Arguing about Pokemon Tabletop Evolution (WIP)

The Adventurer's Almanac · Sat Jun 12, 2021 8:43 pm

For the past year and a half I've been working (on and off) on my own Pokemon tabletop game due to my dissatisfaction with the simplistic attitudes and limitations of other Pokemon RPGs. I've heard it a lot: "Why do people fight alongside their Pokemon?" "What is my Pokemon actually capable of beyond magic tea party?" "Why does every boss battle have all these extra rules and conditions instead of being a tough fight?" "Is there anything to do besides wandering around fighting other Pokemon?"

Most Pokemon RPGs that I've seen are just battle simulators that leave everything else up to the GM to decide. Besides punching other shit to death, everything else can be wildly inconsistent between tables. At one table, a Machamp can pick up a boulder and throw it for a ton of damage, while at another it's disallowed. I find this dissatisfying. Obviously, a GM should control the game and not the other way around, but when you have 1000+ pages dedicated to your game and 75% of it is devoted to killing shit... there's room for improvement.

Enter Pokemon Tabletop Evolution.

It's the only name I could think of that seemed to fit the spirit of what I'm going for: Taking the Pokemon concept to the limit. There are plenty of simple RPGs out there that try to focus just on the battle engine... which is admittedly a large part of the Pokemon experience and not something you want to fuck up. However, what really draws most people to Pokemon are the other things about them - their design, how they act, their biology, and most importantly... what would it be like to raise one and have this sentient creature be your buddy as you go on adventures? Most Pokemon RPGs I've seen rely a lot on external information for the GM to come to these conclusions.
After all, why translate Pokedex entries into mechanical game elements when there are so many of them and you can put the onus on the GM to do the heavy lifting of your system?

I realize it's an ambitious goal, but I want to try and encapsulate as much of the Pokemon universe as possible into this game while keeping as much of it as streamlined as I can. This is a series with nearly 25 years of history across a wide variety of mediums and there's a lot to draw from for inspiration. I want to keep individual Pokemon viable, but still thematically relevant and distinct from one another. I want legendary Pokemon to do utterly crazy shit, like Mewtwo lifting houses with its brain and dropping them on people while mind-wiping entire cities and mind-controlling a few PCs. I want progression to be clear, enjoyable, and crunchy without being overwhelming - the focus should be on doing cool shit, the numbers required to do so should be handled by the system whenever possible, not the players. I'd like to add enough structure to the game where you can go from one table to another and have a rough idea of what travelling from one town to the other will be like.

Warning: This shit is about to get crazy.

Yes, this kind of crazy is included.

The best way to illustrate this, I think, is with a character sheet mockup of a max-level Pokemon. From there, I'll explain some of the major points of the system's mechanics and start talking about the basics.
We'll be using a Pokemon classic - good old Charizard. By the time you get to this level, you are totally capable of doing shit like this. No GM fiat or MTP involved.

This is on a standard 8.5x11 sized sheet of paper. For a max-level Pokemon, I don't think this is too bad.

I believe that, whenever possible, humans and Pokemon should utilize the same mechanics and stats. This seems obvious to me, but that's not always the case in these games...
Anyway, here's what we can learn from this:

This game operates on levels and Tiers. Tiers are split into sets of 5 levels each and are major milestones of progression, each expanding the scope of the game. Typical Dennery.
Skills define a lot of what you're capable of, and rank from 1-8. You roll 1d6 per rank in your skill. Every rank of every skill gives you more options in-game, rather than just being a numeric boost. For example, Charizard has 7d6 Athletics, which lets it gain the capability Superpowered. Because of this, it can lift objects up to 12 tons before reaching its Heavy Lifting range, and can throw such objects up to 680 meters per 10 seconds, or roughly 150 miles per hour. Ironically, it is immune to Collision Damage, so it can have boulders thrown at it and not give a shit. At this level, your Charizard getting into DBZ fights is normal.
In addition to skills, there are the battle stats straight from the game. This Charizard's player gained these stats by choosing its Nature and Moves, nothing else. At no point did he level up and ask himself "Am I putting my stats into Attack or Special Attack?" Due to the MATH, this Charizard is almost completely immune to the attacks of low-level creatures and easily crushes them without thought.
Like PTU, this game has Evasion. Unlike PTU, there's only one kind.
Charizard has Power Points - or PP - which it can use to enhance its combat and non-combat abilities. Not its Abilities, though.
Injuries operate similarly to PTU, but are even more ingrained into the system - NPCs, for example, typically make Morale checks when injured or bloodied to make fights go a bit faster.
Diet and Loyalty are important enough to put on the character sheet. These factor into mechanics like renewing PP, Pokemon care, and various forms of evolution/combat enhancements.
This Charizard gets fucked up if you splash water onto its tail flame AND gets pissed off if you punch it in the eyes for huge damage.
It has quite a few Abilities, but they're mostly passive. You gain 1 per Tier, and 5 levels can take a while in-game. It might have Abilities from other sources - in this case it has Scrappy due to having Rank 6 Combat, which earned it the Dimensional Fighter power. It can punch and grapple Ghosts and other intangibles, and when it hits something, the target can no longer use space-altering effects.
Struggle Attacks are the main form of attacking. Pokemon are limited to 3, which are typically a Normal-type move and 2 moves it has STAB on. Moves can have a large effect on these attacks. Struggle Attacks are made through a point-buy system, and I plan to have a decent list of example attacks that people can use in a hurry. The point is that nobody cares about the difference between Ember and Water Gun aside from the type difference, so having 2 paragraph-long entries in the book is unnecessary. Most of the boring elemental laser shit goes here. On the bright side, there are no damage rolls.
Moves have pretty drastic effects and can redefine a Pokemon into different roles. Charizard is offensively oriented, and its Moves reflect that - making it physically stronger, faster, more capable in the air, and excellent at dropping houses on people, or throwing them into the stratosphere. Hyper Beam lets it do crazy shit like focus Fireball into an 80-meter long line attack capable of instantly vaporizing Tier 1 creatures it hits, which it can swing around every turn.

There's plenty of other shit available for discussion, especially when talking about humans or especially intelligent Pokemon. My general ethos is that it's easier for a GM to remove or modify a system they don't like than it is for them to create a new one on their own. If you don't care about what Pokemon eat, then just handwave it away, but if you do care, then the game has you covered.

Anyway, this is a pretty rough writeup of what I've got so far - but I hope it whets your appetite for more.

I'll be posting more about the system fundamentals next, then I'll go over skills, Pokemon, combat, and some other stuff. I admit that so far, I've focused more on building Pokemon than their Trainers, but... fuck it, that's probably the way to go, anyway.

The Adventurer's Almanac · Sun Jun 13, 2021 10:59 pm

Part 1: How This Shit Works

Before we get started, here are a couple things to keep in mind:

Always round decimals down to the nearest whole number. It's all or nothing.
Percentages are additive, not multiplicative. If one source says you gain a 100% boost from doubling something and another 100% boost, then you gain a 200% boost total, not 100% and then 100% more off that total, which would result in a 400% boost. I could probably use a better way of phrasing this...

Taking Action, aka. How Do Play Gaem?

You play the game by narrating your actions, and the GM will respond appropriately. You can do most basic actions without issue, but most scenarios with a chance of failure involve the dice. When this happens, most actions are resolved through Skill Checks.

To make a Skill Check, roll a number of d6 equal to your Rank in the appropriate skill and add in any other bonuses or modifiers. If you meet the action’s Difficulty Check, or DC, then you succeed. If not, then you generally fail. Your GM usually tells you which skill to roll during Skill Checks, but you can always suggest plausible alternatives, and it helps to clarify your actions so the proper Skill is being tested.
The GM can apply circumstantial modifiers depending on what events are happening. For each mitigating circumstance that makes a task more or less difficult, roll 1d6 and subtract or add that amount to the character’s Skill Check. For example, a character tries to climb some rough weathered rock, which has a Base DC of 11. If they are trying to climb at night, or during a violent storm, you may decide to roll 1 penalty dice against their check. Alternatively, they might be climbing a vine, which is a DC 8, only to discover that it is a friendly Pokemon’s vine and it helps them up, adding 1 bonus die to their check.
Synergy Bonus: If your GM thinks a secondary skill can aid you in a Skill Check, then you may add half of that Skill Rank to your result. For example, if you were doing research in a library and used the Glean Weakness power to find out a Haunter’s Weak Spot, you could add half your Pokemon Education ranks to your result, even though you rolled for General Education. You cannot gain this Bonus from more than one Skill at a time.

Skill Powers are specific actions you have access to based on your Skill Rank. These cover basic actions such as jumping, swimming, stealth, speaking to people, and so on. You can make Skill Checks without using any Powers, but Powers detail a large amount of what is possible within the system, and to what extent.

Skill Checks sometimes have circumstantial modifiers. These modifiers are built into Skill Powers for the player’s convenience.
Some Skill Powers state that you may “Take X”, where X is a number from 1 to 6. This means that instead of rolling your Skill Check, you treat your roll as if all your dice had the listed result. For example, being Adept in a skill and Taking 3 would result in (4 x 3) a total of 12.
You can only Take X when you are not being threatened or distracted by something.
Generally speaking, you may Take 3 on a check if you spend 6 times as long as normal making the check. You may only Take 6 if you spend 30 times as long as normal making the check. You can never Take X on Free or Interrupt Actions unless a source states otherwise.
Some actions or powers are directly opposed by someone else, and are called Opposed Checks. When this happens, both you and your opponent make Skill Rolls and compare the results. Whoever has the highest result wins the Opposed Check. On a tie, the defender (or whoever is maintaining the status quo) wins.

There are three kinds of Skill Checks, not including the basic type.

Team Skill Checks are when there are multiple participants contributing equally to one task without a primary actor, such as stopping a boulder rolling down a hill. The GM sets the DC as normal, then multiplies it by the number of people they would normally expect to be necessary for the task. This becomes the Team DC for the Skill Check. Each participant rolls their Skill and the total sum of all Skill Checks is compared to the Team DC.
Assisted Skill Checks are when there is a primary actor in the task and someone else tries to assist them. The DC is set as normal, and the primary actor rolls their Skill Check, adding half the Skill Rank of their helper as a bonus to the Check. The helper must have at least Novice Rank in the Skill being tested to assist.
Extended Skill Checks are used over a longer period of time than a basic Skill Check. The DC for the task is set as usual, then given a multiplier from 2-5 based on how long and complex the task is. 2 represents a simple and tedious task, 3-4 is for a complex and difficult task, and 5 is for the most elaborate of checks. The normal DC multiplied by this number creates the Extended DC for the check. Working on an Extended Skill Check requires at least an Extended Action (S), but may take longer at the GM’s discretion. If it is possible to eventually fail this check, then the character working on it must reach the Extended DC within a number of Skill Checks equal to half their Skill Rank being tested. Failing to reach the DC within the required number of rolls represents reaching the limit of your understanding.
The amount by which you exceed or fail to meet the DC for a Skill Check should factor into the outcome of your action. Regular success/failure represents a moderate response, falling within 3-5 of the DC represents a significant response, and falling beyond 6 or more represents a glowing success or catastrophe.

There are 5 types of Actions that take a typical amount of time. Some actions will list the amount of time they take, such as a 1d4 Round Action, but these are rare.

Downtime Actions can only be done during the Downtime Phase and last from 2-4 hours.
Extended Actions take too long to use in combat and come in Short and Long varieties. An Extended Action (S) lasts 1-30 minutes and an Extended Action (L) lasts 30-60 minutes.
Full Actions take a full round’s, or 10 seconds, worth of time.
Standard Actions take a few seconds.
Swift and Free Actions often take less than a second or two.
Extended and Downtime Actions automatically scale to meet any aid being offered as similar actions. If one person begins to Push Agreement as an Extended Action (S) and it takes 15 minutes, if another person Flirts as an Extended Action (S) during that same sequence, it also takes 15 minutes.
2 Extended Actions (S) can be fit into the space of 1 Extended Action (L). 2 Extended Actions (L) can be fit into the space of 1 Downtime Action.

Game Flow, aka. What Do I Even Do?

There are three major methods of passing time: through Downtime, Travelling, and Adventure Phases. Trainers can gain experience during any phase, but gain the least during Downtime, a modest amount while Travelling, and the most while Adventuring. Each Phase has a different set of special actions you can undertake during them.

Downtime Phases are periods of time that can be quickly skipped over with a mild amount of detail. These phases include a wide variety of activities, from resting to working a professional job to engaging in a hobby. Most creatures spend the majority of their lives in the Downtime Phase, non-Trainers especially.

You get 3 Downtime Phases per day, max - this is if you do not go anywhere or do any adventuring. Most adventurers have 1 Downtime Phase per day, typically spent camping. A Downtime Phase typically lasts 8 hours.
During the Downtime Phase, you may take up to 2 Downtime Actions. You may take an Extended Rest and use the Training Regimen Command power for free. Training Regimen is explicitly combat training, so most NPCs do not use it.
All possible Downtime Actions are listed under the Downtime minigames section.

Travel Phases are periods of time where you travel and explore the world around you. This is done by choosing a Route to your destination, determining various aspects of your journey, then setting off. There are different Movement Options you can take, but you will generally make some Encounter rolls during your journey, not all of which are necessarily hostile.

