A character is the sum of a handful of characteristics, each bought level by level with Characteristic Points. Characteristics broadly fall into the three disciplines Ego, Combat and Academic.
Ego
Ego characteristics cover the person themselves. How much they can take, in body and mind, before something gives.
Art pending
Integrity
DisciplineEgo
Integrity is how much punishment a character can take, in whatever shape it comes. Impairments stack against it; take on more than Integrity allows and the last one converts. A Wound cuts a point off Integrity itself, so the next Impairment sits that much closer to breaking something again.
Grazes, from combat, clears on Wound or within 24h. Converts to Wound.
Fatigue, from exertion or missed rest, clears after 4h of rest. Converts to collapse.
Stress, from danger, clears after 2h of calm. Converts to panic.
Toxicity, from poison, clears only with time. Converts to Wound.
Combat
Combat characteristics cover fighting. Characteristic level determines how many combat dice you are able to reroll to get a better result.
Art pending
Brawling
DisciplineCombat
Brawling covers unarmed strikes, grappling, and melee weapons. Knives, clubs, improvised weapons, or a rifle swung stock-first once a fight closes to arm's reach. It's the discipline that keeps working after every gun runs dry or gets knocked away. Pinning a guard in a corridor, breaking a chokehold, finishing what a firefight started once the range collapses to nothing.
Art pending
Ranged
DisciplineCombat
Ranged covers sidearms, carbines, rifles, and crew-served weapons. Anything meant to put a shot on target from beyond arm's reach. Sighting a shot across a hangar bay, walking rounds onto a moving target, holding suppressing fire while a teammate repositions. All Ranged.
Art pending
Explosives
DisciplineCombat
Explosives covers handling, placing, and disarming anything from a grenade to a structural charge. Blowing a breach in a bulkhead, shaping a charge to drop one wall and not the next one over, defusing something someone else left behind.
Art pending
Defence
DisciplineCombat
Defence covers armour, shields, and cover. Getting the most out of protection instead of just wearing it. Knowing which plate stops which round, moving cover to cover without exposing a flank, running heavy armour like a second skin instead of a burden.
Academic
Academic characteristics cover learned abilities. Characteristic level reduces the overall time required to accomplish a relevant task. A sustained task like picking a lock or searching a computer takes a fixed number of seconds, rated against the average professional at level 3. A lock the average locksmith picks in five minutes rates 900. Divide the rating by characteristic level for the time a character takes. Players can also team up to make a task go faster. If a task can reliably be collaborated on, the collaborators add their levels together and divide the rating by the sum.
Art pending
Medical
DisciplineAcademic
Medical covers keeping people alive. Battlefield first aid, surgery, diagnosing what's wrong and treating it. Stopping a bleed before someone bleeds out, stabilising a friend after a firefight, running down what's making a whole outpost sick.
Art pending
Computing
DisciplineAcademic
Computing covers operating, programming, and breaking into computer systems. Cracking a locked terminal, coaxing a damaged drone back online, writing a script under pressure to buy the team thirty more seconds.
Art pending
Security
DisciplineAcademic
Security covers the systems that watch and guard. Cameras, alarms, access control, signals intelligence. Running them and beating them are both Security. Reading a stranger's intercepted traffic, spoofing a keycard reader, working out which sensor sweep a facility actually relies on.
Art pending
Larceny
DisciplineAcademic
Larceny covers stealth and sleight of hand. Moving unseen, palming what should stay put, picking a pocket in a crowd, losing a tail in three turns. Forging documents that survive a second look.
Art pending
Presence
DisciplineAcademic
Presence covers reading people and being read by them. Persuasion, command, catching a lie before it lands. Talking a guard into looking the other way, holding a room's attention with nothing but tone, spotting the tell in a fixer who's about to sell you out.
Art pending
Observation
DisciplineAcademic
Observation covers noticing what is there to be noticed. Searching a room properly, keeping watch through a long night, catching the detail that does not belong. The crate with fresh scratches around old bolts, the crowd with the same face in it twice, the silence where a generator should be humming.
Point Costs
Labels in the table below are calibrated towards a professional. "Average" does not reflect a random person, it reflects the average professional.
