2d10 Under – 2021

Characters
Characters

Attributes
- standard array (14, 12, 11, 10, 9, 7)
- min: 5, max: 15
- The core of Target Numbers (TN). Even the lowest value attribute given by the standard array (7)
is higher than the bonus given by an expert tier skill (+6).

Skills
- Tiers: trained, seasoned, expert. +2 bonus per tier, +1 per tier to extras threshold.
- benefits: 1) sizable bonus that can be applied to any attribute (not locked). 2) Add to extras trigger
value, making it easier to generate boons. 3) Due to easier extras, also easier to generate critical
success. 4) Can get specialties, potentially giving the character advantage (or counteracting
disadvantage.)

Talents
- abilities the character has available to them
- may be limited use (per scene etc.)
- may have boon effects
- can have purchasable extras

Character Creation
- 1) Character Concept
- 2) Assign Attributes (standard array. Optional -1 for +1)
- 3) Choose Archetype (gain core Talent, 3 relevant skills)
- 4) Assign Skill points (15 points)
- 5) Choose additional Talents (3 free choice. Optional conversion to XP spend)
- 6) Record Extras, starting equipment and spend bonus XP
----- extras: HP, stress, defences, focus, connections, values

- the game has no explicit character rules for sex, gender, sexual orientation, species, race, culture,
ability or disability. For players and gaming groups that wish to have some sort of mechanical
element to represent and/or explore these, they are encouraged to look at the optional rules for
backgrounds (pg. xxx.)

- these stages don’t have to be done in strictly this order, just a useful framework.
- backgrounds optional, speak to the GM and see guidelines. (2 relevant skill points, narrative
feature)

Characters
Attributes
- Brawn, Agility, Brains, Wits, Will, Charm
- maximum 15, minimum 5
- attribute modifiers: 15: +3, 14/13: +2, 12/11: +1, 10/9: +0, 8/7: -1, 6/5: -2
- attributes as approaches

- 14, 12, 11, 10, 9, 7

- optional at character creation: -1 for +1

Skills
- not tied to attributes or talents.

- applied if narratively appropriate. not abilities or moves in themselves.

- count for both physical and mental (knowledge) applications of the skill.

- Tiered: 3 tiers of ability

------ Trained (+2), Seasoned (+4) and Expert (+6).
------ Skill tiers have an attached skill value, it increases by 2 per tier (see above). When a character
takes a test they add that value to their attribute when determining the Target Number (TN.) for the
test.
------ Skills also increase the threshold at which a character creates boons.

------ i.e. when making a test that allows a PC to use a seasoned tier skill, any dice that rolls 3 or
less generates a ‘boon’, as well as adding to the total to determine success or failure. Daud has a
Charm of 10 and is seasoned at deception (total TN. 14). They attempt to lie their way past the
guards at a gate inspection (diff. 2), rolling 3 and 8 for a total of 13 on the test. They achieve a
success, due to the total of the dice + difficulty being less than the target number. They also
generate a boon due to the dice that came up as 3 and their seasoned skill. It’s close, but Daud
scrapes their way past the inspection and into the city, feeling buoyed by their success.

Example Skills List

- This neither is, nor is intended to be, a complete list. make your own or re-name them, just make
sure it’s clear what they mean and are intended to cover.

- athletics, acrobatics, animal handling, blades, bludgeons, archery, firearms, gunnery, research,
deduction, unarmed, sleight of hand, shadowing, obfuscation/sneak, observation, religion, history,
geography, wilderness survival, streetwise, tracking, insight/empathy, performance, deception,
persuasion, intimidation, riding, sailing, piloting, nature, navigate, negotiate/barter, etiquette,
bureaucracy, larceny, engineering, art/design, thrown

- astronavigation, xenobiology, computing

(- MC Stuff: Skills Lists. The players, especially experienced or particularly enthusiastic ones, can
come up with their own skills. It’s always good to give them an example skills list, however. It
helps to give inspiration and provide guidance to players. Probably most importantly, your example
skill list is also a really useful tool to help with world building and setting the games tone and style.
What’s on the list (firearms or no firearms, history of X place or Y time period rather than just
history etc.) and how its said (‘smack em’ rather than ‘unarmed’, ‘tech nerd’ rather than
‘computing’, ‘inveterate liar’ rather than ‘deception’ etc.) can communicate a lot of information
quickly and surprisingly clearly.

