Torg Player Rules

Dexterity-Related Skills
Acrobatics+
Use: Unskilled use of Vaulting/Springing penalized; Falling
cannot be used unskilled.
Sample specializations: Tightrope walking, swinging on ropes,
gymnastics, Vaulting/Springing, Falling
This is the skill used by gymnasts and circus acrobats to
perform their flips, rolls, and falls. It can also be used for more
practical purposes such as leaping over obstacles, through narrow
openings and knowing how to land from a fall to reduce injury.
Many martial artists, cat burglars and swashbuckling fighters have
use for acrobatics.
In game play, acrobatics has two specific functions, Vaulting/
Springing and Falling. Most applications of the skill fall into the
Vaulting/Springing category.
Vaulting/springing: a character skilled in acrobatics has the
ability to use the natural scenery to vault and spring over physical
obstacles. The difficulty number of such an action depends upon
the obstacle.
VAULTING/SPRINGING CHART
Obstacle Difficulty #
Hopping a fence 3
Swinging on a rope 5
Grabbing an overhang and swinging over a pit 8
Vaulting or swinging over a tricky obstacle 10
Performing a backflip 12
Bouncing off an awning during a free fall to reach a
specific destination
Falling: a character skilled in acrobatics can reduce the damage
that he sustains in a fall. The difficulty number depends on the distance
fallen. Successful use of the skill indicates that any wound damage
sustained in the fall is reduced by one level (heavy wound becomes
a wound; mortal wound becomes a heavy wound, etc.). This part of
the skill cannot be attempted unskilled. Rules concerning falling
damage are in Chapter Four.
FALLING CHART
Distance fallen Difficulty #
1 Story (15 feet) 3
2 Stories (16-30 feet) 8
5 Stories (31-100 feet) 12
Over 5 stories 15
Beast Riding
Use: Unskilled use penalized. Macro skill use for long-distance
travel.
Sample specializations: Horse, camel, unicorn, elephant,
dolphin, lakten (a creature of the Living Land) or whatever other
“beasts” may be used as mounts in a cosm.
Axiom: Tech 3
This skill is used to ride horses, camels, and other mounts. When
a rider first climbs aboard an animal, he generates a beast riding total
using the mount’s Mind value as the difficulty number. If this check
succeeds, the rider gains control of the mount and may proceed. If
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Chapter Three: Attributes and Skills
the check fails, the beast runs away, bucks, or throws the rider off
(at the gamemaster’s discretion).
The rider must make a similar roll whenever gunfire, bomb blasts,
etc. spook the mount. The difficulty of getting the mount to perform
a specific task, such as jumping over a fence, is determined by the
gamemaster using the Difficulty Number Scale and should be based
on the animal and the task itself. Getting a horse to jump a fence
might be an Average task but getting a camel to perform the same
maneuver might be a Very Hard task, and it would be better to just
let an elephant go through the fence (elephants can’t jump.)
Besides controlling the mount, beast riding can be used to
increase the animal’s speed with a speed push (see Chapter Four)
in place of the animal’s own running skill. The macro version of
this ability, the forced march, will increase the animal’s movement
value by one with a successful skill check against the mount’s Mind.
The forced march will last for a maximum of three hours and can
only be used once a day.
A character’s beast riding skill can be substituted for a character’s
dodge and maneuver skills while the character is mounted in combat.
If engaged in close-range combat while mounted, the character’s
beast riding skill may be substituted for the character’s normal
defensive skill value.
The difficulty of all beast riding checks is increased by 8 on an
untrained/undomesticated animal.
Dance
Use:
Unskilled use penalized. Macro skill.
Sample
specializations: Ballet, ballroom dancing, square
dancing, tap dancing, choreographed dances
Axiom:
Social 3
The
dance skill covers a character’s ability to move rhythmically
to music or song, in either a free-form or choreographed manner.
Dancing can be an important part of the rituals practiced by many
cultures as well as something done for enjoyment or to entertain
others.
Performing a carefully choreographed dance routine, such as a
dance used as part of an important religious ritual, requires making
a dance skill check against a difficulty number determined by the
gamemaster using the Difficulty Number Scale.
When used to entertain or otherwise evoke a reaction in an
audience, even if that audience is just your dance partner, dance
uses the rules given in the performance arts skill to determine the
quality of the performance and reaction of the audience. Dance
only covers a character’s ability to perform a dance, not design
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