d2 Incompetent “Pull up! Pull up!”
d4 Novice “You’re coming in a little hot . . .”
d6 Competent “Nice and steady now, you got it.”
d8 Professional “Looking good!”
d10 Expert “Combat landing! Careful—oh, frak . . .”
d12 Master “That wasn’t so bad, barely scratched the undercarriage.”
d12+ Supreme “You are insane!”
C h a p t e r T h r e e
Average (7): Teach domesticated animals to perform moderately difficult tricks; herd cattle; ride through a forest.
Hard (11): Teach domesticated animals difficult tricks; herd cattle during a thunderstorm; basic trick riding.
Formidable (15): Teach an animal to act as a guard or a sheep-dog; perform dangerous tricks while riding;
tame wild but non-predatory animals.
Heroic (19): Tame wild predators; perform radical veterinary surgery.
Incredible (23): Calm a stampede; scare a ravenous tiger with a few appropriate noises.
Ridiculous (27): Perform emergency surgery on a pregnant animal, in the wild, under severe time pressure.
Impossible (31): Train a school of fish to spell out words.
Artistry
May not help in a firefight, but there’s poetry in your soul. Creating something beautiful, interesting, elegant—creative endeavors in their most essential forms, in fact, fall into the category of Artistry. Your basic ability in the fine arts is determined by this Skill.
Specialties: appraisal, cooking, forgery, game design, painting, photography, poetry, sculpture, writing.
Easy (3): Take a family picture; recognize a famous piece of art with cultural significance.
Average (7): Cook dinner for a family and guests;
write a polite thank-you note.
Hard (11): Paint an attractive landscape; forge a close friend’s signature.
Formidable (15): Write a poem that wins a local award; identify a piece of pottery from an ancient and lost culture; write a successful novel.
Heroic (19): Forge a will; paint a portrait that wedding with only a day’s notice; create a masterpiece that changes the paradigm of that art.
Impossible (31): Write a novel that boosts you from nothing to the top of the social food chain all by itself;
create a forgery so convincing that its undetectable.
Athletics
You got the moves and the moxie. If you’re active, you’re probably using the Athletics Skill.
Specialties: climbing, contortion, dodge, juggling, jumping, gymnastics, parachuting, riding, running, sports (pick one, like pyramid), swimming, weight lifting.
Easy (3): Do a set of jumping jacks; swim a lap around the pool.
Average (7): Run a mile for a fitness test; play a pick-up game of Pyramid with some buddies; throw yourself to the ground behind some cover when
juggle a half-dozen differently shaped objects.
Heroic (19): Jump from one moving vehicle to another; slip out of a rope binding; play championship caliber Pyramid.
Incredible (23): Perform a new, never-before-seen gymnastic trick; run ten miles without stopping.
Ridiculous (27): Complete a marathon in record-breaking time; maneuver a lengthy difficulty course in zero-gravity in seconds.
Impossible (31): Survive a 100-foot fall onto rock;
win a game of Pyramid if the other team doesn’t have to play by the rules.
Covert
You’re good at infiltration and covert ops. Hell, you are downright sneaky, illusive, and most likely illegal.
Specialties: camouflage, disable devices, forgery, open locks, sabotage, sleight of hand, stealth, streetwise.
Easy (3): Forge a close friend’s signature; find someone who’s selling illegal drugs.
Average (7): Open the lock on a suitcase or piece of luggage; pickpocket a drunk.
Hard (11): Sneak past a group of people playing cards; disable a home security system; find a local fence who you can likely trust; plant incriminating evidence on someone’s person.
Formidable (15): Sabotage a Viper; take the ID card from an on-duty officer; open locks on most doors;
sneak a weapon past a body search; swipe merchandise off the counter.
Heroic (19): Cause a ship’s water supplies to be vented to space; bypass the security on a well-protected personal computer; hide in a person’s bedroom until they fall asleep.
