Tasks
When a skill check is required, the GM assigns the task a difficulty from ‘Elementary’ to ‘Impossible,’ and informs the player. The player, now knowing his target number of the skill check, rolls 2d6 and adds their appropriate skill; if the result is equal to or higher than the task difficulty, the player’s character succeeds. Job abilities, equipment and other factors can sometimes cause such skill checks to gain a bonus or penalty to the roll, and the nine standard difficulty values are as follows;
Elementary (5); spot a Dragon amongst a crowd of panicking people, get directions to the nearest town.
Easy (7); create a rudimentary shelter in the wild, pocket an apple in a crowded marketplace.
Moderate (9); pick an average lock, see the Tonberry hidden in the shadows, lie to an imperial guard.
Challenging (11); cook a meal for a royal family, disarm an ancient trap, climb a high stone wall.
Impressive (14); drive a motorcycle across a collapsing bridge, slip out of a pair of locked manacles.
Heroic (17); pilot an airship through a hurricane with both engines on fire, find a cactuar needle in a haystack.
Supreme (20); swim up a waterfall, memorize every word in a massive tome, catch a blade with your bare hands.
Godlike (25); catch a bullet with your bare hands, successfully challenge your archnemesis to a dance-off.
Impossible (30); collapse a fifty-story building by ‘putting your back into it,’ leap from snowflake to snowflake as they fall.
Elementary (5); spot a Dragon amongst a crowd of panicking people, get directions to the nearest town.
Easy (7); create a rudimentary shelter in the wild, pocket an apple in a crowded marketplace.
Moderate (9); pick an average lock, see the Tonberry hidden in the shadows, lie to an imperial guard.
Challenging (11); cook a meal for a royal family, disarm an ancient trap, climb a high stone wall.
Impressive (14); drive a motorcycle across a collapsing bridge, slip out of a pair of locked manacles.
Heroic (17); pilot an airship through a hurricane with both engines on fire, find a cactuar needle in a haystack.
Supreme (20); swim up a waterfall, memorize every word in a massive tome, catch a blade with your bare hands.
Godlike (25); catch a bullet with your bare hands, successfully challenge your archnemesis to a dance-off.
Impossible (30); collapse a fifty-story building by ‘putting your back into it,’ leap from snowflake to snowflake as they fall.
Complications
No situation is ever so bad it can’t possibly get worse.
When a hero rolls 2d6 for a skill check and gets a pair of natural 1s as their result, this creates a Complication. Not only does the character fail the skill check regardless of what their total result would have been, but also finds them dealing with a new, unexpected problem. They might be secondary issues that must be resolved for the group to succeed, or they might completely change the focus of the skill check. Because the roll must naturally result in a pair of 1s, a clever Gambler manipulating dice cannot force complications to occur. If Destiny was spent a complication only shows up if all the dice used in the roll come up as a 1 - a truly tragic sight to behold.
Generally, though not always, Complications retain the difficulty of the first check. So if a player jokingly wants to make a Language roll to try and ‘communicate’ with a rusty old lamp to find out what its purpose is, the GM might assign this a difficulty of Impossible (30). If the player goes ahead and does their best on the roll anyway, a Complication might mean the player blurts out some long-forgotten magical word accidently, activates the lamp, and finds themself sucked inside. Now the additional roll to get out of that mess (without just smashing the lamp and hoping for the best) will also be at difficulty 30 – hope the character’s Escape skill is up to snuff! Assuming it won’t be, the party will have to come up with a new plan, and the player of the poor trapped character might be in need of a temporary replacement.
If the GM allows it, the follow-up skill check caused by a Complication can be made by the unlucky PC’s allies instead. For example, a complication on a Synthesis skill check might mean that the crafter is missing a few vital components, and a Mercantile check at the same difficulty would be needed to track them down. There’s no reason the crafter can’t stay behind and work while someone else heads to the market to wheel and deal.
When a hero rolls 2d6 for a skill check and gets a pair of natural 1s as their result, this creates a Complication. Not only does the character fail the skill check regardless of what their total result would have been, but also finds them dealing with a new, unexpected problem. They might be secondary issues that must be resolved for the group to succeed, or they might completely change the focus of the skill check. Because the roll must naturally result in a pair of 1s, a clever Gambler manipulating dice cannot force complications to occur. If Destiny was spent a complication only shows up if all the dice used in the roll come up as a 1 - a truly tragic sight to behold.
Generally, though not always, Complications retain the difficulty of the first check. So if a player jokingly wants to make a Language roll to try and ‘communicate’ with a rusty old lamp to find out what its purpose is, the GM might assign this a difficulty of Impossible (30). If the player goes ahead and does their best on the roll anyway, a Complication might mean the player blurts out some long-forgotten magical word accidently, activates the lamp, and finds themself sucked inside. Now the additional roll to get out of that mess (without just smashing the lamp and hoping for the best) will also be at difficulty 30 – hope the character’s Escape skill is up to snuff! Assuming it won’t be, the party will have to come up with a new plan, and the player of the poor trapped character might be in need of a temporary replacement.
If the GM allows it, the follow-up skill check caused by a Complication can be made by the unlucky PC’s allies instead. For example, a complication on a Synthesis skill check might mean that the crafter is missing a few vital components, and a Mercantile check at the same difficulty would be needed to track them down. There’s no reason the crafter can’t stay behind and work while someone else heads to the market to wheel and deal.
Tiers
There are many calls throughout the game for different types of tiers, as listed here:
- Character Tier determines the state of play for characters. Levels 1-10 are Tier 1, Levels 11-20 are Tier 2, and Levels 21-30 are Tier 3.
- Item and Equipment Tiers goes from 1 to 8, based on an item's level.
- Spell Tiers goes from 1 to 5. Novice is Tier 1, Advanced is Tier 2, Expert is Tier 3, Superior is Tier 4, and Ancient is Tier 5
- Summons similarly go from 1 to 5, based on how powerful they are.
- Limit Break Tiers depend on how many points were used to create the Limit Break. A 10 point Limit is Tier 1, a 20 point Limit is Tier 2, and a 30 point Limit is Tier 3