Approaches and Abilities

Approaches

In some games player character skill and competance is measured against 6 approaches - rather than a skill in a particular area their ability to approach a problem in a particular way is recorded. This does not mean that all PCs are equally good at all skills and areas, it means that the player (in consultation with the GM) can decide what they are good at in course of the story.

The Approaches are:

• Flair An action that draws attention to you, replete with style and panache. Examples: Delivering an inspiring speech to your army, embarrassing your opponent in a duel, producing a magical fireworks display.
• Focus Time-consuming action in which close attention is paid to detail so the task is properly executed on the first attempt. Examples: Lining up a long-range sniper rifle shot, attentively standing watch, disarming a bank’s alarm system.
• Force A display of brute strength rather than subtlety. Examples: Wrestling a troll, staring down a werewolf, casting a powerful magic spell.
• Guile An effort focusing on misdirection, stealth, or deceit. Examples: Talking your way out of getting arrested, picking a pocket, feinting in a sword fight.
• Haste A dexterous movement with alacrity. Examples: Dodging a shot, landing the first punch, disarming a bomb as it ticks 3...2...1.
• Intellect Quick thinking, the solving of complex problems, or accounting for numerous variables at once. Examples: Code breaking, outwitting a Fae courtier, counting cards in a poker game.

Abilities

The basic skills for this game, while some PCs do not have ratings in them (see Approaches above) their Caste will make them pre-disposed to be better at some than others and other PCs and NPCs may be rated directly in the abilities. Most Charms are also organised by ability. Generally a Standard task will have a difficulty of 2, Challenging of 4 and Legendary of 8+