There are 3 Travel Phases per day, max - this is if you do not do any resting or adventuring all day. Adventurers typically have 1-3 Travel Phases per day.
Travel Phases last up to 8 hours long, and you gain and expend Movement Points to travel. You can enter the Downtime Phase early to conserve Movement Points for the next day, if you wish to travel longer.
Unlike when you are in town, you and your Pokemon will need to consume resources to survive. You are also likely to encounter Hazards which make your journey more difficult - you should research and prepare for your Route accordingly.
Further details can be found in the Travelling minigame section.

Adventure Phases are the periods of time when you are in a specific location with a goal in mind and you are trying to achieve it. These can happen in town, the wilderness, or dungeons. The goals are player-driven, though NPCs will usually have things they need help with. Once your goal is achieved or you abandon it, the Adventure Phase ends and you enter the Travel or Downtime Phase, depending on your actions.

Achieving the goals you set is a great way of gaining XP, so you and your GM must come to an agreement on your goal and how much XP is gained for it. Your GM will determine most of the adventure’s difficulty, but the players always have the final say on what their goal is. These goals are almost always something for the entire party to achieve, such as finding and capturing a specific rare Pokemon or running a criminal organization out of town.
Your goal has its own level ranging from 1-20, comparable to your own level range. The level of your goal determines the level of most of the NPCs and effects of the adventure you will undertake. For example, your GM might say that taking out Team Rocket is a level 6 goal, meaning you will face opposition that is roughly level 6 and encounter Tier 2 NPCs and effects. You might encounter level 4 grunts that are easy to take out, only to wind up fighting a level 8 admin in the heart of the building.
Adventure Phases can be any length of time, but are typically interrupted by the other phases out of necessity. There is no limit to the number of Adventure Phases you can undertake in a day, but your GM is unlikely to agree to attempts to gain easy XP that are completely divorced from your character or campaign premise.
You can have as many goals as you want, but too many can be hard to keep track of and pursue within the story.

To break out of rules mode for a bit, I'm still working on the exact XP mechanics, but as stated, I'd like them to be player-driven and goal-oriented if possible. Milestone advancement is fine, but a bit lazy. Counting XP for monster kills or GP earned or what the fuck ever is dumb. I hope to reach a happy medium.

Anyway, those are the basics, straight from my documents. Next time I'll cover Skills, which... will take a few posts and hopefully get me yelled at by people.

It should be fun!

The Adventurer's Almanac · Sun Jun 13, 2021 11:00 pm

I just realize I may not have made it clear in my opening post, but I am looking for discussion about this. Please tell me what is stupid and what is cool. I've just been sitting on this shit for months.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Mon Jun 14, 2021 12:28 am

Will do, might take me a bit though since work is trying its damndest to cram the business we should have had last year into a 3 month window.

The Adventurer's Almanac · Mon Jun 14, 2021 5:27 am

Part 2: Skills 4 Thrills

Here's the basics:

Skills represent a character’s conscious interests and training, and are used when taking most basic actions, as well as acting as the prerequisites for Edges and Features. See the Taking Action section for details on doing so.

Skills are organized into three Skill Groups: Body, Education, or Social. How many points you have to allocate into each Skill Group depends on your Class. Generally, they give +3 Skill Points to a single Group (or perhaps one or two Skills), and -3 Skill Points spread among the other two Groups.

Body Skills (Acrobatics, Athletics, Combat, Perception, Stealth)
Education Skills (General, Medicine, Occult, Pokemon, Technology, Survival)
Social Skills (Charm, Guile, Intimidate, Intuition, Command [special])

There are 8 Ranks of Skills. Each Rank causes you to roll a 1d6 when using Skills. When you Rank Up a Skill, it increases from one Rank to the next. Skills begin at Untrained unless modified by a Class.


Rank #	Rank Name
1	Pathetic
2	Untrained
3	Novice
4	Adept
5	Expert
6	Master
7	Grandmaster
8	Virtuoso

What Rank you can ascend to is limited by your Tier. At Tier 1, your skills are capped at Adept Rank. At Tier 2, you access Expert Rank skills; At Tier 3, you access Master Rank skills; At Tier 4, you can access all Skill Ranks.

Trainers get +1 Skill Point every level, while Pokemon must exchange Tutor Points for Skill Points.
Skill Points may be spent for 5 purposes:

You may Rank Up a single Skill once, up to your maximum Rank.
You may gain a Skill Stunt for a single Skill - choose a specific use of a single Skill; when rolling under those circumstances you may automatically roll a # of 6s equal to your Tier.
You may gain a +1 Bonus to all Skill Checks in a single Category (does not stack).
You may gain a +2 Bonus to 2 different Skills in a single Category (does not stack).
You may exchange a Skill Point for Grade Points. During this exchange, you get a # of Grade Points equal to your Tier.

Certain Classes may limit your Skill Point selection. For example, the Athlete Class forces you to allocate the Skill Points you gain on odd-numbered levels to the Body Skills chosen when you selected the Class.

Every creature has access to Skill Powers, which are explicit abilities that may be undertaken any time (if applicable), ranging from mundane tasks such as climbing to fantastic ones such as wandering to other dimensions. A creature has access to all available Skill Powers upon reaching the prerequisite Rank. Keep these in mind when selecting your Class!
Pokemon cannot use the Recall Factoid or Craftwork Skill Powers unless they have Intelligence 3 or higher.

When you make a Skill Check, it has a range of success which defines different outcomes for many Skill Powers. Failing or succeeding over the DC to a greater degree leads to more extreme outcomes. These ranges are listed below for your convenience.


Outcome	Check Range
Critical Success	6 or higher
Moderate Success	3 to 5
Success	0 to 2
Failure	-1 to -2
Moderate Failure	-3 to -5
Critical Failure	-6 or lower

Skill Writeups

Acrobatics

Rank 1 (Pathetic):
Balance - You may attempt to balance on a surface. The DC is determined by the surface conditions. You are Slowed and Vulnerable while balancing and cannot cross surfaces thinner than half your width (from shoulder to shoulder, for things that have them). If you are Vulnerable and take damage while balancing, you must succeed on the check again to stay balanced. Failing any balance checks results in you falling, although you may attempt a DC 4 + surface width + surface conditions Acrobatics check to grab hold of something and stop falling. If you succeed on your next balance check after this, you may spend your Shift Action to pull yourself up and balance on the surface again. If you want to Grapple (Grab Onto) a creature as you are falling, you may do so.
Special: If you get a running start (see below), you can freely cover X meters without needing to balance, where X is 1/4th of the distance you moved before reaching the start of the surface.


Surface Width	Example (assuming Medium size)	Base DC
Twice or more full width	1+ meter (40+ inches)	0¹
Twice to full width	1 meter to ½ meter (40-20 inches)	2¹
Full to half width	½ meter to ¼ meter (20-10 inches)	4
Half to fifth width	¼ meter to 1/10 meter (10-4 inches)	6²
Fifth to tenth width	1/10 meter to 1/20 meter (4-2 inches)	8²
Less than a tenth width	Less than 1/20 meter (4-2 inches)	10²
	^{1. Characters do not need to check their balance in these areas unless other conditions apply.} ^{2. A Rank prerequisite must be met before attempting to balance in this fashion.}


Surface Condition	Example	DC Modifier
Light Obstruction	A rickety bridge, minor calf-high debris	+1¹
Heavy Obstruction	An unexplored cave floor, major waist-high debris	+3¹
Slightly Slippery	Frozen ice, wet stone, crumbling architecture	+1¹
Very Slippery	Melting ice, greased vine, collapsing architecture	+3¹
Strongly Angled Surface	10 to 30 degree incline	+1¹
Slightly Sloped Surface	30 to 45 degree incline	+3¹
Strongly Sloped Surface	45+ degree incline (must be Climbed)	N/A
Moderate Wind	Tier 1 Winds	+1¹
Strong Wind	Tier 2 Winds	+3¹
Stormy Wind	Tier 3 Winds	+5¹
Hurricane Wind	Tier 4 Winds	+8¹
Tornado Wind	Tier 5 Winds	+12¹
Weightless Balancing	Balance on something that cannot support your weight, such as liquid	+5²
Air Balancing	Balance on gases	+8²
	^{1. Do not stack condition modifiers arising from similar circumstances, like breezes and wind. Simply use the most appropriate one.} ^{2. A Rank prerequisite must be met before attempting to balance in this fashion.}

Jump: You may attempt to jump off a surface as part of your Shift Action and your check result determines your maximum distance traveled (see table), although you may choose to end your jump before travelling the maximum distance. If your jump would exceed the maximum movement allowed by your Shift Action, you may spend a Standard Action to continue the jump. If you land on your feet, you may continue moving with any unused movement, including consecutive jumps.
You do not take falling damage unless you land below the elevation you jumped from. You cannot change direction mid-air. You can become Airborne by spending a Standard Action while jumping to end your turn mid-air.
If you make multiple jumps in a round, you must spend at least 1 meter of movement in between each jump to maintain your running/walking start, otherwise you slow down to a walk or simply stop.
If you fail a jump check and fall short of your destination, if it is within your reach you can make a DC 4 + surface width + surface conditions Acrobatics check to grab the ledge.
Most jumps are modified by the type of start you have before you attempt the jump, indicated below.
At the midpoint of a Long Jump, you are at a vertical height equal to ¼ of the horizontal distance you are jumping. If you have a running start when High Jumping, you travel a horizontal distance equal to half your high jump distance.
If you are currently capable of using the Escape combat maneuver, then you may Take 3 on your Jump checks.


Check Result	Long Jump Calculation	Long Jump Distance	High Jump Distance
1 to 6	You travel 1 meter, period.	1 m.	¼ m.
7 to 12	1 meter + ⅓ meter for every point over 6.	1 - 3 m.	¼ - ¾ m.
13 to 18	3 meters + ½ meter for every point over 12.	3 - 6 m.	¾ - 1 ½ m.
19 to 24	6 meters + 1 meter for every point over 18.	7 - 12 m.	1 ½ - 3 m.
25 to 30	12 meters + 2 meters for every point over 24.	14 - 24 m.	3 ½ - 6 m.
31 to 36	24 meters + 3 meters for every point over 30.	27 - 42 m.	6 ¾ - 10 ½ m.
37 to 42	42 meters + 4 meters for every point over 36.	46 - 66 m.	11 ½ - 16 ½ m.
43 to 48	66 meters + 5 meters for every point over 42.	71 - 96 m.	17 ¾ - 24 m.
49+	96 meters + 6 meters for every point over 48.	102+ m.	25+ m.


Condition	Check Modifier
Standing Start	-5
Walking Start (Moved less than half your Overland speed)	-3
Running Start (Moved more than half your Overland speed)	0

Rank 2 (Untrained):
Controlled Fall: When you intentionally fall from a higher point, you take Physical damage instead of direct damage. Note: Jumping is not the same as falling.
If you are unintentionally falling or are being forced to move, you can attempt to control your fall or movement with a DC 12 Acrobatics check as a Free Action. Upon success, you are now either intentionally falling or you regain control of your movement after moving at least 1/10th of the distance you would have been forced to move. You can also make this check to avoid becoming unintentionally Prone unless you are being Grappled.
Rank 3 (Novice):
Practiced Balancer: You are no longer Vulnerable while balancing and can balance on surfaces as thin as ⅕th your width .
Combat Jump: If you use a Melee attack after landing on your feet, you deal 1 extra point of damage per 2 meters fallen from the highest point in your jump.
Rank 4 (Adept):
Leaf Fall: Falling Damage is Normal-type instead of Typeless, making it one step less Super Effective overall. You only take Triply Super Effective damage when falling at Tier 4 speeds.
Anime Jump: Your maximum height while high jumping is doubled. You may add X to Acrobatics checks made to dodge objects that are about to collide with you, where X is equal to your Acrobatics Rank x Your Tier.
Rank 5 (Expert):
Weightless Balancer: You can balance on surfaces without your weight pushing them down and do not cause the surface to fall or break, whether it is the surface of a lake or your enemy’s sword. Attempting to balance weightlessly Exhausts you for a full round. You can balance on surfaces of any width.
Most liquids are “Slightly Slippery” while “Very Slippery” should be reserved for lubricants such as oil or grease. Choppy waters would be “Light Obstruction” while heavy waves would be “Heavy Obstruction”. If you move over a damaging liquid like lava, you are only exposed to it and are not immersed.
You can also balance on objects or creatures forced into and past your threatened area as an Interrupt Action, though you may need to jump onto it. If you successfully balance on it, you ride it to its destination or any point in its path, dismounting when you please as a Free Action.
Speedy Jump: You only need to spend a Standard Action to continue jumping if your jump would exceed twice the maximum movement allowed by your highest movement speed.
Kip Up: You may stand up from being prone as a Swift Action.
Wallrunner: You may run on vertical surfaces both vertically and horizontally, but must end your turn on the ground.
Rank 6 (Master):
Air Balancer: You may use your Overland Speed to move along the air in any direction except up or down at a greater than 45 degree angle. Attempting to air balance Exhausts you for a full round, but you are no longer Exhausted from weightless balancing.
Air is more slippery the clearer it is: A clear day would be Very Slippery, thin fog would be Slightly Slippery, and thick smoke would not be slippery at all. If the gas has breaks in it, such as from wind, you may suffer obstruction penalties.
Air balancing lets you ride gusts of wind and other gases, like how weightless balancing lets you ride objects. Once balancing on it, you may ride it, dismounting when you please as a Free Action. You must make a new balance check each round, though.
Heavenly Jump: Your maximum height while high jumping is equal to your maximum long jump distance.
Rank 7 (Grandmaster):
Cloud Fall: You take no falling damage and can stop your fall at any point if you make a successful balance check to balance on air.
Perfect Wallrunner: You may end your turn while wallrunning. On your next turn, you are considered to have a Running Start for any subsequent jumps.
Rank 8 (Virtuoso):
Perfect Balancer: Air balancing does not Exhaust you and you are no longer Slowed while balancing.
Moon Jump: You may end your turn in the air at any point during your jump and become Airborne. On your next turn, you are considered to have a Running Start for any subsequent jumps and do not need to be touching any surface to jump.

pragma · Post by **pragma** » Mon Jun 14, 2021 5:09 pm

This is super fun and ambitious and I'm glad for something to read and talk about. Thanks for sharing!

