Making Rolls

Ability Rolls

Action Rolls based on Abilities cannot usually be increased by spending more time doing them. This requires skill.

Ability Rolls only need to be rolled when in a stressful situation (such as combat, or extra effort). Otherwise, a die roll of 7 can be assumed.

The character can make an Extra Effort when making an Ability Roll. The character can increase any ability after the roll is made, in order to increase the Quality and to succeed at the roll. The ability that was increased is immediately decreased by the same amount it was increased. If a character with a 17 strength makes a Lift Roll, and increases strength to 24 (8 point increase), strength drops immediately to 9 (17-8). These lost ability points return per hour when resting.

Abilities cannot be increased so far that the ability will drop to less than 0.

Combat Roll: Look up twice Agility on the Sphere Chart for the character’s Combat Roll. Combat Q can be applied to Attack, Defense, Speed, or Damage. The Combat Roll costs 1 EP (it starts at Row 5).

Attack: One point of Q adds 1 point to Attack.

Defense: Two points of Q add 1 point to Defense.

Speed: Three points of Q divide Performance Time by 2. One point reduces Performance Time by 10%, 2 points by 20%.

Damage: Q applied adds that many points (Doubles Chart) to damage.

The character’s Attack must be greater than or equal to the opponent’s Defense. If the Combat Roll fails, apply the negative Q evenly to Attack, then Damage, then Defense. It’s possible, if unlikely, that the target has a negative Defense, so a negative Attack can still hit. Note that the miss goes directly to Damage, not to the Doubling Chart. Defense Q is still divided by 2 and rounded towards 0.

Sight bonuses/penalties to Combat, Size Difference modifiers, and learning divided by 10, round down, are all added together, along with any other modifiers, for the Bonus Pool to the Combat Roll.

Attack and Defense only apply to one opponent. If the character wants extra opponents, each extra opponent counts as a penalty of 1 to the Combat Roll’s Bonus Pool. The character’s Defense counts against all opponents. The player must apply Attack separately for each opponent. In order to attack multiple opponents, they must all be in front of the character, and the character must be able to attack them in a ‘sweeping’ manner, such as with a telephone pole, a beam power, or a semi-automatic weapon. Each attack takes place on successive segments (except for automatic firearms). Whether or not a multiple attack can be performed must be handled on a case-by-case basis.

Discernment Roll: The Discernment Roll is vs. half Newoen, rounded down. This is the ability to know what is the right, true, and good course of action. If successful, the character knows what the good or evil action is in that situation. The Discernment Roll doesn’t use EP, and has a Performance Time of 6.

Hand Damage: This is the damage done by a character when attacking unarmed, and the damage added to a weapon which depends on strength. Look up mass divided by 10 on the Doubles Chart, and add strength divided by 4 (round down). If Strength is greater than Mass, add Mass/4 instead of Strength/4.

Hand Damage is not normally rolled. A character with a Mass of 100 kg and a strength of 14 will do 7 points of hand damage on a successful fist attack.

Hand Damage starts at row 7 on the EP use chart. When characters use their maximum Hand Damage, it costs 3 EP (that heal per round). The EP cost can be reduced by doing less damage. Use the standard EP cost progression, but start at 3 EP (Row 7). A character who can do 9 points Hand Damage who decides to do 7 will use 1 EP. If the character does 6, it only costs 1 EP for every 5 attacks. Note that Hand Damage costs EP whether or not the attack is successful.

Healing Roll: The Healing Roll is an automatic roll. It costs no EP and cannot be increased via Extra Effort. The roll is vs. Constitution (Sphere Chart). The character’s current Body DP is added to the Bonus Pool.

If the roll is for mental healing, there is a bonus equal to newoen divided by 4, round down, to the Pool.

Physical Healing Roll Q is automatically applied to healing DP, strength, agility, constitution, and EP, in that order. The Healing Roll is made each hour (for Bludgeoning DP, for abilities that heal per hour, and EP that heals per hour of sleep). It is made each day (for Penetrating Damage), and each month, for Injury Damage.

Mental Healing Roll Q is automatically applied to healing EP (Astral Form), charisma, and learning, in that order. It is made each hour (for abilities that heal per hour, and for EP that heals per hour of sleep).

VP and EP (things that heal per round) are handled slightly differently. Take the Healing Roll and add the Bonus Pool (Sphere Chart, of course). Half this (round up) for the VP that is restored each round. The same amount of EP (round down) are restored each round. The character must be resting to regain lost VP and EP.

There is no penalty applied to Healing Rolls because of low EP or low DP.

