Attribute Checks

A player over on the AtB message boards asked about how people go about resolving attribute checks. Here are a few suggestions I have:

Option 1) Have the player multiply their attribute(s) by 3 and the result as a percentage to roll against. I cut off attributes at 30, so if you have an attribute high than that this probably won't work.

Example: Rocky is a bear with a PS of 21 and is trying to tear a door off its hinges. Multiplied by 3 you get 63. Rocky now has a base chance of 63% to tear the door off.

Option 2) Give the task a difficulty target and have your character add their attribute score to a 1D20. If the roll exceeds the target, they succeed.

Example: Rocky is trying to rip another door from its hinges. The GM assigns the task a difficulty of 30. Rocky needs to roll a 9 or better to successfully tear down the door.

Option 3) Use the character's attribute scores as a points pool to perform actions that you feel would otherwise strain them. These points would heal back at the same per-day rate as SDC. This would add a sense of stamina to all stats - Mental and Physical.

Example: Rocky isn't all that smart (IQ 9), but he is really straining to figure out the answer to a riddle. The GM might offer to charge the character 1 IQ for a small hint, or 3 IQ for a bigger hint.

Birnbaum asked:
A character (size level 2) was riding a mutant grasshopper (size level 15), when the grasshopper does one of his enormous leaps, there might be a P.S check (or P.P check) to see if the pc gets bucked off or not.

Option 1) Take the character's PS (or average the characters strength and prowess (i.e. PS+PP/2)) and multiply it by 3. Use that # as the target of a % roll, just like checking a skill. You might also want to penalize the character for the size difference; say -1% per size level.

Option 2) That's a really big grasshopper compared to the character. I'd probably give the task a base difficulty of at least 25 or 30 (that's what I figure a character of that size would need to stay on such a large mount). Again you could average the character's strength and prowess.

Option 3) It's going to take a lot of effort for such a small character to stay on the back of the grass hopper. Let's say we charge the character 1-3 PS for every minute he rides the "hopping" grasshopper. Riding a walking grasshopper won't cost him anything, only when it starts hopping. Depending on the character's PS, they will tire out pretty quickly.

Of course you could also combine any of these methods as you like as well.