Attributes and Skills

Using attributes and skills is very easy if you can remember one simple concept. It’s called the “D6 Rule of Thumb.”

Pick a difficulty number. If the character’s skill roll is equal or higher, they succeed.

When you want your character to do something, the gamemaster picks a difficulty number. (All the lists and explanations in this chapter tell him how to figure out what the difficulty number should be.) If you roll equal to or higher than the difficulty number, your character succeeded at what they were trying to do. Now you know the one major rule you need to play this game.

SKILL DESCRIPTIONS

Time Taken: This is generally how long it takes to do something with the skill. Many skills (especially combat skills) can be used in one round. More complex skills, like computer programming/repair, may take a round... or minutes, hours or even days to do something. These are general guidelines; the gamemaster can always customize the time taken depending upon the situation.

Specializations: Characters may choose a specialization for a skill. The kinds of specializations are explained, and several examples are provided in italics. The skill description tells you what the skill covers and gives a few sample difficulties and modifiers.

DEXTERITY SKILLS

Dexterity is a measure of your character’s eye-hand coordination and balance. Characters with a high Dexterity are good shots, can dodge Energy Weapon blasts, can walk balance beams with ease and even make good pick-pockets. Characters with a low Dexterity are clumsy.

Using Ranged Combat Skills

Dexterity has several “ranged combat” skills covering weapons that can be used to attack someone from a distance. These skills all work the same way. When a character shoots a ranged weapon, the difficulty number is based on the range to the target: the further away a target, the higher the difficulty number. (Each weapon has different ranges; weapons are described in the chapter on “Weapons & Equipment.”) If your skill roll is equal to or greater than the difficulty number, your attack hits. It’s not always that simple, however — the target might dodge (that’s a “reaction skill”) or might be partially protected by cover. This is explained in the chapter on “Combat and Injuries.” The “ranged combat” skills include: Archaic Guns, Energy Weapon, Artillery, Bows, Firearms, Grenade, Missile Weapons, Thrown Weapons and Vehicle Weapons. (Starship Gunnery is also a “ranged combat” skill, but it’s covered by the Mechanical attribute.)

Using Melee Combat Skills

Dexterity has “melee combat” skills which cover any type of hand-to-hand attack. They’re Melee Combat and Martial Arts; Brawling — a Strength skill — is also a melee combat skill. Each melee weapon has a different difficulty number. (The weapons are described in the chapter on “Weapons & Equipment.”) If the character rolls equal to or higher than the difficulty number, the attack hits. Of course, just like ranged combat skills, it’s not always that simple. The target might parry the attack using a “reaction skill” or might be partially protected by cover. This is explained in the chapter on “Combat & Injuries.”

Using Reaction Skills

Dexterity covers several “reaction skills,” which are used to avoid or block attacks. When your character is attacked and you roll a “reaction skill,” the attacker’s difficulty number is now whatever you roll. There are several reaction skills: Brawling, Dodge, Martial Arts, and Melee Combat. The many vehicle operation and starship piloting skills — they’re all under Mechanical — can also be used for “vehicle dodges” to avoid enemy fire.

Full Reaction. A reaction skill can also be used for a “full reaction.” The character rolls the reaction skill — Brawling, Dodge, Melee Combat, or a vehicle or starship dodge — and adds the roll to the attackers’ difficulty numbers. However, a character making a full reaction can’t do anything else in the round. The chapter on “Combat and Injuries” fully explains how to use reaction skills.

Acrobatics

Time Taken: One round. Specializations: Type of acrobatics used, form or style — diving, trapeze, tumbling.

Characters with this skill can tumble, leap, and roll to avoid falling damage, to entertain an audience, or to surprise an opponent in combat. Using acrobatics can improve many of a character’s climb/jump and running attempts. The gamemaster determines the difficulty of the acrobatics stunt. One-half of the difference (rounded up) between the difficulty and the acrobatics roll is added to the complementary skill.

The acrobatics attempt and the climb/jump or running try must be done on the same turn. Instead of adding a modifier to the running or swimming difficulty for particularly challenging obstacle courses, the gamemaster may have the hero make an acrobatics roll in addition to a running or swim roll. Acrobatics can make a character appear more intimidating. The player may add one-half of the difference (rounded up) between the difficulty and the successful acrobatics roll to their intimidation attempt. The intimidating attempt may be made on the same turn as the acrobatics roll or on the next round.

During a fall, acrobatics may be used to reduce bodily harm. If the character has not already used their turn for the round, they may rely on acrobatics in an attempt to land properly. The character generates an acrobatics total. For every five points over the base difficulty number of 10, the hero reduces the damage total by one point, in addition to a base reduction of one point. The damage total, however, cannot be lower than zero.

The difficulty depends upon how difficult the acrobatic maneuver is, some examples are provided below:

• Very Easy: Somersault; pirouette
• Easy: Handspring; cartwheel; handstand; Swing over an obstacle
• Moderate: Round-off; back-flip; Vaulting over an obstacle
• Very Difficult: Bouncing off a surface to reach a specific destination

Modifiers:

No Modifier: Performing the maneuver from a flat surface, to another flat surface.
−3 to the difficulty: Unlimited landing area.
+3 to the difficulty: Limited landing area, rough or unsteady landing area, high surface to low surface, slippery landing area, or strong wind.
+6 to the difficulty: Almost no landing area, from a low surface to high surface, or performing the maneuver on a narrow surface.
−3 or more to character’s roll: Add a twist of the body (per twist) or performing the maneuver backwards or while underwater.
−9 or more to character’s roll: Performing the maneuver in the air (such as on a trapeze or bars).

Note: Characters may combine one or more maneuvers in the same action. In this case, use the difficulty of the most challenging maneuver, add 5 for each additional maneuver (up to five additional maneuvers), and include modifiers as if the complex stunt was one maneuver.

Archaic Guns

Time Taken: One round. Specializations: Indicates a specific kind or model of archaic gun — black powder pistol, matchlock, musket, wheelock.

Archaic guns is a “ranged combat” skill used to fire any primitive gun, including black powder pistols, flintlocks and muskets. Normally, only characters from primitive technology worlds will know this skill.

Artillery

Time Taken: One round or longer. Specializations: The particular type or model of projectile or other artillery — staff cannons.

Artillery is the “ranged combat” skill used to fire all energy or projectile weapons, such as staff cannons and field guns (excluding self-propelled projectiles or launched grenades, which are covered under missile weapons). The time taken to use this skill is often one round. However, certain kinds of artillery have a “fire rate,” which indicates how many times a round that weapon can be used.

Bows

Time Taken: One round. Specializations: Specific type or model bow — crossbow, long bow, short bow.

Bows is a “ranged combat” skill covering all bow-type weapons, including short bows, long bows and crossbows. Bows are normally only found on low-technology worlds, so this skill is fairly unusual.

Dodge

Time Taken: One round. Specializations: Kind of ranged attack to be dodged — energy weapons, grenades, missile weapons.

Dodge is a “reaction skill” used to avoid any ranged attack, including energy weapon fire, grenades, bullets and arrows. Characters using this are doing whatever they can to dodge the attack — slipping around a corner for cover, diving behind cargo containers, dropping to the ground, or any other maneuvers to avoid getting hit.

Energy Weapon

Time Taken: One round. Specializations: A specific type or model of character-scale Energy Weapon— Staff Weapon, Asuran Pistol, Traveller Pistol, and Ronan’s Pistol. Energy Weapon is the “ranged combat” skill used to shoot Energy Weapon weapons that can be held and carried by a character. Energy Weapon covers everything from tiny holdout Energy Weapons to large repeating Energy Weapons. Do not use Energy Weapon to fire fixed Energy Weapons or multi-crew weapons (use Artillery), weapons mounted on vehicles (use Vehicle Weapons), or starship weapons (use starship gunnery, a Mechanical skill).

Firearms

Time Taken: One round. Specializations: Type or model firearm used —pistols, rifles, machineguns, P90, AR-15, AK-47.

Firearms is the “ranged combat” skill used to for all guns which fire bullets, including pistols, rifles, machine guns, assault rifles and any other firearms. (Firearms doesn’t include very primitive gunpowder weaponry, which are covered under Archaic Guns.)

Flamethrower

Time Taken: One round or longer. Specializations: Type or model flamethrower — US Arsenal M9A1, Russian Arsenal LPO-50, Chinese Arsenal Type 67.

Flamethrower is the “ranged combat” skill used to fire all types of flame projectors, including flame rifles, wrist mounted flame projectors, and flame carbines.

Flying

Time Taken: One round or longer. Specialization: Type of propulsion, Jetpack, Telekinesis, Wings, Special Abilities.

Flying is the skill used for piloting your character if they are using alternate means of propulsion. Some examples would be a Jetpack, Wings, or Special Abilities, such as Telekinesis. Use the same difficulties as other operations or piloting skills.

Grenade

Time Taken: One round. Specializations: Kind or model of grenade — fragmentation, anti-vehicle grenade.

Grenade is the “ranged combat” skill to throw grenades. Success means the grenade hits the location it was thrown to. Failure means it lands somewhere else. This skill also covers throwing other objects like rocks and balls.

Marksmanship

Time Taken: One round. Specializations: Specific ability or power.

Marksmanship is the targeting skill used for some Special Abilities or Extranormal Powers. Depending on the powers, it could also be used as a reaction skill.

Martial Arts

Time Taken: One round. Specializations: A particular Martial Art, such as Kung Fu, Karate, Krav Maga, Sodan Martial Arts.

Martial Arts is a more refined hand-to-hand combat form than the more basic Brawling. This unarmed combat style relies on carefully practiced moves and a disciplined mindset.

Martial Arts can be used as a reaction skill to block hits from Brawling or Martial Arts attacks.

The Martial Arts Maneuvers chart, in “Combat and Injuries”, displays all of the martial arts actions you can perform. The difficulties for each of the maneuvers are also listed. Some maneuvers provide bonuses to damage or other effects. The difficulty for the maneuver can be superseded by the target’s Dodge, Brawling, or Martial Arts rolls.

Damage is determined by a Strength roll plus any bonuses from the specific maneuver.

If you specialize the Martial Arts skill, choose specific maneuvers to represent that style. Difficulties for these maneuvers are one level less.

Melee Combat

Time Taken: One round. Specializations: Specific type of melee weapon — swords, knives, axes, spears, bo staff.

Melee combat is the “melee combat” skill used for all hand-to-hand weapons. Melee weapons include axes, pikes, clubs, bayonets and even impromptu weapons like chairs and Energy Weapon butts.

Note: When throwing a melee weapon, such as a spear, use Thrown Weapons skill.

Missile Weapons

Time Taken: One round or longer. Specializations: Type or model missile weapon — concussion missile, grenade launcher, flechette launcher, power harpoon.

Missile weapons is the “ranged combat” skill used to fire all types of missile weapons, including grappling hook launchers, grenade launchers.

Pick Pocket

Time Taken: One round.

Characters use pick pocket to pick the pockets of others, or to palm objects without being noticed. When a character makes a pick pocket attempt, the victim makes an opposed search or Perception roll to notice it.

Example: A player wants to dip into a courier’s satchel to filch a datacrystal which happens to hold important patrol schedules for a nearby Goa’uld garrison base. They roll their pick pocket skill of 5D and gets an 18. The gamemaster rolls the courier’s Perception of 2D and gets a 7. Since their roll is higher than the courier’s, the player successfully slips the datapad out of the satchel.

Modifiers:

+5 or more to target’s roll: Light crowd, with few distractions.

+ 10 or more to target’s roll: Very small crowd or target has very good reason to notice pick-pocket.

+10 or more to character’s roll: Huge, congested crowd. Target constantly being jostled by street traffic. Major distraction, such as a heated Energy Weapon battle, being at a loud concert, or an accident occurs immediately in front of the target.

+5 or more to character’s roll: Crowded conditions, such as those aboard a public transport or in a packed starport. Darkness. Minor distraction, such as street performers or a nearby speeder accident. The difference between the two rolls determines the pickpocket’s success.

Use the following guidelines:

Pick-pocket rolls higher than the target by: 21+: Target won’t notice missing item until thief is well out of sight.

16-20: Target notices missing item after a minute or so; pick-pocket has several rounds to dive into the crowd.

11-15: Target notices missing item after three rounds.

6-10: Target notices that item is missing on the next round.

0-5: The object is snagged on material or somehow till held by the target.

Target rolls higher than pick-pocket by:

1-5: Target feels pick-pocket’s hand rummaging through their pocket. Target can react next round.

6+: Pick-pocket gets hand caught in target’s pocket; target notices immediately.

Thrown Weapons

Time Taken: One round. Specializations: Specific kind of thrown weapon — knife, spear, sling.

Thrown weapons is the “ranged combat” skill used whenever a character employs a primitive thrown weapon, including throwing knives, slings, throwing spears and javelins.

Vehicle Gunnery

Time Taken: One round. Specializations: Type or model of vehicle-mounted weapon — rail cannon, heavy laser cannon, staff cannon.

Vehicle Gunnery is the “ranged combat” skill used to fire vehicle-mounted weapons, especially those that are character or vehicle scales. (The weapon’s description will list which skill it uses.)