• Archery The use of ranged weapons, from small self bows to bone and steel reinforced war bows and giant firedust cannons. Standard: Shoot an apple off someone’s head at 20 paces. Challenging: Shoot an apple off someone’s head at 20 yards with a warped arrow. Legendary: Shoot an apple off someone’s head at 50 yards with a warped arrow, at night.
• Athletics A measure of fitness, this Ability measures the character’s developed physical ability — how well he applies his natural aptitudes. Athletics is the Ability that governs feats of strength, balance, coordination and reflexes. Athletics also covers skill in various sports and village games, knowing how to jump and tumble and being able to climb mountains and cliffs. Standard: Lift 200 pounds. Leap 10 feet from a standing start. Maintain your balance while fighting on a narrow ledge. Challenging: Lift 700 pounds. Leap 20 feet from a standing start. Maintain your balance while fighting on a narrow, icy ledge in high winds. Legendary: Lift a ton. Leap 50 feet from a standing start. Maintain your balance while fighting on an icy tightrope in high winds.
• Awareness This Ability measures how much the character notices about her surroundings. It’s an overall indicator of how detailed the character’s idea of what’s physically nearby is, covering input from all five senses. Awareness is useful for picking out a face in a crowd or for anticipating surprises that wait around a corner. Standard: Identify someone by the sound of his foot- falls. Pick someone’s face out of a crowded bazaar with a quick glance. Read lips. Detect concealed weapons. Case a location for burglary in just a few minutes. See 100 yards on a clear, moonlit night. Challenging: Identify someone by scent. Pick someone’s face out of a battlefield with a quick glance. Case a location for burglary just by just walking by it. See 100 yards on a cloudy night with a waning moon. Legendary: Track by scent. Read with your eyes closed by feeling the texture of the ink on the paper. Listen in on a conversation a mile away on a windy day. Spot someone 100 yards away on an overcast, moonless night.
• Brawl This Ability covers styles of unarmed combat, irrespective of whether they rely on power or on speed; they range from tavern brawling to scientific wrestling and the formal styles of the Immaculate Order. Standard: Punch through a door. Challenging: Perform the Seven Leaping Dragon form flawlessly on a carriage rolling over bumpy roads, break a brick with your bare hands. Legendary: Punch through a steel-sheathed oak gate in a dozen mighty blows
• Bureaucracy This Ability measures the character’s skill at negoti- ating political, governmental and economic systems. Characters with Bureaucracy are capable of making their livings as merchants or government officials. Note that though this Ability allows the character to be an effective merchant or bureaucrat there are countless businesses and governments whose staff taken as a whole has few or no dots of Bureaucracy. Standard: Bribe an honest official. Rig a bid. Learn who really controls the local marketplace. Turn a large starting stake into a fortune in just a few months, or turn a small starting stake into a fortune in several years. Challenging: Reform the bureaucracy of a corrupt and decadent city state. Maneuver yourself to a position of primacy among local merchants. Turn a large starting stake into a fortune in just a few weeks, or turn a tiny starting stake into a fortune over months. Legendary: Reform the bureaucracy of the Realm. Outmaneuver the Guild in the mercantile arena. Turn a tiny starting stake into a fortune in just a few days.
• Craft Craft is the Ability to perform skilled labor. Smithing, farming, leatherworking, gem-cutting and the like are all examples of different crafts. High levels of the Craft Ability enables a character to produce masterworks, though without the influence of Charms, such things take time and resources. Often specialised in one craft. Standard: Make a fine sword from good raw materials. Challenging: Make an excellent sword from excellent raw materials. Make a fine sword from poor materials. Legendary: Make a perfect blade out of the finest materials in the world. Make an excellent sword from poor raw materials. Forge fine swords from scrap iron and broken plowshares.
• Dodge Dodge measures the character’s ability to evade blows. Characters skilled in Dodge are also generally agile and can evade environmental hazards such as falling trees and landslides as well as attacks launched by other characters. Standard: Dodge a rolling boulder or a windblown branch. Challenging: Dodge through a hail of rolling boulders or a flurry of windblown debris. Legendary: Pass through an avalanche or hurricane unscathed.
• Integrity Integrity allows the character to resist all forms of supernatural mental control as well as helping the character resist believing sale pitches or breaking under torture. Characters skilled in this Ability can resist all attempts to change their mind.Standard: See through a well-told sob story. Challenging: Hold out under horrific tortue. Legendary: Laugh off the mind-warping powers of the Fair Folk
• Investigation Often possessed by magistrates and censors, Investigation is the skill of searching for clues and information, whether at a crime scene, in a library or through speaking to witnesses. Characters with this Ability can perform research in an effective manner, as well as collect evidence and reconstruct events to gain insight into what really happened at a scene.Standard: Reconstruct a fresh event with moderate evidence. Quickly locate a passage among the contents of a modest library in just a few days of searching. Challenging: Reconstruct a stale event (2-3 weeks old) from moderate evidence. Locate a single passage among the contents of an impressive library in a long day of research. Legendary: Reconstruct a months-old scene from only fragmentary evidence. Find a single passage out of all the books in the Imperial Library of the Realm with just a night of research.
• Larceny Larceny is a measure of the character’s knowledge of the technical aspects of crime and of the criminal lifestyle. It also gauges the character’s mastery of legerdemain, sleight of hand, gambling, pickpocketing, lock picking, con games and the other necessary skills for survival outside the law. Standard: Pick someone’s pocket in a crowded street. Pick a simple lock. Run a floating crap game. Find drugs. Sell stolen goods. Contact the local thieves’ guild, if one exists. Challenging: Forge a Guild letter of credit. Pick an alert mark’s pocket when the two of you are alone in a room. Sell extremely hot items. Find rare and potent drugs from halfway around the world. Make a stellar impression on the local thieves’ guild. Legendary: Forge an Imperial Signet of the Realm. Filch the ruby from a god-king’s forehead during conversation. Fence the crown jewels of the local ruler for their actual value the day after you steal them. Run a vanity con on the Fair Folk.
