Rogue & Thief
Rogue & Thief Skills
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Card Shark
A skill that involves the manual dexterity of hand and finger manipulation to perform tricks, palming, and other gimmicks of sleight of hand with playing cards.
This includes dealing from the bottom or middle of the deck, stacking a deck (to the card shark's favor), hiding cards up the sleeve (and elsewhere), fancy and impressive methods of shuffling and dealing the cards, as well as card counting and understanding the odds.
A failed roll means the character has fumbled the trick or was too obvious and is caught cheating !
Base Skill: 24%+4% per level of experience.
Add +4% if the character also has the palming skill.
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Concealment
The practiced ability to hide small items on one's body or in hand, usually by continually moving it around from hand to hand or place to place unnoticed.
Objects must be no larger than 14 inches i n height or length, and six inches in width.
The weight must also be 10 pounds or less (4.5 kg).
The smaller and lighter the object, such as a knife, gem, key, credit card, etc., the easier it is to conceal (add a bonus of +5%).
Larger items, such as a book, scroll, club, statue, or similarly large or heavy object, are more difficult to conceal on one's person for obvious reasons.
Base Skill: 20%+4% per level of experience.
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Locate Secret Compartments/Doors
Vaguely similar to the espionage skill of detect concealment, this skill focuses specifically on finding and opening trap doors and secret compartments constructed within buildings and furniture.
The character is familiar with all standard types of trap doors, hidden floor and ceiling panels, secret rooms, and secret passages, as well as the usual methods of opening them. This gives the character a solid idea of where such secret doors are most likely to be found, how to identify and access them, and their typical construction and design.
This knowledge also includes finding secret compartments concealed and built into furniture, boxes, toys, the heel of a boot, clothing, and other objects. It takes about 2D4+6 minutes to properly search the walls and floors of a 10 foot (3 m) square area or any one piece of furniture or object.
Roll once to locate and again to open it.
Base Skill: 15 %+5% per level of experience.
Add a bonus of +5% if the character also knows carpentry and another +5% if he has the general repair or field armorer skill.
Reduce this skill by half when trying to detect camouflage and other forms of concealment.
Also reduce by half if an attempt is made to deactivate or safely trigger a trap.
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Palming
Simply the ability to pick up and seemingly make a small object, such as a coin, key, playing card, dagger, etc ., disappear by concealing it in one's hand.
Adds a bonus of +5% to the pick pocket and card shark skills.
Base Skill: 20%+5 % per level of experience.
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Pick Locks
The character knows the methods and tools for picking/opening key and basic tumbler type locks. The character can also try to deactivate a trap if he knows about it in advance, but does so at half his normal lock picking skill ability.
It takes 1 D6 melee rounds for each attempt to pick a lock.
A failed roll means the lock holds; try again. A second failed roll means that the lock is beyond the character's present skill level and cannot be opened!
The character can try again after a week or so but at -10% (psyched out).
He can also try again at full skill proficiency after reaching a new level of experience.
Base Skill: 30%+5% per level of experience.
The character can try to deactivate traps without triggering them at half his normal skill ability.
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Pick Pockets
An ability to remove items form a person without their being aware of it. If a pick pocket attempt fails, the item has NOT been removed and there is a 67% likelihood of the intended victim recognizing the intent of the action.
Base Skill: 25%+5% per level of experience.
The character can try to deactivate traps without triggering them at one-third his normal skill ability.
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Prowl
This skill helps the character to move with stealth; quietly, slowly, and carefully.
Techniques include balance and footing, short steps and pacing, rifle positioning, prone positions for low visibility, and crawling.
A failed prowl roll means that the character has been seen or heard. If the prowl roll is successful, then the character is not seen or heard and may make a sneak attack.
Base Skill: 25%+5 % per level of experience.
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Seduction
This is the ability to make the opposite sex melt with desire.
This skill is somewhat similar to the Interrogation skill in that the seducer knows how to ask the right questions to get information without being obvious. The seducer usually seems attentive, sympathetic, alluring and sexy. Men and women who are seduced tend to have loose lips and will spill secrets. They also lose track of time, spend big money to impress and please their seducer, and lavish her or him with their affection, time and attention while oblivious to everything else around them.
Anyone who has been successfully seduced is distracted, skill performance is half and takes twice as long to perform, the character doesn't notice people and events around him/her, and is easily caught off guard (no initiative and all bonuses are at half when attacked by a character other than the seducer).
Worse, the victim(s) of seduction is completely vulnerable to the seducer. The seducer always gets the first attack/strike/action, and the victim has no chance at self-defense against that first attack, plus the victim loses one attack/action from surprise or horror.
Base Skill: 20% +3% per level of experience.
Skill Bonuses: +1% for every one M.A. attribute point over 20, and every two P.B. points over 17 (round up). So a character with a P.B. of 23 (+3) and M.A. of 24 (+4) would be +7% to successfully seduce.
The seducer can influence more than one person at a time; one additional victim per every three levels of experience. In addition, the seducer is +5% to pick the pockets of, palm, or plant things on his/her victim of seduction, as well as adding +5% to the Cardsharp, Sing, and Dance skills.
Also, Seduction victims who are intoxicated or drugged are easier to seduce (+5%).
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Streetwise
This skill instills an understanding of the darker side of city life and the scoundrels who roam those streets. The streetwise character will be able to recognize gang members and bandits by their actions and philosophies, gang colors (emblems and clothing that denote membership to a particular organization), gang symbols and mannerisms, and dangerous locations and gangland haunts.
The individual will also recognize a potential brawl situation, assess a bandit or gang member's rank/power in the organization, and know some of the hangouts, modes of operation, practices, ethics, and perhaps even notorious criminal leaders of the more infamous gangs.
This skill also includes the ability to recognize and locate fences, pawnshops, drugs and arms dealers, thieves and thieves' guilds, thugs for hire, places of ill repute, and similar criminal and illegal outfits.
Base Skill: 20%+4% per level of experience.
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Use & Recognize Poison
People with this skill are trained in the use of poisons and toxins of all types. This includes the use and preparations of poison from plants, roots, mushrooms, animals and insect venom, and other deadly substances, as well as antidotes.
Types of poisons include ingestive (must be eaten), contact (is absorbed through the skin) or blood (enters the bloodstream by cut or injection).
The use of poison can be dangerous.
The first percentile number indicates the success ratio of using and administering poison carefully and properly. If the person fails to make his success ratio, there is a 1-30% chance of having inflicted himself (is an antidote handy?).
The second number indicates the character's ability to recognize food, drink or items that have been poisoned.
Base Skill: 24%/16%+4% per level of experience.
Add +4% if the character also knows holistic medicine.
Restriction: Only characters of an evil and anarchist alignment can use poison to inflict bodily harm on others. Also note that many poisons inflict damage and cause ailments and pain, but do not automatically or instantly kill the victim.
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Ventriloquism
The practiced ability to throw one's voice. This can be used to create the illusion of not speaking while making a voice or verbal noise appear to be coming from someone something else, such as a puppet, a tree, box, chair, etc. Maximum range is 10 feet (3 m) away. A failed roll means the voice is not well thrown or the ventriloquist's mouth is seen moving, so the trick does not work.
Base Skill: 16%+4% per level of experience.