KNOWLEDGE SKILLS

Knowledge skills generally reflect how much a character knows about a given subject, whether it’s aliens, languages or laws. Knowledge is a measure of your character’s “common sense” and academic knowledge. Characters with a high Knowledge have a good memory for details, and have learned a lot about different aliens and planets. They often have a flair for languages, and they know how to get things done in bureaucracies. Knowledge is used whenever a player wants to find out how much their character knows about a certain field. The difficulty depends upon how obscure the information is and how much the character knows about the general subject. Use the following guidelines to pick a difficulty, but remember that they should be modified based on the circumstances. See the chapter on “The Rules” for more information:

• Very Easy: General, common knowledge that almost anyone would know.

• Easy: Most people would know this much.

• Moderate: Professional level of knowledge. The average person who has an interest in the subject would know this much

• Difficult: Professionals would know this much about a given subject; the average person would be hard-pressed to give much information.

• Very Difficult: Detailed, comprehensive knowledge of a subject. Professionals and scholars would probably have to research a subject to gain this amount of knowledge.

• Heroic: Only a very small number of people would know this much information.

Gamemasters should modify difficulties — and how much information characters get — to suit the particular situation.

Easily found knowledge probably won’t have a modifier; very obscure information could have a difficulty modifier of +10, +20 or much more.

Modifiers might also be made for particular situations under which knowledge must be recalled — trying to remember the right Rodian custom for signaling cease-fire would be easier in the calm comfort of one’s starship, and much more difficult in a confusing firefight with several very angry Rodian bounty hunters.

A Knowledge skill roll represents what a character can recall at the time the roll is made, or the extent to which the character remembers certain general information. It’s not reasonable to say that a character is an expert on the subject simply because they roll well once when looking for information. A high roll might reveal one specific bit of information sought, and a few hints for finding the rest of the knowledge the character is looking for.

Alien Species

Time Taken: One round or longer. Specializations: Knowledge of a particular alien species — Goa’uld, Tok’ra, Asgard, or Nox.

Alien species involves knowledge of any species outside of the character’s. For human characters, it covers all non-humans; for Goa’uld, the skill covers all non-Goa’uld. Alien species represents knowledge of customs, societies, physical appearance, attitudes, philosophy, history, art, politics, special abilities, and other areas of reasonable knowledge.

Bureaucracy

Time Taken: One round to several days. Specializations: Specific planetary or administrative government, or branch within it —Tau’ri (Earth), Asgard, Interstellar Alliance, or the Goa’uld System Lord Logistics Department.

This skill reflects a character’s familiarity with bureaucracies and their procedures. Bureaucracy can be used in two ways:

First, the character can use this skill to determine whether or not they know what to expect from a bureaucracy.

For example, if a character needs to get a permit for their weapon, a successful bureaucracy skill check means they know what forms and identification they need, who they would have to talk to, how long the process might take and some short cuts they might be able to use.

Second, bureaucracy can also be used to find out what information a bureaucracy has on file.

The difficulty depends upon how restricted the information is:

• Very Easy: Available to all. Finding out how much you owe on your starship.

• Easy: Available to most people. Discovering which ships are in port.

• Moderate: Available to anyone who meets certain qualifications. Finding out which ships are impounded or under guard.

• Difficult: Somewhat restricted. Finding out how much someone else owes on their starship. Determining how to legally get your ship out of an impound yard.

• Very Difficult: Very restricted. Who to bribe to illegally get your ship out of an impound yard. Getting permission to make an emergency landing in the middle of a busy intersection.

Modifiers:

+5-10 to the difficulty: Request is unusual.

+15 or more to the difficulty: Request is very unusual.

+5 or more to the difficulty: The bureaucracy is poorly-funded or has low morale.

+10 or more to the difficulty: The bureaucracy is very corrupt and doesn’t care about providing services.

+5 to the character’s roll: The bureaucracy is well-funded, has good morale, or is truly dedicated to meeting the needs of those who use it.

+5 or more to the character’s roll: The character is well-known and well-liked, and the bureaucrats have good reason to help the character.

+5-10 or more to the difficulty: The character is a known troublemaker, nuisance or criminal. The modifier applies if the character is affiliated with an organization that has that reputation.

If the character succeeds at the roll, they get whatever they need done (within reason) in a shorter amount of time — up to half the normal time. If the character fails, the process takes as long as normal... and longer if the character has drawn undue attention to himself. The character might even be arrested on a trumped-up charge if they has been particularly obnoxious.

Remember, the bureaucracy roll is only as good as the bureaucrat the character is dealing with. Data-crunching deskwarmers can’t access the same information as planetary governors.

Bullying, bribing, or rolling really high against a low-level bureaucrat will not allow you to find out when a Ha’Tak Cruiser is leaving orbit. If they don’t know and doesn’t have any way of finding out, the best they’ll be able to do is lead you to someone who might.

Business

Time Taken: One round to one day or longer. Specializations: Field or organization (company, conglomerate, trade guild) — starships, weapons, computers, Microsoft, Dell, Heckler & Koch Arms.

The character has a working knowledge of businesses. and business procedures. A character skilled in business might want to run their own company, or knows how to convince a warehouse manager to give them a tour of a facility or to allow them to “borrow” a few things in an emergency.

Characters with a high business skill know how much it costs companies to produce goods and will be able to negotiate for good prices direct from a company or distributor.

The character probably has several contacts in the business world and can get special favors done for him if they are somewhere where the company has a lot of power.

Discovering information about businesses is also possible with the business skill. Most stores, shops, and markets are Easy to figure out, while factories, service facilities, and public works range from Moderate to Very Difficult depending on their complexity and how much their workers/owners/supervisors want to hide the information from the public. A Heroic business task would be trying to find out how much the Lucian Alliance is making from legitimate companies, or what industries Anubis has special interest in.

Concentration

Time Taken: One round or more, depending on how long to maintain powers or focus. Specializations: Particular ability or power, specific uses.

This skill allows the user to ignore distractions and maintain focus. If successful, the character suffers no penalties to the die rolls for ability, power, skill, or action being focused upon. All other rolls, including defense, take a -2D penalty. Failure means that the character takes a -4D to ALL skills or actions for 3 rounds. This would also mean the drop of focus, with powers or what have you dropping as well. The maximum number of foci is the number of dice in the skill, this includes force skills. Base difficulty is an easy skill roll plus the following modifiers:

Difficulty Chart For Concentration:

Number of Foci:	Modifier
1	+5
2	+10
3	+15
4	+20
5	+25

Cultures

Time Taken: One round to one day or longer. Specializations: Planet or social group — Celts, System Lords members, Lucian Alliance, Wraith Hives.

This skill reflects knowledge of particular cultures and common cultural forms (primitive tribal civilizations tend to be somewhat similar, for example). Cultures allows a character to determine how they are expected to behave in a particular situation among a certain group of individuals. The more obscure the information or culture, the higher the difficulty. Cultural knowledge includes information about a certain group’s art, history, politics, customs, rites of passage, and views on outsiders.

For instance, a visitor to P3A-194, might make a Cultures roll to better understand the Volian farmers they are dealing with. Depending on what the player asks about this culture, they could learn that the farmers depend heavily on the Aschen, they often find what they call “iron root”, and their calendar revolves around planting and harvesting seasons.

This skill can be used for cultures of one’s own species or for those of other species.

Intimidation

Time Taken: One round to several hours or longer. Specializations: Interrogation, bullying.

Intimidation is a character’s ability to scare or frighten others to force them to obey commands, reveal information they wish to keep hidden, or otherwise do the bidding of the intimidating character.

Intimidation is normally dependent upon a character’s physical presence, body language or force of will to be successful. Some characters use the threat of torture, pain or other unpleasantness to intimidate others.

Characters resist intimidation with the Willpower skill.

Modifiers:

+5 or more to intimidator’s roll: Intimidator is threatening target with physical violence (and is either armed or has superior strength).

+10 or more to intimidator’s roll: Intimidator is obviously much more powerful.

+15 or more to intimidator’s roll: Target is totally at the mercy of intimidator.

+5 or more to the difficulty: Target has the advantage.

+10 or more to the difficulty: Target is in a position of greater strength.

+15 or more to the difficulty: Target cannot conceive of danger from intimidator.

Using in Combat (Option): At gamemaster discretion, intimidation can enhance a character’s attacks and defenses. The player adds one-half of the difference (positive or negative) between the difficulty and the intimidation roll to any one attack or defense attempt (not both) made at Point Blank or Short range. The character must use the benefit from scaring the target on the same turn as or on the round after the interaction endeavor.

Languages

Time Taken: One round. Specializations: Specific language known — Ancient (Alteran), Asgard, Goa’uld, Wraith.

In the known Milky Way Galaxy, everyone has their own language. Luckily, many of these civilizations have their roots with the Tau’ri (Earth), allowing our scholars and linguists to quickly learn the languages used. Goa'uld is prevalent on most of these worlds. Most people speak it — if not as their main language, they are at least fluent in it — and virtually everyone can understand it. For the Stargate game, if a character can make their Language roll, then they are assumed to be translating for the group and are speaking for them. From then on you can speak in the common language of the gaming group.

The languages skill is used to determine whether or not a character understands something in another language.

If the character wants to say something in a language in which they are not fluent in, (see “specialization” below) increase the difficulty by two levels.

The base difficulty depends on the language’s complexity and structure compared to English (or any other language the character knows):

• Very Easy: Dialect of English, uses many common slang words or phrases.

• Easy: Common language related to English.

• Moderate: Common language, but not related to English (Goa’uld).

• Difficult: Obscure language, not related to English (Asgard).

• Very Difficult: Extremely obscure language, such as one unique to a culture that has never been contacted before or a “dead” language; language that cannot be pronounced by the person trying to understand. (Ancient)

• Heroic: Language where many concepts are beyond the character’s understanding or experience. May include musical languages or languages dependent upon intricate body language.

Modifiers:

+10 or more to character’s roll: Idea is very simple. “No” or“Yes”

+ 1-5 to character’s roll: Idea is simple. “I have a bad feeling about this.”, “Camel — only 500 doktari.”

No modifier: Idea is of average complexity. “We’re out of ammo.” ”Big explosion... generators go ‘boom’!”

+1-5 or more to difficulty: Idea is of above average complexity. “The Jaffa are going to be charging over that ridge in 10 minutes.” “3,000 doktari for the 10 Zats, plus a crate of power packs, and I’ll give you my word that I won’t tell anyone what a great deal you gave me.”

+6-10 or more to difficulty: Idea is complex. “When the shield generator drops, Red Squadron will go for the cannons along the hull, while Blue Squadron will concentrate their fire on the bridge. Until then, try to defend each other from the Wraith Darts.”

+11-20 or more to difficulty: Idea is very complex. “From a sociological point of view, the culture of the Asgardians is wholly dedicated to the science of their first great visionary and philosopher, Tiethiagg. His aptitude for understanding the unique clone culture and how it relates to the individual, and how each Asgardian had to contribute to the health of the planet as a whole...”

Fluency: Any character who makes (10) Difficult (or greater) difficulty checks on a specific language is considered fluent in that language and no longer has to make languages rolls to see if they understand the language.

Specialization: Characters may specialize in a specific language. Once the character has 5D in the specialized language, the character is considered fluent in the language and no longer has to make rolls to understand anything in that language.

If the character is attempting to understand unusual dialects or seldom used words of that language, they can use the specialty language’s skill code — and should have a much lower difficulty number.

For example, a character fluent in Goa’uld trying to understand a dialect of Goa’uld will have a much easier time than a character who only knows English.

Life Science

Time Taken: One round. Specializations: biology, molecular biology, zoology, immunology, ethology, ecology, neuroscience.

This skill comprises the branches of science that involve the scientific study of life and organisms – such as microorganisms, plants, and animals including human beings.

Life science is one of the two major branches of natural science, the other being physical science, which is concerned with non-living matter.

Some life sciences focus on a specific type of organism. For example, zoology is the study of animals, while botany is the study of plants. Other life sciences focus on aspects common to all or many life forms, such as anatomy and genetics. Some focus on the micro scale (e.g. molecular biology, biochemistry) other on larger scales (e.g. cytology, immunology, ethology, ecology). Another major branch of life sciences involves understanding the mind – neuroscience.

It is strongly recommended to specialize this skill since it covers a wide swath of study areas.

Physical Science

Time Taken: One round. Specializations: Physics, Hyperspace, Astronomy, Nuclear Physics, Chemistry, Earth Science, Geology.

This skill comprises the branches of science that involve the scientific study of non-living systems, while Life Sciences study the living ones.

Physics, Astronomy, Chemistry, and Earth Sciences are enveloped into Physical Science.

Physical Sciences can be used in tandem with Engineering to apply findings or phenomena to devices or equipment or weapons. (Usually in the form of a +2D to Engineering checks. )

It is strongly recommended to specialize this skill since it covers a wide swath of study areas.

Planetary Systems

Time Taken: One round. Specializations: Specific system or planet — P3X-888, Dakara, Chulak, Edora (P5C-768).

This skill reflects a character’s general knowledge of geography, weather, life-forms, trade products, settlements, technology, government and other general information about different systems and planets. Much of this information is gained from personal experience, computer records and hearsay from others who’ve visited various systems.

Characters specializing in particular planets have a deeper knowledge of more subtle details — more than the average general database would contain.

Although someone with an improved Planetary Systems skill would know that Chulak’s cities are home to Jaffa, those with Planetary Systems: Chulak would know that hunting in the southern forest has the best creatures for meals.

The planetary systems difficulty is based on how obscure the system is:

• Very Easy: Systems that everyone has heard of and knows something about. Chulak, home of the Jaffa. Earth, home of the Tau’ri.

• Easy: Systems that most people will have heard of, but they will only know one or two things about. Abydos has Naquada mines. Ne’tu is Sokar’s prison planet.

