As such, I have rebuilt the Skill list to help clarify confusion as well as to remove duplicates. I have completely rebuilt the Sense skills to divorce them from the five senses and make them a bit more useful. I also tried to remove as much of the special rules in the skills when possible, while trying to make every skill distinct and useful mechanically. 

FOCUS SKILLS 

Some Skills are marked as "Focus" skills. These skills allow for characters to specialize in the skill if they so wish. A character can purchase a new Focus in a skill for 5 Pips during game play. During Character Generation a character can purchase 2 Foci for 1d (these Foci need not be in the same skill if the player wishes).

A Skill that has a Focus grants a bonus +1d to the character's rolls whenever the Focus applies. Thus a character with a Security Skill of 3d and a Pick Locks focus would roll 4d when picking locks and 3d when doing anything else with the Security Skill.

FOCI AND SPECIAL DICE

Trump and Expert dice work in much the same way with this modification, except in the case of Skills that are marked as "Focus" skills. Skills so marked cannot have Expert or Trump dice until the character has taken a Focus in the skill. This means that a character with the Athletics skill cannot have Expert or Trump dice until the character has at least one Focus. Once a Skill has a Focus, then any Expert or Trump dice in the Skill apply only to rolls involving ANY of the Foci in the skill. If the roll being made does not apply to the Foci of the Skill, then the Expert and Trump dice are not rolled.

When purchasing Expert or Trump dice in a Focus skill, the character promotes the +1d bonus die to either an Expert or Trump die rather than any of the character's normal Skill Dice. So, if the aforementioned character with 3d in Security and the Pick Locks Focus wanted an Expert Die, the character would promote the +1d bonus die for Pick Locks and would thus have a Security 3d+1ed Skill, but the Expert die would only apply when picking locks. Meanwhile a character with Ranged Combat 4d+1td with the Foci of Archery and Sniping would get to roll 4d+1td whenever they were sniping or using a bow, but firing a gun in a chaotic firefight would only result in a 4d pool.

Focus Skills can have multiple Expert and Trump dice per the normal rules, but these additional dice never reduce the base Skill's level, they are simply tacked on to the end.

NON-FOCUS SKILLS 

Non-Focus marked skills are treated as presented in the NEMESIS rules.

Body Skills

Athletics (Focus): Athletics covers the character's general physical prowess and abilities in sports. Athletics covers such things as sports, throwing, climbing, and swimming. Players must select a Focus when taking the Athletics skill.

Endurance: A character can utilize Endurance to withstand the physical effects of exhaustion. This skill is a measure of the character's constitution and stamina.Health: A character's hale and heartiness is encapsulated in the Health skill. This skill shows how well the character fights off infection, poison, or disease.

Melee Combat (Focus): The Melee Combat skill covers the wide and chaotic affair of combat with hand-to-hand weaponry. Just about anything can be used as a weapon, as such, the Melee Combat skill focuses more on the style rather than individual weapons. A character may specialize in such styles as Iajutsu, Sword and Shield, or Cut and Thrust. Characters must have a Melee Combat Focus specified when they purchase this skill.

Unarmed Combat (Focus): Where the Melee Combat skill ends, the Unarmed Combat skill begins. This skill grants the character all forms of abilities to defend themselves with nothing but their bare hands. Available foci for this skill are such varied techniques as Brawling, Wrestling, Jeet kun do. Players must select a Focus when they take the Unarmed Combat skill.

Command Skills

Analysis: The Analysis skill covers a character's ability to psychotherapy to help alleviate mental suffering from a close confidante. Analysis requires a strong rapport between the character and patient before the analyst can begin affecting real change in the patient's life. This skill covers the "Psychology" skill as presented in the NEMESIS rules on page 19.

Bluff: Convincing lies and deception is the realm of the Bluff skill. Bluff combines lies, blather, and confidence to allow the character to talk their way through most situations. Bluff can be used to gain the confidence of another or to fast-talk someone into letting the character do something they normally couldn't.