Lots more to read, but a first note on the "TAKING ACTION" section is that the skill system seems a bit (1) unclear and (2) finicky.

Unclear -- a few examples
* You say "roll a number of d6 equal to your Rank in the appropriate skill and add in any other bonuses or modifiers". Do you add the d6 results together? multiply them? take the maximum? (You can infer that they add from the take X rules, but you might want to say explicitly).
* You say " you may Take 3 on a check if you spend 6 times as long as normal making the check. You may only Take 6 if you spend 30 times as long as normal making the check". I don't see a discernable pattern in how long it takes me to Take X.

Finicky --
* the Den has historically frowned on having both variable dice pool size and static dice modifiers because evaluating the impact can be complicated: is it better to have a modifier or a die in this circumstance? Since everything is additive here, static modifiers are, on average, the same as a die of some size or another. I wonder if it might be better to commit to everything being a contested check, where finding a book in a library task has a difficulty of 1d6 or whatever.
* I hate extended checks, they're an excuse to roll a bunch of dice for an essentially foregone conclusion because of the central limit theorem. You do you, but I think that extended tests are better served by a DC modifier for rush jobs.

Looking forward to picking apart the rest.

The Adventurer's Almanac · Mon Jun 14, 2021 9:48 pm

pragma wrote: ↑
Mon Jun 14, 2021 5:09 pm
Unclear -- a few examples
* You say "roll a number of d6 equal to your Rank in the appropriate skill and add in any other bonuses or modifiers". Do you add the d6 results together? multiply them? take the maximum? (You can infer that they add from the take X rules, but you might want to say explicitly).
* You say " you may Take 3 on a check if you spend 6 times as long as normal making the check. You may only Take 6 if you spend 30 times as long as normal making the check". I don't see a discernable pattern in how long it takes me to Take X.

A good place to start clarifying things. Yes, you do add up all your d6s together, so increasing by 1 rank is equivalent to a +3.5 bonus to a skill, on average. You are also correct in that there isn't quite a discernable pattern beyond "taking 6 is exponentially better than taking 3, so it takes exponentially longer". The numbers are somewhat out of my asshole, but numbers are easy to fix.
The ideal way to arrive at these numbers would be, I think, to calculate the average number of dice rolls to reach an average result of 3 per die, but... the number of dice you throw down increases as you rank up. When you're better at something it shouldn't take longer to Take 3 on it. That may make logical sense, but I think it would feel kind of shitty.
I'm not confident on what to do here, but the times do seem a bit long. I could cut the ratio down from 6/30 to 4/20 (nice). No matter what, I want Taking 6 to be exponentially longer than Taking 3 - that's the goal here.

pragma wrote: ↑
Mon Jun 14, 2021 5:09 pm
Finicky --
* the Den has historically frowned on having both variable dice pool size and static dice modifiers because evaluating the impact can be complicated: is it better to have a modifier or a die in this circumstance? Since everything is additive here, static modifiers are, on average, the same as a die of some size or another. I wonder if it might be better to commit to everything being a contested check, where finding a book in a library task has a difficulty of 1d6 or whatever.
* I hate extended checks, they're an excuse to roll a bunch of dice for an essentially foregone conclusion because of the central limit theorem. You do you, but I think that extended tests are better served by a DC modifier for rush jobs.

I may be misunderstanding, but it sounds like you're advocating for variable difficulty checks? That doesn't sound appealing to me, but I'm open to further discussion - although I don't really have an argument stronger than "static DCs feel better than variable DCs, man".
All of the math that I've been doing for setting Skill DCs has accounted for utilizing modifiers and dice ranges. In most cases, having a die is better but if you can snag a +4 modifier or higher, then that's superior... but you'd want both, to bump up your minimum skill check range. Having a +4 or +5 to Acrobatics pretty much nullifies a lot of the DC modifiers, like slipperiness and weightless balancing. Bumping up your max is nice, too, but I think beefing the minimum check result is more important.

Extended Checks are something from PTU that I never used much, myself... until I started going into downtime rules. That's mainly where they're used here - you won't see an Extended Check to take 10 minutes to pick a lock, but you will see "you are trying to achieve This Thing and it has an Extended DC of XXX. Work at it on your leisure (or if it's possible to fail) or until you're stumped", and then you take multiple Downtime Actions to focus on achieving This Thing, and how good your checks are means the process goes slowly or quickly. The rest of the game actually does care about the progression of time, so working on something is a choice that has a time-cost associated with it, since you could be doing something else that has immediate results.

The Adventurer's Almanac · Tue Jun 15, 2021 2:08 am

Athletics

Rank 1 (Pathetic):
Climb: You can move up, down, across, or just hang from a slope (incline of 45-60 degrees), wall (60-120 degrees), or overhang (120-180 degrees). At this Rank, you cannot even attempt to climb surfaces of Base DC 11 or higher and automatically fail.
You must roll an Athletics check each round you start or continue climbing or hanging, before you begin moving, as indicated in the below tables. You may always Take 2 with this power.
As an Extended Action (S), you can make an Extended Check to cover more ground. How much more ground you intend to move determines the Extended Check’s DC multiplier. A multiplier of 2 means you travel 5 times as much distance; a multiplier of 3 means you travel 10 times as much distance; a multiplier of 4 means you travel 25 times as much distance; a multiplier of 5 means you travel 50 times as much distance.


Moderate Success: You are not Slowed. Even if you do not move, you must spend a Shift Action to remain on the surface - you fall if you do not and are not secured. Success: You can move while Slowed. Failure: You cannot move. If this was an Extended Check, you instead travel half of the intended distance and immediately make checks for Exhaustion. Moderate Failure: You fall, see below. If this was an Extended Check, you instead travel ¼th of the intended distance and immediately make checks for Exhaustion. Critical Failure: If this was an Extended Check, you do not travel any distance and immediately make checks for Exhaustion. Take it easy next time!

You are always Vulnerable while climbing and must use all your appendages to make any progress. You may use one hand (or equivalent) to do something while on the surface, but you cannot progress while doing so.
Taking any damage ends your movement immediately. If you take damage exceeding your Athletics Rank x 5, you begin falling. You must make a new check against the surface’s DC to determine how far you slip. If someone has slipped and begins to fall past you, you may attempt to grab them without penalty for falling. If you Succeed at either of these checks, you grab hold of your target and either stop falling or catch them. If you Fail, the faller descends 4d6 meters. If you Moderately Fail, the faller falls as usual and has a very bad day.
You may climb a number of minutes equal to your Athletics Rank x Your Tier before you need to make checks to see if you are Exhausted or not. The Base DC for this check is the surface you are climbing on. Upon Success or Failure, you suffer a cumulative -1 penalty to this Exhaustion check which lasts until you stop climbing. Upon Moderate Failure, you become Exhausted until you take an Extended Rest.
Special: Creatures with the Wallclimber Capability do not need to make checks to move across inclined surfaces and are not Vulnerable or Slowed while doing so, nor can they become Exhausted. They do not need all appendages on the surface in order to make progress. However, they may fall if they take damage, as normal.
Swim: Your Swim Speed determines how quickly you travel in placid liquids that are at least waist height. If you are swimming in rougher waters, you must succeed on an Athletics check to not be Slowed and Vulnerable. Upon Moderate Failure, you sink into the liquid and begin holding your breath. At this Rank, you cannot even attempt to swim in liquids of Base DC 11 or higher and automatically fail.
You must use all your appendages to make any progress. You may use one hand (or equivalent) to do something underwater, but you cannot progress while doing so. You cannot Sprint while swimming at this level of skill.
You may swim a number of minutes equal to your Athletics Rank x Your Tier before you need to make checks to see if you are Exhausted or not. The Base DC for this check is the liquid you are swimming in. Upon Success, you suffer a cumulative -1 penalty to this Exhaustion check, which lasts until you stop swimming. Upon Failure, you suffer a -3 penalty to this check instead. Upon Moderate Failure, you become Exhausted until you take an Extended Rest.
You may simply wade through liquids that are below waist height, but you are Slowed while doing so unless you pass an Athletics check based on the liquid’s condition.
See Suffocation/Drowning for details on when things go horribly wrong.
Special: Creatures with the Water-type are never Vulnerable or Slowed while swimming, and can Sprint in water.


Climbing Surface	Example	Base DC
Surface with hand and foot holds	Very rough rocks, ship’s rigging, surface with pitons or holes	4
Knotted Rope	Standard rope with knots in it (not on a grappling hook)	6
Unknotted Rope	Standard rope (attached to grappling hook), vines	8
Hanging Cloth	Tapestry, curtains, giant clothing	8
Uneven surface with narrow holds	The side of most buildings	8
Overhang with handholds	Jungle gym, ceiling hooks	8
Rough surface without handholds	Natural, weathered rock; smooth stone	11
Rough overhang without handholds	Cavern ceiling	14
Perfectly smooth, flat surface	Psychic Wall	14
Perfectly smooth, flat overhang	Psychic Ceiling	17


Climbing Condition	Example	Check Modifier¹
Climbing an Inclined Surface	Any slope between 45 and 60 degrees	+3
Climbing a Chimney Setup	There is another wall to brace against within reach of your legs that is parallel to the one you are climbing.	+3
Climbing a Corner Setup	There is another wall to brace against within reach of your legs that is perpendicular to the one you are climbing.	+1
Slightly Slippery Surface	Frozen ice without gloves, a moist wall	-1
Very Slippery Surface	An oiled wall, a rope in a rainstorm	-3
Falling past Inclined Surface	Slipped off a slope and are rolling down it	0
Falling past a Vertical Surface	Lost grip on a wall and are falling through space	-1
Swimming Condition	Example	Check Modifier¹
Swimming, 1 hand occupied	Swimming with a weapon out	-3
Swimming, 2 hands occupied	Swimming with two weapons out, or one large weapon	-5
Very Dense Liquid	Lava, mercury	+1
Very Thin Liquid	Feathers, alcohol	-1
General Condition	Example	Check Modifier¹
Exhausted	Character used Hyper Beam or has been swimming or climbing for a long time.	-3
	^{1. Do not stack condition modifiers arising from similar circumstances, like slippery or very slippery. Simply use the most appropriate one.}

Rank 3 (Novice):
Brachiator: You can swing through tree branches, jungle vines, monkey bars, chandeliers, and other hanging objects, provided both hands are free. You are considered Slowed while doing so. If one hand is full, you may only take a single Shift Action in this fashion before you have to return to the ground. The objects used to swing must be able to swing within 1 x Your Tier meters of each other to be usable for movement this way.
Body Conditioning: You may attempt to climb/swim in any surface/liquid with a Base DC of 11 or less. You resist all Collision Damage one step further.
Rank 4 (Adept):
Combat Athlete: You are no longer Vulnerable while climbing or swimming. You may add X to Athletics checks made to stop objects that are about to collide with you, where X is equal to your Athletics Rank x Your Tier.
Power Boost: You gain +X Power, where X is equal to your Tier.
Rank 5 (Expert):
Practiced Brachiator: You are no longer Slowed while swinging. You may brachiate with one hand occupied, but are Slowed while doing so.
One-Handed: You only need one hand free to climb, swim, or catch a fall. You do not suffer DC penalties for swimming with one hand occupied. You can use both hands for an action while climbing, but you cannot progress. If you climb or swim with both hands, you may choose to not be Slowed while climbing or you can Sprint while swimming.
Perfect Conditioning: You may attempt to climb/swim in any surface/liquid, regardless of Base DC. You are not Slowed while swimming. You resist all Collision Damage two steps further.
Rank 6 (Master):
Hardened Body: You gain the Hardy 1 Capability, can hold your breath for twice as long and only need to eat once a week before taking Skill Damage. You gain +X to rolls vs Heat and Cold Checks, where X is your Athletics Rank. You can Sprint, climb, and swim for twice as long before becoming Exhausted.
Rank 7 (Grandmaster):
Peak Athlete: You gain the Superpowered Capability. You are immune to all Collision Damage.
No-Handed: You do not need your hands to climb, swim, or catch a fall. You do not suffer DC penalties for swimming with both hands occupied, nor do you have penalties for fighting underwater. You can use both hands for an action while climbing and progressing. You are never Slowed while climbing and can Sprint while doing so.
Rank 8 (Virtuoso):
Perfect Body: You no longer need to eat or drink. You gain the Breathless and Hardy 2 Capabilities. You automatically pass all Heat and Cold checks. You are immune to Skill Damage. You are immune to the negative aspects of [Time] and [Space] effects unless you choose otherwise.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Wed Jun 16, 2021 8:04 am

Maybe we've been reading the same design docs but it's very interesting how many of the same decisions we've made. From outright solidifying phases of the game into 3 explicit parts down to having people act in three different 8 hour shifts inside the bigger 2. There are a lot of things that are different of course. I'm not doing a Pokemon thing, I'm defaulting to a d20 based game, and I can't think of a part of my hand that uses percentages. I'll be looking forward to seeing anything that I can mine from this.

