Resolve

This broad skill represents a character’’s inner strength of will. It

is the capacity to endure physical hardship, resist mental strain, and

stand firm in one’’s convictions regardless of pressure or temptation.

Training in Resolve allows a character to stabilize their mind during

high-stress situations and recover more efficiently from the initial

shock of bodily trauma.

It is used to defend against mental stress or attacks, to stand up to

physical damage, and to stick to his own mind and convictions.

Mental resolve

This specialty skill is used to determine a character’’s ability to

cope with emotional or mental stress of all kinds. The higher the

rank, the more resistant he is to emotional trauma, fear, panic,

madness, insanity, mind control techniques, and mental powers.

When a character is confronted with debilitating effects, he can

make a Mental Resolve check to set the trauma aside and act

without hindrance.

Results

• Critical Failure: Character collapses in mental anguish; cannot act or flees for d4 rounds.

• Failure: Character freezes and loses 1 action; receives a +1 penalty to all actions for 1 round.

• Ordinary / Good / Amazing: Character can act without penalty. (Still may have to deal with trauma later).

Mental Rank Benefits

⊗ Resistance Modifier: At higher ranks, the Mental Resolve skill provides an improvement to a character’’s Will resistance modifier, which makes it more difficult for opponents to successfully use encounter skills or mental powers against the character. The modifier improves by +1 at Rank 4, +1 at Rank 8, and +1 at Rank 12.

▶ Extreme Focus: At rank 4, a character can ignore any penalty to a complex skill check caused by a single distraction (e.g., loud noise, minor pain) per encounter.

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Physical resolve

Physical Resolve is used to determine a character’’s ability to

cope with physical trauma of all kinds. It represents a

character’’s determination to resist physical torture, to press on

though tired or in great pain, and to bounce back from physical

damage.

Withstanding Torture

When a character is confronted with physical torture, he can make

a Physical Resolve check to determine his reaction. The greater

the level of torture, the higher the situation die penalty.

• Critical Failure: The character breaks immediately and reveals everything.

• Failure: The character breaks and reveals at least one important fact.

• Ordinary: The character withstands the torture for d4 time units (then makes another check).

• Good: The character withstands for d6+2 time units.

• Amazing: The character withstands for 2d4+3 time units.

Recovery & Resilience Rank Benefits

⊗ Knockout Recovery: A character who falls unconscious due to knockout remains in that state for all of the round in which it occurred and all of the next round. After that, he makes a Physical Resolve check to regain consciousness once per round. Success indicates he awakens with an amount of stun damage recovered depending on success (Ordinary: 2, Good: 4, Amazing: 6).

⊗ Avoiding Exhaustion: When all of a character’’s fatigue points are used up, he can attempt a Physical Resolve check to stay conscious. If the check succeeds, he can perform actions for a number of rounds (Ordinary: 1, Good: 2, Amazing: 3).

⊗ Fatigue Recovery: The result of a Physical Resolve check determines how many fatigue points a character recovers after a sufficient amount of rest.

• Ordinary: 1 point.

• Good: 2 points.

• Amazing: 3 points.

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