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Skills¶

Skills abstract your character’s education, hobbies and fields of expertise.

Anything your character does is a Task. A Task implies a die roll: it’s subject to chance and its outcome is uncertain.

Skill Ranks¶

Every Skill has either a d4, d6, d8, d10, or d12 assigned to it.

Every Skill has an initial value of a d4.

Skill Rolls¶

Tasks require a Skill check. Every check is done with a die roll. If the roll is equal to or higher than the Difficulty Level—4 by default—the task succeeds. Otherwise, it fails.

After you roll add all modifiers to your die roll and tell the GM your result. The GM tells you if you succeeded or failed.

Extras¶

Combat only After a successful roll, divide the final roll by 4 and subtract 1. This is the amount of Extras you get for the check. An Extra improves certain values, e.g. the damage you deal after a successful Attack. The Extras cannot be lower than 0.

Skill Extras

Extras = Roll / 4 - 1

Extras

A character makes a Light Weapon check to Attack someone. His Skill is a d6. For the check he rolls 9 in total. 9 divided by 4 minus 1 results in 1 Extra.

Skill Modifiers¶

Any modifier can influence the final roll for a Skill. For example, bad weather gives you a -1 penalty, or having the right tool at hand might give you a +1 bonus. Modifiers make it harder or easier for a Task to succeed.

Skill Dice¶

Under some circumstances, a die can be modified beyond a d12 or below a d4. If it’s increased beyond a d12, you gain a +1 bonus on all checks. If a d4 is decreased, you cannot use the Skill anymore but for very basic tasks.

Skill Familiarization¶

Most Skills are very vaguely described and not very specific to simplify character creation and gameplay. Sometimes you might want to emphasize however, that a Skill is dramatically different than how the character would normale use it. In this case, the Skill roll should suffer a -2 penalty. For exceptional knowledge about a certain topic, the GM may provide a +2 bonus to the roll.

Skill Contests¶

Whenever two or more opponents pit against each other, e.g. rolling Stealth versus Perception, they enter a Skill Contest.

In a Contest the opponents roll on their respective Skills. The higher roll wins the contest. On a tie, the active party wins.

Improving A Skill¶

Raising a Skill by 1, e.g. from untrained to a d4, or from a d4 to a d6 costs 1 Skill Point. You cannot raise the Skill above a d12, nor decrease a Skill. Increasing a Skill higher than its associated Attribute costs 2 Skill Points instead.

Aiding Others¶

Supporting another character requires you to roll the same Skill check, but with a Difficulty Level of 4. A successful check adds a +2 bonus to the supported character’s Skill check.

There can be multiple supporters to increase the chance of someone succeeding on the Skill check, but the bonus doesn’t stack.

Supporters can critically fail on their Skill check. Each critical fail imposes a -2 penalty to the supported character’s Skill check.

Skill Categories¶

Each Skill is associated to an Attribute.

Available Skills

Like any other RPG system, Q* provides the GM and players with a set of Skills. Neither the system nor characters are limited to these Skills: if you require different Skills to suite your needs, then add them to your game.

Action¶

This category contains all Skills that rely on might, speed, and have some sort of physical interaction like running, swimming, climbing, shooting, swinging a sword, etc.

Athletics¶

is used for climbing, jumping, running, swimming, dodging, dodging away from falling debris, etc.
With this Skill being untrained, the character cannot swim.

Climbing Modifier	Example
`-2`	Sparce or only thin handholds.
`-2`	Surface is slippery

Force¶

is used for breaching doors, break down treasure chests, holding doors shut etc.

Heavy Weapons¶

is used when using heavy weapons such as rocket launchers, vehicle mounted machine guns, or firing any vessel’s weapons.

Light Weapons¶

is used for ranged weapon attacks with weapons like bows, pistols, lasguns, etc.

Lockpick¶

is used to lockpick, break open vaults, break the combination to a safe, etc.

Melee¶

is used when using melee weapons or parrying a melee attack.

Operate¶

is used for driving, piloting or steering a vessel and remote controlling drones. Specify which type of vessel your want to operate.

Stealth¶

is used to hide from others, sneak around, lockpicking, etc.
It’s opposed by the Search Skill.

Modifier	Example
`+2`	Crawling
`-2`	Running
`+1`	Dim Light
`+2`	Darkness
`+4`	Pitch Darkness
`+2`	Light Cover
`+4`	Heavy Cover

Knowledge¶

This category contains all Skills that rely on education and intelligence, like science, engineering, etc.

Engineering¶

is used for repairing mechanical or electronical motors, operate advanced machinery, etc.

Explosives¶

is used to handle and craft explosives, disarm mines, etc.

Linguistics¶

is used to decipher scripts, forge documents, etc.

Medicine¶

is used to determine the cause of a wound, provide insights on diseases and sicknesses, Healing wounds, etc.

Politics¶

is used for insights in politics, history and behaviours of nations, peoples, cities, gangs, groups, etc.

Science¶

is used for Anatomy, Biology, Chemistry, Computer, etc. checks.

Search¶

is used to actively search for hidden things.

Survival¶

is used to survive in the wilderness, find edible food, figure out where north is, tracking animals and people, etc.

Tracking Modifier	Example
`+2`	Tracking more than 5 creatures
`+4`	Recent snow
`+2`	Mud
`+1`	Dust
`-4`	Raining
`-2`	Dim Light
`-2`	Tracks are older than 1 day
`-2`	Creature tried to hide tracks

This category contains all Skills that rely on charisma and have some sort of social interaction like bluffing, empathy, diplomacy, commerce, intimidating, etc.

Bluffing¶

is used for lying. This Skill is opposed by Empathy.

Command¶

is used to command crews, give orders on a vessel, lead others, etc.

Commerce¶

covers appraising goods, bartering, haggling, etc. It’s often used for Spare Time rolls when acquiring rare items.

Empathy¶

is used to determine if somebody is sad, lying, nervous, etc. It opposes Bluffing.

Intimidate¶

is used to strike fear into somebody to get information, help, etc.

Perform¶

is used to act, dance, sing, etc.

Persuade¶

is used to sweaten the deal for somebody to get information, help, etc.

Tactics¶

is used to non-verbally communicate with party members in combat, tactically breach into buildings or rooms, etc.

Intimidate and Persuade

The outcome of Intimidate and Persuade are often the same, but some people are easier to intimidate than to persuade, and vice versa.