One of the things I did for downtime was add a small section on setting a 'routine' for longer projects, recovery, etc to make time skips easier.

The Adventurer's Almanac · Wed Jun 16, 2021 3:28 pm

Well, we do come to the Den a lot, and we're both making fantasy tabletop RPGs... they're just different fantasies. We're kind of drawing water from the same pool, here.
I'm kinda confused by your percentages remark. I'm trying my hardest to have as few of those as possible! Percentages fucking suck unless they're in increments of 25% and 10%, and even those are questionable. Anything else can go choke on a dick.

I'll get to the downtime section eventually. I'd like those to go rather quickly as well.

The Adventurer's Almanac · Wed Jun 16, 2021 3:39 pm

Combat

Rank 2 (Untrained):
Size Up Human: You can attempt to identify the combat ability of a human as an Interrupt Action. The DC for this check is 5 + Target’s Level. They do not have to be alive for you to gather information about them, though they must still be identifiable. You always learn your target’s Tier.


Critical Success: You are aware of what Moves they know. Moderate Success: You are aware of all of their Abilities and Capabilities. Success: You learn what its highest stat is, as well as their level.

Rank 3 (Novice):
Weapon Proficiency: Your Struggle Attacks and Weapon Moves have their Damage Base increased by X, where X is your Tier. You can also swap out your weapon’s current Struggle Attack for a different one, provided you spend 1 x Weapon’s Quality hours in training.
Sunder Matter: When striking an object to harm it, you ignore X points of its DR, where X is your Combat Rank times your Tier. You may add X to Combat checks made to destroy objects that are about to collide with you, where X is equal to your Combat Rank x Your Tier.
Identify Combat Item: You are capable of learning all of the qualities a Weapon or Armor has, provided you spend a Downtime Action studying it. If you study an item of a higher Tier than you, it takes longer depending on how much stronger it is than you. If it is one Tier higher, you spend one Downtime Action per the item’s Tier studying it. If it is two Tiers higher, you spend two Downtime Actions per the item’s Tier studying it. If it is three Tiers higher, you spend three Downtime Actions per the item’s Tier studying it. You can also identify Weapons or Armor as a Full Action, provided you pass a DC 6 x Item’s Tier Combat check. You gain a bonus to this check based on your familiarity with the item. Without spending a Downtime Action, you cannot identify the item’s [Magic] effects, if it has any.
You can also use this power to see past knockoffs and forgeries, although this is an Opposed Check vs the Guile of the person who made it. When doing so, you still make a check to identify the item.
Upon Success, you know the general value of the item, or its apparent value if it is a forgery. If you succeed against the Opposed Check, you know it is a forgery and its true value.


Circumstance	Check Modifier	Example
Minimal knowledge of subject	+1	A second hand familiarity with subject, a description or very few previous interactions
Fair knowledge of subject	+3	First hand familiarity with subject, many previous interactions within the recent past
Substantial knowledge of subject	+5	Very familiar with subject, a lot of previous interactions stretching over a long period of time
Distracted and not fully focused	-3	Being talked to, using your Standard Action on another task
Extremely distracted and barely focused	-5	Being yelled at, defending against an obvious threat in combat, using your Full Action on another task
Rushing a Full Action to a Standard Action	-2	-
Rushing a Standard Action to a Shift Action	-1	-
Rushing a Standard or Shift Action to a Swift Action	-3	-

Rank 4 (Adept):
Danger Sense: You gain a +X bonus to your Initiative, where X is your Tier. Your Struggle Attacks and Weapon Moves also have -Y AC, where Y is half your Tier.
Opportunist: You may use any Melee Combat Maneuver in place of a Struggle Attack during AoOs.
Rank 5 (Expert):
Machamp Grip: You may wield two-handed weapons as if they were one-handed. If you wield a one-handed weapon in one hand, you may apply Weapon Proficiency to it twice. If you wield two one-handed weapons in both hands, you gain +1 Evasion and do not suffer any Accuracy penalties from dual-wielding. If you are not wielding any weapons, you gain +X DR where X is your Combat Rank. You may also apply Weapon Proficiency to improvised weapons.
Rank 6 (Master):
Sunder Form: When striking a creature to harm it, you ignore X points of its DR, where X is your Combat Rank x Your Tier.
Dimensional Fighter: You may touch Intangible creatures as if they were not Intangible. You also gain the Scrappy Ability. After you hit a foe with an attack, they cannot use a [Space] effect for one full round.
Rank 7 (Grandmaster):
Time Fighter: When someone in your line of sight uses a [Time] effect, you may expend an Interrupt Action to negate the effect or follow your target through time. After you hit a foe with an attack, they cannot use a [Time] effect for one full round.
Rank 8 (Virtuoso):
The Destroyer: Your Critical Hits cause the target to Faint if they do not also have this Skill Rank. All your strikes against objects are treated as Critical Hits, bypassing crit immunity.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Thu Jun 17, 2021 1:54 am

The Adventurer's Almanac wrote: ↑
Wed Jun 16, 2021 3:28 pm
Well, we do come to the Den a lot, and we're both making fantasy tabletop RPGs... they're just different fantasies. We're kind of drawing water from the same pool, here.
I'm kinda confused by your percentages remark. I'm trying my hardest to have as few of those as possible! Percentages fucking suck unless they're in increments of 25% and 10%, and even those are questionable. Anything else can go choke on a dick.

I'll get to the downtime section eventually. I'd like those to go rather quickly as well.

I do come here a lot though I can't think n of anything from the den that influenced three phases/day thing. I was actually thinking more about persona when I was hammering that out. As for the percentages you mention it right under 'How this shit works'

The Adventurer's Almanac · Thu Jun 17, 2021 4:32 am

Oh, that! Yeah, well... like I said, I could use a better way of phrasing it. I don't like percentages, I just wanted to say "if one source says something is doubled and another source says the same thing is doubled, then overall it's tripled, not quintupled" or whatever. The most relevant thing this is for is movement speed.

The Adventurer's Almanac · Thu Jun 17, 2021 6:33 pm

Time for the two most controversial skills... these are very in-depth and give me neat ideas, but I'd like to make this easier to grok where possible without sacrificing too much depth.

Perception

Rank 1 (Pathetic):
Perceive: All conscious characters are considered to be Taking 1 on their Perception checks at all times - this does not require an action.
Any time a character is not distracted and is exposed to an event with a DC no greater than their Perception ranks + 3, they are at least aware of it. If the event has a perceive DC no greater than their Perception ranks, they detect it clearly. If the event has a perceive DC no greater than their Perception ranks -3, they know details about it because they can make it out.
Sometimes you will want to perceive something more clearly, at which point you may make a Perception check as a Standard Action. The DC to perceive something is dependent on the type of event and modified by local conditions like distance and interposing objects. You may rush your attempt. Sample DCs and conditions are listed below. Attempting to perceive a particular thing causes you to tune out the rest of your environment - even though you continue to “take 1” on passive perception checks while you focus on an event, you are distracted from the background and suffer a -3 penalty to notice those events. You do not roll multiple times in a round for multiple senses, even if you attempt to spend multiple actions on the checks - you use all of your relevant senses to detect something.


Moderate Success: You notice the event clearly and can make out fine details from it. Success: You notice the event clearly. Failure: You notice the event, but not enough to make out any details - merely its general direction. Moderate Failure: You didn’t notice anything.

Special: other senses like do stuff lol


Sight Event	Example	Base DC¹	Range	Range Increment
See Mini details	Text in a book	0	1 m.	¼ m.
See Tiny details	A small sign inside a store	0	10 m.	2 ½ m.
See Small details	A stool in a bar	0	30 m.	7 ½ m.
See Medium details	The door to a building	0	60 m.	15 m.
See Large details	A Rapidash grazing on the edge of a clearing	0	120 m.	30 m.
See Huge details	An Alolan Exeggutor along the beach	0	240 m.	60 m.
See Massive details	A flying Wailord	0	480 m.	120 m.
See Gigantic details	Any Gigantamax pokemon, anywhere	0	1 km.	250 m.
	^{1. Sight details that are especially intense, such as flashes of lightning at night or bursts of darkness in a lit room, qualify for the “intense” DC modifier as long as they are no smaller than 1/10th the size of the creature witnessing them. For example, a medium creature would qualify for this bonus on details as small as 15 cm as long as it was within range.}


Taste Event	Example	Base DC
Overpowering Ingredient	Salt by itself, sucking a lemon, straight alcohol	-9
Strong Ingredient	Garlic in chicken, curry spices, coffee	-6
Ingredient	Onions in roast beef, cheese on pizza	-3
Faint Ingredient	Lavender in soup	0


Hearing Event	Example¹	Base DC²	Range	Range Increment
0 db	A creature with the Dead Silent capability.	0	10 cm.	2 ½ cm.
10 db	Human breathing	0	20 cm.	5 cm.
20 db	A whisper	0	½ m.	10 cm.
30 db	Creature walking on soft ground (grass)	0	1 m.	¼ m.
40 db	Hear quiet conversation, creature moving normally on soft ground, creature flapping wings in air	0	2 m.	½ m.
50 db	Hear normal conversation, creature walking on hard ground (road), creature sprinting on soft ground	0	4 m.	1 m.
60 db	Hear crowded room, creature moving normally on hard ground, creature flapping wings to sprint	0	8 m.	2 m.
70 db	Hear a house party, creature walking on noisy ground (snapping twigs), creature sprinting on hard ground	0	15 m.	3 ¾ m.
80 db	Hear a shout, creature moving normally on noisy ground, Pokeball being activated	0	30 m.	7 ½ m.
90 db	Hear people in combat; creature sprinting on noisy ground	0	60 m.	15 m.
100 db	Hear a vehicle moving	0	120 m.	30 m.
110 db	Hear a Pyroar roar	0	240 m.	60 m.
120 db	Hear someone use Thunder or Boomburst	0	480 m.	120 m.
130 db	Hear something so loud it hurts, like an Exploud	0	1 km.	250 m.
140 db	Hear an airplane take off, or fireworks	0	2 km.	500 m.
150+ db	Hear a rocket take off, a gun firing	0	4 km.	1 km.
	^{1. All mentions of “a creature” refer to one of medium size. Bigger creatures make a noise one step up the chart for each size category different, and smaller creatures make a noise one step down the chart for each size category smaller. For each step below 0 db, simply add 2 to the Base DC.} ^{2. Heard details that are especially intense, such as those whose decibel range is 40 more than the ambient noise level, qualify for the “intense” DC modifier. For example, a vehicle being driven into a crowded room would come with a perceive DC reduction as long as it was within range.}


Smelling Event	Example	Base DC	Range	Range Increment
Unmissable Scent	Rotting garbage, decaying bodies, a Gloom	-3	10 m.	2 ½ m.
Overpowering Smell	Smoke, animal waste, cooking food	0	10 m.	2 ½ m.
Strong Smell	Strong flowers or food, Sweet Scent	0	5 m.	1 ¼ m.
Pungent Smell	Unwashed or sweaty person, briney air	0	2 m.	½ m.
Smell	Washed person, fresh air	0	1 m.	¼ m.
Faint Smell	Blood, most Ghost-types	0	½ m.	⅛ m.


