Chapter IV: Skills & Talents
s kIlls & T alenTs
C hapTer IV
lower than the characteristic associated with the skill, your Skill Test succeeds. If you roll over the characteristic, you have failed. There may or may not be consequences for failing Skill Tests. If there are, your GM will let you know what happens. Example: Stefan, a Soldier with Agility 34%, is fighting a Beastman. The foul creature of Chaos makes a successful attack with his rusty spear. Stefan has the Dodge skill, so he tries to try to avoid the blow. Stefan’s player makes a Dodge Skill Test, rolling 45 on percentile dice. Since this is over Stefan’s Agility score, the ill-fated soldier fails the Skill Test and the Beastman’s weapon strikes home. Many talents can improve your chances of success, as can Skill Mastery (see page 90). The Orientation talent, for example, provides a +10% bonus on Navigation Skill Tests. Some tasks are quite complicated and may take extra time to finish. In these cases, the GM may decide that it takes more than one successful Skill Test to complete the task. This is known as an Extended Skill Test. The GM can also adjust the time represented by each test. Typical tests in a combat situation take a half or full action (see Chapter 6: Combat, Damage, and Movement ) but the amount of time a test takes can vary depending on what is being attempted. Example: Gerhardt, a Scholar, is researching an obscure heresy in the temple of Sigmar. This is not something that can be done quickly. The GM decides that three successful Academic Knowledge (Religion) Skill Tests will be required to unearth in the information and each test will represent four hours of research. It takes Gerhardt six tries to get his three successful tests. It thus takes twenty-four solid hours of research for Gerhardt to find the information he was looking for. w hen n oT To T esT Skill Tests are only necessary when there is some chance of the action’s failure. Everyday activities do not require Skill Tests. No dice need to be rolled to open an unlocked door, for instance, or climb a staicase. “It is said the patriarch of the von Wittgenstein family transformed into a giant cockroach. This is of course quite ludicrous, but the peasants are a superstitious lot and they have taken an obvious parable and made it reality.” — Kurt Muller, Scholar, University of Altdorf
T ogether with your Characteristics, Skills and Talents describe the different things your character can do. From riding a horse to hiding in shadows, Skills and Talents are an invaluable asset to the aspiring adventurer. Generally speaking, the more Skills and Talents a person has, the more things they are able to do. Part of the fun of WFRP is deciding which Skills and Talents you’d like to develop, and finding a career that allows you to get them. This chapter contains all the information you’ll need to understand and use Skills and Talents to their fullest effect. It also contains detailed rules on all manner of Tests you might make whilst playing WFRP . s kIlls Vs . T alenTs Though they sound similar, Skills and Talents work in different ways. Skills are learnt proficiencies gained by progressing through different careers. If an action requires a test, it is a skill. Ride and Perception, for example, are both skills. Some careers will allow you to “specialize” in certain skills—this is known as Skill Mastery (see the Skill Mastery section on page 90 for more details on this). Your talents are either natural aptitudes (like Very Strong) or special abilities (like Rapid Reload). Talents are usually a bonus to an existing capability, though sometimes they unlock very particular powers (like Dark Magic). Talents can develop as you move through careers, but don’t have the varying levels of mastery that skills do. You’ll need a good combination of Skills and Talents if you’re to survive the perils of the Warhammer World for any length of time. m akIng s kIll T esTs Each skill is associated with a particular characteristic. Dodge Blow, for example, is based on the Agility characteristic. When you want to use one of your character’s skills, you must make a Skill Test. The basics of this are quite simple. Roll percentile dice. If your score is equal to or
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