• Moderate: Systems that the average person might have heard of, but they probably know nothing about. P3X-888, Homeworld of the Goa’uld and Unas. Vis Uban, a site of Ancient ruins.

• Difficult: Very obscure systems that most people will never have heard of, or maybe they’ve heard of it but have no interest in learning anything about it. Land of Light (P3X-797). Edora.

• Very Difficult: Systems that very few people have ever heard of, and even then, only a small percentage know anything of it beyond its name. Kheb. Celestis. Praxyon.

• Heroic: Systems that almost no one has ever heard of. The system may not even be on the star charts. An unexplored system that might have been visited by traders. Place of Our Legacy (P3R-272), Ernest's planet (P3X-972, later PB2-908).

Modifiers:

Modifiers depend on whether the information a character seeks is common or obscure. The more obscure the information, the more difficult it is to recall:

No modifier: Information is very common or easily figured out from quick observation. All natives and most visitors know this. P3X-585 is a swamp world without any advanced settlements. The only reason to go to P6G-452 is to buy Kasa from the Lucian Alliance.

+ 1-5 to difficulty: Information is common, but requires some observation or investigation. All natives will know this; many visitors might. Chulak is home of the Jaffa. Celestis is home of the Ori.

+6-10 to difficulty: Information is obscure and requires detailed observation. Most natives know this information, but most visitors don’t.

+11-20 to difficulty: Information isn’t well known. Significant observation and investigation is needed to discover this.

+21 or more to difficulty: Only a select few individuals know this. The information is restricted or not well distributed to the galaxy at large.

Scholar

Time Taken: One round to several days. Specialization: Particular field of study — archaeology, Ancient lore, history, geology, physics.

This skill reflects formal academic training or dedicated research in a particular field. Scholar also reflects a character’s ability to find information through research.

Characters often choose a specialization to reflect a specific area which they have studied. Specializations are subjects often taught at the great universities on Earth and other planets, including archaeology, botany, chemistry, geology, history, hyperspace theories, mathematics, and physics. Specializations can also be topics a character can research on their own.

Scholar represents “book-learning,” not information learned from practical experience. A character can know the various hyperspace theories inside and out, but this doesn’t qualify him to fly starships through hyperspace (that’s covered by the astrogation skill). they might know the physical principles which make a Staff Weapon fire, but that doesn’t make him a better shot.

Gamemasters can choose to allow players a limited benefit under certain circumstances — the character is applying theory in a real-world situation. For example, a character with scholar: military tactics (the history of tactics) doesn’t get a bonus to tactics rolls, but under certain circumstances, a good scholar: military tactics roll might merit a small (+1D or so) bonus to tactics.

Gamemasters should allow players to choose their own scholar specializations — new ones can be created at the gamemaster’s discretion. When determining a character’s background, players should explain why and how they gained such academic training in a field. Like many other Knowledge skills, the difficulty is based on the obscurity and detail of the information sought.

Streetwise

Time Taken: One round to one day or longer. Specializations: Specific planet or criminal organization— Lucian Alliance, The Trust, rogue NID.

Streetwise reflects a character’s familiarity with underworld organizations and their operation. they can use streetwise to make a contact in the criminal underworld, purchase illegal goods or services, or find someone to do something illegal. Illegal activities may include the usual vices: gambling, fencing stolen goods, racketeering, blackmail, contract killing, and fraud. Because the Goa’uld and others are repressive, some actions deemed “criminal” may be perfectly moral: freeing slaves, delivering medicine and food to refugees, and smuggling wanted criminals (such as SGC personnel) through Goa’uld blockades.

This skill also reflects knowledge of specific criminal bosses, and their organizations and activities.

The base difficulty depends upon how common the service or good is or how hard it is to find the underworld contact:

• Very Easy: Things that are fairly easy to find under most circumstances. A Zat Gun on a planet where Zats are illegal but enforcement is lax. A bounty hunter on a “crime world.”

• Easy: Things that are easy to find, but normally require some discretion or careful investigation. Finding a representative of a well-known criminal organization. Hiring someone to steal some merchandise.

• Moderate: Any service which involves considerable risk, or finding an item which is both illegal and well-regulated. Finding a Zat Gun on a planet where ownership is very carefully-controlled. Hiring someone to sneak you off a planet when you’re the subject of a Goa’uld manhunt. Knowing where the best smugglers, thieves or other types of criminals might be hiding.

• Difficult: Finding someone with a very unusual skill, or finding an item that is very expensive, dangerous or carefully-controlled. Finding stolen Death Gliders.

• Very Difficult: Finding a specific criminal who is in hiding. Finding an item on a world where its possession incurs an automatic death penalty. Arranging a personal meeting with Sokar — when they aren’t expecting you.

• Heroic: Finding extremely rare merchandise which normally wouldn’t be available, even under the best of circumstances. Finding a Kara Kesh (Ribbon Device) for sale on the black market.

Modifiers:

+10 or more to the character’s roll: There is almost no law enforcement on the planet.

No modifier: There is moderate law enforcement; the local law looks the other way as long as criminal activity is discreet and isn’t dangerous to the local government or general public.

+10 or more to the difficulty: There is a very strict law enforcement. The world is under martial law or has no tolerance for criminals.

+10 or more to the difficulty: The character has never been to the planet before or has no contacts in the area. The character is not familiar with the locale and acceptable procedures, and may not know who to bribe.

+1-9 to the difficulty: The character has been to the planet before but has no contacts, or the character has a contact but doesn’t know how the local underworld operates.

No modifier: The character may have a minor contact and at least knows what not to do in most circumstances.

+1-9 to the character’s roll: The character is known in the area, or has some contacts.

+10 or more to the character’s roll: The character is well-known and liked by the local underworld. they are known as reliable and trustworthy (as criminals and their associates go).

+10 or more to the difficulty: The underworld doesn’t trust the character because they have turned in other criminals or is known to work for the local law.

No modifier: The character is local, or is a recent arrival, but is discreet and hasn’t given any cause to be suspected.

+5 or more to the difficulty: The character is known or believed to work for a rival, enemy criminal organization.

+5 or more to the character’s roll: The character is known or believed to work for a sympathetic criminal organization, or at least one that is not a competitor.

Survival

Time Taken: One round when used for knowledge or reacting to danger; one hour or more when looking for necessities. Specializations: Type of environment — volcano, jungle, desert, poisonous atmosphere.

This skill represents how much a character knows about surviving in hostile environments, including deserts, jungles, oceans, forests, asteroid belts, volcanoes, poisonous atmosphere worlds, mountains and other dangerous terrain.

Survival can be rolled to gain general information —revealing what the character knows about this environment— and it can give clues as to how best to deal with native dangers.

If the character is in a dangerous situation, the player may roll the survival skill to see if the character knows how to handle the situation. When a character is in a hostile environment, they may roll survival to find the necessities of life: shelter, food, water, herbs and roots that can be made into medicines, and so forth.

When the character makes a survival roll, use these difficulty guidelines:

• Very Easy: Character is intimately familiar with terrain type.

• Easy: Character is familiar with terrain type.

• Moderate: Character is somewhat familiar with the terrain. May have briefly visited area before.

• Difficult: Character is unfamiliar with terrain; first time in a particular environment.

• Very Difficult: Character is completely unfamiliar with the situation.

• Heroic: Character is completely unfamiliar with the situation and has no idea how to proceed. Any character who doesn’t know where they are.

Tactics

Time Taken: One round to several minutes. Specializations: Type of military unit — squads, fleets, capital ships, ground assault.

Tactics represents a character’s skill in deploying military forces and maneuvering them to their best advantage.

It may be rolled to gain general knowledge of how best to stage certain military operations: blockading a planet with a fleet, invading an enemy installation, assaulting a fixed orbital defense bunker.

This skill may also be used to determine the best response to an opponent’s move in battle: what to do if the enemy entraps your ships in a pincer movement, how to proceed in the assault should reinforcements arrive, what to do if a unit becomes trapped behind enemy lines.

Although tactics rolls might reveal how best to handle military situations, the final outcome of how well the character’s side does in a battle hinges on other skill rolls — command for the leader, and the combat rolls of both forces.

Tactics difficulties should be based on various factors of complexity within a battle: how many units are involved, the setting (open space or asteroid field, plains or jungle terrain), and the difference in training and equipment between units (Ha’tak Cruisers against F-302s, Jaffa against SGC Marines, Wraith against Asurans).

When rolling this skill, characters are often seeking ways to deal with military situations. The better the result, the more hints a gamemaster should give to help the character win the battle. Hints can take the form of reminders about different moves the enemy can make, suggestions on how to maneuver the character’s forces, or (for especially good rolls) risky and unanticipated moves which could throw the enemy off guard.

Value

Time Taken: One round. Specializations: Type of goods or specific planet’s markets — starships, weapons, Chulak, Kelowna.

This skill reflects a character’s ability to gauge the fair market value of goods based on the local economy, the availability of merchandise, quality and other market factors.

The character can also gauge specific capabilities of and modifications made to goods with regard to performance. Using value often answers the question, “How much is it really worth?” Results often depend on the source of information about the item, and how much the character already knows about that kind of merchandise. A starship dealer rattling on about a particular used-freighter might be exaggerating — although characters can make some estimations based on the starship model. If the item can be examined in person, its value is much easier to determine. When the character makes a value roll, use these difficulty guidelines:

• Very Easy: Knowing that a gently used Zat Gun should cost about 1,000 doktari.

• Easy: Knowing that a new Tel’tak cargo ship, equipped with heavy duty weapons, should cost well over 100,000 doktari; knowing that it could probably stand up to a slower starfighter, but not a Al’kesh.

• Moderate: Figuring out how much a modified Tel’tak is worth, and how much better (or worse) the modifications make it.

• Difficult: Determining how much it should cost to hire a pilot to make a smuggling run where there’s a high level of risk involved.

• Very Difficult: Determining how expensive it should be to hire a crack pilot to fly a Goa'uld blockade... when they know the risks.

• Heroic: Coming up with a market price for a product in a hurry — one that isn’t normally “on the market” (A Ha’tak mothership, SG-1, Atlantis). Knowing how much an Tau’ri prototype weapon is worth.

Willpower

Time Taken: One round. Specializations: Kind of coercion to be resisted — persuasion, intimidation.

Willpower is a character’s strength of will and determination. It is used to resist intimidation and persuasion.

Also, when a character fails a stamina check, if the character can make a willpower check at one higher level of difficulty, they can drive themselves on through sheer willpower. A character doing this has to make a willpower check as often as they would normally have had to make a stamina check, with all checks at one difficulty level higher. Once the character fails a check or stops pushing themselves, they are completely exhausted and must rest double the normal length of time. If, as a result of failing a stamina check, the character would have suffered any damage, the character suffers one worse wound level as a result of pushing their body far beyond its limitations.

MECHANICAL SKILLS

Mechanical stands for “mechanical aptitude” and represents how well a character can pilot vehicles and starships and operate the various systems on board. It also reflects how well the character handles live mounts, like horses and mastadges, or dragons (oh my!). A character with a high Mechanical attribute is going to take naturally to driving cars, flying fighters, and piloting F-302s and ships like a Tel’tak. A character with a low Mechanical attribute has a lot of minor accidents.

Most Mechanical skills are used to drive vehicles or pilot starships. Most of the time, characters should be able to negotiate clear terrain (Very Easy or Easy) without too much trouble.

It’s when a driver goes too fast, tries risky maneuvers or gets involved in a chase that things get tricky. Movement, chase and vehicle combat rules are explained in the chapter on “Movement and Chases.” Movement and chases with starships is explained in the chapter on “Space Travel and Combat.”

Time Taken: One round for chases and combat. For trips, several minutes, hours or days. (Characters might roll space transports to see if anything went wrong over a trip that takes three hours. One beast riding roll might be made to see how well a character handles their horse over a patrol march of several hours.)

Aquatic Vehicle Operation

Time Taken: One round or longer. Specializations: Particular ship type or class — Oceanic transport, coastal runabout, skiff, sailboat.

This skill allows characters to pilot naval ships and boats. While these vehicles are seldom used in the higher-tech worlds, many low-tech cultures use them for transporting personnel and freight over bodies of water.

Note that aquatic vehicles which employ the use of hover technology may also require the use of a different skill (namely hover vehicle operation).

Aquatic vehicle operation can be used for a vehicle dodge — a “reaction skill” — to avoid enemy fire.

Beast Riding

Time Taken: One round or longer. Specializations: Particular riding animal — horses, mastages, dragons, dolphins.

Beast riding represents a character’s ability to ride any live mount. Unlike vehicles, animals sometimes resist orders from their riders. Each animal has an orneriness code. When a character mounts a riding animal, the character makes an opposed roll against the animal’s orneriness code. If the character rolls higher than the animal, it does as they wish. If the animal rolls higher, find the results on the chart below.

The character must make another opposed roll whenever the animal is exposed to danger or is in a situation which could scare the animal — being involved in a battle, encountering a ferocious predator, being surprised by a sudden storm or an incoming starship.

Animal rolls higher than character by:

21+ points: Animal bucks rider. Roll the animal’s Strength versus the character’s Dexterity: If the animal rolls higher, the character is thrown to the ground. The animal will trample the rider if there is no immediate threat; otherwise, it will run to safety.

16-20 points: Animal bucks rider and runs to safety. If the character falls off, the creature will not attempt to trample the rider.