Touch Event	Example	Base DC
Faintest touch	A faint breeze across the skin, being touched by an Intangible creature	6
Light glancing touch	A feather run across your arm, brushing past people in a crowd	3
Casual touch	An arm around a friend, a hug from your Pokemon	0


Environmental Condition	Check Modifier
Sound is travelling through object, like a door or water¹	-Object HP/10
Background noise stronger than listening event¹	-1 per 10 DB difference
Additional Range Increment to event for primary sense used to novice event²	-1
Intense event occurs inside standard range	+2
Intense event occurs inside half of the standard range	+4
Ambient conditions impair primary sense used to notice event	-2
Ambient conditions block a sense used to notice event³	-
Ambient conditions block all senses that could notice event⁴	N/A
^{1. This penalty only applies if the primary sense used to perceive the event is hearing. If using another sense would result in a lower total penalty, that penalty is used instead.} ^{2. This penalty stacks and applies for every range increment to the event, based on the sense used for detection. If using another sense would result in a lower total penalty, that penalty is used instead.} ^{3. If you don’t have access to a sense that could detect an event, you must use another sense to detect the event. You use the lowest total detection penalty from the other available senses.} ^{4. If you don’t have access to any sense that could detect an event, you have no method of detecting that event. Sucks to suck.}


Circumstance	Check Modifier	Example
Minimal knowledge of subject	+1	A second hand familiarity with subject, a description or very few previous interactions
Fair knowledge of subject	+3	First hand familiarity with subject, many previous interactions within the recent past
Substantial knowledge of subject	+5	Very familiar with subject, a lot of previous interactions stretching over a long period of time
Distracted and not fully focused	-3	Being talked to, using your Standard Action on another task
Extremely distracted and barely focused	-5	Being yelled at, defending against an obvious threat in combat, using your Full Action on another task
Sleeping, fainted, or otherwise unconscious¹	-5	Being asleep or unconscious, intentionally or otherwise
Rushing a Full Action to a Standard Action	-2	-
Rushing a Standard Action to a Shift Action	-1	-
Rushing a Standard or Shift Action to a Swift Action	-3	-
Being attacked	+X, where X is DB	Something shoots at you
		^{1. Sleeping creatures generally only have access to their senses of hearing and touch. They are not considered impaired or blocked, and sleeping characters may notice events with these senses without suffering an increased DC as well. Most other senses are automatically considered impaired or blocked, and events that primarily rely on those senses will have increased DCs for sleeping characters.}

Discern Fraud: With a Full Action and a Perception check, you can attempt to spot counterfeit objects and creatures, ranging from forged documents to the Cunning Disguise Guile power. The base DC for this check is determined by the Guile check of whoever created the falsehood, modified by your distance as indicated in the above table. You gain a modifier to your check based on circumstances. You are considered distracted for any Perception checks that you perform during the same turn. You cannot use this on creatures or objects you have not clearly noticed.


Moderate Success: You can point out the flaws in their fraud, and automatically convince others that it is a counterfeit. Success: You realize it is a fake, and if you try to convince someone else it is fake, they gain a +2 bonus on their check. Failure: You believe it is genuine, and you cannot attempt this check again without a new reason to suspect the object. If you make this check on an authentic object, you will still get this result.

Rank 2 (Untrained):
Stand Guard: As a Standard Action, you may “take 3” on your passive perception checks. While doing so, if you wish to attempt to perceive something you must make the check as normal and “take 1” on your passive perception checks - but you are no longer distracted while doing so.

Rank 3 (Novice):
Find Secret: You may search for secrets in your area. Searching a 1 x 1 meter section of the floor, wall, ceiling, or surface of an object for these secrets requires a Full Action, as does searching a compartment if it is a 1 meter cube or larger - smaller merely requires 1 Standard Action. The DC to find a secret is determined by its construction or conditions. Finding something does not give you special means of disabling or accessing it, although you can try to crudely sabotage a trap. This power only applies to things that have been deliberately hidden in or on a physical object - a Pokeball hiding under someone’s pillow would simply require time to look through, while a Pokeball hiding inside someone’s pillow would qualify.


Moderate Success: You can find any hidden caches or triggers in the space, as well as the general direction to other connected devices. Success: You can find any hidden caches, although you recognize if nothing is hidden there instead. Failure: You do not uncover any secrets. Moderate Failure: You think occupied spaces are empty, and empty spaces are occupied. Sometimes you just see what you want to.

Rank 5 (Expert):
Pierce Illusion: You can pierce [Illusions] affecting only one sense at a time as a Standard Action. The DC for this check is 6 x Illusion’s Tier + conditions. You are not considered distracted while using this power. Your check is made against all illusions that interact with the selected sense while you maintain your focus, and so your check is compared against the DC of any effects in range. Any Illusion with a DC lower than your check is treated as blatantly fake to your selected sense. Even if one of your senses knows a multi-sense illusion is fake, your other senses still think it is real. However, you get a stacking +2 bonus to further checks to pierce that illusion.


Success: You understand the illusion is just that - an illusion. If you try to convince someone else it is illusory, they gain a +2 bonus on their check. Failure: You still think the illusion is real, although you may retry next round if you want.

Rank 6 (Master):
Discern Magic: The Pokemon world is full of strange phenomena, and you excel at following it. You can spend a Full Action to inspect [Magic] effects in your area and determine its qualities. You can see any Residue without special items, and inspecting it can inform you of its source and magnitude. The DC is 6 x Effect’s Tier + conditions.


Moderate Success: You know exactly what the subject’s effect is and where its source is. Success: You only know the subject’s effect. Failure: You have no idea what it is, and cannot retry this check unless you have new information about the subject.

Rank 8 (Grandmaster):
Sight Beyond Sight: You can pierce illusions that affect all of your senses at once, possibly without focusing. The DC for this check is 6 x Illusion’s Tier + conditions. You are assumed to always be “taking 1” with this power. Unlike Pierce Illusion, this power only targets a single illusion at a time when used actively. When “taking 1”, it targets every illusion you experience.


Success: You recognize the illusion as a total fake and it no longer affects you at all. If you try to convince someone else it is illusory, they gain a +4 bonus on their check. Failure: You have an “odd sensation”, but you aren’t sure if it’s an illusion, although you may focus and retry. Moderate Failure: You fell for the ruse and you cannot attempt this check again until 1 hour has passed. You may still defeat portions of the illusion with Pierce Illusions.

The Adventurer's Almanac · Fri Jun 18, 2021 3:57 pm

I'm gonna have to thank Kaelik directly for inspiring most of this. It could use a trim, but I'm in love with the core idea of rolling a Stealth Value vs everyone else's Perception Values and using that as a pool of stealth points.

Stealth

Rank 1 (Pathetic):
Sneak: When you hide behind something and people on the other side of the object can’t see you, and possibly might not hear or smell you, you do not need to make stealth rolls to be hidden, although you would need to make a Stealth check to break cover and check out the people on the other side. You are treated as being only as big as your exposed parts - a human sticking their head around a corner, for example, would count as a Tiny object, while moving from that corner would count them as a Medium object.

As a Standard Action, you may become Hidden by making a Stealth Check. Your check result becomes your “Stealth Value” and replaces the base DC for a searcher’s Perception check to notice you (usually 0). Undertaking Stealth Actions affects your Stealth Value based on what you do. You become unhidden by using Extended Actions, attacking/using Combat Maneuvers, recalling/releasing a Pokemon, or if an enemy passes their perception check to notice you. At this level of skill, you can never have a Stealth Value over 10.
When you become Hidden, the GM ‘takes 1’ (or 3, if the enemy is Standing Guard) on a Perception check for all enemies within the area - usually for enemies who are close enough for the stealther to be within range of their senses. This becomes their “Perception Value”. This Perception Value is further modified each round based on Attention Modifiers in response to actions the stealther takes. Successive stealth actions provide cumulative penalties to the stealther’s Stealth Value that stack with each other without end. There is no possibility to pass time without taking stealth actions - if the stealther wishes to wait, they must choose the waiting action for the appropriate time period listed below. If you become Hidden and an enemy already sees you, you are not Hidden towards them.

Once a creature’s Perception Value exceeds your Stealth Value, the nature of identification changes. Once this happens, if you are not Covered or are visible, the creature knows your exact location down to the square and you are no longer Hidden towards them. If you are Covered or are otherwise unable to be seen, the creature is aware of your general presence and you roll a Stealth Check which is opposed by their Perception Check, modified as usual. Passing by 24 or more gives them no specific information about your location. Passing by 12 gives them a 180 degree field in which you are located (roll 1d2 if you are diagonal on the grid). Passing by 6 gives them a 90 degree arc. Passing by 3 gives them a 90 degree arc distance and they know you are within 1d4 meters of your square. Failing the opposed check gives them the square you are in, and you are no longer Hidden towards them.

Once unhidden, you must escape or confuse their ability to detect you before you can attempt to become Hidden to them again. They can describe you to their allies, giving them all at least minimum knowledge of you. Some ways to break detection are running around a corner, disappearing into a crowd, becoming Covered, or using the Combat Distraction power of Guile to make them look away long enough for a quick getaway. They may still know where you’ve gone, but they might miss you when they come looking. Even if you become Hidden to them again, they gain a bonus to finding you in the future, at least until you change your appearance.
You cannot become Hidden if you are currently Marked.


Attention Modifiers	Perception Modifier¹	Example
Prone in Rough Terrain	-5	Lying down in a bush or a pile of dolls
Standing still in a clear space or action while walking when Covered	-3	Leaning against a streetlight, crawling behind a bush
Action while walking in a clear space or moving when Covered ^{1, 2}	0	Walking down a path, jogging behind some barrels
Action while moving in a clear space or sprinting when Covered ^{1, 2}	+3	Jogging away from a scene, sprinting behind a tarp
Action while sprinting in a clear space ^{1, 2}	+5	Running in the streets
Performing an action that makes you the center of attention	+3 to +5³	Fighting someone in the streets, firing off a Hyper Beam
Performing an action that causes you to stand out from a background event	+1 to +3³	Standing in a fast-moving crowd, stabbing a guy
Performing an action that causes you to blend in with a normal background event	-1 to +1³	Reading a newspaper in the park, joining a group activity
Performing an action that causes you to blend in with a very active background event	-1 to -3³	Joining a bar brawl, moving quickly with a dense crowd
^{1. These modifiers do not stack, use only the most appropriate one from each group. A clear space is one in which the dominant background scene is still and quiet.} ^{2. Using unexpected movement types, like burrowing or flying in most humanoid settlements, makes you likely to also suffer an attention penalty.} ^{3. The exact value of this penalty is determined by the GM based on in-game factors. Characters with Novice Stealth can determine the penalty or bonus their actions will generate before they take the action by asking the GM.}


Stealth Action	Stealth Penalty
Moving or taking a Standard Action	-1
1 Minute of waiting	-1
10 Minutes of waiting	-3
1 Hour of waiting	-6
8 Hours of waiting	-10
1 Day of waiting	-15
1 Week of waiting	-21
Whispering to a creature within 1 meter	-1
Moving an object in the detector’s zone that predated your arrival	-5
Significantly affecting the environment in a highly noticeable manner for the detector (Such as finding a blood splatter or a new hole in the wall)	-10
Making an attack action	-X, where X is DB¹
^{1. The person you are attacking gets a similar bonus to their Perception Value.}

Rank 2 (Untrained):
Open Lock: You may attempt to pick a lock as a Full Action. The lock can be disabled in 1d4 rounds, including the first round spent picking the lock. You may retry this check provided you have not destroyed the lock. The Base DC is noted in the table below.


Success: You open the lock without issue. Failure: You do not open the lock, but may try again. Moderate Failure: The lock is permanently broken and in need of repair.


Lock	Base DC	Example
Pathetic Lock	8	Rusted lock on a chest
Novice Lock	10	The front door of a residential home
Expert Lock	14	A CEO’s personal safe
Master Lock	20	A bank vault
Virtuoso Lock	26	A portal to the Distortion World that usually appears under select conditions
Condition	Check Modifier	Example
Rushing a 1d4 Round Action to a Full Action	-1	Trying to break into someone’s home as they’re coming up the street
Attempting to hide your work	-3	Opening a lock, but making it hard to see you have done so

Rank 3 (Novice):
Avoid Detection: There is no limit to your Stealth Value with the Sneak power. You are trained enough to know how large a penalty to your Stealth Value you would take from uncommon attention drawing conditions, like those described above. You can ask the DM ahead of time what the numeric result of doing something would be if it isn’t listed and they have to tell you.
Rank 4 (Adept):
Stealth Team: If you accept a -3 penalty to your Stealth Check, you may use your Stealth Value as the result for every member of your group within 6 meters for the purposes of detection. Each member suffers penalties individually based on their actions, though.
Alternatively, your group can make individual checks to sneak or avoid detection, as appropriate for each character, and you may reduce the results of your check to boost the checks of others. For every 1 point that you reduce your check by, you may increase the check of an ally within 30 feet by 1. You may not increase an ally’s check above your own reduced check with this power, though you may increase their results above 10 if they would be limited from lack of training.
Rank 5: (Expert):
Fool Senses: You show poorly against Tremorsense and Blindsense, and creatures must use their Perception Value to locate you with these abilities. This happens automatically when you become Hidden, though you may lower or re-raise this protection as a Free Action. It does not apply to anyone you are assisting with Stealth Team.
Art of Stealth: You gain the Stealth capability.
Rank 6 (Master):
Fool Super Senses: Fool Senses now applies against Blindsight and Lifesense.
Slippery Mind: You gain the Mindlock capability.
Rank 7 (Grandmaster):
Hide In Plain Sight: You can try to become Hidden after someone has spotted you without first breaking line of sight or otherwise losing your pursuer, or while you are under any other sort of direct observation.

The Adventurer's Almanac · Fri Jun 18, 2021 11:29 pm

We've gotten all the Body Skills out of the way, time for the Mind Skills. Things will get a bit simpler from here on out.

General Education

Rank 1 (Pathetic):
Recall General Factoid: See the Knowledge section for details. (Coming up after Skills)

Rank 2 (Untrained)
Identify Skills: You can attempt to identify the skills of a creature as an Interrupt Action. The DC for this check is 5 + Target’s Level. They do not have to be alive for you to gather information about them, though they must still be identifiable. You always learn your target’s Tier.