Inspiration: By giving a rousing speech, the character can help assuage fears and doubts in those who take a few moments to listen. It can also be used to sway the emotions and actions of others by inciting their passions. This skill can be used to rouse someone to action, rile up a mob, or even to help "snap someone out" of a Failed trauma response to a Madness check. To "snap someone out of it" the player must succeed at a roll with a difficulty equal to the Intensity rating of the Failed check. This generally takes 5 – Width in minutes of talking directly to the affected (i.e. the affected must be able to comprehend what the Inspiring character is saying).

Intimidation: Through the use of physical, emotional, or psychological threats, the character can use the Intimidation skill to influence the actions of others. Intimidation can be used to cause others to back down or even give in to the character's requests. It can also guarantee someone's silence out of fear of reprisals.

Leadership: Leadership allows the character to effectively direct and control others during chaotic or confusing affairs. A character can use Leadership to inform the actions of others that trust the person directing them. Use of this skill grants 5 × Width in temporary pips that can be granted to those following the character (and that are capable of hearing and taking commands). These pips must be used before the end of whatever conflict that warranted the use of the Leadership skill. The leader cannot make use of these Pips.

Performance (Focus): A character with the Performance skill is well versed in the art of entertaining others. Performance covers stage presence, training, and craft in general, but characters must select a focus in which their performances excel. Performances such as acting, singing, playing an instrument, or even directing can be covered by Performance foci.

Seduction: Seduction is the art of gaining the intimate trust of others, be they complete strangers or old friends. Through manipulation, small talk, and charm, characters using Seduction can embolden the romantic passions in others or can find themselves in the deep confidence of their acquaintance.

Streetwise: Streetwise covers the swagger, lingo, and presence for a character to have "street cred". It can be used to make contacts on the street, dig up information through "less than reputable" sources, or even find all manner of illegal items or dealings.  

Coordination Skills

Agility (Focus): While Coordination covers the character's overall motor skills; Agility represents the character's flexibility, nimbleness, and even acrobatic abilities. Agility would be used by a character to perform feats of gymnastic prowess or just simply get out of the way of things. Some example foci for Agility would be acrobatics, gymnastics, dodge, or balance.

Pilot (Focus): The Pilot skill covers a wide range of operating and controlling simple modes of transportation. It focuses on transportation that is guided by the efforts of a small group of crew. Examples of foci for Pilot are as varied as automobiles, propeller-driven airplanes, sailing, and riding horses.

Ranged Combat (Focus): The ability to harm one's opponents at a range has always been seen as a great boon to tacticians throughout history. The Ranged Combat skill represents how effective a character is at utilizing the tools and tactics required to be an effective combatant at range. Characters can choose to focus in various types of fighting styles as firearms, sniper, archery, or squad support.

Stealth: Stealth is the ability to remain unseen and quiet when the necessity arises. Characters can use Stealth to sneak and skulk about or even to blend into a crowd if need be. Stealth can even be used to help hide the character or others, if enough time is available.

Subterfuge (Focus): Sleight of hand, card tricks, palming, and even escaping bonds and handcuffs is the domain of the Subterfuge skill. Characters skilled in Subterfuge are skilled at the arts of using their bodies to misdirect and confuse others. Some examples of Subterfuge foci are Picking Pockets, Sleight of Hand, or Escape Artist. 

Empathy Skills

Counseling: A character trained in counseling uses a dialogue to serve as a type of psychological first aid. Counseling is used to help characters cope with traumatic incidents in much the same way as Analysis but its more client-centered approach makes it more effective with day-to-day stresses rather than offsetting deep-seated disorders. The Counseling skill follows the rules presented in the NEMESIS rules on page 18.

