Initial Abilities and Disabilities
Abilities and Disabilities are your character’s inherent advantages and disadvantages. In game play, they can help or hurt your character directly, or boost your character’s Skills or limit them. This is a reflection of the fact that most people are naturally better at some things or have certain other types of advantages in life, but may have to work harder than others to achieve the same levels of success.
Most Abilities and Disabilities are listed as costing a certain number of CP per level. Positive numbers show the number of CP you must give up to gain a level of an Advantage, while negative numbers reflect the number of extra CP you receive when you accept each level of a Disadvantage. CP you gain by accepting a Disadvantage can be put toward other Attributes or Skills. In most cases, the level of the Ability or Disability indicates the degree to which your character possesses it, though there are some that are single-level, meaning you either have it or you don’t. There are no levels for them.
Some important things to keep in mind about Abilities and Disabilities:
- Some make it much easier or harder for you to do certain things. These typically give bonus levels to certain Attributes or Skills. For each bonus level, your character’s Attribute or Skill is considered to be higher than it actually is.
- Most of the rest give you bonus or penalty dice when trying to perform some action. Bonus and penalty dice function as described on the main rules page. You can try to overcome some Disabilities through force of Will or some other Attribute.
- Many Abilities and Disabilities can be modified by the current situation. It may in general be very difficult for you to keep your temper, but certain things may be happening at the moment that change exactly how difficult that is at the moment. Friends gathered around “talking you down” will make it easier. An enemy mocking you to your face makes it harder. The GM will use these and similar situational modifiers as the game progresses. Some of the more common modifiers are labeled “Typical modifiers” in the descriptions in the Abilities and Disabilities list, but in reality, there is no limit to the number of possible modifiers.
Example: Jolene has Rapid Healing at level 5, and a Con of 6. She has been injured, and is under the care of a physician. When rolling to see how well she heals, she adds 5 to her Con level. In other words, thanks to Rapid Healing, Jolene heals as if her Con were 11, not 6.
Example: Dianne has Impulsiveness at level 3 and a Will of 5. She is supposed be watching Hamish, but Hamish isn’t doing anything even remotely interesting. A street band begins playing down the street, attracting her attention. Dianne needs to achieve at least 3 Ss on a Will roll to avoid being distracted by the band.
Example: Using Dianne’s example above, let’s change the scenario a little. Dianne absolutely loves Dwarvish bands, and as it happens, the street band we spoke of is one of the better known Dwarvish bands in the land. The GM may assess a 2-level penalty to her Impulsiveness Disability in this instance. So now, Dianne needs to achieve at least 5 Ss on her Will roll (3 for Will + 2 penalty) to avoid being distracted by the band.
Will Roll Failures
As a general rule, when a Will roll is allowed to attempt to overcome the Disability, the ramifications of failing the roll are summed up below. Specifics of the failure can be found on each applicable Disability’s page.
| -Ss* | General Failure Results |
|---|---|
| 0 | No outward sign, other than some hesitation |
| 1 | Minimal impact to situation |
| 2 | Moderate impact to situation |
| 3 | Major impact to situation |
| 4 | Sever impact to situation |
| 5 | Catastrophic impact to situation |
| 6 | Cataclysmic impact to situation |
| 7 | Apocalyptic impact to situation |
*This refers to how badly the character failed the roll to overcome the Disability.
In Dianne’s second example, she needed 5 Ss to overcome her Impulsiveness Disability, but when she rolled, she only managed 3 Ss. She failed by 2 Ss, which equates to a moderate impact on the situation. The actual outcome will ultimately be up to the GM to decide, and in this case the GM interprets the moderate impact to mean that Dianne briefly allows the band to distract her. While distracted, she fails to notice the stranger surreptitiously sidle up to Hamish, whisper something in his ear, and quickly leave.
Creating New Abilities and Disabilities
Note that players can create their own Abilities and Disabilities if they wish and if the GM agrees. As a rough rule of thumb, if the Ability or Disability in question affects 5 or more Skills, it should be considered as +/- 5 points/level. Otherwise, it should be considered as +/- 2 points/level. Some Abilities and Disabilities add bonus or penalty dice to the Skill roll it affects, others actually give additional (or fewer) levels to the Skill levels they affect.
Changes to Abilities and Disabilities During the Game
Finally, Advantages and Disadvantages are attributes that affect your character before the game starts. If events during game play cause you to suffer what would be considered a Disadvantage when creating your character (e.g., you lose a hand or some of your hearing), you do not gain CP.
With the GM’s permission (some may not allow it), you can use CP you earn during game play to “buy down” a Disability picked up during character creation, though you cannot gain Abilities you didn’t have before or improve your initial Ability levels. Buying down a Disability costs the same number of CP you gained when you initially “purchased” it.
Example: When the game started, Kevin took a Combat Paralysis Disability for his character at level 5, gaining 25 CP for doing so. Now that the game is underway, Kevin realizes that this particular Disability is too detrimental in the game, so he starts using CP he earns to “buy down” his Combat Paralysis. In “real life” terms, perhaps Kevin’s character is being tutored by a more seasoned warrior, or is being guided by a psychologist to overcome his fear. However he’s doing it, when Kevin’s character earns 5 CP, he uses them to drop his Combat Paralysis from level 5 to level 4. When he earns another 5 CP, he will be able to lower it to level 3. Kevin’s character is making progress in the quest to be free of the burden of Combat Paralysis.