Critical Success: You know all of their Skills and Skill Stunts. Moderate Success: You know all of their Skills that are Novice or above. Success: You learn what its highest Skill is, as well as one Skill Stunt they have and their level.

Rank 3 (Novice):
Identify Item: You are capable of learning all of the qualities a non-combat item has, provided you spend a Downtime Action studying it. If you study an item of a higher Tier than you, it takes longer depending on how much stronger it is than you. If it is one Tier higher, you spend one Downtime Action per the item’s Tier studying it. If it is two Tiers higher, you spend two Downtime Actions per the item’s Tier studying it. If it is three Tiers higher, you spend three Downtime Actions per the item’s Tier studying it. You can also identify items as a Full Action, provided you pass a DC 6 x Item’s Tier General Education check. You gain a bonus to this check based on your familiarity with the item. You can also use this power to see past knockoffs and forgeries, although this is an Opposed Check vs the Guile of the person who made it. When doing so, you still make a check to identify the item. You cannot identify the item’s [Magic] effects, if it has any.
Upon Success, you know the general value of the item, or its apparent value if it is a forgery. If you Succeed against the Opposed Check, you know it is a forgery and its true value.


Circumstance	Check Modifier	Example
Minimal knowledge of subject	+1	A second hand familiarity with subject, a description or very few previous interactions
Fair knowledge of subject	+3	First hand familiarity with subject, many previous interactions within the recent past
Substantial knowledge of subject	+5	Very familiar with subject, a lot of previous interactions stretching over a long period of time
Distracted and not fully focused	-3	Being talked to, using your Standard Action on another task
Extremely distracted and barely focused	-5	Being yelled at, defending against an obvious threat in combat, using your Full Action on another task
Rushing a Full Action to a Standard Action	-2	-
Rushing a Standard Action to a Shift Action	-1	-
Rushing a Standard or Shift Action to a Swift Action	-3	-

Craftwork: When first achieving this skill rank, choose a category from the list below. Once chosen, you may create items from that category. See the Crafting section for details.

Horticulture
Armor & Weapons
Cuisine
General Items
Accessories

Rank 4 (Adept):
Scholar: You are always treated as being in a Study when making any Recall Factoid or Glean Weakness checks, so long as you have Adept Rank or higher in the Factoid’s skill. The Study’s Tier is your own. If you are already in a Study that corresponds to one of your Adept Education skills, then you may Take 6 on your Recall Factoid or Glean Weakness checks.
Glean Weakness: You know where to find an enemy’s Weak Spot. As a Full Action, you may try to locate it by making a DC 5 + Target’s Level General Education check. This power also works on objects that have Weak Spots.


Moderate Success: You discover all of your target’s Weak Spot, if they have multiple. If that Weak Spot is common to a species (such as where a Pidgey’s wing meets its body), then you know that Weak Spot for all members of that species. Success: You discover one of your target’s Weak Spot, if they have one. If that Weak Spot is common to a species (such as where a Pidgey’s wing meets its body), then you know that Weak Spot for all members of that species. Failure: You do not learn the Weak Spot, but may try again. Moderate Failure: You mistakenly identify the wrong spot and are so confident about it that you cannot try again until you encounter that target again after an hour has passed.

Rank 5 (Expert):
I Read About That: When someone near you fails an Education check, you may let them reroll and add half your General Education Rank to the roll. You may only use this power X times per Education Skill per day, where X is your Tier.
Rank 6 (Master):
Master Hobbyist: You gain three Skill Ranks, Skill Stunts, and Grade Points. Additionally, as an Extended Action (L) you can choose the first level of any class and gain its benefits until you use this power again.
Rank 7 (Grandmaster):
Dormant Genius: As an Interrupt Action, you may add your Intelligence capability to your next roll. When you use the Glean Weakness power, the Weak Spot you uncover is 1 step further weak to attacks, meaning neutral attacks are doubly effective and so on.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Sat Jun 19, 2021 3:08 am

There's a whole post I made asking a few questions that I didn't realize never actually manifested. I am not going to text all those words again but I can remember a couple of things I asked about.

I know I asked about if there was sent value in splitting up short and long extended tasks because I couldn't perceive of a time when the difference between something that might've taken 30 mins would need to be acknowledged mechanically vs something that took an hour. We have similar set ups for phases so I'm curious about why you didn't go through with it all the way down. I have travel and downtime like you but also exploration and combat time and both of those move in phases/turns with more fuzzy exact time periods. I make no major difference between 30 minutes and an hour because the clock at the exploration phase moves in just phases. If it would ever become important GMs can specify how much time a thing truly takes and the only time period that matters mechanically are 8 hour periods since you go into downtime/travel times.

I also remember asking about the worth of having two different ways of mechanically handling multiple people doing a thing. If it ever became important or you wanted to summate someone if equal skill helping more than someone with no skill you could have just aiding give a reroll and a should aid giving a reroll + a bonus and not have to split it up.

For skills in general, especially if you're going through the complex task of adding skill tricks I highly recommend organizing them in a way where at very similar ranks you get very similar benefits. One of the big issues with skills and feats gaining abilities over time is that balloons the number of things players have and at a certain point players begin to forget what they have. Generating more content, like a whole body of pokemon/trainer abilities will already get to a point where you're going to be testing the limits of what your players can recall moment to moment so you should try to cut corners of make it less taxing to remember what's available. If most, if not all, of your skill follow a certain rhythm it takes less to recall what a skill at a certain rank probably does.

Last thing I can recall is about being too specific with the numbers. It is almost always better, imo to be fuzzy about the exact numbers when you can. Tracking listen checks by decibels and the range at which a character can hear a gunshot seems overindulgent. In real time I don't think a you're going to have a player hear a gunshot and think 'that must have been within x meters!' and have that be incredibly important information. I think irl if a gunshot good off you'll get asked if they know the direction it came from and if it sounded 'close'. Even with jump checks, unless you're measuring distance war game style, it is likely a lot more important if the player can make a jump by a measure of units that actually gets tracked mechanically than for them to know by any smaller amount. In all my years of going I can't recall a time I set up a jump that I bothered to measure by anything less than 5ft blocks.

The Adventurer's Almanac · Sat Jun 19, 2021 6:50 pm

MGuy wrote:I know I asked about if there was sent value in splitting up short and long extended tasks because I couldn't perceive of a time when the difference between something that might've taken 30 mins would need to be acknowledged mechanically vs something that took an hour. We have similar set ups for phases so I'm curious about why you didn't go through with it all the way down.

I can see where you're coming from with this, so I did a quick look over all the skills to see if there's a case where the difference might actually matter. Currently, I don't think that's the case. I could see value in keeping Extended Actions (Short) if they were really short, like 1-5 minutes, and anything from 5 minutes to 1 hour is an Extended Action (Long). Even then, is it worth it?

I'd like to see what you think as I keep going, because for some skills, using them as an Extended Action (L) makes the skill more powerful by a magnitude. Using Flirt as a Standard Action inflicts a status for a few rounds, but using it as an Extended Action (S) makes it work for hours and an Extended Action (L) makes it work for days.

MGuy wrote:I also remember asking about the worth of having two different ways of mechanically handling multiple people doing a thing. If it ever became important or you wanted to summate someone if equal skill helping more than someone with no skill you could have just aiding give a reroll and a should aid giving a reroll + a bonus and not have to split it up.

This is also a good point. I like the idea of Team Skill Checks, but in practice it's not something I've used often. However, is that just because of my GMing style or the mechanic itself? It can be hard to find that line. If I had to get rid of one, it'd probably be that one.

MGuy wrote:For skills in general, especially if you're going through the complex task of adding skill tricks I highly recommend organizing them in a way where at very similar ranks you get very similar benefits. One of the big issues with skills and feats gaining abilities over time is that balloons the number of things players have and at a certain point players begin to forget what they have.

I completely agree and I've been trying to do that. If you have any ideas for cool tricks or powers or find the placement of things questionable, please let me know. I've been in the reeds on this shit for months, so I have no idea how it might look to outsiders.

MGuy wrote:Last thing I can recall is about being too specific with the numbers. It is almost always better, imo to be fuzzy about the exact numbers when you can. Tracking listen checks by decibels and the range at which a character can hear a gunshot seems overindulgent. In real time I don't think a you're going to have a player hear a gunshot and think 'that must have been within x meters!' and have that be incredibly important information. I think irl if a gunshot good off you'll get asked if they know the direction it came from and if it sounded 'close'. Even with jump checks, unless you're measuring distance war game style, it is likely a lot more important if the player can make a jump by a measure of units that actually gets tracked mechanically than for them to know by any smaller amount. In all my years of going I can't recall a time I set up a jump that I bothered to measure by anything less than 5ft blocks.

Oh yes, this has been quite overindulgent. The way I see it, it's easier to collate these tables into something more digestible now that I have a decently exhaustive list of shit to expect. I'm still brainstorming, so to speak. For example, I could just turn that silly Hearing Event table into ranges of decibels and reduce it to a third or fifth of its original size without really losing anything important. Is there a huge difference between 0 decibels and 20 decibels? Probably not. Between 0 and 50? Maybe, yeah.
Either way, it should be easier to get less specific, right?

ALSO, hey! The jump check table actually IS in a measure of units. Squares in this game are 1 meter by 1 meter, not 5 feet by 5 feet.

The Adventurer's Almanac · Sat Jun 19, 2021 6:55 pm

The good news is that most of the insane tables are for Body skills. Things should be a bit simpler from here on out.

Medicine Education

Rank 1 (Pathetic):
Recall Medical Factoid: See the Knowledge section for details.
Rank 2 (Untrained):
Stabilize: As a Standard Action, you may apply a Bandage to a Fainted creature and make a DC 6 Medicine Education check.

Moderate Success: It gains 1 Temporary HP Tick per 3 points you beat the DC by.
Success: It is brought to 1 HP.
Failure: You waste the Bandage but don’t make things worse.
Rank 3 (Novice):
Mitigate Poison: As a Standard Action you may treat a creature who is Poisoned (including yourself), negating the effects of the poison for one round per Your Tier. If you use this power on yourself, it uses a Full Action. This power also works on Toxins.
Craftwork: When first achieving this skill rank, choose a category from the list below. Once chosen, you may create items from that category. See the Crafting section for details.
1. Restoratives
2. Steroids (CS changers)
3. Toxins
Rank 4 (Adept):
Treat Patients: As a Downtime Action, with a DC 6 Medicine Education check you may care for up to 3 + Your Tier creatures at a time. You may care for an additional patient for every 3 points that you exceed the DC. If you do not meet the DC, you do not care for anyone. You count as two patients. You need a First Aid Kit to use this power.
While under your care, patients recover HP and Skill Damage twice as quickly as normal and are cleared of all Persistent Statuses (that are your Tier or lower) during the Downtime Phase. Additionally, you can make a Medicine Education check for each patient actively suffering from a disease under your care; they may use your check in place of theirs if it is higher. Patients must remain under your care for at least 8 hours to gain these benefits. While someone is your patient, you do not need to spend Downtime Actions to continue to care for them. You may treat patients while travelling without penalty, though most forms of movement are active enough that you will only gain the healing benefit from the evening’s rest.
Immediate Healing: As a Standard Action with a DC 6 + Target’s Tier Medicine Education check, you attempt to heal a creature. Each additional check on the same patient imposes a cumulative -3 penalty to your checks to heal them in this fashion until they take an Extended Rest.

Moderate Success: They heal 3 HP Ticks.
Success: They heal 2 HP Ticks.
Failure: They heal 1 HP Tick.
Moderate Failure: You deal Your Tier damage to them.
Rank 5 (Expert):
Combat Medic: As a Full Action you may make a DC 5 x Status’s Tier Medicine Education check to attempt to cure a creature of its status afflictions (use the highest Tier status afflicting the target). Alternatively, you may make a DC 12 Medicine Education check to attempt to cure its Skill Damage. Upon Success, you cure one status condition or clear one Rank of Skill Damage of your choice. For every 3 points you succeed over the DC, you may cure another status condition or another Rank of Skill Damage. You may not cure status afflictions of a higher Tier than you with this power.
Rank 6 (Master):
I’m a Doctor: Patients under your care receive additional benefits. They are set to 100% of their Max HP after an Extended Rest and heal 2 Skill Ranks every 4 hours. If any patient is suffering from disease, you may make two Medicine Education checks when they make a save; the patient uses any successful rolls among them and is immediately cured of the disease if both checks are successful.

Rank 7 (Grandmaster):
Resuscitate: As a Full Action, you can attempt to bring someone who recently died back to life. The DC for this check is 4 + Target Level, +1 for every round since they died. Using this power counts as an attempt at Immediate Healing and you suffer a -3 penalty for each previous Immediate Healing attempted on them since their last rest.


Critical Success: The target is brought back to life with 2 HP Ticks. Moderate Success: The target is brought back to life with 1 HP Tick. Success: The target is brought back to life with 1 HP. Failure: You do not bring them back to life this round, but may attempt next round (and this does not count as an attempt of Immediate Healing). Moderate Failure: You cannot bring them back to life with this power in future rounds.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Sun Jun 20, 2021 2:52 am

My phone's autocorrect really did a number on that last post. As for the skills thing I still wouldn't see a value in short vs extended. Your skill uses scale to the time frame so if you use the Flirt skill as a standard action, in combat time, you get the combat time effect. If you used it as part of downtime you'd get the downtime length of time for the effect. This is just me wondering out loud though. If you have something in mind where you're going to be breaking things down by half an hour bits then its best to just ignore me. Like I didn't know your spacing was in meters so there's that.