Discipline: Discipline represents the character's willpower and resilience against mental anguish, intimidation, and coercion. It differs from Equilibrium in that it is used when others try to influence the behavior or opinions of the character while Equilibrium is used to defend against emotional and psychological trauma. Characters would use Discipline to resist others using Command-based skills to influence the character or to represent the character's personal convictions.

Etiquette (Focus): Knowing how to behave and act in a variety of social and cultural situations is controlled by the Etiquette skill. This skill allows characters to operate in high society without making faux pas or to know the correct slang and behavior to blend in to a deep-South revival. Foci in this skill represent different societal classes such as High Society, Academia, or Urban Poor or can represent the understanding of entirely different cultures like French or Japanese. A character is always assumed to be skilled at the Etiquette of their own default social class and culture, so this skill covers the understanding of other cultures and classes.

Hunch: Hunch relies on the character's natural Empathy and understanding to make educated guesses to the behaviors of others. A successful use of the Hunch skill might glean insight to the behaviors of another person or at least help inform as to why a person may act a certain way.

Magnetism: The Magnetism skill represents an unquantifiable quality about the character that draws in others. It is not a matter of looks but of presence and likeability. A character would use their Magnetism skill to put others at ease or to even slightly influence their reaction to the character, making them more amenable to the character's desires. It differs from Seduction or Intimidation in that it is unspoken and often unintentional. Other people just like and are drawn to the character and are more willing to go out of their way to help out.

Mediation: Training in Mediation gives the character tools to negotiate and arbitrate disputes and hostilities without resulting to violence or other drastic measures. Provided their audience is willing to listen, a character can use Mediation to diffuse tensions and create feelings of calmness in others. Mediation can also be used to negotiate between two parties unable to reach a compromise on their own.  Successful use of this skill might end a conflict before it begins by calming the agitated crowd or could broker a deal that allows for a marriage to be dissolved without a legal battle.

Persuasion: Persuasion allows a character to sway the opinions of others through understanding and compassion. It is very similar to Magnetism, but Persuasion is a character actively and intentionally trying to sway the opinions of others. A character using Persuasion will appeal to their audience's more noble side or reason rather than use force of personality or manipulation like is found with Intimidation or Seduction. 

Mind Skills

Education (Focus): A character's Education demarks the amount of schooling, training, and general knowledge the character has gained through life. The source of the Education will color what kind of facts the character might know. As such, when selecting Education the character should use the Focus to demark the source and level of the education such as Private High School, College, Mean Streets, or "The School of Hard Knocks" for example. This will help characterize what facts and knowledge the character will have at their disposal.

Engineer (Focus): A character uses the Engineer skill to design, construct, or fix all manner of mechanical, electronic, or otherwise man-made devices. The character can be skilled at such Foci as Mechanics, Electronics, Computers, or even Carpentry.

Formal Science (Focus): Formal Science covers more abstract forms than the other Sciences. Mathematics, Logic, Statistics, and Computer Science fall into the spheres of influence of the Formal Sciences. Formal Science is a highly conceptual and theoretic world. Characters would utilize this skill for the theoretic expression and concepts contained in its fields of influence rather than more mundane uses like addition or computer operation.

Humanities (Focus): The Humanities skill covers specialized training and education in academic fields that are more critical and analytic than empirical. This includes the fields (i.e. Foci) of Art, Literature, Philosophy, History, or even the Classics. In general, Humanities represents the kind of "useless knowledge" that most liberal art schools pursue as an ideal as to building more well-rounded individuals.

Linguistics (Focus): Linguistics, as a skill, characterizes two separate, but related fields: the study of Language and the learning of Language. Language study concerns itself with the scientific comparison and historical development of language. Meanwhile, learning a Language grants the character the ability to converse and comprehend languages other than their native tongue. Some specific Foci for Linguistics would be Spanish, German, Old English, or Comparative Linguistics.