• Linguistics This Ability determines the number of languages the character speaks fluently, as well indicating a basic understanding of how languages work. Because there are many languages and each is a very complicated system, the character does not automatically understand all languages. Each character knows one language family as his native tongue. Each +1 of Linguistics indicates a fluent understanding of a language family beyond the character’s native one, characters with Approaches use the higher rated of Intellect or Focus to determine how many langauges they speak or can quickly learn. Characters with high Linguistics will be able to express basic needs and desires in most languages, but cannot express complex concepts or understand even simple idioms. Each language family comprises several dialects, but for simplicity’s sake, its assumed that a character knowledgeable in a language family can comprehend dialects within the family. Linguistics rolls are needed only to understand complex writing or speech, although a high Linguistics rating should reduce this necessity. Without Lore characters may not read or write.
• Lore Once, men understood the workings of the world, and lived in an Age of wonders beyond understanding. Characters with the Lore Ability have learned some scraps of that knowledge and are educated in history, geography, literature, philosophy and similar scholarly pursuits. High levels of Lore enable characters to decipher ancient scripts, identify First Age artifacts, know the nature of legendary creatures and similar feats. If you wish your character to be able to read and write, they must have at least +1 Lore, such a character may read the script of any language she can speak.Standard: Recognize a foreign script. Recognize an important personage or recall a historical detail from the post-Contagion past. Recognize and operate a simple First Age device. Challenging: Recognize script in the forgotten hand of the First Age. Recognize a historical personage or recall a historical detail from the days before the Contagion. Recognize and operate more complex First Age devices. Legendary: Read First Age script. Repair simple First Age devices. Recognize a historical personage or recall a historical event from the time before the usurpation of the Dragon-Blooded. Operate the most complex First Age items, such as War Striders and the defense system of the Realm.
• Medicine This Ability covers knowledge of how the human body works as well as how to repair it in case of injury. Medicine includes a basic understanding of poultices, herbal tonics and their use, along with the diagnosis and treatment of diseases and injuries. Obviously, in the world of Exalted, this knowledge is limited; even the best physicians can be stymied by injuries that would be child’s play to doctors in our world. Characters trying to treat anything beyond fevers, flesh wounds, minor diseases and small burns will have a difficult time doing so. Medicine can be used to harm as well as heal. Characters may use Medicine to perform torture, to apply harmful drugs (or helpful drugs in lethal doses) or even to spread a plague throughout a village. Standard: Amputate a mangled limb. Treat influ- enza. Stitch together simple tissue damage. Debride and dress small burns. Sterilize medical equipment. Disinfect wounds and make water potable. Challenging: Treat serious diseases such as malaria, yellow fever, dysentery, smallpox, syphilis and cholera. Perform internal surgery to remove or repair failing and damaged organs. Legendary: Treat incurable illnesses such as tuberculosis, the plague and cancer.
• Melee This Ability reflects the characters’ skill with weapons of all types, from swords and spears to axes, hammers, maces and exotic martial arts weapons of various types.Standard: Cut your initial on an opponent. Challenging: Cut your initial on an opponent in the middle of a fight. Legendary: Hang upside down from a tree branch to cut your initial on an opponent as she gallops by on her charger.
• Occult This Ability represents the character’s familiarity, to whatever degree, with magic and the supernatural. It represents her magical aptitude and her familiarity with the ways of supernatural creatures such as spirits, Fair Folk and the dead. The character is also familiar with the many cults and heresies that permeate the Realm and the Threshold. Standard: Recognize and deal politely with a minor local spirit. Recognize a simple Charm or sorcery at work. Challenging: Recognize and deal politely with a major spirit of the area — the spirit of the local haunted forest or mountain. Work very simple hedge magic (impotence cures, good luck charms, minor curses). Recognize complex or subtle sorcery at work. Legendary: Recognize and deal politely with the Elemental Dragons, the servants of the Celestines, the demon princes and the Deathlords. Summon an elemental or demon of the First Circle without being one of the Exalted. Perform more powerful hedge magic (curses that visibly work, talismans that make even the most barren woman fertile, simple enchantment).
• Performance Performance covers the gamut of live artistic expres- sion, from public speaking to musicianship to dancing to acting (including impersonating someone else) as well as the theatrics of large-scale leadership. This Ability also imparts knowledge of the society surrounding a particular art form, as well as how well your character fits into it. Standard: Sway a friendly crowd into making gener- ous donations and putting you and your friends up for a week. Lead 100 men. Challenging: Sway a hostile crowd to the point of ecstatic episodes — speaking in tongues, convulsions, spontaneous conversions, the whole nine yards. Lead 1,000 men. Legendary: Sway the crowd at your execution so that they overrun the guards, cut you down and become your liberating army. Hold a nation in your thrall.
