Abilities and Disabilities

Abilities and Disabilities are your character’s inherent advantages and disadvantages. They reflect the fact that most people are naturally good at some things and have to work very hard to get the hang of other things. They can also provide insights into your character's background, and populate their present with people who can help or hinder them.

• Abilities generally supplement your character’s Attributes or Skills, or provide other types of benefits. An Ability's description includes an indication of how many CP it "costs" to acquire it (e.g., 5 points/level). Strictly speaking, the more an Ability benefits you, the more CP you can expect it to cost. For Abilities that have levels, the level generally indicates the number of bonus dice or extra levels you have when using the Skill it modifies.
• Disadvantages generally limit your Attributes or Skills, or introduce other obstacles to your success. Disabilities are listed as costing a negative number of CP (e.g., -5 points/level). This is because accepting the Disadvantage behaves the opposite way as most CP spending works. When you take a Disadvantage, you receive more CP to spend on other things. Typically, the more a Disadvantages hinders you, the more CP you gain to spend elsewhere. For Disabilities that have levels, the level generally indicates the number of Successes you much achieve on an Attribute or Skill roll to prevent the Disadvantage from affecting you on this occasion.

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 approaches him to ask if Jeremy has any information about the whereabouts of the princess. Because Jeremy has the Honesty Disadvantage, he must make a Will roll (TN=4) in order to lie. Because he has Honesty=5, he must get at least 5 Ss on his Will roll or he will not be able to lie. He has Will=7, so he rolls 7 dice, getting 1, 1, 2, 4, 4, 5, 6. He rolls an extra die for rolling a 6, and winds up with a 3. Since he has only achieved 4 Ss, which is fewer than the 5 Ss 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.

Notes:

1. At the GM's discretion, many types of situational modifiers can effect the way in which a particular roll is conducted. For instance, in the example above, if Jeremy was deeply in love with the princess, the GM could have given Jeremy a bonus die or two on his Will roll. Conversely, if Jeremy has always hated the princess and rescuing her was just a job to him, the GM could have required one or two penalty dice be added to the roll. For more information on bonus and penalty dice, see the Bonus and Penalty Dice section on the Main Page.
2. 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.