Medicine (Focus): Medicine is the art of healing damage done to the physical form, be it from disease or trauma. A character skilled in Medicine knows how to mend broken bones, treat disease, and nurse the sick. A character should select a Medicine Focus such as Pharmacology, Surgery, Psychiatry, or Emergency Aid. See page 21 in the NEMESIS rules for more details on the Medicine skill. Also, the Psychiatry Focus allows the character to utilize the Psychiatry rules on page 18 in the NEMESIS rule book.

Natural Science (Focus): Natural Science is the structured and empirical study of the universe using rules, laws, and theory. The Natural Sciences grant a great wealth of knowledge in such fields (i.e. Foci) as Biology, Botany, Chemistry, and Physics.

Research: Research grants the character the ability to cull knowledge from a variety of disparate data sources such as books, film, interviews, and even environmental clues. Research aids in the investigation by allowing the character to spend time finding facts and evidence to support certain facts or cases. Research deals with compiling and sifting through data for meaningful bits while Search allows for the collection and discovery of said data. A character using the Research skill would be able to spend time to find out certain facts or even to uncover relationships in data that had eluded them in the past.

Security (Focus): The Security Skill grants the understanding of physical and electronic precautions, as well as the theories for maximizing and even circumventing said measures. A character can Focus on such diverse elements as Picking Locks, Electronic Intrusion, Surveillance, or Cryptography, as they are just a small portion of the Security skill.

Social Science (Focus): The Social Science skill represents understanding of the principles and theories underlying the academic discipline concerned with the study of the human species and its affects on the world. The Social Sciences try to use both qualitative and quantitative methodology to shed understanding on the human condition. Various fields of study are contained within the Social Sciences, such as Psychology, Anthropology, Law and Sociology to name a few. The Psychology Focus allows the character access to the Psychology rules found on page 19 of the NEMESIS rule book.

Survival (Focus): The Survival skill focuses on the character's knowledge on how to endure the elements and nature. It includes knowledge on building emergency shelter, finding food and water, and even rudimentary knowledge of first aid. A character can focus on particular environments such as Desert, Woodlands, Arctic, or even Urban.

Technology (Focus): A character's familiarity, comfort, and abilities to operate the most modern technological and electronic devices are comprised in the Technology skill. The character would use Technology to operate a computer, set their digital video recorder, or navigate the World Wide Web. Foci for Technology include Computers, Hacking, PDAs, and Networking. Technology focuses on the practical application of technological devices, which separates it from Engineer which concentrates more on the repair, modification, and building of such devices. 

Sense Skills

Anticipate: Anticipate can be quite a boon to most characters. It allows them brief flashes of insight based on their sensitivity to their environment. A character can use Anticipate to predict behavior and action in their immediate surroundings. Characters with at least 2d in Anticipate are treated as if their Sense stat was one higher for Declaration purposes in combat.

Awareness: Awareness is the character's spatial memory and attentiveness. Awareness is used by the character to keep tabs on their environment and changes in it. A character can use Awareness to stay alert and sensitive to possible threats or danger. Characters with at least 2d in Awareness gain a 1d bonus to Dodge and Cover checks.

Follow: The Follow skill marks the character's ability to track, stalk, and follow trails. With Follow a character could shadow someone through a crowded street or track a wounded deer through the woods.

Notice: A character's Notice skill represents their ability to pick up on small details and clues without actively paying attention. Notice is generally used passively to see if the character picks up or detects something in their surroundings. Rarely does a character actively use their Notice skill as that generally is the purview of Search.

Search: Search is used when a character is making all concerted efforts to find something, whether the searcher is clear on their objective or not. For example a character could be searching for a lost key, a hidden door, or could even just "items of interest".

Comments

Add New Search RSS

Agent Donald - I like it!     | 62.58.40.21 | 2007-03-09 09:29:39 I like it! I think I will use this list instead of the normal list. I already use the Search skill and the Awareness skill only I call the latter 'Notice'. Good work!

Tomb's Grave - Very nice.     | 74.194.15.245 | 2007-03-09 12:34:43 The only thing that bugs me about ORE is the narrow application of skills. A looser list (a la Cinematic Unisystem, or... uh... this one) would be perfect.