(- MC Stuff: Skill Names (nouns to adjectives). The list given here is useful and descriptive but is
‘functionally’ descriptive. Deception, Firearms etc. It uses (mostly) nouns. It describes the sorts of
functions something has rather than names that are more ‘active’ sounding, what
something/someone is/does and says something about them. This is mainly for ease of use and
clarity’s sake in a ‘rulebook’. Always feel free, and encouraged, to use or change to more active and
narratively descriptive sounding terms, using adjectives. This can be simple, such as a change to use
‘deceptive’ rather than ‘deception’ etc. As a step further, you can use purely narrative descriptive
titles for your skills, ‘inveterate liar’ rather than ‘deception’ etc.

Use whichever methods feel easiest and most comfortable for your game and gaming group. Make
sure that everyone knows what sorts of things/activities the name is referring to, as with the general
guidelines for skills.

To try to make clear what I mean, I’ll try to give an example. By changing the skills names, you can
go from something that would sound functional and a bit weird for a character to say, (‘I am
deception, animal handling’ etc.) to something that would sound more natural and says something
about them (‘I am deceptive, an animal handler’ or ‘I am an inveterate liar, a beast tamer’ etc.) I
hope this helps at all.

Characters – 2d10 ‘narrative’

Attributes
- measured 5 to 15
- set target number
- generate modifiers: 5/6: -2, 7/8: -1, 9/10: +0, 11/12: +1, 13/14: +2, 15: +3
- 5 attributes:
- brawn, agility, brains, wits, charm
- standard array: 14, 12, 11, 10, 8 (+/- 1’s)
- choose: all 11’s +/-’s within range

Skills
- measured from 0 to 5
- add to skill threshold
- 15 skill areas
- specialities
- mastery talent
Skills in XXX are broad areas of knowledge and training with which characters can be familiar.

Specialities
Specialities are areas of greater focus within the broad area represented by the skill. They help to
pick out the specific interests or abilities of a character, as represented by the skill. They can also be
used to show particular areas of further training or refinement a character may have undertaken. A
character my be a good athlete because they are a great climber, the climbing speciality being used
to pick out their background and basis for the skill area. Alternatively, a character that isn’t focussed
on combat may not have a high level in the Ranged skill. They’ve been with the ship long enough to
know what tends to happen though. They take a speciality in light pistols, to represent their extra
time training with a couple of weapons for ‘self defence’ and ‘just in case’.
There is a short list of example specialities given with each skill. These lists are by no means
binding or complete.

Academics
- history, geography, art/design, xenobiology

Athletics
- athletics, acrobatics,

Computing
- programming, hacking, technician

Investigation
- research, deduction, searching

Larceny
- larceny,- sleight of hand, lock picking, palming

Lore
- religion, nature, bureaucracy

Melee
- blades, bludgeons, unarmed

Observation
- insight, empathy, perception

Persuasion
- deception, rhetoric, negotiate/barter

Piloting
- riding, sailing, driving, flying, astronavigation

Presence
- performance, intimidation, command, etiquette

Ranged
- archery, firearms, gunnery, thrown, tricks

Stealth
- shadowing, sneaking, hiding

Survival
- animal handling, wilderness survival, streetwise, navigation, tracking

Tech Use
- drones, medical, engineering
Talents
- pre-requisites (attribute, archetype)
- type: active, passive, focus
- tier (XP cost)
- uses (active only. at-will, X per scene etc.)
- extras
- special tag (usually: additional costs or particular talent interactions)

General Talents

Resilient (passive)
- Tier: 2 - Prerequisite: n/a.
You are mentally tough, used to shrugging of set backs or wilfully facing down difficult situations.
Alternatively, you just don’t care or don’t seem to notice. Why ever it may be, you gain an
additional 5 stress boxes (to a total of 15) that can be filled before you acquire a trauma and the
stress track resets.
Extras
Nothing fazes you, at all. You are very mentally resilient and gain a further 5 stress boxes (to a total
of 20).

