While abilities represent physical and mental traits of characters, skills represent the things characters learn and develop over time. Heroes start with some free skills based on their class type and some chosen skills. Most things the heroes do don’t require any kind of dice check. Players should describe their actions or their intentions in general terms, and you should translate that into game mechanics. When necessary, you should ask for the appropriate skill or ability check then describe the results.

A player may suggest that a certain skill or ability could be of use (“Can I use my nature lore to determine what kind of plant would cause the girl to get sick?”) in the same way they may suggest one of their possessions could be of use (“Can I wedge my axe into the crack and pry a stone loose?”). And you can decide that that is impossible, possible without a check, or possible with a check of some sort.

How Skills Are Used

Once a skill is determined to be relevant to what the character would like to do, the character either succeeds automatically because it is easy for those who have the skill or rolls a d20 to meet or beat the difficulty you determined. This roll is modified by:

• +2 for having the skill
• +2 for each degree of the skill you have, including the first
• The modifier of a relevant ability

So a hero with one degree in the skill gets +4; with two degrees gets +6; and with three degrees gets +8. However, in some cases, the check may specify that the hero gets a flat bonus for having a certain skill, regardless of what their usual bonus is in that skill. This is because sometimes having the skill is relevant but being an expert at it isn’t.

Ability Checks

In other cases, a specific skill may not be relevant to the situation, but an ability is. For example, you might be able to dodge a dragon’s breath weapon, so you call for all the heroes to make a dexterity check. In this case, you apply your dexterity modifier to the roll, but it’s unlikely any skill would be particularly helpful. Or you might be able to withstand a dose of poison with a constitution check.

How Checks Are Made

Skill and ability checks are usually phrased something like:

“The narrow ledge is somewhat slippery. Check difficulty 11 using dexterity and acrobatics or fall into the pit. Recovery means slipping and hanging by your fingers from the edge.”

This means you roll 1d20 and apply the modifier for your dexterity and also for acrobatics skill, if you have it. If your modified roll is 11 or higher, you’re fine. If not, you can roll again to “recover”, with that success meaning you’re left hanging. Failing both rolls means you fall into the pit.

Difficulty

You set the difficulty for a task to whatever seems appropriate to the situation. Don’t roll for things that are easy.

Difficulty	Description
Automatic	Easy
7	Fairly easy
10	Not difficult
13	Tricky
16	Difficult
21	Very difficult
25	Nearly impossible

If the difficulty itself can be random, you may choose to roll 2d8+5 to determine the difficulty. This creates a spike where 14 is the most common result.

Note how, rather than setting a low difficulty, the character should just succeed automatically without a roll. If you want a roll anyway, consider setting a higher difficulty for exceptional results. For example, yes, you’re able to entertain the crowd with a song, because you have entertainment skill, but check 15 to really wow them. Or set it at 12 and restrict “failure” to succeeding but talking longer or having some other complication.

Failures & Natural 1

Many times, a failure shouldn’t reflect on the character’s execution but on some outside factor they failed to overcome. Failing at fishing means the fish just aren’t biting. Failing at sailing doesn’t mean you get tangled up in knots and people laugh at you; it means a sail line snapped.

On a roll of natural 1 for a skill or ability check, the attempt fails and no recovery is possible. When you roll a natural 1 on a skill, ability, or combat d20 roll, it generates a point of danger for the GM to use.

Recovery

Even if the character fails a check, you may rule that you can roll another check to recover and get a qualified success or partial failure. A successful recovery can mean a variety of things:

• Success will take a long time (and you may choose to allow it to fail rather than spend that time).
• You make a lot of noise, drop something, or break something.
• You damage something valuable in the process.
• It’s not very good (a disguise or attempt to entertain).
• You’re spotted by guards or are stopped (by an authority, monster, etc.) but not attacked.
• You take half damage instead of none or full (relevant to a dexterity check in particular).
• You’re affected by a spell for half the usual duration instead of none or full (relevant to a constitution or wisdom check in particular).

For something that seems pass/fail, you may rule that recovery is not possible.

Helping

Another hero may help the hero doing the skill check and give that person advantage, but only if he or she has the same or a relevant skill and if you rule it’s possible for them to work together. It’s not likely you can help another person be stealthy, for example, but one could help another with a deal using persuasion or deception. The player should always describe the nature of the help.

Opposed Checks

In cases where two characters attempt to outdo one another using a particular skill or ability, the characters should roll an opposed check. Each character rolls 1d6 and adds the relevant ability score. In the case of an opposed skill check, roll 1d6 and add the relevant skill bonus and ability modifier. The higher modified roll wins.

This is useful for wrestling, grappling, races, and other contests of skill, strength, and dexterity.

Strength Checks

Strength checks that aren’t opposed checks should usually be done by merely specifying the Deadlift value required to accomplish the goal. Often, characters must work together to reach it, assuming multiple characters can work together on the task.

For example, if it takes a Deadlift of 325 pounds to break thru a door, one character with a strength of 17 (Deadlift of 340) could do it. But if it requires 650 pounds to topple a statue, it would take multiple characters. In practice, you’re free to merely say “You couldn’t move it by yourself, but you can if someone lends a hand.”

Skill Challenges

In unusual situations, such as survival, escape from a crumbling keep, or a chase, the DM may call for a skill challenge. The DM and players must come up with skill checks relevant to the situation. The heroes must make 3 to 5 successes (depending on the difficulty) before suffering 3 failures.

A given skill can only be successful once, and the character must be proficient in the skill to try it. Not every character present needs to participate.