Skills

This page details the various skills of the Niche system.

Skills and Skill Ranks:
Skills represent various basic abilities a character possesses. As you gain hit dice, including your first, you gain new skill points to invest in your skills.

Skill ranks are broken up into two types, physical and mental. You gain a number of physical skill ranks equal to the highest of your Strength, Endurance, or Agility modifier; and a number of mental skill ranks equal to the highest of your Intelligence, Focus, or Psyche modifier. You gain a minimum 1 rank per level of both physical and mental even if you would have a 0 or lower in your modifiers. A character can then invest these skill ranks into a specific skill as long as the skill is from the proper category with physical skill ranks only being able to be spent on physical skills and mental skill ranks on mental skills. Ranks represent one’s training and experience in a skill. You can never have more ranks in a skill than your total number of HIt Dice.

Trained Vs Untrained
Once a rank has been put into a skill it is now considered a trained skill. If you have a rank in a skill you gain a training bonus of +2 to that skill as long as it has at least a single rank invested in it. Some skills require you to be trained to be used, or achieve beyond a basic value of 10 on their result.

Skill Checks
When a character uses a skill they must roll to determine their success or degree of success. When making a skill check you roll 1d20 plus your skill ranks as well as the associated ability score modifier of that skill to the roll. If you are trained you add your +2 bonus to the skill as well as any other miscellaneous bonuses such as from skill feats.

Depending on the skill used success is measured in different ways, but as long as your skill check matches or exceeds the DC the skill check is considered a success.

If you would automatically pass a skill check (such as being able to pass the DC on a 1) and the degree by which you succeed would not matter, you may choose to simply not roll the skill check (GM Discretion) to expedite gameplay.

Taking 10
When not in immediate danger or distracted, such as being in combat, you may choose to take 10 on a skill check instead of rolling a d20. When taking 10 calculate your result as if you had rolled a 10. For many routine tasks, taking 10 makes them automatically successful.

Taking 20
When you have time, are not in danger or distracted, and the skill being attempted has no penalty to failure, you can take 20. Take 20 is similar to take 10, treating your roll as if you had rolled a 20 on the dice. Taking a 20 is representing averages of a character trying until they roll the maximum possible value over and over, as such doing such takes 20 times as long as it normally would (2 minutes if the skill would take 1 round normally).

Usually take 20s are used for disable device, escape artist, or perception checks.