11-15 points: Animal refuses to follow rider’s command and runs to safety. The rider may regain control by making another beast riding roll and beating the animal’s total by 5 or more points.

6-10 points: Animal stops moving and refuses to move for the rest of the round or the next round.

1-5 points: Animal stops moving and refuses to move for the rest of the round.

Communications

Time Taken: One round. Specializations: Type or model of communications unit — comlink, subspace radio.

Communications represents a character’s ability to use subspace radios, comlinks and other communications systems. While operating communication devices is normally a Very Easy task, the difficulty numbers are higher when the skill is used to descramble enemy codes and find enemy transmission frequencies.

Characters may also use communications to send or receive a signal through natural hazards which disrupt communications, such as a gas cloud, heavy magnetic fields or locations with a high metal content.

The following difficulties are for finding a specific kind of frequency:

• Very Easy: Listening in on a known, registered frequency. Public communications, low-security corporate commnets.

• Easy: Listening in on a specific private frequency. Low- security government communications such as emergency services.

• Moderate: Listening in on a somewhat sensitive communication frequency. Local governments, sensitive businesses or security-conscious individuals.

• Difficult: Tapping professionally secure channels. Lower -level Goa’uld or higher-level police bands.

• Very Difficult: Listening in on higher Imperial channels, or high-ranking government channels.

• Heroic: Listening in on a top-secret Goa’uld, SGC or Tok’ra frequency.

If the signal is coded, the character can use communications to make a decoding roll. Some broadcasting devices have coding die codes, which adds to the broadcaster’s communication skills when determining how difficult it is to decode the message. By comparing the results on the “Decoder Roll Chart,” the character may decode none, some or all of the message.

Note: That some messages will also have code words — for example, Chulak might be referred to as “Delta” in a message. At this point, the characters only know what was said about “Delta” and must figure out what “Delta” is.

Decoder Roll Chart

Coder’s roll is ≥ decoder’s roll by:	Decoder Learns:
6	Nothing can be made out
1-5	Decoder makes out wrong message

 

Decoder’s roll is ≥ coder’s roll by:	Decoder learns:
0-3	One or two garbled passages
4-6	About one-quarter of the information in the message
7-10	About half of the information in the message
11+	The entire message is unscrambled

Field Communications

A host of factors can complicate communications. Most civilian comlinks are supported by repeater stations, processing nodes, comsats and fairly short transmission distances. Combat communications can be confounded by intervening terrain, inadequate repeating stations, enemy jamming and strong electrical activity.

Almost any comlink, even a fairly low-power comlink, can reach orbital comsats in clear weather. Ordinary comlinks use a wide-band broadcast to reach comsats, but these are much too easy to trace. As a result, military units use comlinks with narrow beamcast antennas, which reduces the chances of detection (though it also reduces range and clarity).

When attempting to jam enemy communications the comjammer operator adds their communications skill roll to the opponent’s difficulty.

Detecting and locating comlinks involves sensor rolls. Use the rules on pages XX and YY for more information.

The following are basic difficulty guidelines for using communications equipment:

• Very Easy: Base communications set. Subspace node. Surface-based comm. Signal with a system.

• Easy: Military comset. Civilian comset in city.

• Moderate: Military comlink. Civilian comset in rural area.

• Difficult: Civilian comset in wild area.

Modifiers:

+5 to operators difficulty: Heavy cloud cover. Active energy fields (such as from moderate combat with 20 kilometers).

+10 to operators difficulty: Storm activity. Broad based enemy jamming. Heavy combat conditions (due to strong energy fields).

+15 to operators difficulty: Nearby, very strong, or specific bandwidth energy fields. Trying to punch through planetary shields (either way).

Ground Vehicle Operation

Time Taken: One round or longer. Specializations: Type or model ground vehicle — compact assault vehicle, Humvee.

Ground vehicle operation covers wheeled and tracked land vehicles, including cars and bikes, tanks, RVs, Semi Trucks, Humvees, and cargo haulers.

Ground vehicle operation can be used for a vehicle dodge — a “reaction skill” — to avoid enemy fire.

Hover Vehicle Operation

Time Taken: One round or longer. Specializations: Type or model vehicle — hoverscout.

Hover vehicles generate a cushion of air for travel — hover vehicle operation enables characters to pilot these vehicles. Hovercraft are generally unwieldy, but they are used on many worlds and are sometimes used for specific military applications. They are also used on planets with unusual gravitational fluctuations or other quirks which interfere with other types of vehicles.

Hover vehicle operation can be used for a vehicle dodge — a “reaction skill” — to avoid enemy fire.

Piloting

Time Taken: One round or longer. Specializations: Type or class of craft— capital ship, fighter, starfighter, F-302, BC-304, Ha’tak, Tel’tak, Wraith Dart, F-104 Phantom.

Piloting covers the operation of any craft that flies through air or space. Principles are the same. Larger craft in the Stargate universe use heavily automated controls, so Piloting can be handled by one person if needs be. The chapter on “Space Travel and Combat” has more details about using Piloting.

Piloting can be used for a starship dodge— a “reaction skill” — to avoid enemy fire.

Powersuit Operation

Time Taken: One round or longer. Specializations: Particular kind or model powersuit — Herrenvolk armor, servo-lifter.

Powersuits are devices which enhance a person’s natural abilities through servo-mechanisms and powered movement. These suits are often used for construction or cargo movement work wherever industrial robots are neither practical nor desirable. This technology has also been adapted to the zero-g armor for assaulting spacecraft.

Powersuit operation can be used as a “reaction skill” to dodge enemy fire.

Sensors

Time Taken: One round or longer. Specializations: Type or model scanner — hand scanner, med diagnostic scanner, heat sensor, ship’s sensors.

Characters with this skill can operate various kinds of sensors, including those that detect lifeforms, identify vehicles, pick up energy readings, and make long-distance visual readings. Sensors covers everything from portable hand scanners to the huge sensor arrays used on capital ships and at military bases.

Some scanners have die code bonuses — these extra dice are added when characters roll their sensors skill.

Sensors have two types, Passive and Active. Active sensors operate by sending out a signal in the various spectrum to bounce off the enemy ship or other objects. Despite their great power, active sensors also give away the position of the sending ship, limiting their use in combat situations. Passive sensors listen to the various spectrum, receiving information, rather than actively sending a signal out.

Each type of sensor has a Gain attribute and a Resistance attribute. Gain represents the strength of the sensor, so you add the listed dice to your Sensors roll. Resistance is defensive value used against jamming, expressed as a die value, added to Sensors roll vs. jamming or other countermeasure attempts.

One sensor roll can be made per round: the character detects everything they rolled well enough to notice. Sensors can perform two distinct tasks: detection and identification.

When a sensor detects something, it means that it has noticed the object, but cannot identify exactly what it is. (“There’s a ship out there... it might be a freighter or a fighter.”)

When a sensor identifies something, that means that the sensor identifies the specific type of ship or object. (“It’s a Tel’tak freighter. Scanner identifies it as one of Anubis’ ships. Look at the power signature... he’s carrying around an enhanced shield array”)

The base difficulty to find a ship with sensors depends on the mode the sensor is in: passive or active. The ship must be within a sensor’s scanning range of either mode to be detected.

Sensor Mode	Detect	Identify
Passive	Moderate	Very Difficult
Active	Easy	Difficult

Modifiers:
+10 or more to the difficulty: Target is using a cloaking device.
+5 to the difficulty to identify only: Target is using a sensor decoy (sensors detect both ship and decoy as “real” unless difficulty is beat). (“We’ve got one ship out there. Wait a minute... sensors are now picking up two ships!”)
+5 to the difficulty: Target ship’s sensors are in passive mode. (See the chapter on “Space Travel and Combat.”)
+15 or more to the difficulty: Target ship is running silent. (See the chapter on “Space Travel and Combat.”)
+10 or more to the difficulty to identify only: Target is jamming sensor readings. (See the chapter on “Space Travel and Combat.”)
+10 or more to the difficulty: Ship is hiding behind planet or other massive body.
+20 to the difficulty: Ship has other mass objects, such as asteroids, to hide among.
+5 to the character’s roll: Targeting a small natural body. A small asteroid.
+10 to the character’s roll: Target is capital ship size.
+10 to the character’s roll to detect only: Target ship is jamming sensor readings.
+10 to the character’s roll: Target is a moderate-size natural body. A decent-sized asteroid.
+20 to the character’s roll: Planetary or moon-sized natural body. Planetary-scale ship.
+30 or more to the character’s roll: Stellar object. A star, nebula, black hole.

If the sensor operator scans a ship and beats the sensors difficulty by 10 or more points, they can pick out a ship’s transponder code or it’s Friend or Foe (IFF) indicator. However, while the Tau’ri, Tok’ra, Jaffa, and other star faring species keep records of some ship transponder codes, not everyone uses them.

Scanning Planets: Scanning for specific objects on a planet’s surface can be fairly difficult. While it’s easy to find major landmarks — continents, mountain chains, inland seas and so forth — a planet’s geothermal functions, the energy generated by large settlements, large concentrations of metal, and other energy sources can distort sensor readings, especially if the sensor is looking for a small facility but scanning a large area. Often, sensor operators must greatly limit their scanning area — covering perhaps a few square kilometers at a time — to find military bases, small cities and other “minor” landmarks.

The basic sensors difficulty depends upon how much of the planet is being scanned. No more than half a planet may be scanned as only one hemisphere is visible at any given time.

Characters normally make a general scan of the planet to determine basic characteristics — atmosphere type, presence of major geographic features, scans for energy readings typical of very large cities — and then conduct increasingly detailed scans on smaller and smaller areas to determine information about interesting landmarks. These sample difficulties are for scanning from orbit and finding a specific item — such as a starport, small town, factory complex, scout base, large garrison or industrial compound — when scanning an area of a certain size.

• Very Easy: An area one square kilometer or less.
• Easy: An area 100 square kilometers or less.
• Moderate: An area 1,000 square kilometers or less.
• Difficult: An area one million square kilometers or less. An average size nation.
• Very Difficult: An area 100 million square kilometers or less. A small continent.
• Heroic: One hemisphere.

Modifiers:

+5-20 or more to the difficulty: Looking for telltale energy emissions, such as emissions from spaceships.

+10 or more to the difficulty: Specific signal is hidden among other similar emissions or in an area where other signals will overwhelm that object’s signal. (A ship flying among volcanoes to disguise its trail; for a hand scanner, hiding a robot in a factory filled with active robots and electronics systems.)

+5 or more to the difficulty: Spotting or identifying a specific life-form if there are many different species in an area.

+25 or more to the character’s roll: Looking for basic information. Location of major continents, planet’s atmosphere and gravity, general composition of land masses.

+10 to the character’s roll: Looking for major sources of heat, light and other energy sources; by default, other, non-energy emitting areas, such as glaciers, can be found.

+5-15 to the character’s roll: (depending upon size): Looking for major landmarks. Mountain chains, forests, large lakes, or cities.

+5 or more to the character’s roll: Finding life-forms if lifeform is known and there are massive concentrations of them (determining that humans live on a planet if there are thousands of them clustered in a small area).

+5 or more to the character’s roll: Spotting or identifying a specific life-form if it is very different from all other lifeforms around it (finding a human and a Jaffa who are hiding in a Unas village).

+10 or more to the character’s roll: Following an energy trail left by an incoming starship.

Starship Gunnery

Time Taken: One round. Specializations: Weapon type or model —rail guns, missiles, beam weapons, Asgard ion cannons.

Starship Gunnery is the “ranged combat” skill that covers the operation of all starfighter- or capital-scale starship weapons, including beam weapons, missiles, rail guns.

See the chapter on “Space Travel and Combat,” for more information on using this skill.

Starship Shields

Time Taken: One round. Characters use this skill when operating shields on starships, both military and civilian.

Shield operations are the same on smaller and larger ships. You can find more information about Starship Shields in the chapter “Space Travel and Combat.”

The difficulty of the roll is determined by how many fire arcs the character is trying to raise shields over (front, left, right, back). See the chapter on “Space Travel and Combat” for more details on using this skill.

Starship Shields can be used to bring up shields — a “reaction skill” — to block enemy fire.

Submersible Vehicle Operation

Time Taken: One round or longer. Specializations: Particular submersible type or class — Ohio Class submarine, electric submarine.

This skill allows characters to pilot submersible ships and boats.

Submersible vehicle operation can be used for a vehicle dodge — a “reaction skill” — to avoid enemy fire.

PERCEPTION SKILLS

Perception is the character’s ability to notice things about their surroundings and other characters. Those with a high Perception are quick to spot concealed objects or people hiding behind a corner. They’re also good at convincing other people to do favors for them, tricking or conning others, and bargaining to get a good price for goods or services. Characters with a low Perception get lost a lot.

Gamemasters often ask players to make search or Perception rolls to see how much their characters notice about their surroundings. The higher the roll, the more the character notices.

Here are some sample difficulties for search or Perception rolls:

• Very Easy: Noticing something very obvious. A character is walking down a crowded avenue.

• Easy: Making an obvious finding. The street crowd consists of humans and aliens (a Asgard, Netjerian, and Unas walk down a street….).

• Moderate: Finding something interesting. One of the aliens is a Jaffa, and a Asgardian are carrying an oversized duffel between them.

• Difficult: Spotting something very specific. The Jaffa seems to be walking along with another spacer. The duffel bears the mark of Anubis.

• Very Difficult: Observing something requiring more than just casual glance. The tech and the Jaffa are arguing about starship repairs. Somebody’s tailing you.