Hold Breath Roll: This is vs. Constitution plus half Strength, with a bonus equal to current Body DP. There is a penalty to the Quality equal to the elapsed time, in rounds, on the Sphere Chart. The Quality reduces EP cost. The roll is only made once for any specific attempt, and the elapsed time penalty builds as time passes, thus increasing the EP cost. When Quality becomes less than 0, EP cost moves beyond Row 9. At Q of -1, the EP cost is 6 per round (Row 10).

For every 5 points of EP lost in one round, 1 point of DP (bludgeoning) is lost, to the head.

The Performance Time for Hold Breath is 10. If the character hasn’t completed Holding Breath before the necessary time, the character is affected by whatever gas was being avoided. If the character was simply trying to hold breath before air was lost (due to a vacuum), there is a penalty to the roll equal to the number of segments remaining for the Performance Time. If a character starts to Hold Breath at segment 34, and all air is sucked away at segment 36, the penalty is 8.

Jump Roll: The Jump Roll is vs. agility plus strength. There is a bonus equal to twice height (on the Square Chart). The Quality can be applied to reducing the EP cost and to the height of the jump. Look up the Q applied for the height on the Result column, and read to the Square Chart, for the height in centimeters.

The amount of time (in segments) the character is in the air is found by looking up four times the height jumped (in meters) on the Square Chart.

The distance a character jumps horizontally depends on speed at the time of jumping, and the amount of time the character was in the air. Take the character’s speed in meters/segment and multiply by the number of segments the character was in the air for the horizontal jump distance.

For purposes of grabbing something, characters can add up to their height to either the height jumped or the length jumped. A Combat Roll (close combat) is required to actually grab something in a jump.

Jumping, like movement, is a passive action, and has a Performance Time of 6. It can be started on the same segment as Move is started.

On a failure, the character still jumps, but not as high.

If the character’s density is extremely low, multiply the time in the air by the atmospheric density plus the character’s density, and divide by the character’s density. Movement should be multiplied by the same amount.

Lift Roll: The Lift roll is vs. Strength minus 9, plus the character’s Mass on the Sphere Chart. The Quality must be the object’s mass (Sphere Chart). Quality can also reduce the EP cost and Performance Time. A failure costs 1 EP. The Performance Time for a Lift is 10 segments.

For powers, the Performance Time is 20 segments. For powers that can lift at a distance, look up the distance to the object, in meters, on the Sphere Chart for the Q required for distance.

Inanimate objects (ropes, webs) do not normally need to roll the Lift Roll. Their Lift Q is the Roll plus the Pool (Sphere Chart, of course).

Pushing and Pulling: You can push or pull just about anything, depending on the amount of friction that must be overcome. Make the Lift Roll as normal, but if the roll is missed, double the Performance Time for every point the roll was missed by. Friction is applied as a penalty directly to the Roll. Very low friction (such as most wheeled vehicles or between a floating object and water) is 1. Pushing a box up a dirt road will have a friction of 5. A friction of 20 is impossible to overcome. If the roll is missed by more than 20 minus the friction number, the object cannot be pushed/pulled.

Overhead Lift: Weight lifted overhead counts as twice its weight.

Worn: Weight that is worn counts as half its weight.

Move Roll: The Move roll is vs. Agility plus half Strength (round up), plus the character’s Height on the Square Chart. The Quality can be applied to increasing or decreasing the character’s current speed, to turning, or to reducing the current EP cost for movement. EP cost for movement (at the end of each round) is always the cost of the last Move Roll.

The character’s current speed is the total Q so far applied to speed, on the Sphere Chart (a Q of 0 and 1 are practically the same--.9 vs. 1). There is a penalty to the Move Roll pool equal to the total Q so far applied to speed. If negative Q is allowed for movement (using the fractional results on the Sphere Chart), this does count as a bonus.

If the roll is missed by more than 5, subtract the amount the roll was missed by from the current movement Q total. Also, add 1 to the EP cost row for every 5 points the roll was missed by. This extra EP cost will last until the player makes a successful move roll or stops moving.

When attempting to decrease speed, the character can automatically decrease the movement Q total by the current movement Q, on the Sphere Chart. A Move Roll is required, however, and if the Move Roll is failed, reduce the decrease by half the failure.

In order to turn, the character must use 1 Q point per 45 degree turn.

Speed is in .1 meters per segment (decimeters/ segment). Each .1 meter/segment is equal to 5 meters per round, 25 meters per minute, and 1.5 kilometers per hour.

Always round Movement to 2 digits, unless you want to make a complex rule really tough. If a player wants to, Movement Q can also be applied to Defense, with 2 points of Q adding 1 point to Defense (against all enemies). In this case, the same amount that is added to Defense is subtracted from Attack, if the character is attacking. The Defense Q must be re-applied every time a new Move Roll is made.