Hardy (passive)
Having seen many a combat and much training, or just naturally, you know how to take a beating.
Your body can take a surprising amount of punishment before it succumbs to injury. You gain an
additional 4 Health boxes (16 total) which can be filled before you fall unconscious and gain an
injury. Theses don’t change the point at which you are wounded (6 remaining) or heavily wounded
(3 remaining).
Extras
Others are stunned by the amount of damage and punishment you can go through. When you
purchase this extra, you gain a further 4 Health boxes (20 total). You can purchase this extra a
second time to gain even more Health, another 4 Health boxes (24 total).

Back in the Fight (passive, focus)

Adrenaline is your friend. This feat alters the Second Wind focus power. When you use it, you can
roll 2d6 when seeing how many Health boxes you recover, rather than 1d6.

Shrug It Off (passive)

- ignore wounded
Extras
- ignore heavily wounded

Tough (passive)
- you can have an additional injury (4 rather than 3) before you die/have to retire.
Jack of all Trades (passive)
- when you take a test and are not already using a skill (adding dice for skills to the dice pool), you
may add one dice, as if you had the first level of an appropriate skill.

Skill Focus (passive) 1

- choose skill. 6’s explode
- special: increasing cost (increase in tier / multiplier??)

Skill Mastery (passive) 3

- choose skill
- always roll with advantage
- special: increasing cost (multiplier)

Trick Rider
- bonus (adv.) to tricks when riding an animal or vehicular mount
- defensive bonus (+1d.) in combat while mounted

Personal Development (passive) 2

- increase a chosen trait by 1, to a maximum of 15
- special: increasing cost (multiplier), can be taken 5 times.

Combat Talents

Cunning Combatant (passive)

When in combat, you rely on your speed of thought, mental co-ordination and spacial awareness
rather than your physical prowess. This is particularly useful when using weapons that are quicker
and easier to wield. You can roll+Wits when using light weapons to make attacks, instead of using
+brawn or +agility.
Special: A character with the Martial Artist talent (pg. xxx) can use this talent if they treat their unarmed attacks as light
weapons.
Extras
Choose one kind of medium weapon (longswords, heavy pistols, auto-rifles etc. Talk to your MC if
you need guidance or clarification as to which weapons would count), you can use Cunning
Combatant with this kind of weapon in addition to light weapons.
Special: A character with the Martial Artist talent (pg. xxx) can choose ‘unarmed’ as the weapon type when purchasing
this extra.

Rapid Reload (passive)

For whatever reason; pure experience, excellent technique, personalised tinkering with hardware
and software etc. you can ignore the reload property of any of the weapons that you use.

Two Weapon Fighter (passive)

- choose melee or ranged, no -1 when using those weapons in two weapon fighting.
Extras
- Two Weapon expert: choose the other weapon type, can now gain the bonus with those weapons as
well.
- Dual Savagery: do normal damage (not half) with second weapon.

Weapon Focus (passive)

- choose a weapon type: Melee light, medium, heavy, ranged light, medium or heavy.
- add attribute to damage when using those types of weapons
Special: A character with the Martial Artist talent (pg. xxx) can choose ‘unarmed’ as the weapon type when purchasing
this talent.
Extras
- choose additional weapon type.

Martial Artist (passive)

- can use agility
- medium not light weapons
- can act as if two weapon fighting
Extras
- Haymakers: when not two weapon fighting, can act as a single heavy weapon.
- Rough and Tumble: grappling

Combat Trick (active, focus)

- cool moves

Sniper
- ranged combat speciality

Brute
- heavy melee combat

Tech Talents
- computing, drones, engineering etc.

Extras
- HP: 12 (of 24 possible, 3 upgrades)
- Stress: 10 (of 20 possible, 2 upgrades)
- Defences: Resist/block (brawn), reflex (agility/wits), mental (brains/will)

Character Advancement
- Earn XP
----- Achieved a milestone (major 10xp and minor 5xp)
----- Advanced a goal
----- Worked a connection
----- Fail a test (1 xp)

- Spend XP
(----- Attributes)
----- Skills (10xp, 20xp, 30xp)
----- Talents (10 x tier xp)

Archetypes and Careers

- Archetypes (class) and Careers (sub-class)

-----------------------------------------------------------------
- focus on actives when possible
---- unique actives
---- unique passives
---- free uses of things that are generally available but cost resources
-----------------------------------------------------------------
(the warrior, the ranger, the rogue, the wizard, the skilled, the face, the techy, the knowledge, the
specific, The double-up)
- archetypes only (7 to 9 talents), archetypes and careers (arch: 3 to 5 talents, car: 3 talents)
- talents: expanded horizons, career focussed.

