Spending Points to Improve Skills

To increase an existing skill up to Skill

+3, spend 10 points; this improves the skill by one level Higher skill levels cost 20 points each up to Skill +6, 30 points each up to Skill +9, etc

To acquire a brand-new skill at base level, you must spend 10 points and pay

$1,000 – and take 3 months off (in game time) for training The only exception is the Mechanic skill (see below)

 

Using Skills

From time to time, the referee may call for a skill roll to see if a character can suc- ceed at some feat If you have a skill at base level, you succeed on a roll of 7 or more; otherwise, you fail The effect of success or failure will depend on the situation

The higher your skill, the easier it is to make a skill roll Add your skill bonus to your die roll Thus, if you have Mechanic

+1, you would succeed on a natural roll of 6, because 6 + 1 = 7 However, a natural 2 always fails

A character who does not even have a skill at base level (that is, did not spend at least 10 points on it) gets a −4 on any skill roll He will not succeed except on an 11 or 12

Depending on the relative ease or dif- ficulty of a task, the referee may require some rolls to be made at a penalty or a bonus

Vehicle skills (Driver, Cyclist, etc) are handled differently In most cases, your vehicle skill simply affects any control rolls you must make Occasionally, when a control roll does not seem appropriate (especially in a roleplaying situation), the referee may require you to roll against a vehicle skill In this case, your vehicle’s handling class affects your skill If you have a HC 2 (average) vehicle, roll nor- mally If its HC is lower than 2, subtract the difference from your skill If it is above 2, add the difference to your skill

So a HC 3 vehicle, for instance, gives you a +1 to your skill A HC 2 vehicle gives no bonus or penalty; a HC 1 vehicle gives you a −1 to skill, and so on.

 

Contests of Skill

When two characters compete in some way, the referee may call for a Contest of Skills Each character makes a skill roll as above, adding any modifiers the ref- eree feels are appropriate If both players make or fail their rolls, then the contest is inconclusive and may continue if the situ- ation or common sense warrants If both players make their rolls, but one makes it by 5 more than the other, he wins Obvi- ously, if one player makes the roll and the other doesn’t, the player who made his roll wins

Some situations may call for a quick con- test of skills In a quick contest, each player only rolls once, adding all appropriate modi- fiers The player with the higher score wins If they tie, the contest is inconclusive

Example: Two duellists, after a long and protracted road combat, sail into the pro-

tection of a ghost town Larry (Driver +2), unwilling to give up the fight, spins through town attempting to find Curly’s (Driver + 1) car Rather than play it out in a complicated double-blind fashion, the referee calls for a Contest of Driver Skills Curly has been through this town before (Area Knowledge +1), so the referee gives him a +1 on his roll Both players roll two dice Larry gets a 9 (7, +2 for his Driver skill bonus), poor Curly gets a 5 (3, +1 for his Driver skill bonus, +1 for his Area Knowledge) Thus, Larry wins the con- test, and gets the drop on Curly The ref- eree sets Curly’s vehicle out in the open, travelling at a reasonable urban speed, and Larry is free to place his car anywhere nearby, moving at any speed

General skill points may be used to improve these skills; so can any points earned by particularly successful or imagi- native uses of the skill itself

Skill Descriptions

Area Knowledge – Used to get around in a particular city, state, duel circuit, or patch of untamed wilderness A success- ful Area Knowledge roll means the char- acter can answer detailed questions about the area known; where to find someone or something, where to best set an ambush, etc The amount of detail will decrease as the size of the area increases Better rolls allow better use of the information

All characters are assumed to have this at base level for their hometown Improve- ments to the skill add other areas or more detail about a known area, at the referee’s option

Climbing – Like Running, everyone gets this skill at base level Climbing skill is used to climb trees (at −1 to skill), fences (-2), some buildings (-3 to −5), etc.

Computer Tech – Most computer sys- tems in the Car Wars world are very easy to use, and no roll is required Computer Tech is the computer equivalent of Me- chanic, and is used to program a system, break through a computer’s defenses (a Contest of Skill between the hacker and the computer’s defensive programming), etc

Cyclist – This is the ability to drive any size motorcycle or trike Anyone without this skill is at −3 on the handling class of any cycle he tries to ride The skill is oth- erwise like Driver (below)

Driver – This is the ability to drive a standard car, pickup, van, etc – anything with four or six wheels – or a reversed trike Someone without this skill may at- tempt to drive such a vehicle, but always subtracts 2 from his handling class At the base level, the character is an average driver Each additional plus adds to his re- flex roll. At the beginning of each combat, every driver makes a reflex roll: On a 5, the HC of the vehicle is raised by one for the duration of the combat; on a 6, the HC goes up by 2 A Driver +2, for example, would get to add 2 to the die roll Each ad- ditional plus is also added to the base HC of a vehicle to determine how many points are recovered on the Vehicle Record Sheet at the beginning of each turn

A good driver is better at keeping his vehicle under control Whenever a vehicle is forced to roll on a Crash Table, subtract the driver’s Driver skill bonus from the roll Fast-Talk – The skill of weaseling one’s way out of a situation by getting someone else to make a snap decision in one’s favor To fast-talk a potential sucker, a character rolls against his Fast-Talk skill, adding any modifiers the referee feels appropriate (an enemy in a firefight will be more resistant to a pitch) Fast-Talk may also be used to resist someone else’s attempt to Fast-Talk, in which case a quick contest of skills is

required

Gunner – This is the ability to use the targeting system common to all vehicles, and to fire any vehicular or tripod weapon A character without this skill has a −3 to hit with any vehicular weapon, −2 with a tripod weapon Each plus adds 1 to the gunner’s to- hit roll: a character with Gunner +3 adds 3 to any to-hit rolls he makes Entering a combat while in control of a weapon is worth a Gun- ner skill point; each kill scored is also worth 1 Note that if the driver of a vehicle also pulls the trigger of the weapon that scores a kill, he gets two skill points – one in Gunner and one in Driver – for the kill

Handgunner – The ability to use hand weapons and grenades Anyone without

this ability has −2 to hit with all aimed hand weapons, but may throw grenades without penalty Each plus gives a +1 to hit with all hand weapons and grenades

Luck – Each level of Luck adds 1 in fa- vor of the catch-all “roll 2 dice and pray” method for handling odd situations Luck will not help if there is another skill that can do the job

Martial Arts – This is the ability to fight more effectively in hand-to-hand combat (see p 45) Characters with the base skill may attack twice per turn hand- to-hand At +1, they get +1 to their to-hit roll; at +2, they get an additional point of damage The cycle repeats beyond that: at

+3, the character gets an additional attack per turn; at +4, he gets an additional +1 on the to-hit roll; at +5, he gets an additional damage point; and so on

Mechanic – This is the ability to repair vehicles and components The time it takes to repair something (if it can be repaired at all) is a function of the character’s Mechan- ic skill, as well as the difficulty of the job and the tools that are available

 

Repair Chart