• Heroic: You really have to look to notice this. The Jaffa has blue eyes, and the Asgardian has tech implant on their chest. The guy following you is trying to conceal a Zat Gun under their vest.

Several Perception skills are interaction skills — they are used to influence other people the characters meet. Using these interactive skills often pits the character’s skill against the other person’s skill to resist it (often Perception or willpower).

Interaction skills between player and gamemaster characters shouldn’t be solely determined by the die roll. If a character is conning a customs agent, and the player rolls a high con score, they obviously succeeds — but how does their character do it? What do they say to influence the customs agent? This is up to the player. The better the player acts the role of their character, the greater their chance of success should be. Interactive skill rolls shouldn’t be used by players to influence other players’ characters — instead, they should resolve the situation by roleplaying and coming to some kind of mutual agreement. By reducing player interaction to a series of skill rolls, the game turns from a fun exercise in social interaction to a die rolling contest, which isn’t nearly as enjoyable.

Bargain

Time Taken: One minute to an hour. Specializations: Kind of merchandise to be purchased or sold — spice, weapons, naquadah, data crystals

Characters use this skill to haggle over prices for goods they want to purchase or sell. The difficulty is often an opposed roll against the gamemaster character’s bargain skill.

The gamemaster should determine the local market value of the good. In general, the item’s value should be close to the value listed on the Cost Chart, but some goods in some marketplaces will be very expensive or very cheap compared to other locations. Likewise, some merchants will charge exorbitant fees, either as part of the “bargaining process” or because of the local situation. This skill is designed to be role-played rather than simply rolled. The gamemaster may also use a mixture of roleplaying and die rolls to determine how the character is doing.

Bargaining Results

Seller Beats Buyer By:
21+	Price is 3x local market value
16-20	Price is 2x local market value
11-15	Price is 1/5x local market value
6-10	Price is 1.25x local market value
3-5	Price is 110% of local market value

If rolls are within two points of each other either way, then purchase price is at local market value.

Buyer Rolls Higher Than Seller By:
3-5	Price is about 90% of local market value.
6-10	Price is about 85% of local market value.
11-15	Price is about 75% of local market value.
16-20	Price is about 65% of local market value.
21+	Price is about 50% of local market value.

The player always has the choice to refuse a deal. If the gamemaster feels that the character’s roll represents an unfair deal, without the player embellishing by roleplaying the situation, they should allow the gamemaster character to refuse the deal as well.

To resolve the haggling, make an opposed skill roll using any modifiers appropriate. Find the results on the “Bargaining Results” chart above.

Modifiers:

No modifier: Bargainers who have never dealt with each other before.

+5 or more to purchaser: Buyer and seller have good relationship. The buyer is a frequent customer, pays on time and never has a serious complaint.

+5 or more to seller: Customer has been a “problem” customer, so buyer has a vested interest in getting as good a price as possible, or even risk losing the sale in order to get personal satisfaction.

+5 or more to purchaser: Local market is flooded with this good, and the prices have been driven down by easy availability.

+5 or more to seller: Product isn’t readily available, and thus has a high demand.

+10 or more to seller: Local merchants work together to artificially inflate prices.

+5 or more to buyer: Item is damaged. The seller will pretend to drive a hard bargain, but will let goods go at a lower price and hope buyer doesn’t notice damaged item. If customer makes appropriate Perception check to notice that good is damaged, modifier should go to +10 at a minimum.

+5 or more to seller: Seller makes up extravagant claims about abilities or qualities of good in hopes that the customer will accept the claims at face value. If the customer makes an appropriate value skill check, the customer will realize which claims are false.

Command

Time Taken: One round. Specializations: Leader’s unit — SG-1, Atlantis personnel, Jaffa forces.

Command is a measure of a character’s ability to convince gamemaster characters and subordinates to do what they’re told. Command generally shouldn’t be used against other player characters to force them to do something against their will — these situations should be handled through roleplaying interaction.

A high command roll can complement individual participants’ rolls in a group activity, while a low command roll can impose negative modifiers. It generally requires at least one round of planning to perform effectively. The skill is often used in combat situations, such as a squad leader commanding their troops or a starship captain telling their gunners which enemy ship to target.

When a character uses command, determine a difficulty number.

• Very Easy: Characters have every reason to obey. (Jaffa obeying a System Lord)

• Easy: Characters have some reason to obey. (Jaffa, Tok’ra, and Tau’ri working to defeat Jaffa troops of a System Lord. )

• Moderate: Characters have no reason to disobey. (A crowd of civilians being commanded to “Move along” at an accident scene.)

• Difficult: Characters are skeptical or suspicious. (A captured SG team attempting to sway their Jaffa captors to let them go….)

• Very Difficult: Characters have every reason to be suspicious. (Jaffa who think you are Tau’ri infiltrators.)

• Heroic: Characters have no reason at all to listen to you. (Jaffa troops who see Tau’ri forces in uniform.)

Command is also used when coordinating projects with many workers, such as manufacturing ships in space dock and other complex operations. See the sections on “Combined Actions” in the chapter on “The Rules.”

Con

Time Taken: One combat round to several minutes, depending upon how long it takes the character to say what is needed to pull off the con. Specializations: Particular method of conning — disguise, fast-talk.

Con is used to trick and deceive characters, or otherwise convince them to do something that isn’t in their best interest. (Con is another interaction skill, so you’ll often want to use roleplaying to resolve these situations.) The difficulty of the con depends upon who is being conned.

• Very Easy: A close friend or relative who has no reason to suspect a con.

• Easy: Naive teenager, gullible person.

• Moderate: A Jaffa guard when the con doesn’t personally involve him.

• Difficult: A customs or law enforcement officer; Jaffa trooper when con will involve possible danger.

• Very Difficult: Someone who should know better. A gangster or military leader, like a general.

• Heroic: Someone who really knows better. A Tok’ra or another Con Man.

Modifiers:

+10 or more to victim’s roll: Con will cause victim to do something illegal or highly dangerous.

+5 or more to victim’s roll: Person knows the character is prone to pulling cons and has their guard up.

No modifier: Con will convince victim to do something they might normally do anyway.

+5 or more to conning character’s roll: Victim generally likes character, but suspects something because of character’s unusual behavior.

+10 or more to conning character’s roll: Victim has no reason to suspect dishonesty, and trusts and likes that character.

Characters can actively resist a con attempt by rolling their con or Perception dice against the opponent’s con total. In that case, the con difficulty number is ignored, but the modifiers are not. Cons can only be resisted by characters who suspect one — the gamemaster should never say, “Would you like to roll against a con attempt?”

Some characters will be better off not resisting and just let the conning character roll against the difficulty number. If a character with a Perception of 2D “calls” a con — rolls against it — and the difficulty would have normally been Heroic, it’s now whatever the Perception roll is... sometimes people outsmart themselves and fall for something even when they know better.

Forgery

Time Taken: One round to several days. Specializations: Specific kind of documentation to be forged — security codes, data crystal, starship schematics.

The character has the ability to falsify both electronic and non-electronic documents to say what the character wishes. Characters might forge bank codes to get someone else’s money out of an account, alter official cargo vouchers so they may appear to have the right permit to carry a certain type of restricted good, or create valid identification so they may impersonate Tau’ri inspectors.

A person inspecting a forged document may make an opposed forgery, search or Perception roll to spot the forgery. This is further modified by the difficulty in forging the document and familiarity with the type of document in question.

Modifiers:

+10 or more to forger’s roll: Forger has had extensive experience with document type or inspector has had none.

+5 to forger’s roll: Forger has some experience with document type or inspector has had little.

+3 to forger’s roll: Forger has “sample” document to compare forgery to.

+3 to forger’s roll: Forger has all necessary materials to perform forgery.

+3-15 to forger’s roll: Forger has special assistance (machines, computers) designed to assist in forging documents.

No modifier: Both characters have equal experience with document type.

+10 or more to difficulty or inspector’s roll: Inspector has extensive experience with document type or forger has none.

+5 to difficulty or inspector’s roll: Inspector has some experience with document type or forger has had little.

+3 to inspector’s roll: Inspector has “sample” document to compare forgery to.

+3-15 to inspector’s roll: Inspector has additional assistance (computers, machines, team of analyzers) designed to help spot forgeries.

Gambling

Time Taken: One round to several minutes. Specializations: Particular game of chance —poker, fizzbin, go fish, roulette.

Gambling reflects a character’s skill at various games of chance — it is used to increase their odds of winning.

This skill doesn’t affect games that are purely random, but does influence games with an element of strategy, like sabacc. When playing a skill game honestly, all characters make opposed gambling rolls, and the highest roll wins.

A character can also use the gambling skill to cheat or detect others who are cheating. When a character cheats, every other character is allowed to make an opposed gambling skill roll to see if they detect the cheat. The characters can make detection rolls every time the gambler attempts to cheat. If they fail, the gambler “wins” the round.

Modifiers include “assistance” (more than one person looking for the cheater, or helping the cheater), one character’s familiarity with the game being played surpasses the other’s, or other factors. The gamemaster should consider as many “angles” as possible when using the gambling skill.

Gamemasters are also encouraged to ask players to describe exactly how they’re cheating. A player whose character rolls a high gambling roll to cheat but doesn’t create a feasible method their character could use should not be successful. For instance, a character cheating at poker might hide a card up their sleeve or use a rigged die.

Hide

Time Taken: One round. Specializations: Camouflage.

Hide represents a character’s ability to conceal objects from view. The skill is used when trying to hide weapons on one’s person, conceal goods within luggage, plant objects to be left in a room and other similar tasks.

When characters are attempting to spot hidden objects, they must make an opposed Search or Perception check. Modifiers include how well the gamemaster thinks the character hid the object. Just rolling high to hide a Zat Gun on a character’s belt won’t do any good in a pat-down search, but dumping one into a ventilator shaft will be much more effective (usually).

Hide can also be used to conceal large objects: camouflaging a grounded starfighter or covering up the cave entrance of a secret base.

Investigation

Time Taken: One round to several days. Specializations: Locale or field of investigation — Mos Eisley, Imperial City, property estates, criminal records.

Investigation is a character’s ability to find and gather information regarding someone else’s activities, and then draw a conclusion about what the target has done or where they have gone.

Investigation is useful for finding out about the target’s ship reservations and following them to a specific planet, or figuring out what shady business dealings they have undertaken.

Just as with other skills, investigation is often more fun when you use roleplaying over skill rolls; when a player makes a good investigation roll, gamemasters can provide additional hints and clues rather than just giving the player the answer to a puzzle.

Persuasion

Time Taken: One round or longer. Specializations: Specific form of persuasion — debate, storytelling, flirt, oration.

Persuasion is similar to con and bargain — and is a little bit of both. A character using persuasion is trying to convince someone to go along with them — but they aren’t tricking the person (that would be con), and they aren’t paying them (as in a bargain).

However, potential rewards can be offered — talking someone into rescuing a princess from an Imperial holding cell is definitely a persuasion attempt. And stating that the reward would be “bigger than anything you can imagine” without going into details is not unusual.

The difficulty ranges for persuasion are the same as for con above — except they should be modified as follows:

If the character making the persuasion actually means what they say about a situation (as Daniel did when he talked to O’Neill about saving the Earth in episode 1.22 "Within The Serpent's Grasp Part 1"), decrease the difficulty range by one level.

If the character making the attempt is actually trying a low level con on the target (a bounty hunter indicates they will ‘lose their captive if given the reward money), then increase the difficulty range by one level.

Search

Time Taken: One round or longer. Specializations: Tracking.

This skill is used when the character is trying to spot hidden objects or individuals. If the subject of the search has been purposefully hidden, the searching character makes an opposed roll against the hiding character’s hide skill. If the object hasn’t been hidden, the character simply makes a roll against a difficulty.

This skill is also used to spot characters using the sneak skill, such as a group of rebels moving into position to prepare an ambush. This is an opposed roll — the character sneaking around makes a roll, and anyone who might spot the character makes a search (or Perception) roll.

Here are some sample search difficulties:

• Very Easy: Character knows object’s exact location.

• Easy: Character knows the approximate location of a hidden object.

• Moderate: Character has only vague information, or has only a general idea regarding what they are looking for.

• Difficult: Character is conducting a general search, but doesn’t know what they are looking for (looking for clues at a crime scene). Looking for objects that are very small, like coins.

• Very Difficult: Character doesn’t know what they are looking for, or is searching for a very obscure or extremely small object.

• Heroic: Object is almost microscopic in size.

Modifiers:

No Modifier: Grassland.
+3 to search difficulty: If the trail is a day old.
+6 to search difficulty: If the trail is a few days old.
+9 to search difficulty: If the trail is a week old.
+6 to search difficulty: Tracking during bad weather.
−3 to search difficulty: Soft dirt, mud, or snow.
+3 to search difficulty: In a Forest or thin crowd.
+6 to search difficulty: In a rainforest or big crowd.
+9 to search difficulty: In a desert, wasteland, or over a hard surface.
−3 to search difficulty: For every two people in a party being tracked.
−6 to search difficulty: If tracking wheeled/tracked vehicle.
−3 to search difficulty: Per additional vehicle being tracked.

Sneak

Time Taken: One round. Specializations: Specific type of terrain — jungle, urban.

Sneak represents the character’s ability to move silently, hide from view, move in shadows and otherwise creep around without being noticed. This is an opposed roll — the character sneaking around makes a roll, and anyone who might spot the character makes a search or Perception roll.