T r aits &Skills
Incredible (23): Forge official orders releasing supplies to you; create false military-grade ID documents.
Ridiculous (27): Open a bank vault; hide in a nearly-empty hallway.
Impossible (31): Steal documents from someone’s hand; hide in an empty, open area.
Craft
You can take a pile of trash or spare parts and make it a thing a beauty, or at least something useful. This Skill involves creating or modifying items, usually for commercial purposes as opposed to artistic value. If you need to make something that is more sturdy than pretty, this is the Skill.
Specialties: architecture, carpentry, cooking, gunsmithing, leatherworking, metalworking, pottery, ship design, sewing, weapon design.
Easy (3): Erect a defensible position in the woods;
throw a bowl on a pottery wheel.
Average (7): Sew a new pair of pants; repair the broken leg on a chair.
Hard (11): Design a home; create useful tools for engineering; clean out and fix a jammed gun.
Formidable (15): Create a fancy four-poster bed;
devise a recipe for a hardy but compact on-the-go ration; design a wedding dress.
Heroic (19): Draw up the plans for a new type of small spacecraft; create an entire set of ceramic cookware in a week; sow that wedding dress by yourself.
Incredible (23): Design a new type of gun; invent bigger, better ship that takes less time and costs fewer resources to make.
Discipline
You got the steel to stay on mission when the bullets start flying. You are focused, determined, and avoid distractions. This Skill is also used to resist temptation, torture, and fear—and possibly to scare others in the manner you’ve been taught to resist.
By yelling or coaxing, you can try to keep others on a focused path.
Specialties: concentration, interrogation, intimidation, leadership, morale.
Easy (3): Read a book with people talking nearby;
scare off a child; question a cooperative witness.
Average (7): Keep the nuggets in line during a briefing; memorize jargon for a test tomorrow; resist spilling the beans when confronted with the good cop/bad cop routine.
Hard (11): Resist panicking and remain silent while the Cylons search the room next door; study effectively despite nearby demolition.
Formidable (15): Stare down a soldier with a gun trained on you; keep up the spirits of your followers in a desperate situation.
Heroic (19): Cajole the troops to keep going after five days without real rest; intimidate someone who is not physically threatened by you.
Incredible (23): Focus on reality despite paranoid delusions; resist days of torture; memorize military code while under fire; plot a jump course with a Cylon fleet firing salvos at your ship.
Ridiculous (27): Convince unarmed civilians to stand up to a group of Cylon Centurions; keep your crew from killing a Cylon that resembles a former friend turned traitor.
Impossible (31): Frighten a Centurion, a being who cannot die and who feels no pain; pick the lock on a door while the room you are in is decompressing.
Guns
You’ve spent time on the firing range, and are proficient with any number of personal firearms, from pistols to sniper rifles. Life is cheap and the Cylons keep coming. All military and most civilian personnel have some degree of this Skill.
Specialties: assault rifles, grenade launcher, gunsmithing, machine guns, pistols, rifles, shotguns, sniper rifles.
Easy (3): Identify types of ammunition; hit an unaware, stationary target at close range; find the safety on an unfamiliar weapon.
Average (7): Clear a jammed weapon; hit a small, stationary target at close range.
Hard (11): Adjust the sight or make other small modifications to a weapon; hit a beer bottle from across the room; reload quickly while under stress.
Formidable (15): Collapse or assemble a weapon quickly; hit a coat-button from across the room.
Heroic (19): Make major changes to a weapon (e.g., adapting it to fire different ammunition); hit a moving target in the head; hit a person holding a hostage without harming the innocent.
Incredible (23): Shoot someone dead without looking; hit a running man in the heart at a hundred feet.
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C h a p t e r T h r e e
Ridiculous (27): Shoot the floor out from under the Centurions, sending them plummeting several stories.
Impossible (31): Hit a Centurion in the joint where its guns deploy, effectively disarming it.