Making Skill and Attribute Tests
In Armournaut, skill and attribute tests are essential mechanics for determining the outcomes of actions and challenges your characters face. Whether you're attempting to pick a lock, negotiate with a terrorist, or dodge a laser, these tests provide a structured way to resolve uncertain situations.
Attributes represent the sum of your character's experiences and qualities,These attributes are grit, technique, reason, cunning and diligence. Attributes influence your character's overall capabilities and serve as the foundation for skill checks.
Skills reflect specialised knowledge, training, or talents your character has developed. Examples include Stealth, Persuasion, Aid, and athletics. Skills are often associated with specific attributes—such as Stealth with technique or Persuasion with cunning—and contribute modifiers to related tests.
Armournaut is a D6 dice pool based system, player characters and NPCs will be asked to make tests to do certain things. This involves rolling a number of dice with the aim of attaining a score that is equal to or greater than the difficulty of the test. This is known as the difficulty score or DS.
Telling how many dice you get depends on if the test is an attribute test or skill test . Attribute tests you consult the relevant attribute of the player character or NPC, if your grit is 4 you get 4 dice in any grit test. Skill tests work by totalling the value of a skill and its associated attribute. If your gunnery is 4 and diligence is 4 then you roll 8 dice in any gunnery skill test. Once you have assembled your dice pool, consider if there are any modifiers that will provide you with additional dice, for instance binoculars provide +2 die to any detect skill test.
The difficulty score required to succeed the test is determined in 2 main ways, either directly by the Gamemaster or by the statistics of the target of the test. The game master will set a difficulty anywhere between 3 (minimal) to 15 (impossible) based on how hard they appraise the intended action to be. When attacking someone with a Gunnery skill test the difficulty score is equal to their defense score for instance.
Once your dice pool is assembled and difficulty has been determined you roll your d6s and discover if you have succeeded or failed. Each result of a 4+ on a d6 counts as a success while other results count as failure, a result of a 6 counts as 2 successes. Adding these individual successes together provides you with your final test score. If you meet or exceed the difficulty score of the test the intended action works.
Modifiers: influence the difficulty score of any given test. They can derive from the narrative or mechanics. For instance, the GM might decide that that hurricane adds a 3 DS penalty to the engineering skill test as a fitting consequence of the narrative. Whilst a severity 1 arm condition adds a 1DS penalty to any test involving that arm, which can be acquired through gameplay. Additionally their are Reputation modifiers for social tests that the GM can use as a guide how difficult tests NPCs should be. Their are 5 levels:
Boost & Bank Die: During any skill or attack test, a player may choose to either Boost or Bank any dice that roll a 6. To Boost, they immediately spend all 6s, forfeiting their successes in the current test to instead add each 6 to the DD pool on a successful attack or to gain a greater narrative effect on a skill test. To Bank, they remove the 6s from the current roll forfeiting success to current test, saving them to later replace die of their choice in a future skill test. Banked dice cannot be used for DD or to gain greater effects. A player cannot Boost while they have any Banked dice, must spend them first, all Banked dice are lost at the end of the session. A player can not bank new die until they all current banked die have been used.
Chronicle Die: one die while rolling tests is the chronicle die, for attack tests the roll of a six triggers a critical hit which causes conditions in non-vehicle targets and destroys equipment of vehicles.
Complications: if you roll a 1 on a chronicle die a complication occurs, complications change something about the scene in a meaningful and interesting way. As a player you pitch what might happen to the GM. it does not necessarily have to be bad but it should not be a purely positive outcome for the player. A complication while in a firefight might lead to a fire starting and becoming a hazard for players and NPCs. a complication while trying to persuade someone might lead to the target disliking you while agreeing to their favor. A result of a 1on on a chronicle die always results in a complication even if modifiers would alter the die result.
The GM has the final say on setting DSs, applying modifiers, and interpreting test results based on the narrative context. They ensure consistency and fairness in applying rules while encouraging creativity and storytelling during gameplay.