This skill allows characters to hide themselves only —to conceal objects, they must use the hide skill.

This skill is also used when the character wants to make a long distance journey without leaving behind physical clues.

The character makes a roll to leave behind false clues and paths and the tracking character must make an opposed search roll to follow the true path.

Tracking

Time Taken: One round. Specializations: Tracking in different environments, such as forest, urban, desert.

This skill allows a character to follow the markings left by a person or creature. The difficulty depends on the terrain and the amount of time that has passed since the quarry made its tracks.

The base difficulty is 10 or the target’s sneak roll, if the target is actively trying to hide their trail. Characters can also use tracking to shadow a target. A shadowed character can attempt to spot the shadow with a search roll versus the shadowing character’s tracking roll. Gamemasters may opt to include relevant hide modifiers to the tracking roll, if the shadow is being cautious.

Conditions	Modifiers
Trail is a day old	+3
Trail is a few days old	+6
Trail is a week old	+9
Tracking during inclement weather	+6
Soft dirt, mud, snow	-3
Grassland	0
Forest, thin crowd	+3
Rain forest, dense crowd	+6
Desert, arctic wasteland, hard surface	+9
Number of people being tracked (for every 2 people)	-3
Tracking a wheeled vehicle	-6
Per additional vehicle	-3

STRENGTH SKILLS

Strength represents a character’s physical strength, endurance and health. Characters with a high Strength can lift heavy objects, push themselves for days without rest and are good at resisting disease and injury. A character with a low Strength gets winded very easily.

Brawling

Time Taken: One round. Specializations: Specific brawling style — boxing, street fighting.

Brawling is the skill used for fighting hand-to-hand in an unskilled or unrefined way without any weapons. Most creatures have a good brawling skill.

The base difficulty to make a brawling attack is Very Easy unless the target makes an opposed Brawling roll or another defensive reflexive roll, like Dodge.

Grapple: Characters may grapple with their opponents rather than simply slugging them. When grappling, a character is trying to subdue their foe by wrestling him to the ground, pinning their arms so they cannot fight back, or stop him in some other way.

When a character attempts to grapple, increase the difficulty of their attack by +10 — if successful, now make opposed Strength rolls to apply ‘damage’. If the attacker achieves a stun result or better, the opponent is at a disadvantage: pinned, in a headlock, or a similar situation. If the attacker wishes, they can automatically inflict normal damage for every round the victim is held at bay. The victim must make an opposed Strength or appropriate skill roll to escape, with a +1 penalty for each point by which the character succeeded in their grapple attempt. (The initial attack roll.)

Climbing/Jumping

Time Taken: One round. Specializations: Parkour, Climbing, Jumping.

Use this skill when a character attempts to climb a tree, wall or cliff, leap a wide gap, or jump up and grab an outcropping.

Characters who have the Climbing/Jumping skill can move up a surface at their normal Move (barring adverse environmental factors) with a base difficulty of Very Easy or 5. Those without the climbing/jumping skill move at half their normal movement rate. Increasing the rate increases the difficulty by +10 for each additional one-half of the base climbing Move (rounded up).

Example: A character with a Move of 10 and without the climbing/jumping skill wants to move quickly up a tree. Their base climbing Move is 5. To increase this to eight meters per round means a difficulty of 15 (5 to climb the tree plus +10 to increase the movement by one-half, or three meters, of their base climbing Move). A character’s total leaping distance (vertically and horizontally) from a standing position equals one-quarter oftheirMove in meters (rounded up). The base difficulty is Very Easy or 5 to move this distance, and +10 for each additional two meters (vertically and horizontally) the character hopes to cover. If there is enough room, the character may try running before jumping. The character may add 5 to their skill total per round of the running start, up to a maximum of +10 (two rounds).

The character must have beat the running difficulty in both rounds in order to get the full bonus.

Climbers usually move in groups and combine actions, with frequent rest breaks and patient, steady progress. Base difficulties for uses of this skill are described above. Note that taking care in climbing and carrying 50% or more of the character’s body weight slows the character down by two meters or more per round.

Climbing Modifiers:

−10 to climber’s difficulty: Many handholds.
−6 to climber’s difficulty: Prepared for climbing.
−5 to climber’s difficulty: Taking care in climbing.
−3 to climber’s difficulty: Less than a 90-degree angle.
−6 to climber’s difficulty: Less than a 60-degree angle.
−9 to climber’s difficulty: Less than a 45-degree angle.
+3 to climber’s difficulty: Carrying 25% of body weight.
+6 to climber’s difficulty: Carrying 50% of body weight.
+15 to climber’s difficulty: Carrying 100% of body weight.
+5 to climber’s difficulty: Slick or loose surface.
+10 to climber’s difficulty: Fewer than basic handholds and footholds.

Jumping Modifiers:

No Modifier: Performing the maneuver from a flat surface, to another flat surface.
−5 to the jumper’s difficulty: Unlimited landing area.
+5 to the jumper’s difficulty: Limited landing area,
+10 to the jumper’s difficulty: Almost no landing area.
+3 or more to the jumper’s difficulty: Rough, slick, or unsteady landing area.
+6 to the jumper’s difficulty: Uphill (more than 30-degrees).
+6 to jumper’s difficulty: Carrying 50% of body weight.
+9 to jumper’s difficulty: Carrying 75% of body weight.
+12 to jumper’s difficulty: Carrying 100% of body weight.

Lifting

Time Taken: One round.

Lifting is a character’s ability to lift heavy objects; it’s also the character’s ability to carry something for a long time. The difficulty depends on the weight of the object and how long it will be carried.

When a character first lifts an object, they must make a lifting check. At each interval listed on the chart below, the character has to make another check to see if they can continue to carry the object or is so exhausted that they must put it down.

If the character fails a roll, they must immediately put the object down. If the character matches the difficulty level, they can do nothing but concentrate on carrying the object for that time while walking.

If the character beats the difficulty by more than one level, the character can do other actions while carrying the weight, but lifting the object always counts as an action.

Please note that for repeated Heroic actions, the difficulty should escalate (for example, a first Heroic action might have a difficulty number of 30; the second one might have a difficulty of 35; the third might have a difficulty number of 45, and so forth).

Weight	Difficulty Level
10kg	Very Easy
50kg	Easy
100kg	Moderate
200kg	Difficult
500kg	Very Difficult
750kg	Heroic
1 metric ton	Heroic +10
1.5 metric tons	Heroic +20
2 metric tons	Heroic +30
2.5 metric tons	Heroic +40
3 metric tons	Heroic +50

Increase the difficulty based on how long the character wishes to lift the object:

Time	Difficulty Level Increase
1-2 rounds	(up to 1min)
3-4	2 min +1 difficulty level
5-6	3 min +2 difficulty levels
Up to 10 min	+3 difficulty levels
Up to 30 min	+4 difficulty levels
Up to 1 hour	+5 difficulty levels

After the first hour, the character must make a new lifting or Strength roll every hour at the same difficulty as for one hour. If the character fails the roll, the character must rest for twice as long as they was lifting the heavy weight.

Running

Time Taken: One round or more. Specializations: Long distance, short sprint.

Running is the character’s ability to run and keep their balance, especially in dangerous terrain. The running difficulty is based on the kind of terrain being crossed and how fast the character moves. See the chapter on “Movement and Chases” for more information.

Stamina

Time Taken: Stamina checks are made when characters exert themselves over long periods of time.

Stamina checks reflect that a character is being pushed to their physical limits. They should be called for once in a while to show the strain on a character; only require them when a character does something out of the ordinary.

Whenever a character fails a stamina roll, they are fatigued; all actions are at −1D for every stamina check failed until the character rests for as long as they exerted themselves.

Characters can still continue if they are fatigued, until they fail a third stamina check. At this point, the character is completely exhausted and must rest for twice the amount of time that they exerted themselves to remove the penalty.

Swimming

Time Taken: One round to several minutes or hours.

This skill represents the character’s ability to stay afloat in aquatic environments — lakes, oceans, flooding rivers and luxury starliner swimming pools.

Swimming difficulties are determined by the water conditions: the starliner pool is Very Easy, while a roaring river might be Very Difficult.

When a character fails a swim check, they begin to drown. Roll 2D at the beginning of each round; if the total is less than the number of rounds that the character has been drowning, the character drowns and dies.

Characters can attempt other actions while drowning at a −3D penalty.

Characters who are drowning may attempt to save themselves once per round. They must make a swimming total at one level of difficulty higher than the one in which they failed their swimming roll (the character doesn’t suffer the −3D penalty when making this roll).

TECHNICAL SKILLS

Technical stands for “technical aptitude” and represents a character’s innate knowledge of how to take apart, repair and modify things. A character with a high Technical attribute can take apart a droid to repair a malfunction, fix a busted drive system on an airplane, and modify an Energy Weapon to have a longer range. Technical also reflects a character’s knowledge of healing and medicine,their skill at setting explosives, and their ability to figure out electronic security systems. Characters with a low Technical have trouble changing a power pack on an Energy Weapon pistol.

USING REPAIR SKILLS

The various repair skills follow similar patterns for time taken and difficulties. While the individual skills are explained below, some general rules regarding repair skills are outlined here for easy reference.

Time Taken: Several repair skill rolls can be made when fixing damaged vehicles and equipment. The initial roll represents 15 minutes of work. Should that roll fail, additional repair rolls may be made after varying lengths of time. High technology machinery is very complex, and requires extra maintenance to ensure it operates at optimum performance levels. While repair rolls can represent time taken to maintain vehicles and vessels, this type of activity can be done “off-camera” (outside of game play) rather than take place during adventures.

Damaged Systems: Each damaged system aboard a vehicle or vessel (drives, shields, weapons, etc.) requires a separate repair roll to fix. No single repair roll will fix all the systems of any craft if multiple components are damaged; however, several characters with repair skills may dole out the work and try to fix different systems at the same time — it just requires separate rolls from different characters.

Repair Difficulties: The difficulty level for repair rolls depends on how much damage the item, vehicle or starship has taken.

For determining vehicle damage, see the chapter on “Movement and Chases.” Starship damage is discussed in the chapter on “Space Travel and Combat.”

Once you’ve determined how badly the starship, vehicle, or item is damaged, check the appropriate sections below. They’re divided by the different stats and systems that can be affected by damage — each lists the pertinent skills which can be used to repair such systems.

Note: As always, repair times, difficulties and costs are generalizations. Feel free to adjust them to suit the needs of your game. Particular situational modifiers are listed below:

+7 to repair roll: Previously built or modified the item; intimately familiar with item. +5 to repair roll: Has the item's designs.

No modifier: Common item, all parts available, character has a general tool kit (note enhanced tool kits may provide additional bonuses see page XXX). +5 to difficulty: Has seen but not used item. +10 to difficulty: Has never seen item, only some parts available. +15 to difficulty: Makeshift tools. +20 to difficulty: No parts available.

Drives: The ion engines, anti-gravity generators and motors that power starships and vehicles are often known as “drives.” They can be destroyed in combat, resulting in the loss of propulsion.

When a drive or generator is destroyed, a Difficult repair roll is necessary to replace it, and it costs 35% of the craft’s original value.

Aquatic Vehicle Repair, Starship Repair, Ground Vehicle Repair, Hover Vehicle Repair, and Submersible Vehicle Repair can be used to fix drives on their respective vehicles and vessels.

Hyperdrives: The machinery used to propel starships into hyperspace can be damaged in combat, preventing vessels from jumping. A Moderate repair roll is necessary to fix a damaged hyperdrive.

Skills that can be used to fix hyperdrives include Starship Repair, Engineering: Hyperdrives, and possibly Physical Science: Hyperdrive. Using Physical Science: Hyperdrive, could incur a -2D to the roll, since you are applying theory to reality.

Maneuverability: When a craft’s maneuver components are hit, it loses directional control. The difficulty to repair these systems depends on how many maneuverability dice were lost. Damage also reflects the cost for new parts and tools based on a percentage of the vehicle or vessel’s original price.

Maneuver Dice Lost	Repair Difficulty	Repair Cost
-1D	Easy	10%
-2D	Moderate	15%
-3D or more	Difficult	20%

Aquatic Vehicle Repair, Starship Repair, Ground Vehicle repair, Hover Vehicle Repair, Repulsorlift Repair, and Submersible Repair can all be used to return maneuverability to normal on their respective vessels.

Move or Space: These stats reflect how fast vehicles and starships can travel. When drives take smaller increments of damage, a craft slows down, as represented by a loss of “moves” (whether it’s a vehicle with a “Move” stat or a starship with a “Space” stat). To repair lost “moves,” check the chart below for difficulties and cost:

Moves Lost	Repair Difficulty	Repair Cost
1	Easy	10%
2	Moderate	15%
3	Difficulty	20%
4	Very Difficult	25%
5	Drive Destroyed; must be replaced

Use these skills when fixing damage from lost moves: Aquatic Vehicle Repair, Starship Repair, Ground Vehicle Repair, Hover Vehicle Repair, and Submersible Vehicle Repair. Individual skills can only replace moves on their respective vehicle or vessel types.

Shields: Starship combat can blow out vessels’ shield generators — difficulties and costs to repair this damage depends on how many shield dice were lost.

Shield Dice Lost	Repair Difficulty	Repair Cost
1D	Easy	5%
2D	Moderate	5%
3D	Difficult	5%
4D+	Very Difficult	10%

Starship repair can be used to repair shields aboard vessels or vehicles that use shields.