Movement is passive with a Performance Time of 6.

You don’t need to handle movement on a segment by segment basis. Determine how far a character has moved only on the character’s action, or when the character is being attacked. Editors and players can always call for a movement update for everyone, in order to plan an upcoming action or area-effect attack.

Maneuverability for Vehicles:The 45¡ mentioned above is the Maneuverability of humans. Vehicles usually have a lower Maneuverability. A vehicle’s maneuverability is simply the number of degrees the vehicle will turn using one Q point.

Throw Roll: The Throw roll is for throwing things. It is vs. Strength minus 9. There is a bonus equal to the character’s Mass (Sphere Chart). The Q is used for the object’s mass (Sphere Chart). It can also be used to reduce the EP cost or to increase the distance the object is thrown. Look up the Q applied to distance on the Result column of the Action Chart, and read to the Sphere Column, for the distance in meters. A Combat Roll must still be made to hit a specific distance or location.

If the Throw Roll fails, the object is still thrown a small distance. The EP Cost is 5, and the negative Q is looked up from the Result column to the Sphere Column, just as before.

The speed of the object will be the same as the distance, in meters/segment.

Lobbing and Tall/Short Folks:For more precision, assume the object is at a height equal to half the character’s height. Look up this times 4 (character height times 2) on the Square Chart, for the number of segments in the air, and the Q is applied to speed. Multiply the number of segments by the speed for the distance. If you use this calculation, you can allow characters to lob the object. For each point of Q applied to lobbing, add the character’s height to the effective height the object starts at. Thus, 1 point of Q here means that height times 6 is looked up on the Square Chart for segments in the air. Two points means height times 8, three points height times 10, etc. That much height must be free for the length of the Throw.

Attacking with a Thrown Object:When throwing something as an attack, an Attack Roll must still be made. The Maximum Range is the speed. The Short Range is equal to the Q used for speed, and the Range Set is half this. Performance Time for a Throw is 15.

Throwback Roll: Characters who are punched, blasted, or otherwise attacked, may be thrown by the force of the blow. The Throwback Roll is the character’s Mass, on the Sphere Chart. The Throwback Roll has no bonus pool. There is a penalty to the roll of the damage done before skill, Skin Temper, or Ignore Damage modified it. If the character was only hit for VP, there is a bonus of the highest of agility or strength (Sphere Chart). If the character took DP from the attack, the bonus must be strength.

For a character to be thrown back when only VP was lost, the character must have been surprised. If the character lost DP in a surprise attack, the bonus due to strength is halved.

If the Throwback Roll is failed, make the negative Q positive, and look this up from the Result Column of the Action Chart to the Sphere Column, for the speed in meters/segment and the distance in meters that the character is thrown. Half this for attacks that do mainly penetrating damage. Half again for small projectile weapons, such as handguns and rifles.

(For more precision, assume that the character is at a height equal to half the character’s height. Multiply this by 4, that is, multiply character height by 2, and look this up on the Square Column for the number of segments in the air. For most characters, this is 1, making the speed equal the distance.)

The Throwback penalty Q is added to Pushback.

Under certain circumstances, you may want to apply throwback for positive Q (making it negative), thus resulting in fractional throwback, but this should be rare, as it is quite tedious.

Skill Rolls

Skill Rolls can be modified to increase the chance of success, or to decrease the performance time.

Increase Action Roll: To increase the chance of success, characters can spend more time attempting a skill. For each doubling of the time spent on the attempt to use the skill, add 2 to the character’s Action Roll. The character cannot increase the Action Roll by more than twice the character’s Skill Level.

Decrease Performance Time:To decrease the amount of time spent on an attempt at using a skill, a character can hurry. For each penalty of 2 to the Action Roll, divide Performance Time by 2, and round down (though an action can never take less than 1 segment).

Quality (or Q) can be used to increase Defense or to decrease Performance Time. Each skill will usually have other uses for the Quality of the roll as well.

Defense: Characters can use 2 Q points to add 1 to their Defense for the duration of the action. If this is a Passive Action, the character’s Attack will almost always be reduced by the same amount Defense is increased. A character who is zigzagging (Movement), and firing a gun at the same time might use 4 Movement Q to increase Defense by 2. This will reduce the character’s Attack with the gun by 2 as well.

Performance Time: It takes 3 points of Q to half Performance Time.

Setting Aside An Action:Some actions must be finished completely in one sitting. Others can be set aside and worked on periodically. Those that can be set aside must be completed within a number of days equal to the Performance Time in hours. In other words, if an action will take 5 hours to complete, the character must actually find time to spend 5 hours on the task before five days is up. Otherwise, the character has lost track of what they were doing.