• Presence Presence is the ability to lead and intimidate through force of personality. Performance covers oratory and mass persuasion, but Presence determines effective, long-term leadership and one-on-one interactions. What a character’s Presence stems from varies — he could lead through respect, fear, persuasion or demonstrated skill. Presence can be used to cow enemies and threaten or frighten individuals into cooperation, as well as to lead.Standard: Inspire a group of defeated troops to excel in an upcoming battle. Convince a thug that he should tell you who sent him. Challenging: Inspire a group of untrained and terri- fied volunteers to excel in an upcoming battle. Convince the head of the Society of Assassins that he had better tell you who put the contract on your head. Legendary: Turn a group of prisoners of war, con- demned convicts and bandits into an highly motivated unit in just a few weeks. Convince the head of the Guild that he should back off from his assassination attempts and join your cause if he knows what’s good for him.
• Resistance This talent represents the character’s ability to endure long-term exposure to severe conditions as well as combat the effects of physical pain, plagues or drugs.Standard: Drink a quart of liquor and remain coherent. Laugh off a serious wound. Challenging: Run 25 miles nonstop. Drink for a week and remain coherent, then run 250 miles nonstop.
• Ride Ride measures the character’s proficiency when riding a horse, ox or similar creature. This Ability gives your character the ability to break wild horses and engage in tricky maneuvers, including coaxing a horse to jump, galloping over broken terrain and fighting while mounted (use lower of Ride or appropriate combat ability). Standard: Jump a stone wall. Ride a horse through a smoky battlefield. Break a wild stallion. Challenging: Jump a high stone wall with a panicked horse. Ride a horse through a smoky battlefield full of undead horrors. Break a wild stallion in a single attempt. Legendary: Jump a tremendous chasm on an old nag. Ride a horse through a wall of magical fire full of screaming faces. Have a legendary, untamable wild horse accept you without the need for breaking.
• Sail The world of Exalted lies around the great Inland Sea, and the entirety of the West is a great sea, full of archipelagos and islands. Sea travel is vitally important to trade, warfare and communication. This Ability measures the character’s skill at seamanship and in handling both fresh and saltwater craft. Standard: Sail a ship through a moderate blow. Out- run a pirate ship. Navigate a dangerous reef. Challenging: Sail a ship through a hurricane. Outrun a pirate chaser. Navigate an uncharted reef at night. Legendary: Sail a galley through the storm of the century. Outrun a pirate fleet in a garbage scow. Navigate a deadly, uncharted reef while fogged in and under full sail.
• Socialise Socialise is the ability to sense and understand people’s feelings, to understand and maneuver in social situations and to engage in politics, social climbing and various similar sorts of subterfuge. This Ability is not a magic power; it uses your character’s own understanding of emotions and people to get an accurate reading of what others are feeling. Standard: Cast aspersions at those who deserve them. Arrange an affair. Obtain a paid position in a court through political means. Challenging: Cast aspersions at the undeserving and make them stick. Arrange an affair with the grand dame of local society, and her daughter. Obtain an influential and well-paid position (inspector-general, exchequer, major domo) through maneuvering alone. Legendary: Cast aspersions at paragons of virtue and topple them. Arrange an affair with the local ruler, her beloved spouse and their daughter. Become the heir designate for the local throne through political maneuvering.
• Stealth Stealth covers the ability to avoid notice, move qui- etly, trail someone and generally evade detection. Stealth rolls are made usually as resisted actions against another character’s Awareness. Individuals characters attempting to hide in less than optimal conditions should have the difficulty of their Stealth rolls increased accordingly.Standard: Evade notice by hiding in deep shadow. Walk silently across a marble floor. Sneak up on an alert guard. Challenging: Evade notice by standing a foot behind a person searching for you and moving when he turns. Walk silently across a floor covered with walnut hulls. Sneak up on an alert dog. Legendary: Evade notice by simply standing still. Run silently across a floor covered with small bells. Sneak up on an alert guardian demon.
• Survival Survival enables your character to survive in wilderness environments. He knows how to find shelter, set traps, forage for food and water, build fires and separate dangerous flora and fauna from beneficial ones. This Ability is absolutely essential to subsist for any length of time in a wilderness region. Survival also includes the character’s affinity with animals and his ability to tame, train and handle domestic and wild animals.Standard: Find food and shelter in the woods at night. Tame a wolf or hawk. Challenging: Find food and shelter in the savage jungles of the Threshold, despite the fact that you have only a knife and are unfamiliar with the terrain. Tame a bear or tiger. Legendary: Find food and shelter after being abandoned, naked, in the icy reaches of the North in the middle of a blizzard. Note that you probably need to roll out the combat where you beat the polar bear to death with your bare hands. Tame sharks, gryphons or other “untamable” animals.
• Thrown The ability to use weapons that are hurled toward their target without mechanical assistance. These include throwing knives, throwing axes, chakram, javelins and improvised thrown weapons such as rocks and bottles. Standard: Cut a rope with a thrown knife. Challenging: Sever a rope with a thrown knife as you fall past the rope. Legendary: Sever a rope with a thrown knife you hurl with only your fingertips and the twist of your body as you fall, bound and gagged, past the rope.
• War War gives a clear understanding of combat and military maneuvers. It covers both immediate tactics and long-range strategies and allows the character to assess the strength of enemy forces and to clearly direct troop movements. This Ability is central to all mass combat—when fighting as part of a unit, characters use the lower of the character’s combat Abilities or her War. Standard: Tell when your squad is outnumbered and outflanked. Challenging: Plan a strategy to lead your squad to victory despite being outnumbered and outflanked. Legendary: Plan a strategy to lead your squad to victory despite being outnumbered and outflanked by an army of the Fair Folk.