Weapons: Energy Weapon pistols, Railguns, Staff Cannons, and other weapons can take damage in combat, and characters with appropriate weapons repair skills must step in to fix them. Difficulties and cost depend on how badly weapons are hit. The “cost” is based on the weapon’s cost, not the ship’s.

Damage	Repair Difficulty	Repair Cost
Lightly	Easy	15%
Heavily	Moderate	25%
Severely	Very Difficult	35%
Destroyed	May not be repaired

Vehicle Gunnery Repair is used to fix any vehicle mounted character- or vehicle-scale weapons. (This includes everything from energy based weapons to bullet based weapons, and artillery batteries. Starship Weapon Repair is used to fix starfighter- , capital-, or planetary-scale weapons.) Bows, flamethrowers, melee, and other non-blaster equipment is fixed by using the Equipment Repair skill. While character-held energy weapons are fixed by Energy Weapons Repair skill and Firearms Repair to fix firearms.

Armor and Equipment: The rules for repairing weapons also apply for repairing damaged armor (using the Armor Repair skill) and general equipment like comlinks and breath masks (using the Equipment Repair skill). Use the weapon repair chart above to determine the difficulty and cost to repair damaged items and blasted armor.

IMPROVING VEHICLES, VESSELS AND WEAPONS

During the course of a Stargate D6 campaign, characters grow attached to their favorite starships, ground vehicles, and firearms. They want to tinker with them — characters can use their repair skills to improve the speed, damage, shields, or other stats of their vehicles, vessels and weapons.

Boosting these stats involves many different factors: cost of new materials, the technician’s talent, and strain of modifications on existing parts and systems.

Gamemasters, beware: the more you let players improve their characters’ vehicles and ships, the more powerful they become. Characters failing modification repair rolls might permanently damage or destroy the system they’re working on.

Feel free to give successfully modified systems occasional quirks or problems. They’re good plot devices, balance out game play, and give the vehicle or vessel a personality of sorts.

Below are general rules for modifying vehicles, vessels and weapons. They are in no way comprehensive, but they provide a basic framework. The notes are broken down by system (just like “Using Repair Skills” above) which discusses difficulties, costs and skills your characters can use.

Modification Limit: Stats may only be increased one “pip,” or one Move level. For instance, a maneuverability of 1D must be improved to 1D+1 and 1D+2 before it can be modified to 2D. Increases shown in the charts below reflect the modification above the original stat: the owner is constantly replacing and upgrading parts of the original ship’s systems.

Using these rules, no system may be improved more than +1D+2, or more than 4 moves.

A new repair improvement roll can be made every month of game time. Use the charts below for guidelines on difficulties and costs. The costs are always a percentage of the item’s original value. Should characters find someone else capable of implementing modifications, double or triple the cost.

Mishaps: Modified equipment has a chance of failure. The more a piece of equipment is pushed past its original design specifications, the greater the chance of failure. When someone is using a modified piece of equipment, the gamemaster may use the following rules.

First, the gamemaster should determine what type of modification has been used: Weapon, Vehicle (for starships and vehicles) or Non-Lethal (for anything else, like jetpacks, data crystals, sensors and so forth).

Whenever the player rolls a 1 on the Wild Die while using the modified device, the gamemaster should roll a 1D “mishap roll”, adding the Mishap Modifier column as indicated on the modified system table. Reference the tables above to determine the type of complication.

The tables above are designed to present baseline failures and are intentionally general in nature. The gamemaster is encouraged to be creative in determining the specifics of the mishap based on the ship, vehicle, or equipment involved, and the system experiencing the mishap.

Hyperdrives: These sensitive engines can be improved to speed travel through hyperspace. The difficulty and cost for improvement depends on the level of improvement desired.

Pip Increase	Difficulty	Cost	Mishap Modifier
+1	Easy	5%	+1
+2	Moderate	10%	+1
+1D	Difficult	15%	+1
+1D+1	Very Difficult	20%	+2
+1D+2	Heroic	25%	+3

Failure on these modification repair rolls could permanently damage hyperdrives, or cause them to function sporadically.

Skills used to improve hyperdrives include Starship Repair, Physical Sciences: Hyperspace, or Engineering: Hyperdrives.

Maneuverability: This stat can be increased by adding new lateral and variable thrusters to the craft. Use the difficulties and the percentage of original cost indicated on the chart in the next column:

Pip Increase	Difficulty	Cost	Mishap Modifier
+1	Easy	5%	+1
+2	Moderate	10%	+1
+1D	Difficult	15%	+1
+1D+1	Very Difficult	20%	+2
+1D+2	Heroic	25%	+3

Failing any modification repair roll can result in loss of some or all maneuverability. It could also have some serious side-effects, such as reversing controls (left jets turn the ship right, right jets veer left) or misfiring thrusters (zigging when the craft should have zagged).

Improvements to maneuverability can be made using the skill appropriate to the craft modified: Aquatic Vehicle Repair, Starship Repair, Ground Vehicle Repair, Hover Vehicle Repair, and Submersible Vehicle Repair.

Move or Space: By improving a vehicle or vessel’s drives, characters can improve its Move or Space stat. To add to a vehicle’s Move, check the chart below for difficulties and cost:

Move Increase	Difficulty	Cost	Mishap Modifier
+5	Moderate	10%	+1
+10	Difficult	15%	+1
+15	Very Difficult	20%	+2
+20	Heroic	25%	+3

To boost a starship’s Space stat, use the chart below. (The ship’s new Move can be found on the “Ships in an Atmosphere” chart in the chapter on “Space Travel and Combat.”)

Space Increase	Difficulty	Cost	Mishap Modifier
+1	Moderate	10%	+1
+2	Difficult	15%	+1
+3	Very Difficult	20%	+2
+4	Heroic	25%	+3

Characters failing repair rolls to increase moves might seriously damage their ship’s drives, possibly reducing the Move or Space of their craft. A failure may also periodic malfunctions or cause “jumpy” movement, stalls or slow starts.

These skills are used to improve vehicle and starship speeds: Aquatic Vehicle Repair, Starship Repair, Ground Vehicle Repair, Hover Vehicle Repair, and Submersible Vehicle Repair. Individual skills can only improve moves on their respective vehicle or vessel types.

Shields: A starship may add protection by boosting its shield die code. Improvements often reflect additional shield generators or boosters — although only so many may be added effectively before overloading the ship’s power core.

Pip Increase	Difficulty	Cost	Mishap Modifier
+1	Easy	15%	+1
+2	Moderate	20%	+1
+1D	Difficult	25%	+1
+1D+1	Very Difficult	30%	+2
+1D+2	Heroic	35%	+3

Failed modification repair rolls might permanently blow out a ship’s shield generator, could foul shield controls (adding +5 or more to all difficulties when deploying shields) or could cause random shield malfunctions.

Starship Repair, Physical Science: Energy Fields, or Engineering: Shield Generation, can be used to improve shields aboard vessels.

Weapons: Characters may wish to improve the fire control and damage for certain weapons, including personal sidearms (energy weapon pistols) and ordnance mounted on vessels. (The cost is based on the original cost of the weapon itself, not the ship or vehicle it’s mounted on.)

Pip Increase	Difficulty	Cost	Mishap Modifier
+1	Easy	15%	+1
+2	Moderate	20%	+1
+1D	Difficult	25%	+1
+1D+1	Very Difficult	30%	+2
+1D+2	Heroic	35%	+3

Character may also improve the range of their weapons.

Range Increase	Difficulty	Cost	Mishap Modifier
+5%	Easy	5%	+1
+10%	Moderate	10%	+1
+15%	Difficult	15%	+1
+20%	Very Difficult	20%	+2
+25%	Heroic	25%	+3

A failed modification repair roll could result in the weapon’s destruction, or might cause a recurring quirk (weapon loses power after each shot), reduced damage or fire control.

Firearms Repair, Energy Weapon Repair, or Vehicle Gunnery Repair, can modify all character-, vehicle- or jumbo jet-scale weapons. Starship weapon repair is also required for starfighter-, capital-, or planetary-scale weapons, Bows, flamethrowers, blades, and other non-alien or energy based equipment is modified by using the equipment repair skill.

Armor and Equipment: The rules for modifying weapons also apply for improving personal armor (using the armor repair skill) and general equipment like comlinks and breath masks (using the equipment repair skill). Use the charts above to determine the difficulty and cost to boost armor and equipment die codes.

JURY-RIGGING

As described above, a character may increase the performance ability of their equipment. They can make their weapons more powerful or make their vehicle more maneuverable. Improving equipment through skill points reflects the fact that the character is investing themselves into the equipment. It is a long-term and costly process.

It is possible, however, to increase the performance of equipment without spending money. Unfortunately, this short cut tends to make the improvement temporary, and dangerous when the equipment fails. The process is called jury-rigging.

When a character jury-rigs a staff weapon’s power pack into a bomb or alters the design of an fighter jet's mechanical air flaps, they are making the machine or item better - but by means that no honest engineer would ever use. Jury-rigging involves connecting wires that shouldn't be connected, taking out important safety features of a vehicle, or putting together two kinds of electronics that don't really belong together. Jury-rigged equipment provides a short term benefit, but it is predisposed to breakdown.

Jury-rigging something takes one hour, or the character can rush, jury-rigging the item in one minute, although the task becomes one difficulty harder. Very difficult tasks can be attempted in one minute. There is no way to spend more time on jury-rigging to make the task easier.

If the roll to jury-rig something is failed, it can be tried again, but the second try always takes an hour (even if the initial attempt was only one minute).

The Role of Jury-Rigging

Jury-rigging equipment often requires strange bits of wire and odds and ends. The gamemaster must decide if the equipment to jury-rig some- thing is on hand if the SG Team did not specify that they brought the equipment with them. The game master should keep in mind that it is in the spirit of the jury-rigging rules that the players slap stuff together when they want to. This is why the break down rules exist: to balance out the bonus the players get. A lack of materials for jury-rigging should be the exception, not the rule.

Improving Existing Abilities

The most common way to jury-rig an item is to improve one of its existing die codes. For example, a energy weapon can be rigged for better damage or an starship can be rigged for more speed. This kind of improvement only enhances a tool's die code (for example, a energy weapon can only improve the damage code this way, while a capital ship weapon could have fire control or damage increased).

An item can be made better by 1D, 2D, or 3D. Thus, a staff weapon's damage can be improved from 6D to 7D, 8D, or 9D. The maneuverability of an F-302 can be improved from 3D+2 to 4D+2, 5D+2, or 6D+2.

Jury-rigging requires a successful technology roll. The difficulty is determined by the degree of improvement.

Jury-Rigging Difficulties

Improving Die Code	Difficulty
1D	Moderate
2D	Difficult
3D	Very Difficult

Adding New Abilities

Specialized devices can be made from spare parts or an existing item can be modified to have an ability it never had before (for example, juryrigging a energy weapon so that the user gets bonus dice to hit a target).

Equipment Failure

Jury-rigged equipment has a chance of failure. The more a piece of equipment is pushed past its original design specifications, the greater the chance of failure. When someone is using a jury- rigged piece of equipment, he should roll the extra dice gained from the jury-rigging after the dice he would normally roll (alternately, use different colored dice for the normal roll and the jury-rigged dice).

For example, a energy weapon with a base damage of 4D and a jury-rigged additional damage of 1D would roll the four dice and then the bonus one die separately.

If any of the bonus dice come up as a one (1), the jury-rigged device has been pushed beyond its limitations and may break down. Roll on the Jury-Rig Breakdown Table. The bonus dice must always be rolled when the jury-rigged device is used. Therefore, there is always a risk of failure. Bonus dice are never lost as a result of multiple actions in the same round.

Jury-Rig Breakdown

Jury-Rigged items are divided into four broad categories because different types of equipment breakdown differently. The categories are: Lethal, Non-Leathal, Vehicles, and No-Dice.

When a player rolls a one on a jury-rig bonus die, the game master makes a secret roll on 1D. He then checks the proper table below to determine the result.

Lethal 1: The item explodes, doing damage equal to the amount of the jury-rig. 2: The item is broken and cannot be repaired. 3: The item stops working, but need only be slammed hard to work again. It takes an action to do this. 4-6: The item is fine

Vehicles 1: All power systems shut down and the vehicle drops like a stone. A Moderate skill roll for the craft is necessary for a safe emergency landing, otherwise the vehicle crashes. 2: The vehicle bucks. An Easy skill roll is necessary to keep the vehicle from careening out of control. 3-6: The vehicle is fine

Non-Lethal 1: The item is broken and cannot be repaired. 2: The item stops working, but need only be slammed hard to work again. It takes an action to do this. 3-6: The item is fine

No-Dice No-Dice devices do not get bonus dice. All No-Dice devices have a base difficulty to build (noted in the description) The level of success on the building roll determines if another roll needs to be made to keep the device functioning properly until the next check is necessary. To increase suspense, don’t tell the players how long the device will work when they make their next roll. Instead, when the next check is due, just tell them to make another roll. > If the roll is below the difficulty level, roll on the non-lethal table. If the item continues to work, roll on another no-dice check in one minute.  > if the roll equals the building difficulty level, roll again in 15 min. >If the roll is one level higher than the difficulty, roll in one hour. >If the roll is two levels higher, roll again in six hours. When a roll fails, the jury-rigged device falls apart, complete with sparks and sound effects provided by the game master.

When a roll fails, the jury-rigged device falls apart, complete with sparks and sound effects provided by the game master.