The Adventurer's Almanac · Sun Jun 20, 2021 3:56 am

MGuy wrote: ↑
Sun Jun 20, 2021 2:52 am
My phone's autocorrect really did a number on that last post. As for the skills thing I still wouldn't see a value in short vs extended. Your skill uses scale to the time frame so if you use the Flirt skill as a standard action, in combat time, you get the combat time effect. If you used it as part of downtime you'd get the downtime length of time for the effect. This is just me wondering out loud though. If you have something in mind where you're going to be breaking things down by half an hour bits then its best to just ignore me. Like I didn't know your spacing was in meters so there's that.

I've been trying to not utilize too much battlemat-focused terminology like squares, but I should definitely make note of that at some point. As for the extended action thing... it wouldn't be too difficult to replace Extended Action (L) with Downtime Actions and just make Extended Action (S) into an Extended Action. Free up a bit of space. We'll see.

The Adventurer's Almanac · Sun Jun 20, 2021 4:02 am

Occult Education

Rank 1 (Pathetic):
Recall Occult Factoid: See the Knowledge section for details.

Rank 2 (Untrained):
Identify Magic: You can attempt to identify [Magic] effects as an Interrupt Action. The DC for this check is 6 x Effect’s Tier.


Critical Success: You know exactly what created the effect and when, in addition to what tags it has. Moderate Success: You also identify a non-specific source and what tags the effect has. For example, you would know a force field was created by a Ghost-type pokemon, but not what kind of pokemon. Success: You recognize what tags the effect has.

Rank 3 (Novice):
Dowser: As an Extended Action (S), you may use a dowsing implement to find natural resources. This dowsing implement must be rod-like and less than 5 feet long - meaning some weapons count. If you use a Dowsing Rod, you gain a +3 bonus to dowsing checks. If the dowser instead spends an Extended Action (L), with a pull after the initial dowsing check to weigh and examine it they learn more about the distance, quantity, quality, and ease of accessibility of the target source. This power has a range of 2 km.
You may attempt to find drinkable water or similar kinds of natural resource that a Pokemon requires to live, like gems for a Sableye, with a DC 6 Occult Education check. You may also attempt to find mineral resources like Shards, natural metals, or ore veins with a DC 8 Occult Education check. If attempting to find a specific mineral, you suffer a penalty on your check ranging from 1-4 points, depending on the rarity and value of it. This penalty is set by the GM, but they should tell you the penalty amount before you make the check. This power is completely blocked by at least 1 inch of lead or natural lodestone deposits.


Critical Success: You know where any source of water or minerals is. Moderate Success: You know where any source larger than a bucket is. Success: You learn where any source larger than a bathtub is. Failure: You know where any source larger than a home is. Moderate Failure: You don’t feel any pull and have no idea where to start looking.

Craftwork: When first achieving this skill rank, choose a category from the list below. Once chosen, you may create items from that category. See the Crafting section for details.

Weapon Enchantments
Armor Wards
Magic Items

Rank 4 (Adept):
Track Aura [Tracking]: As an Extended Action (S), you may use a dowsing implement to find a specific creature or object. Once you begin this process, you must not be interrupted or the power will fail. Their Aura remains behind in the path they have traveled, and this pull leads to the nearest spot on their trail within 2 km, or along their trail if you are already adjacent to it. Once you have the right pull, you do not need to weigh the pull so long as you successfully make a check to follow it again within 1 minute of a previously successful check or weighing. If needed, you can reacquire it with an Occult Education check and a full minute of weighing so long as this is attempted within 1 hour.
The DC for this check is determined by your connection to the target, as indicated in the table below. Since this power follows a path and not the individual themselves, it is not stopped by materials that block dowsing attempts unless the whole path is separated from the dowser by such materials.


Knowledge of Person or Object	DC
None	16¹
Secondhand (You have heard of the person or object)	14¹
Firsthand (You have seen the person or object)	12
Familiar (You know the person or object well)	10
^{1. You must have some sort of connection to a creature or object you have no direct experience with.}
Connection	Check Modifier
Likeness or picture	+0
Possession or related object	+1
Body part (hair, scale, etc.) or piece of object	+3


Success: You can follow the pull to any trail that is less than 1 day old. For every 3 points you succeed over the DC, you can follow a trail that is 1 day older. Failure: You know the general direction to their trail, but no direct connection. Moderate Failure: You fail to find anything and need to spend an Extended Action (L) to take a break before trying again.

Rank 5 (Expert):
Sense Presence [Magic]: As a Shift Action, you can gain Lifesense out to 20 meters for 1 round. Alternatively, you may use a Swift Action to gain Lifesense out to 4 meters for 1 round. These distances are reduced to half if you do not have a dowsing implement in your hand and are doubled if you are wielding a Dowsing Rod.
Rank 6 (Master):
Sense Any Presence: When using Sense Presence, you can detect Intangible creatures with Lifesense.

Rank 7 (Grandmaster):
Necroglot: You gain the Necroglot capability.
Scrying [Tracking, Magic]: You are able to use reflective surfaces as scrying devices, to see and hear locations or people far away. This requires an Extended Action (L) and an Occult Education check and the DC functions similarly to Track Aura, except you need information or materials from the location rather than a piece of the object. The scrying window lasts up to a period of time determined by your check result. Each additional scrying attempt before you have had an Extended Rest increases the DC by 3 points. You do not need to concentrate to maintain the window, and you do not need to be within any particular range of it.
If you are targeting an individual, it shows their immediate surroundings (about a 3 meter radius), and you hear sounds as if you were in the location. The window will follow them at a rate of up to 100 meters per round. If you are targeting an area, you instead see an area (about a 10 meter radius), though this can be blocked by walls or other obstructions and cannot move. You can use any of your non-touch senses to perceive things on the other side. Other creatures may use your window for these functions. Objects in view are displayed in detail, while creatures other than the initial target are not shown in identifying detail and sounds they make are distorted. If you or anyone viewing attempts to make them out, they must pass a DC 5 x Target’s Tier Occult Education check to cause them to show up clearly.
Your scrying window may be noticed by creatures with Expert or higher Occult Education. When scrying on them, they may attempt to return scry through your window with a DC 12 Occult Education check and may attempt to break the window with an Opposed Check. If they return scry, they cannot learn your identity, merely your surroundings.


Critical Success: You may view the location for 1 hour per Occult Education Rank you have. Moderate Success: You may view the location for 10 minutes per Occult Education Rank. Success: You may view the location for 1 minute per Occult Education Rank. Failure: You may view the location for 1 round per Occult Education Rank. Moderate Failure: You cannot view anything at all.

The Adventurer's Almanac · Sun Jun 20, 2021 4:07 pm

Pokemon Education

Rank 1 (Pathetic):
Recall Pokemon Factoid: See the Knowledge section for details.

Rank 2 (Untrained):
Size Up Pokemon: You can attempt to identify the combat ability of a Pokemon as a Free Action Interrupt. The DC for this check is 5 + Target’s Level. They do not have to be alive for you to gather information about them, though they must still be identifiable. You always learn your target’s Tier.


Critical Success: You are aware of what Moves they know. Moderate Success: You are aware of all of their Abilities and Capabilities. Success: You learn what its highest stat is, as well as their Types and Level.

Rank 3 (Novice):
Improve Pokemon’s Attitude: As an Extended Action (S), you speak with a Pokemon uninterrupted, or otherwise share an activity with it. If this activity is interrupted, you must start over at a later time. At the end of the action, you make a Pokemon Education check with a DC of 5 + Target Level + Target’s Negative Attitude, modified by its Type as in the table below. You can affect no more Pokemon than your number of Pokemon Education Ranks at one time. You may not retry this check during the same encounter, but you may use it on a Pokemon multiple times over multiple meetings. If you use this on a Pokemon who remembers you in a later encounter, their actual Attitude modifier is replaced by a +2 DC penalty. If you spend a lot of time with a Pokemon and get along well with them, no check is needed. If you can tell they are faking their growing rapport with you or aren’t liking you quickly enough, you may use this power. If you mistreat or disappoint a Pokemon while their attitude has been changed, they are likely to respond more negatively than before.


Critical Success: You positively shift their Attitude with you up to 3 steps, but no farther than Friendly. Moderate Success: You positively shift their Attitude with you up to 2 steps, but no farther than Friendly. Success: You positively shift their Attitude with you up to 1 step, but no farther than Friendly. Failure: Their Attitude does not change. Moderate Failure: They take it the wrong way and negatively shift their Attitude 1 step, but no farther than Hostile.


Target Attitude	Example	DC Modifier
Murderous	Vitriolically hates you and tries to murder you on sight. If forced into conversation, will probably just scream at you. May stalk you, looking for a chance to hurt you.	+4
Hostile	Hates you and would probably beat you up if they could get away with it.	+2
Suspicious	Dislikes you and would passively frustrate your goals.	+1
Indifferent	Has no inclination to help or hinder you.	0
Comfortable	Likes you and would assist if it’s convenient.	-1
Friendly	Likes you and would assist just because you asked.	-2
Devoted	Is devoted to you and tries to assist without being asked, even if it isn’t particularly helpful. May stalk you, looking for a chance to help you.	-4


Rushing	Check Modifier
Rushing an Extended Action (S) to a Full Action	-3
Target Type	Check Modifier
Target has Grass, Fairy, Normal or Flying type.	+0¹
Target has Ground, Bug, Fighting, Psychic, Ice, or Water type.	-1¹
Target has Poison, Rock, Steel, Fire, or Electric type.	-3¹
Target has Ghost, Dragon, or Dark type.	-5¹
^{1. Always use the highest penalty when applicable.}

Craftwork: When first achieving this skill rank, choose a category from the list below. Once chosen, you may create items from that category. See the Crafting section for details.

Accessories
Evolutionary/Mega Items
Pokemon Equipment
Pokeballs

Rank 4 (Adept):
Mentor: As a Downtime Action, you can teach Pokemon moves from its Tutor List or Natural Move List that are your Tier or lower. Additionally you can change the target’s Nature to any other Nature, remove one of its Edges (refunding any Tutor Points spent), change a Basic Ability to the species’s other Basic Ability, or change an Advanced Ability to a different Advanced Ability or Basic Ability. This may not be used to reroll Abilities that require a roll to determine characteristics, such as Serpent’s Mark or Color Theory.

Rank 5 (Expert):
Woah There: As a Standard Action, you may make a DC 5 + Highest Opponent Level + Worst Negative Attitude Within Group + Leader’s Tier Pokemon Education check (plus modifiers) to delay a group of wild Pokemon from attacking you. If you succeed, they will not approach within 3 meters of you nor attack you for a time dependent on your check result. If you wish to delay them after that point, you must succeed on the opposed check again or give them some other reason not to attack, such that they change their mind on their own. Any obvious attempt at escape or aggressive action automatically ends this effect, leaving the Pokemon free to do as they like.


Success: You delay them for one round. For every 3 points over your success you delay them for an additional round. The more rounds you delay them for, the more the creatures are unsure of your group. Failure: They ignore you and attack.

Rank 6 (Master):
Beseech Aid: As an Extended Action (S), you may make a DC 5 + Target’s Level Pokemon Education check (plus modifiers) to get a Wild Pokemon to aid you for a short time. Your target must be at least Comfortable towards you to use this power. Using this power will not make Wild Pokemon fight for you unless they are Devoted towards you. Pokemon beseeched by this power will almost never travel more than half a day away from their homes or territory.


Critical Success: The Pokemon will aid you for 24 hours and use all of its Capabilities for you, shifting the Pokemon’s attitude 1 step in the positive direction at the end of this period. Moderate Success: The Pokemon will aid you for 1 hour per Pokemon Education rank you have and use all of its Capabilities for you. Success: The Pokemon will aid you for 1 round per Pokemon Education rank you have, or until it completes the task you beseeched it for. Failure: The Pokemon ignores your request. Moderate Failure: You offend it and its disposition is 1 step more negative towards you.

Rank 7 (Grandmaster):
Polyglot: You gain the Polyglot capability.
Legendary Recall: You can immediately tell when a creature has been touched by a Legendary Pokemon. As a Standard Action, you may make a DC 5 + Target’s Level Pokemon Education check to determine what Auras and Blessings a creature has, as well as their effects. Once you use this power on a creature, you may not use it on them again until 24 hours have passed, or you see them use a power granted by their Auras or Blessings.


Critical Success: You know all of its Auras and Blessings, as well as any methods of disabling its Auras. Moderate Success: You know all of its Auras and Blessings. Success: You learn one of its Auras or Blessings, chosen by the GM. Failure: You learn one of its Auras or Blessings… and this information is false. Moderate Failure: You don’t learn anything at all.

The Adventurer's Almanac · Tue Jun 22, 2021 2:58 am

Technology Education

Rank 1 (Pathetic):
Recall Technology Factoid: See the Knowledge section for details.