Agent Donald - Examples?     | 62.58.40.21 | 2007-03-09 13:06:23 Hi Tomb's Grave, Can you give some examples of narrow application skills and how it is done in Unisystem? The only thing I can come up with is combining all the combat skills into just "Kung fu" and "Gun Fu" ("Melee Combat" and "Ranged Combat"

Josh Chewning     | 144.160.98.31 | 2007-03-09 16:08:08 There actually is a Notice skill, but it somehow got subsumed into the Follow skill's text. Thanks, though... I particularly like the special rules for Leadership and some of the Sense skills.

Agent Donald - Fixed!     | 85.147.0.6 | 2007-03-09 17:04:10 Fixed the Notice skill

Tomb's Grave - to Agent Donald     | 74.194.15.245 | 2007-03-10 08:00:48 "Narrow application skills", pardon the term, is something like skills found in GURPS: Training for one class of weapon, really select skills like "scuba diving" or "parachuting", and so on. I can work with skills that narrow, but they're not my favorite. Unisystem skills are, as mentioned,very broad. The Gun Fu skill covers every single kind of gun, from a pistol to a machine gun to a rocket launcher; Getting Medieval covers every single archaic weapon, from knives to swords to crossbows; Knowledge covers every single academic lore; Science covers every branch of science; and so on. In the case of weapon skills, weirder weapons (like rocket launchers or whips or chainsaws) offer a penalty to the skill due to their obscurity or difficulty in use. You can take the Wild Card skill, which can be any kind of skill you want (that isn't a power, obviously) that's less general than the existing skills. You can even take, say, Chainsaw or Archery as a skill and use...

Petri Wessman - Nice     | 195.197.215.210 | 2007-03-20 10:12:03 I like it too, even though Nemesis is a nice system the stock skill list is a bit weird. This one looks to be a lot more sane. Some stuff there is maybe a bit more specific than I'd like, but every GM needs to tailor the skill list to fit their game anyway, there is no "one size fits all" solution. Good work, I'll be using this as a baseline myself.

The Unshaven - The only problem I can see is     | 60.234.139.233 | 2007-06-02 22:46:40 I like this approach to Skills, and it formalises some thoughts I'd been having on the subject. The one I would, however, break up slightly is Pilot. At the moment, Pilot covers all sorts of vehicles. So you could, say, have a 5d pool 1d focus for driving a station wagon, and then drop down to only 5d for flying a 747, unless I've misunderstood how that works. I'd break it up into wider classes, so there's Drive, for ground vehicles, with a wide variety of potential foci, Pilot (Plane) with a variety of foci, and Pilot (Boat) with foci, although the way that's written looks shonky. Perhaps Captain would be a way to go for boats, although it sounds pretentious. The current system allows for buying multiple foci within a skill, which is great, but breaking it up some allows for being competent to good in one form of vehicle, and utterly dire/inexperienced in another form. Thoughts? - The Unshaven.

nathantruant   | Registered | 2008-03-06 14:59:43 Now we just need a record sheet to reflect these alternative skills =]

cheeplives - Record sheet...     | Registered | 2008-03-07 11:13:46 I have a few record sheets (some in Excel and some PDF) that have my skill list on them... I guess I can try to convert all of them to PDF and post 'em here on PN.

nathantruant   | Registered | 2008-03-10 13:09:45 Great! I'd love to get my hands on an editable one so I can customize it to work with my Kult/Nemesis Conversion.

bikewrench   | Author | 2008-03-15 22:57:51 I'm gonna try this out as well. Anyone got a good character sheet?

nathantruant   | Registered | 2008-03-16 06:28:18 I converted one by cheeplives, it doesn't look as neat as his original, but it does the job efficiently.

Only registered users can write comments!

Powered by !JoomlaComment 3.12

Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved.