Alternately, the GM can allow a character to make a Presence Attack as a sort of “Complemen- tary Skill Roll” to an Interaction Skill. The GM determines what level of Presence Attack a char- acter would have to achieve to get the results the character wants from using his Interaction Skill. He then makes a Presence Attack, roleplaying it if appropriate (and perhaps to obtain bonus dice!). For every 5 points by which the roll exceeds the target number, the character gets a +1 bonus on his Interaction Skill roll.
psyChoLogiCaL CoMpLiCations
A character’s ability to use Interaction Skills successfully on a target depends in part on the target’s Psychological Complications. Some Psychological Complications make one or more Interaction Skills easier to use on a target; some make it harder. For example, a character who is
Greedy may be more susceptible to Bribery. A
character who’s a Skirtchaser or Lustful probably gives in to Charm and similar Skills quicker than one who’s taken a Vow Of Chastity. Modifiers from Psychological Complications depend on the intensity of the Complication, as indicated by the accompanying table.
Caveat: the Interaction Skill Effects Table on APG 33 uses Psychological Complication values as a “benchmark” indicating how much a character must make an Interation Skill Roll by to affect the target. If the GM uses that rule, he should not also apply Psychological Complication modifiers unless he feels it’s particularly appropriate to do so.
PSyCHOlOGICAl
COmPlICATIOn mODIFIERS
intensity and nature
of Complication Modifier
Moderate, in favor of Skill use +1 Moderate, opposed to Skill use -1 Strong, in favor of Skill use +2 Strong, opposed to Skill use -2 Total, in favor of Skill use +3 Total, opposed to Skill use -3
resistanCe and reputation
The Positive Reputation Perk and Resistance Talents can provide direct bonuses or penalties to Interaction Skills generally (or to a specific Inter- action Skill in the case of Resistance and its kin). The Negative Reputation Complication may also affect certain Interaction Skill rolls.
MentaL poWers
At the GM’s option, characters with Mental Powers who have Interaction Skills can use some Mental Powers (primarily Mind Control) to “enhance” those Skills. In essence the character subtly uses his Mental Power to “boost” the Skill. This provides a bonus to the Skill Roll: +1 to the roll for every 10 points of Mental Power used to enhance it. The mentalist must pay the standard END cost for any Mental Power used to enhance an Interaction Skill.
Using a Mental Power to enhance an Interac- tion Skill is perceivable with Mental Awareness (unless, of course, the Mental Power has Invisible Power Effects to the Mental Sense Group). It also allows the target of the Skill to use his Mental Defense (if any) as a bonus to whatever Skill Roll he makes to counteract, avoid, or fight off the Skill.
Example: Brainstorm wants to use his Persuasion
to convince a guard to let him go. He decides to mentally enhance his Persuasion with 40 points’ worth of his Mind Control, giving him +4 to his Persuasion 12- (total 16-). This costs him 4 END. The GM rules that the guard will try to resist the attempted persuasion with an EGO Roll. His base roll is 11- and he has 5 points of Mental Defense. This adds to his EGO Roll, giving him a 16- roll to resist Brainstorm’s Persuasion roll.
Even if a character uses a Mental Power to enhance an Interaction Skill, he can’t use that Skill to do anything more than he could with a normal use of that Skill — though with the bonuses involved, making Extraordinary Skill Rolls may become much easier. To achieve greater effects, mentalists must use Mental Powers directly on the target. In some cases a character may even purchase a Skill (or Skill Levels) to represent a low-level, subtle, or subconscious use of psionic powers to influence and affect the world around him.
30 n skills, perks, and talents hero system 6th edition
In most cases the appropriate power for enhancing an Interaction Skill is Mind Control. Mental Illusions or Telepathy may be better suited to some tasks or situations; the final call on which Power to use is up to the GM. A character can only use a single Mental Power to enhance a particular use of an Interaction Skill.
The GM may, at his discretion, expand the use of Mental Powers to enhance Skills other than Interaction Skills. For example a psychometric power (Retrocognition) might enhance some uses of Criminology of Forensic Medicine, while Telepathy (i.e., reading the “trace thoughts” that linger on a physical object) might enhance Skills like Demolitions, Lipreading, or Cryptography. Agility Skills, Background Skills, and Combat Skills usually cannot be enhanced psionically, though this may depend on the situation.
roLepLaying
More than any other type of Skill, Interaction Skills can benefit from good roleplaying... or suffer from bad roleplaying. The GM should consider granting a bonus of +1 to +3 for good roleplaying of an Interaction Skill, or a similar penalty if the character doesn’t try to roleplay it at all or does so badly.
Of course, “good” or “bad” roleplaying can be a relative thing, and in general GMs shouldn’t penalize characters because their players aren’t as good at something as the character himself should be. Players don’t have to be crack marksmen to buy Combat Skill Levels, martial artists to buy Martial Arts, or pilots to buy TF: Small Planes for their characters, so they shouldn’t have to be socially adept or sophisticated to buy and use Interaction Skills. But since any player can talk and act, as long as a player makes at least some reasonable effort to roleplay what his character does, that should suffice to at least prevent a penalty (even if it’s not enough to get a bonus).