Rank 2 (Untrained):
Size Up Machine: You can attempt to identify the combat ability of a robot or vehicle as an Interrupt Action. The DC for this check is 5 + Target’s Level. It does not have to be functional for you to gather information about it, though it must still be identifiable. You always learn your target’s Tier.


Critical Success: You are aware of what Moves it knows as well as who created the robot or vehicle. Moderate Success: You are aware of all of its Abilities and Capabilities. Success: You learn what its highest stat is, as well as its level.

Rank 3 (Novice):
Manipulate Device: You may attempt to manipulate a device, such as a computer or complex machine, as a Full Action. You can manipulate the device in 1d4 rounds, including the first round spent doing so. You may retry this check provided you have not done something to prevent further manipulation. The Base DC is noted in the table below. When manipulating a device, you use its function or change it in some way, such as operating a vehicle or planting a virus on a computer. If you are trying to manipulate a device that is a Tier above you, then you must make an Extended Skill Check instead, with the Base DC of the device multiplied by 2-5, based on the mechanical or digital complexity of it.


Success: You manipulate it without issue. Failure: You did not achieve your goal, but may try again. Moderate Failure: The device becomes inoperable in some way, preventing further attempts.


Lock	Base DC	Example
Pathetic Device	8	Driving an old car, hacking your average home computer
Novice Device	10	Flying an airplane, hacking an office’s server system
Expert Device	14	Flying a space shuttle, hacking a megacorp’s protected servers
Master Device	20	Turning a Death Ray into a Love Ray, hacking into top secret government databases
Virtuoso Device	26	Turning a manmade portal to the Distortion World into a portal to the Dream World
Condition	Check Modifier	Example
Rushing a 1d4 round action to a Full Action	-1	Trying to hack into someone’s computer when they’re coming down the hallway
Attempting to hide your work	-3	Flying a plane, but making it hard to tell that you have done so

Craftwork: When first achieving this skill rank, choose a category from the list below. Once chosen, you may create items from that category. See the Crafting section for details.

Armor & Weapons
Pokeballs
Traps
Robots
Hi-tech Items

Rank 4 (Adept):
Pokeball Repair: You may attempt to fix any Pokeball that has failed to capture a Pokemon and broke. As an Extended Action (S), make a DC 14 Technology Check. Requires access to a Pokeball Toolbox.


Success: The Pokeball is fixed and treated as if it had not broken. Failure: The ball is still broken, but you may try again. Moderate Failure: It is broken and can never be repaired again.

Look, A Trap!: With 1d4 rounds of work, you can make it look like an object, location, or device is trapped. Since the trap is intended to slow people down instead of actually harming them, this false trap is easy to find, requiring only a DC 4 Perception Check to uncover. When an attempt is made to disarm it, the attempt is always successful, revealing the trap to be a fake.
Rank 5 (Expert):
Subvert Machine: You can attempt to take control over a robot or vehicle as a Full Action. The DC for this check is 5 + Target’s Level. You must be in physical contact with the controls of the machine unless you have a Hacking Device. You can only use this power when someone else still has control of the machine; if a car has no driver then use Manipulate Device. If the original user wants to reassert control, make an Opposed Check where the winner controls the machine. You cannot use this power on machines of a Tier higher than yours.


Critical Success: You kick the other user out and they cannot make future attempts to control this machine unless circumstances change. Moderate Success: You control the machine for 1 minute before the other user can try to reassert control. Success: You control the machine for 1 round before the other user can try to reassert control. Failure: You do not subvert the machine, but can attempt again in the future. Moderate Failure: You are kicked out and cannot make future attempts to control this machine unless circumstances change.

Rank 6 (Master):
Distill Capability: As an Extended Action (L), you may acquire a sample from a willing creature, such as a Magneton’s electric frequency or a Muk’s muck, targeting a single of its Capabilities. You can create 2 + Target’s Tier Gadgets from this sample. Anyone with at least Adept Technology Education can use these Gadgets, which fit into an equipment slot and allow the user to mimic the chosen Capability. Gadgets are delicate and tend to become inoperable after a week of regular use.
Rank 7 (Grandmaster):
Mad Science: You can create [Time] and [Space] items with the Craftwork power. Additionally, you may use Distill Capability on willing creatures and target their Auras or Blessings instead of a Capability.

The Adventurer's Almanac · Wed Jun 23, 2021 12:38 am

Survival

Rank 1 (Pathetic):
Recall Survival Factoid: See the Knowledge section for details.
Bind Adversary: As an Extended Action (S), you may bind someone with rope, vine, thread, etc. The bind requires a Stealth Check with a DC of 4 + Your Survival Ranks to escape, or a similar Athletics Check to break. If the item used to bind your target has at least 25 HP, then your Survival Ranks are doubled for this DC. If you use chains or manacles, then your Survival Ranks are tripled. Magic Manacles have a DC of 30.

Rank 2 (Untrained):
Wilderness Living: At the beginning of your Travel Phase you must decide to attempt to find Resources while you travel. This usually requires 8 hours of work, but occurs concurrently with normal walking and so doesn’t require taking time out of your day to accomplish. Your surroundings determine the base DC for this check, since they determine the availability of food.
Areas like Deserts, Caves, Oceans, or Mountains, or places with other issues have a DC as high as 12. Common Forests, Wetlands, or Grasslands have a DC of around 8, based on local conditions. Well tended areas with available produce, as well as places you have Naturewalk for may have a DC as low as 4, while areas where nearly everything is edible may have a DC as low as 0, though you may run into legal concerns with these.
If you take 2 hours out of your daily travel to forage, you increase your check result by +3. If you take 4 hours out of your travel, you increase your check by +6. If you spend 8 hours foraging, you increase your check by +9. Time spent foraging counts as time walking overland. If you are mounted while foraging, you suffer a -6 penalty to your check result.


Success: You find 2 Resources plus 1 Resource per 2 points you exceed the DC. Failure: You do not find anything at all.

Pokemon that are killed can be harvested for their materials, gaining Food Scrap according to the table below. If it has the Cyborg Capability, it only gives half as much Food Scrap. If it has the Inorganic Capability, it gives no Food Scrap.


Size	Food Scrap Amount
Mini	N/A
Tiny	$10
Small	$25
Medium	$50
Large	$100
Huge	$200
Massive	$500
Gigantic	$1,000

Track Quarry [Tracking]: You can find and follow any trail with a DC of 6 or less. Finding a more complicated trail requires the Tracker Capability. The Base DC of the trail is determined by the surface the tracks are on. You can attempt to locate a trail within a 1x1 meter area as a Full Action, or you can search within 20 meters of you as an Extended Action (L).


Critical Success: You may follow the trail for 20 miles before needing to make another Tracking check and may Hurry for free. Moderate Success: You may follow the trail for 10 miles. Success: You may follow the trail for 5 miles. Failure: You may follow the trail at twice the usual movement cost. Moderate Failure: You find nothing and must wait 1 hour (outdoors) or 10 minutes (indoors) before you can retry.


Surface	Base DC	Example
Pliable Surface	2	Any surface (fresh snow, wet mud, thick dust) that holds deep, clear impressions of footprints.
Supple Surface	4	Any surface soft enough to yield to pressure, but firmer than wet mud or fresh snow, in which frequent footprints are left.
Giving Surface	6	Most normal outdoor surfaces (fields and woods), or exceptionally soft or dirty indoor surfaces (plush rugs and dirty floors). Few footprints can be found, but there may be some traces leftover.
Trackless Surface	8	Any surface that doesn’t hold footprints at all, such as bare rock or most indoor surfaces. Only traces are leftover.
Liquid Surface	11	The surface of a liquid, like lava or water. Traces are leftover, but are likely washed away.
Through Liquid	14	The inside of a liquid, typically used for following fish.
Through Gas	17	The air around us, typically used for following fliers or falling creatures.


Condition	DC Modifier
Every 3 creatures in the group being tracked	-1
Size of creature or creatures being tracked:¹
3 or more sizes smaller than the tracker	+4
2 sizes smaller than the tracker	+2
1 size smaller than the tracker	+1
Same size as tracker	0
1 size larger than the tracker	-1
2 sizes larger than the tracker	-2
3 or more sizes larger than the tracker	-4
Every 24 hours since the trail was made	+1
Every hour of rain since the trail was made	+1
Every hour of snow fall or acid rain since the trail was made	+3
Poor visibility:²
Overcast or moonless night	+3
Moonlight, fog, or precipitation	+1
Tracked party hides trail (and moves at half speed)	+2
^{1. For a group of mixed sizes, apply only the modifier for the largest size category.} ^{2. Apply only the largest modifier from this category.}

Rank 3 (Novice):
Rope Trick: As a Standard Action, you may attempt to tie a special knot. You may tie ropes with one hand with a DC 6 Survival Check. With a DC 8 Survival Check, you can tie a firm knot that unties itself when you or someone who makes a check higher than yours, pulls on it. You may also add Your Tier to attack rolls made to set grappling hooks or use the Lasso maneuver.

Success: You tie a knot that behaves as expected.
Failure: Your knot unravels as soon as you attempt to use it.
Moderate Failure: Your knot unravels 1d4 rounds after you start using it. Oops!

Craftwork: When first achieving this skill rank, choose a category from the list below. Once chosen, you may create items from that category. See the Crafting section for details.
1. Horticulture
2. Pokeballs
3. Traps
4. Toxins

Rank 4 (Adept):
Rough It: You can turn natural flora and fauna in an area into protective clothing and shelters for yourself and others. You can skin a creature of your size as an Extended Action (L). A Medium creature skinned in this way provides approximately one square meter of material. Larger creatures require four times as long per size category difference, but also provide four times the material. Smaller creatures require ¼ as long per size category difference, and provide ¼ the material. Making material from flora takes anywhere from an Extended Action (S) to a Downtime Action, depending on their availability within the environment. After you have the material, you must spend an Extended Action (S) working it together into a square meter of material. You can wear these prepared materials immediately, if you don’t mind some blood and sap. Otherwise, you must wait a day for them to cure and dry.
A medium creature’s Clothes require 2 square meters of material, and their shelter requires 3 (although you can certainly make larger ones). Larger creatures require 4 times as much material for each size category larger than Medium they are, while smaller creatures require ¼ as much material per size category smaller than they are. Materials are generally only suitable for the similar environments as those in which they were acquired. While wearing appropriate Clothes or being in an appropriate Tent, you do not make checks to withstand ambient conditions or weather.
Weatherman: You always know where “true north” is, assuming it exists in your dimension. With a successful DC 8 Survival Check and a minute to take in the world, you can learn what the weather has in store for your area. If you enter a new area, you need to make another check to have any knowledge of its expected weather. ‘Area’ in this sense is intentionally vague, as large open plains may be considered the same area while neighboring valleys may not be. This power does not work in other dimensions.


Critical Success: You learn the weather conditions for the next 4 days. Moderate Success: You learn the weather conditions for the next 2 days. Success: You learn the weather conditions for the next 24 hours. Failure: You learn the weather conditions for the next 6 hours. Moderate Failure: You guess the weather conditions for the next 60 seconds and might still be wrong.

Rank 5 (Expert):
Tracker: You gain the Tracker Capability.
Hide Trail: You spend at least one minute indoors or 5 minutes outdoors hiding your trail to slow down a pursuer. After that time, you hide your trail as best you can and move on. The first time a pursuer reaches the spot where you hid your trail, you make a check to see how well your trail was hidden. The effects on your pursuer are determined by your check results. The DC for this check is 4 + (Tracker’s Survival Ranks x 2). Only the really determined trackers look for your trail outdoors for longer than 2 hours.


Critical Success: The DC to track your party increases by +8 when they reach this spot, and if they fail this increased check, they must spend 8 times as long as normal searching for the trail again. Moderate Success: The DC increases by +4, and they must spend 4 times as long searching for your trail. Success: The DC increases by +2, and they must spend twice as long searching for your trail. Failure: The DC to track your party doesn’t change, but the tracker must make an additional check to follow your trail. Moderate Failure: The DC to track your party doesn’t change and the tracker doesn’t have to make an additional check to follow your trail.

Rank 6 (Master):
Multiverse Traveler: You may use Rough It in any environment at all, even places like the Ghost World. Weatherman also functions in other dimensions as well, meaning you always know where ‘North’ (or some analogue) is and what possible weathers there could be.

Rank 7 (Grandmaster):
Last Train Home: You can determine the direction and approximate distance to any location you have ever visited on your current world or dimension. You can also determine the direction and distance to the nearest portal, conduit, or other magical link that leads to any other dimension or alternate time.
Doing this takes one minute of concentration and a DC 14 Survival check, or 5 minutes if you are looking for a portal you have previously visited. Attempting to find a portal to a dimension or time you have not visited or have only teleported from requires a DC 17 Survival check instead. Your check result determines what you learn from the attempt.
Regardless of your check result, you learn no information about the portal besides its general location, and it may not actually be able to open it when you reach it. This power does not necessarily provide the shortest path to a destination, as going through other dimensions might be the shorter route, but would not be indicated by this power.


Critical Success: You learn the direction to your target and the exact distance in meters. Moderate Success: You learn the direction to your target and the exact distance in kilometers. Success: You learn the direction to your target and distance to the nearest 8 kilometer increment. Failure: You locate nothing and suffer a cumulative -1 penalty to attempts to locate it again for the next 24 hours.

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