Abilities and Disabilities

Abilities and Disabilities are your character’s inherent advantages and disadvantages. Many of them serve to supplement one or more of your character’s Attributes or Skills or somehow limit them. This is a reflection of the fact that most people are naturally good at some things and have to work twice as hard to get the hang of other things. Most Abilities and Disabilities are listed as having X points/level. This is the number of CP you must pay to get each level of an Advantage or that you will receive when you accept each level of a Disadvantage. The level indicates the strength of the ability, and generally equates to the number of Ss you need to receive when making a statistic roll.

Jeremy has succeeded in rescuing the princess from the clutches of the bandit king and has hidden her in a nearby abandoned barn. Unfortunately, a bandit has approached him and asked if Jeremy has any information about the whereabouts of the princess. Because Jeremy has the Honesty Disadvantage, he must make a Will roll in order to lie. Because he has Honesty at level 5, he must get 5 Ss on his Will roll or he will not be able to lie. His Will is 7, so he rolls 7 dice, getting 1, 1, 2, 4, 4, 5, 6. He rolls an extra die for rolling a 6. The result of the extra die is a 3. Since he has only achieved 4 Ss, which is fewer than the 5 he requires to lie, Jeremy must either tell the truth or say nothing. Unfortunately, either is likely to get him into trouble in this case.

Note that players can create their own Abilities and Disabilities if they wish and if the GM agrees. As a rough rule of thumb, if the Ability or Disability in question affects 5 or more Skills, it should be considered as +/- 5 CP/level. Otherwise, it should be considered as +/- 2 CP/level. Some Abilities and Disabilities add bonus or penalty dice to the Skill roll it affects, others actually give additional (or fewer) levels to the Skill levels they affect.