Skills

New or altered skills are defined here; others are found in core Mythras.

MSW Standard Skills

Transportation

Boating, Drive, and Ride have been removed from the Standard Skill list and replaced with a set of transportation skills which reflect the range of vehicles in the MSW universe.

Each category covers the control of any vehicle (or creature) which matches its environmental and propulsion specifications. In most cases this is just a more specialized version of a previous skill.

• Boating (Boats) – All waterborne craft from canoes to sea liners (Sail raft, Amphibion)
• Boating (Submersibles) – Any vessel which travels below the surface (Luxsubs)

• Drive (Crawler) – Wheeled or Tracked (Sandcrawler, Wheel bike)
• Drive (Speeder) – Ground hugging repulsorlift vehicles (Landspeeders, Speeder bikes)
• Drive (Walker) – Legged vehicles (AT-AT, AT-ST)

• Pilot (Airship) – Atmospheric balloons to floating gas mining installations
• Pilot (Flyer) – Skyhoppers and Air Speeders (T-16, Snowspeeder)
• Pilot (Spaceship) – Spacecraft of all designs (TIE fighters, YT-1300 freighter)

• Ride (Beasts) – Animals of any type (Bantha, Bolotaur, Tauntaun)

MSW Professional Skills

New MSW skills are linked to their definitions.

New MSW Skills

Astrogation

Astrogation the equivalent to the Mythras core skill Navigation, except that it enables starship pilots the ability to plot a course through hyperspace between star systems. This skill is not normally rolled against in non-stressful situations, but a roll may be required in the following circumstances:

• Trying to calculate a course whilst under fire, evading pursuit or hiding the destination
• The ship’s hyperdrive engines have been damaged or are poorly maintained
• Attempting to shave off travel time by cutting close to (or through) dangerous regions, the Kessel Run for instance

Astrogation can also be used to remember obscure worlds, e.g. in the outer rim.

Comms

The ability to use communications equipment to detect, conceal or block comms traffic. It also grants a chance of cracking encrypted messages, providing the user has access to code breaking gear. In any situation where the attempted communication (or discovery of such) is actively challenged, an opposed roll is used to determine the result.

Demolitions

This skill permits a character to safely handle and use explosives. Most demolition attempts require no skill check if in a non-stressful situation and taking time to double check that things are set up correctly

A roll should only be necessary when:

• Cutting corners to save time or e.g. being in a combat situation
• Using substandard or unknown materials
• Setting up the explosive device as a trap
• Needing to demolish something without causing collateral damage

Electronics

This skill allows the user to tinker with, bypass or repair electronic devices. It has many applications, most often to temporarily patch up damaged equipment or replace broken circuits with spares. A darker aspect is the circumventing of electronic security, providing the character can gain access to the circuitry or a convenient data port.

Forgery

The Forgery skill permits the creation or falsification of official documentation. This is normally used to gain the following:

• False identity documentation, whether for a spacecraft or a person
• False travel documentation, so that the holder can penetrate a secure facility or region
• False cargo manifests, to enable the smuggling of prohibited substances or objects

Forgery is not simply the physical crafting of a facsimile of the original document, assuming it’s not just an electronic code. Rather it requires the knowledge of passwords, encryption, names of current overseers and dozens of other aspects. It might even necessitate the hacking of Imperial databases to plant corroborating evidence to support the forged document.

Usually the skill is tested once to initially create the forgery. The quality of the forgery depends on the roll, which can be made in secret by the Game Runner if they so desire:

• Fumble: some elemental mistake is made immediately revealing the bogus nature of the forgery, so that it automatically fails any inspection check.
• Failure: the forgery is sufficiently shoddy so that it always prompts an inspection check.
• Success: a sufficiently good enough forgery is created so that it always passes inspection checks without needing to roll, unless the checking official has reason to be suspicious.
• Critical: the forgery is so good that it can never be discerned from the real thing. It always passes inspec- tion checks. Only a thorough in-depth investigation of the associated person, craft or cargo will in-directly reveal it is false.

Inspection checks occur whenever an official requests to see (or be transmitted) the forged document; a stormtrooper requesting travel papers or an ID card for example. The check is a simple opposed roll of the crafter’s Forgery skill (at the time of making the forgery) versus the viewer’s Perception, Customs/Culture, or some other relevant technical skill. If the forgery wins, then it passes inspection.

Mechanics

Mechanics is the equivalent of Electronics in that it allows the maintenance and repair of complex mechanical equipment. This can be anything from the servicing of droid actuators to fixing moisture vapourators. The skill cannot repair something completely destroyed, but could permit a brief jury-rigged fix if enough spare parts are available. Contrary to traditional science fiction settings, this skill also includes the maintenance and repair of starship reactors and hyperdrives; the skill of Engineering instead refers only to large scale civil engineering. The design and building new mechanical devices is not covered by this skill, but requires the Craft (Mechanics) instead.

Pilot

Previously mentioned as part of the Transportation section of Standard Skills, the Pilot skill permits the control of flying vehicles. Despite the degree of automation available to Imperial tech, there is a significant difference between piloting an atmospheric specific flyer and an interstellar spacecraft; requiring this skill to be taken twice to cover both environments.

If a character possesses only one specialty, the Game Runner is at liberty to substitute one skill for the other, imposing a difficulty penalty when attempting to pilot vessels they are not familiar with. Thus a spacecraft pilot would suffer a penalty when flying a Skyhopper. As with Astrogation, the Pilot skill is not normally checked when making normal flights. However dramatic or dangerous situations may require the skill to be tested.

For example:

• When engaging in a dogfight with another aircraft or starship
• If trying to fly through difficult conditions, such as an atmospheric storm or turbolaser flack
• Attempting to control the ship to pass close by physical obstacles, an asteroid field or canyon, for instance.

Repulsorlift vehicles which act as ground effect craft are not covered by Pilot, but rather use the Drive skill instead.

Politics

Characters possessing the Politics skill have knowledge of how governments work and the right person to speak to if needing something done. It can be used to request a personal favor, lobbying, or even voting support.

The Politics skill does not only denote personal contacts, but also reflects the character’s own standing in the political structure of the Galactic Empire. Due to the degree of authority and power such standing grants, Politics is often a useful skill with which to augment checks concerning negotiations, bribery or even intimidation attempts.

As a rough guideline, characters that are politically active are generally limited in their rank according to their Politics skill value. For example, if the Game Runner treated membership in the Alderaan government as a Brotherhood; lower level functionaries (Dedicated rank) would require a politics skill of 50%, high level ministers (Proven rank) need 70%, members of the planetary senate (Overseer rank) necessitate 90% and ambassadors to the Imperial Senate (Leader rank) would entail a skill of at least 110%.

Science

Science is the technological equivalent of the Lore skill which it replaces. Each incidence of Science must be assigned a specific specialty, anything from Anthropology to Zoology. The skill allows the user to understand how something works or recall knowledge pertinent to that subject. It also permits the design of new technology if the specialization is pertinent to creating things, for example Architecture.

Sensors

Allows the accurate use and analysis of sensor devices from chemical sniffers up to military long range scanners. It is most often checked when somebody or something tries to remain hidden from the sensor user. In this case the check is an opposed roll of the Sensors skill against the most pertinent skill for that situation, be that Stealth, Piloting, Conceal, and so on. When checking for the existence of a nominally non-perceivable substance or clue, the skill check is unopposed.

The Force

This is the skill used to control Force powers. It ostensibly replaces the Mysticism skill, but works in the same manner. Note that both The Force and Meditation have different characteristic bases than the original skills.