays, waiting for the hero. It does notchallenge others, but it defends itself if it must.
• Track (DC 20): The animal tracks a scent presented to it.  
• Work  (DC  15): The animal pulls or pushes a  medium or heavy load, or carries a burden or rider.

Task	Difficulty	Time
Wild Diplomacy	As Diplomacy +10	As listed
Gentle an Animal	Opposed (WIL)	25 Hours
"Push" Trick	Listed +5	Full-Round
Thorough Search	As listed	Move Action
Teach a Trick	As listed	100 Hours