Aquatic Vehicle Repair

Time Taken: In general, 15 minutes, then one hour, then one day, then two days. May be customized to circumstances. Specializations: Particular ship type or class — Oceanic transport, coastal runabout, skiff. sailboat.

This skill represents a character’s familiarity with the workings of aquatic vehicles, and their ability to repair and modify them. Each roll may repair one damaged system aboard a particular vessel. The cost and difficulty to repair a vessel depends on how badly it is damaged, and what systems have been hit. See “Using Repair Skills” above for difficulties and costs associated with various systems which may be damaged.

Armor Repair

Time Taken: In general, 15 minutes, then one hour, then two hours. May be customized to circumstances. Specializations: Armor Type — Vanir armor, Herrenvolk armor.

Armor repair reflects the character’s ability to fix and modify armor that has been damaged. The cost and difficulty to repair armor depends upon how badly damaged it is. See “Weapons” in “Using Repair Skills” above.

Energy Weapon Repair

Time Taken: In general, 15 minutes, then one hour, then two hours. May be customized to circumstances. Specializations: Type or model weapon — energy weapon pistols, staff cannon artillery, Zat Gun, asgard ion cannon.

A character’s ability to fix and modify energy weapons (character-, vehicle- and jumbo jet-scale) is represented by their Energy Weapon repair skill. The cost and difficulty to repair weapons depends upon how badly it is damaged — see “Weapons” in “Using Repair Skills” above.

Note: bladed melee weapons, firearms, and other non-energy weapons are repaired and modified using the equipment or firearms repair skills.

Starship Repair

Time Taken: In general, 15 minutes, then one hour, then one day, then two days. May be customized to circumstances. Specializations: Type or class of ship — Ha’tak mothership, BC-304, F-302, Tel’tak transport.

This skill represents a character’s familiarity with the workings of Starships, and their ability to repair them.

Each roll may repair one damaged component aboard a particular vessel. The cost and difficulty to repair a system depends on how badly it is damaged, and what systems have been damaged.

See “Using Repair Skills” above for difficulties and costs associated with various systems which may be damaged.

Starship Weapon Repair

Time Taken: In general, 15 minutes, then one hour, then one day, then two days. May be customized to circumstances. Specializations: Weapon type or model — naquadah missiles, ion cannons, staff cannon, railgun emplacements, and tractor beams.

Starship Weapon Repair is used to repair starfighter-, capital-, planetary-scale ship weapons. The cost and difficulty to repair a weapon depends upon how badly it is damaged — see “Weapons” in “Using Repair Skills” above for exact difficulties and costs associated with fixing capital ship weapons.

Computer Programming/Repair

Time Taken: One round to several minutes, hours or days. Specializations: Type or model computer — portable computer, mainframe, data crystals.

Characters use this skill to repair, modify, and program computers — it also covers a character’s familiarity with computer security procedures,their ability to evade them, and the ability to get secure information.

Getting information through a computer requires you to connect to the appropriate network and locate the files you seek. Connecting to a network (generally takes 1 whole round) doesn’t require a skill roll if you use a computer that’s already linked to it. However, establishing a connection to a network using a remote computer requires an Easy computer programming/ repair skill roll. Most secure computer connections in the Stargate universe require a physical connection jack or plug in.

The time required and the Difficulty of are determined by the type of information sought.

• Very Easy: Public data. Your character’s bank account balance. (1 minute)

• Easy: Public data, but finding it may take a little more research. Who owns a building or company. (10 minutes)

• Moderate: Private data. A person’s diary, or their credit balance. (1 hour)

• Difficult: Secret data. A corporation’s records, military plans. (8 hours)

• Very Difficult: Top-secret data. The SGC’s cloaking device plans, a General’s itinerary (gamemaster discretion).

• Heroic: Information that only a select few individuals would know. The location of all of Anubius’ secret weapons vaults (gamemaster discretion).

If the character beats the difficulty number, they retrieve the Information that they were looking for. If the roll is less than half the difficulty number, the computer’s security system becomes aware of the intruder and triggers all alarms.

Demolitions

Time Taken: One round to several minutes. Specializations: Specific target type — bridges, walls, vehicles.

Demolitions reflects a character’s ability to set explosives for both destructive purposes and to accomplish specific special effects.

The most common explosive is C4, and a fist sized cube does 4D character-scale damage. The damage in the charts below is figured for one cube of C4. Additional C4 increases the base damage by +1D. If characters aren’t using a high-grade explosive like C4, reduce damage. Making explosives out of readily available materials (blaster power packs, reactant chemicals, power converters) is a handy skill in the field; however, these alternative explosives are often not as effective as C4.

When a character sets charges, they can either try to set the explosive to cause extra damage or create some special effects.

Extra Damage: Use the following difficulties when setting explosives to cause extra damage. The difficulty depends on the object being destroyed:

• Very Easy: A plywood door. • Easy: A hard wooden door. • Moderate: A bolted steel door. • Difficult: A lightly armored door such as a blast door. • Very Difficult: A heavily armored object, such as the hull of a starship.

If the character beats the difficulty, they add extra damage dice past the C4’s amount used. Find the number of points by which the character beat the difficulty:

Points Above Difficulty	Extra Damage
1-5	+1D
6-10	+2D
11-15	+3D
16-20	+4D
21-30	+5D
31+	+6D

This bonus is added to the explosive’s base damage. Roll the damage against the object’s body strength. (See the chapter on “Combat and Injuries.”)

If that damage penetrates the obstacle, then the attempt succeeded. Note that, if enough explosive is used, the roll becomes almost irrelevant (except in checking for mishaps).

Special Effects: Characters may also try achieving special effects with explosives. The difficulty depends on the specific type of result:

• Very Easy: Rigging a bomb so the next time a car is put into drive the bomb goes off, destroying the vehicle.

• Easy: Blowing off the back hatch of a computer without leaving any permanent marks or burns.

• Moderate: Rigging and hiding explosives on blast doors so the next time they are closed the explosive goes off, funneling the explosion down a specific hall. This takes five minutes to prepare.

• Difficult: Setting off an explosive charge on a ring platform, so that it goes off when the platform activates, destroying it.

Engineering

Time Taken: Minutes or Hours Specializations — this skill is typically specialized, some examples: Aquatic Vehicle, Armor, Civil/Industrial, Equipment, Installation, Hyperdrives, Subspace Transmission, Subspace, and Firearms.

The Engineering skill represents the ability to create and build practical applications of areas of study. This skill is typically specialized. When you do specialize it, a good rule of thumb is to take all three specializations in Engineering, with them somehow related.

Example: Engineering: Starships, Engineering: Life Support, Engineering: Hyperdrive

The Engineering skill involves many separate and complex activities and fields of study. An engineer must be versed in a number of skill disciplines and will likely be called upon to perform a wide range of tasks. Part architect, part technician, part repairman, part inventor, and part scientist, the engineer needs to be familiar with every aspect of their specialization.

Using Engineering specializations allows a character to perform any one of the following tasks; build, maintain, repair, or modify.

The Engineering skill is one that is left generally to gamemaster discretion. The core rules are intentionally vague regarding the application of the Engineering skill rules

Characters will inevitably attempt to design very powerful and unbalanced designs. The gamemaster should be cautions about allowing certain design types to be constructed and should require multiple rolls at varying difficulties in order to complete a design.

The construction of the design will take a lot of time and possibly (for larger designs) require a work crew to build the prototype. The costs associated with custom design are generally much more than with a “stock” purchase. This is due to the fact that many of the parts and structure may have to be fabricated. The players and gamemaster should work together to set the “ground rules” for cost, time to complete, and difficulty prior to a player character taking this skill.

Engineering Modification Option: At gamemaster discretion, if the player is using the appropriate Engineering skill to modify a component, instead of the repair skill. In this case, the modified system is no longer considered “jury-rigged”; mishaps, and mishap modifiers are ignored, and the modified system is treated as if it were “stock”.

A complication (rolling “1” on the Wild Die) may occur, but the gamemaster should treat this as a normal complication and not a mishap. Additionally the player using the Engineering skill will be able to modify the system at on Difficulty Level lower than indicated.

For example a character modifying a vehicles Move by +5 (See Move Increase table) would be able to do so at a Difficulty of Easy and would not take the Mishap Modifier on a mishap roll.

Equipment Repair

Time Taken: In general, 15 minutes, then one hour, then two hours. May be customized to circumstances. Specializations: Type or model equipment — breath mask, comlink, melee weapons, hand scanner.

A character’s ability to fix and modify various character-, vehicle-, and Jumbo Jet-scale equipment items. The cost and difficulty to repair equipment depends upon how badly it is damaged — see “Weapons” in “Using Repair Skills” above.

Note energy weapons are repaired and modified using the Energy Weapon repair skill. Computers and small sensors may be repaired using the computer programming/repair skill or equipment repair.

First Aid

Time Taken: One combat round. Specializations: Species of patient — humans, Goa’uld, Asgard, Unas.

First aid reflects a character’s ability to perform emergency life saving procedures in the field. For rules on the use of first aid, see “Combat and Injuries.”

Ground Vehicle Repair

Time Taken: In general, 15 minutes, then one hour, then one day, then two days. May be customized to circumstances. Specializations: Type or model ground vehicle — compact assault vehicle, Humvee, Honda Accord.

This skill represents a character’s familiarity with the workings of ground vehicles, and their ability to modify or repair them. Each roll may repair one damaged system aboard a particular craft. The cost and difficulty to repair a vehicle depends on how badly it is damaged, and what systems have been damaged. See “Using Repair Skills” above for difficulties and costs associated with various systems which may be damaged.

Hover Vehicle Repair

Time Taken: In general, 15 minutes, then one hour, then one day, then two days. May be customized to circumstances. Specializations: Type or model hover vehicle — hovercraft, hydrofoil.

Characters use this skill when repairing or modifying hover vehicle systems. Each roll may repair one damaged component aboard a particular craft. The cost and difficulty to repair a hover vehicle depends on how badly it is hit, and what systems have been damaged. See “Using Repair Skills” above for difficulties and costs associated with various systems which may be damaged.

Medicine

Time Taken: Minutes or hours. Specializations: Specific field known — medicines, cyborging, surgery. Recommended Prereq: First Aid at 5D.

Characters with this skill can perform complex medical procedures such as surgery, operation of healing units, and the installation of implants and enhancements.

They are also familiar with all types of medicines and are capable of using them to best effect.

Security

Time Taken: One round to several minutes. Specializations: Type or model security device — secure lock, blast door, retinal lock.

This skill represents a character’s knowledge of physical security systems: locks, alarm systems and other detection devices. It does not govern computer security procedures.

The difficulty depends on the sophistication of the lock or alarm:

• Very Easy: Standard lock, no special protection. • Easy: Regular security lock, civilian. • Moderate: High-quality lock, standard military. • Difficult: Bank vault lock, upper military. • Very Difficult: Super-security lock, Imperial governor, Fleet captain, rare collectible dealer, Baal’s locks. • Heroic: If Anubis or Sokar locked things up, this is what they’d use.

Starship Weapon Repair

Time Taken: In general, 15 minutes, then one hour, then one day, then two days. May be customized to circumstances. Specializations: Specific type or model weapon — naquadah missiles, Asgard ion cannons, Staff cannon, proton beams.

Starship weapon repair covers a character’s ability to fix and modify starfighter-scale weapons. The cost and difficulty to repair weapons depends upon how badly it is damaged — see “Weapons” in “Using Repair Skills” above.

Submersible Vehicle Repair

Time Taken: In general, 15 minutes, then one hour, then one day, then two days. May be customized to circumstances. Specializations: Particular submersible type or class — Electric submarine, Alaska Class Nuclear Submarine.

This repair skill represents a character’s ability to fix and modify submersible vehicles. Each roll may repair one damaged system aboard a particular submersible.

The cost and difficulty to repair depends on how badly it is damaged, and what systems have been hit. See “Using Repair Skills” above for difficulties and costs associated with various systems which may be damaged.

OTHER SKILLS

There are plenty of other skills in the galaxy, but most of them don’t directly affect the game, so they’re not covered here. When a character wants to do something not covered by a skill, the gamemaster can simply assign the action to an attribute; if the player wants their character to get better at the task, the gamemaster can invent a new skill.

For example, what if the character wants to get better at a sport called nega-ball? There’s no nega-ball skill... but the game involves a lot of running around and throwing a ball at a small target, so the gamemaster decides that the character should usetheirDexterity attribute. If the player decides that they want their character to get better at nega-ball, the gamemaster can invent a nega-ball skill.

Interpreting the System. The D6 game system is very flexible and the gamemaster should interpret the rules as needed. For example, even though there’s not a nega-ball skill, the gamemaster could have chosen to use several skills: thrown weapons whenever the character throws the ball, running when the character tries to move around other players on the nega-ball court and stamina to see how the character holds up. All of these choices are just as “right” as choosing to create the nega-ball skill — it depends on what the gamemaster and the players feel is fair.

Controlling Skills. Some players may try to come up with some ridiculously powerful skills or specializations — for example, communications: Goa’uld secret codes. Granted, this skill may exist, but no character could have the skill without a really good reason. Gamemasters may reject any new skill or specialization they think is unbalanced — or better yet, they may give the character some unexpected complications from having this kind of skill. You can give the players what they want...but remind them to be careful what they wish for because they may get it and all the consequences, too.

With communications: Goa’uld secret codes, for example, the System Lords might know that this character has in-depth knowledge of Goa’uld security procedures, and decide that they have to be “eliminated.” Yes, this character gets the skill, but their life has just been made a lot more interesting...