PERCEPTIvE SKIll mODIFIERS
The Perception Roll modifiers on 6E2 11-13 apply to “Perceptive Skills” — that is, Skills involving perception or analysis of phenomena, such as Criminology, some aspects of Bugging and Mechanics, Lipreading, or Tracking. Typically this means perception with Sight, but in some cases other Senses may be involved.
For example, if a Skill requires a character to read or observe something (a book or scroll, a radar screen, a speaker’s lips...), then the modifiers for darkness, shadow, and lighting apply to the Skill Roll. After all, it’s kind of difficult to read a book in pitch-black conditions! The same applies to trying to see something over a long distance (i.e., in game terms, the Range Modifier applies) or hear something in a noisy room.
If it’s impossible for a character to use a partic- ular Sense (usually because Darkness or a Flash have “blinded” him or block his Sense entirely), he cannot use Perceptive Skills based on that Sense.
TECHnOlOGICAl SKIll mODIFIERS
“Technological Skills” refers to Skills that involve working with particular types of equip- ment. Examples including Computer Program- ming, Demolitions, Electronics, Lockpicking, Mechanics, Security Systems, and Systems Opera- tion. The Skill Modifiers for equipment almost always apply to these Skills (many of which cannot be performed without the right tools or gear).
Rather than use the general Skill Period rules discussed above, technology-heavy games may prefer a more precise system of Skill modi- fiers based on technological advancement and compatability.
oBsoLete and advanCed teChnoLogy
Often technologies introduced at an earlier tech level remain in use for long periods. Humans in the early twenty-first century still use auto- matic pistols designed before 1900 (and still manufacture some, with minor improvements). Axes and hammers are among the earliest known tools, and are still available at the hardware store. In general, characters suffer no penalty using (relatively) simple equipment from an earlier tech level, particularly if that equipment is still generally in use in their society or is highly similar to common technology. There are exceptions to this: some technologies become so obsolete that characters accustomed to a more advanced tech landscape are completely unfamiliar with them. Firemaking is a good example — until the inven- tion of matches just about everyone could kindle a fire with flint and steel; now it’s something to study in wilderness-survival courses or historical reenactment workshops. Forgotten tech imposes a minimum -3 Skill Roll penalty, or the GM may not allow the character to make a roll at all. (For more cinematic games, the GM can reduce the penalty to -2 or -1.)
Advanced technology is much harder to use. The standard skill penalty is -3 for each step down on the Expanded Skill Periods Modifier table. But this applies only to equipment based on under- standable principles — an Industrial-Age steam engineer trying to fix an Atomic Age chemical rocket motor, for example. If the technology involves new concepts unknown to the low-tech person, there’s an additional -5 penalty (though the GM may wish to cap the overall penalty for technological unfamiliarity at -10). Thus, a steam engineer would be at -8 to fix a nuclear power plant, because the whole phenomenon of nuclear fission is outside his worldview. Characters can use the Cramming Skill to quickly familiarize themselves with local technology. (If appropriate, the GM can reduce these penalties for cinematic campaigns.)
The modifiers work in reverse when charac- ters use high-tech skills and knowledge against low-tech equipment — like a computer hacker breaking into an obsolete system or a weapon officer on a modern warship trying to hit a target with old-fashioned countermeasures. Advanced tech gets a +3 bonus per Skill Period of difference,
advanced player’s guide n Chapter two 31
with an additional +5 if the high-tech equipment uses principles unknown to the builders of the low-tech target. (Of course, these bonuses don’t apply if the high-tech character is trying to use older tech he’s not familiar with; see above.)
aLien teChnoLogies
Characters may also run into tech level-related problems when they encounter technology that’s highly different from what they’re used to. Typi- cally this means technology from other worlds or dimensions, but in some time periods and places it’s possible this could apply between two groups of humans from wildly different societies. In a Fantasy campaign it might involve the technolo- gies used by two different humanoid races. Maybe the alien devices and systems require a different size, type, or arrangement of hands than the char- acter’s, involve senses the character lacks, or are simply so different that the character can’t fully or properly comprehend them.
At the GM’s discretion, a character dealing with sufficiently alien technology suffers a -1 to -5 Skill Roll penalty. Over time, this penalty may diminish for a specific character as he becomes accustomed to the odd tech, or a character can eliminate the penalty altogether by having a KS or PS in the alien technology on at least an 11- roll.
What constitutes “sufficiently alien” is up to the GM. In a setting that mixes and mingles a wide variety of sentient humanoid species, they may all be able to use each other’s technology (or the tech may automatically adapt itself to the species of the user). Large galactic federations and empires automatically spread technological knowledge among their citizens (unless they want to keep them ignorant for purposes of repression). On the other hand, a secretive alien species may refuse to teach anyone about its tech.