There are resolutions and combat resolutions.

Combat resolutions include chasing and evading and are mostly interactive, whereas normal resolutions, like picking a lock for instance, represent a player rolling against his own chance of success. The basic action resolution method is to roll the attribute which governs the action or less on 2 D.

For instance, say your character wishes to climb a wall, they must roll their agility or less on 2 D.

A roll of snake eyes, or 2, is always disastrous.

A roll of box cars, or 12, is always successful.

Then there is the skilled action, the type of resolution which requires knowledge, training, expertise. For instance, say that Count Felix wishes to read a passage written in an extinct language, he would first have to make an intelligence check on 2 D, scoring equal to or lower than his intelligence.

He would then have to possess the ancient languages skill.

The moderator would them inform Count Felix that he has some inkling of what language this is written in, but to decipher it he will have to be an expert in ancient languages and he is merely skilled. Felix might then attempt to increase his language skill level through adventuring and examining books, and wards and epitaphs or seek out an expert and arrange for a translation.

The self-teaching option would involve repeating attempts to translate this and other texts by:

-1. Declaring a period of study

-2. Making an intelligence check every day

-3. Once six successful days of study have been completed, the autodidact may now make one final intelligence check. If he passes this check, he has increased his level. If he fails, another period of study must be declared, with all of the steps taken again. If unsuccessful the student expends 6 points of energy. If successful, there is no lost energy. An unsuccessful self-teacher could exhaust and even wreck their health pursuing a certain course of study.

-4. If the character possesses the level of skill necessary to decipher the document, he may make a single check per day, once against his intelligence with 2 D, and once against his skill level with 1 D. If both are successful he has deciphered it.

Random Skill Check

In cases when the moderator has not decided that there is a minimum skill needed to perform a skilled action, let the die decided. Every success increases the character’s skill by 1 point, with the skill levels expressed on the lower table.

Skill—Success Roll Needed on 1 D

Zero—a roll of 6, followed by an intelligence check [with 2D]

1-5 points—a roll of 6, followed by a roll equal to or lower than the actor’s 1-5 skill points

Skilled—6

Expert—5-6

Veteran—4-6

Superior—3-6

Master—2-6

A roll of 1 always fails and always fatigues the actor by 1 point of energy. A successful attempt to perform a skill gains the actor a point of skill.

Skill Points & Levels

-unskilled 0-5 points

-skilled 6-11points

-expert 12-17 points

-veteran 18-23 points

-superior 24-29 points

-master 30+ points

Masters who have additional points may spend 1 of these per re-roll, with each re-roll fatiguing the character by an energy point. A master with a 31 could do 1 re-roll per day, one with a 36, 6 re-rolls per day, etc.

Let’s try climbing a difficult wall as an expert burglar:

Dominic, Wolf-Son, must make an intelligence check to determine what level of difficulty the climb is. His intelligence is 9 and he rolls an 8, indicating that he can correctly assess the obstacle.

The moderator tells him that the wall is a 4 out of 6 difficulty.

Dominic attempts to scale the wall with his veteran 3 out of 6 climb rating.

He may choose to check against his agility of 8 with two die or his skill, needing a 4-6 on one die. The agility check gives him better odds, so he goes for that and rolls a 7, gaining the wall to that point where it becomes too difficult for his existing level of skill.

From this point, Dominic may retreat down the wall or he may attempt to expand his ability and become a better climber. To do so, he must make a single ability check with 2 D against his agility [his governing ability] and his intelligence, which is his learning capacity. His agility is 8 and his intelligence is 9, so his roll of 8 succeeds, he scales the wall, and he gains 1 skill point per every die roll he survived without falling. He made 3 rolls on the wall and gains 3 climb points, +1 point for the difference in his skill level and the difficulty level, advancing him a total of 4 skill points, bringing his climb skill from an expert with 15 points to a veteran with 19 points.

If Dominic had not made his original difficulty assessment he would have had to make the climb on the random difficulty table, requiring 5-6 on 1 D to make the climb or fall at a random point. If one cannot assess difficulty it might be best to take the cautious option. The example above is a good case for intelligence as the clutch character ability, as it governs a character’s learning curve and keeps him from getting killed in the learning process while doing dangerous things.

Below are some tables for resolving various actions.

General Resolution

This table offers a simple alternative to the more complex and realistic options above.

Add 1 point for each full skill level applicable, from skilled +1, Expert +2, veteran +3, Superior +4 and master +5.

Natural rolls of 2 always fail.

Adjusted rolls of 12 do not have extraordinary results, only natural rolls of 12 do so. Although a natural roll of 12 will always succeed on this table, if the moderator has assigned a difficulty higher than 12, than such successes are pure luck, do not gain skill points for the actor, can only be replicated with another lucky roll of 12 and in no way indicate that the obstacle has been figured out, defeated or otherwise solved for the rest of the actors. For instance, if a pack of thieves are trying to pick a lock and the lock was a 15 difficulty and the unskilled lock picker picks it by rolling 12, than the moderator should depict the “success” by somehow having the lucky roller get to the other side of the door by accident and have it shut behind him, or having him pick it, but then break off his pick in the lock as he hastily steps through, leaving his partners behind.

-2 failure

-3 stupid easy

-4 easy does it

-5 simple

-6 moderate

-7 moderate

-8 moderate

-9 some skill would help

-10 you might want to know what you’re doing

-11 almost idiot proof

-12 requires luck or skill

-13 luck is not enough

-14 skill & experience is necessary

-15 novices can expect disaster

-16 experience isn’t everything, fool

-17 only masters need apply

 

Marksmanship Table

For shooting and hurling weapons of various types use the table below, adding a zero through +5 for the various skill levels

Natural rolls of 2 always miss.

Natural rolls of 3 always result in a weapon malfunction

2-miss

3-malfunction

4-point blank

5-close

6-medium range

7-long range

8-moving

9-dodging

10-taking cover

11-under cover

12-heavy cover

13-full cover

14-trick shot

15-impossible shot

16-miracle shot

17-God better be on your side

 

Missile Weapon Malfunction

On the roll of a natural 3, have the player or moderator roll 1 D. Note, with hurled weapons, a malfunction, jam, or breakage result means something happened to the throwers shoulder. The two named results are first for firearms and second for bows.

1- Misfire/Arrow wings off [lose shot]

2- Jammed/Arrow breaks [lose shot and next shot]

3- Malfunctioned/String breaks [lose shot and next 2]

4- Blow back/String breaks [ same as 3 but take 1/3 points of damage]

5- Spiked/Bow breaks [weapon ruined until craft repair is made]

6- Explodes/Shatters [same as 5 plus 1D damage for bow or hurled and 2 D damage per firearm. If this happens with artillery do 1D damage to each crew member per the number of men required to man the gun