Soldier (The Warrior)

- Dangerous: Once per action scene, can gain +1AP without the need to spend focus. This AP can
only be spent to make an attack, meaning they can make two attacks or an attack and a second
action in the same turn.
Extra
- can use it twice per scene.

- Slings and Arrows: Once per scene, can use the Second Wind focus power without the need to
spend a focus point.

- Combat Tricks: Can perform advanced combat manoeuvrers at the cost of focus. Choose a
number of them from list. Once per action scene, can use a combat trick without the need to spend
focus.
Extra
- can use tricks for free twice per scene
- purchase additional tricks

Marine

Vanguard

Commander

Operative (The Rogue)

Psion (The Wizard)

- Spellcasting (core)

- Rote Spell

- Signature Spell

- Ritual Casting

Mancer (specialist)

Weaver (generalist)
Magus (battle wizard)

Face (The Face)

Specialist (The Skilled)

Engineer (The Techy)

Pilot (The Specific)

Backgrounds
- Optional, speak to your GM.

- 2 points to spend on skill(s) relevant to the background. Both can be spent on the same skill. If this
option is used, the character should have 2 less skill points to spend at character creation (13 not 15)

- Background Feature: a narrative and descriptive character feature

---- background features aren’t talents. if they do something similar to an existing talent, they
should only do so with a relatively limited capacity.
---- shouldn’t give static (+X) bonuses
---- any active bonus should be in very specific circumstance or give and take.
---- can just auto-allow/enable action in specific circumstances.

Background Feature examples

Contacts
- You can always find a contact in a certain area. This area could be a place, profession, organisation
etc. as appropriate for the background. They won’t overtly help but may give information, pointers,
jobs etc. May not always be fully trustworthy.
- can work with a PC’s connections but doesn’t have to.

Ally
- You have a specific person that can be called on to help. Won’t endanger themselves or go too out
of their way but won’t betray you in all but the most extreme circumstances. Can only help within
the confines of their own abilities. They might network on your behalf, find something (item or
service) for you, lend/give you resources (of low value), provide housing/shelter (for a limited
period) etc.
- can work with a PC’s connections but doesn’t have to.

Local(ised) Knowledge
- You have a good understanding of a particular set of information, you can always recall said
information and are rarely, if ever, mistaken about it. This may be about a particular planet, country
or space port, or possibly a particular guild, organisation or profession. This could also be a
particular sub-set of academic or professional information, not History but the history of X between
Y and Z, not philosophy but consequentialist ethical philosophy etc. Lastly, while you may be rarely
mistaken this doesn’t mean you necessarily have all the answers. The philosopher does not have the
answers to that area of ethical philosophy, they just know and understand the relevant arguments,
debates, authors and published papers etc. Knowledge about the space port doesn’t necessarily
mean you will now all the information about people on the space port etc. If needed, ask your GM
for guidance as to what sort of knowledge would count as suitably ‘localised’ enough, and what sort
of things that will mean your character is and isn’t likely to know.

Customs
- Your character knows and understands the customs of a certain place or group of people. These
could be cultural or more professional, as suits the background. The character will know the
meanings of customs and what’s polite and impolite in terms of naming and using titles, greetings,
eating rituals/habits, personal interactions and behaviour etc. They would also know the laws
common to that place or peoples and the repercussions for breaking them. Lastly, they can uses this
knowledge to be able to pass themselves off as a member of that group, being from that place or
having spent a lot of time there etc. even if, in fact, they haven’t or aren’t currently. If this feature is
being used deceptively it will hold up well, but it will become apparent under thorough or continued
investigation.

Mechanical
- You are mechanical, don’t need to eat, sleep or breathe

Extra Limbs
- You have extra limb(s); arms, legs or a tail etc. These give no benefit in combat and cant be used
to hold or use extra weapons, item or take extra actions. They may have an impact on other actions
at the GM’s discretion, giving advantage or disadvantage as narratively appropriate to the nature of
the additional limbs and the situation at hand - having four legs might sometimes be advantageous
for balance but disadvantageous for climbing etc. If needed, ask you GM for guidance as to what
impact your extra limbs are likely to have.

Night Eyes
- You can see in the dark.

Code of Conduct
- You have a specific way about you.