Power Rolls

Power Rolls are not random. The Quality of the Power Roll is the character’s Power Roll with the Power. Most powers have a Performance Time of 20. A combat roll is required to attack with the power, and the combat roll Q can be used to decrease the performance time. The Power Roll can also be used to reduce the Performance Time.

Power Roll PR can be used to reduce EP Cost and to increase any of the power’s Effects the same as Quality for skills. A character can use a power for as many passive actions as desired (as well as one active action). For each specific action, the total of the Q for the action’s effects cannot be greater than the character’s PR. Each action uses EP separately.

Most defensive aspects of a power, such as setting up a power shield, are passive actions. Most mind-based powers (such as telepathy) are also passive. Performance Time for passive power actions are usually halved (which will usually mean a Performance Time of 10).

Maintaining an Attack: Most blast/ray attack powers can be maintained. The Performance Time is divided by 4 (usually meaning 5 segments), and the same Attack is used. There is a penalty of 2 to the Attack for each successive action (that is, -2, -4, -6, etc.), and a penalty of 1 to the EP use row for the blast.

Power Example: Sun-Ruler has a PR of 12 in Fire Coat. He enters combat with Seraph. On segment 1 he starts firing up to increase his Skin Temper. That’s a passive action, so it only has a Performance Time of 10. He’ll be done on Segment 11. He uses 8 PR for that (increasing Skin Temper by 4 rows), using 1 EP per round. Now, on segment 6, he initiates a fire blast, using all 12 PR. He rolls 17, missing (he needed 13 or less: 12 plus his pool of 1). He uses 5 EP for this attack.

Extra Effort: It’s up to the Editor and Player whether a specific character can use Extra Effort (see Ability Rolls) with a specific power, and whether the power returns its PR with the physical healing roll or the mental healing roll.

Opposed Actions

Everything in the world is not a rock waiting to be lifted. Some rocks fight back. If you’re competing with someone, and your goal is as much to keep your opponent from succeeding as it is to succeed yourself, that’s an Opposed Action. Obvious examples are arm wrestling and tug of war--in those cases, only one person can win.

Here’s an example of arm wrestling. Arm wrestling is likely to be based on Lift, so two people arm wrestling each make a Lift Roll, as if lifting no weight. If one fails, then that person loses. If both fail, they use maximum EP (5) and try again. If both succeed, they can use the Q to reduce the EP used, as normal, and Q can also be used to reduce the opponent’s Q, at a 2 to 1 ratio. It takes 2 points to reduce the opponent’s Q by 1 point. If a person’s Q is reduced to less than 0, that person loses.

Knowledge

Knowledge can affect Skill Rolls. Knowledges with the same name as a Skill give a bonus equal to the Knowledge Score divided by 10 to the Bonus Pool.

Knowledge Rolls

Knowledge Rolls use d100. Ones do not reduce the die roll for Knowledge Rolls.

Knowledge scores range from 0 (no knowledge) to anything. There is no upper limit on knowledge scores. The knowledge score is useful in determining what a character knows in that field. If a player wants to know if the character knows something in a field, give that possibility a modifier, depending on how likely it is that the character knows it. This modifier is a multiplier. A character with Chemistry, for example, will have a multiplier of about 20 for knowing the symbol for an element, making this knowledge nearly automatic. Knowing the formula for an obscure substance found on the planet Regorius ½ might have a multiplier of 1/4, depending on the circumstances.

A Knowledge Score of 15-20 indicates competence in a field. A brilliant chemist with a Ph.D. might have a chemical knowledge of 50, while someone with only high school chemistry will have a 1 to 5. A score of 5 indicates good general knowledge.

How Good is the Roll?

If you need to compare two different Knowledge Rolls, compare the difference between the target number and the roll. If a character with American History (75) rolls 50, that’s 25. If another character with History (90, but halved for American History, to 45) rolls 40, that’s 5. The character with the 25 knows much more about the subject at hand than the character with the 5.

Skills

Skills can modify Knowledge Rolls. Usually, a Skill with the same name as a Knowledge will give the character a bonus to that Knowledge equal to the Skill Level. A character with Sailing 7 (Skill) and Sailing 52 (Knowledge) will have a bonus of 7 to Sailing Knowledge Rolls. This is even the case when the character has no knowledge score at all in the area. So, a person with a Skill of 7 in Magic Tricks Skill and no Knowledge Score of Magic Tricks will have, effectively, a Score of 7 in Magic Tricks Knowledge.