Skill Cards

Fighting with hand-held weapons at Engaged range: blades, batons, pry bars, vibroblades, boarding axes, and improvised weapons such as a heavy wrench. Melee weapons are common on stations and freeports, where a missed shot can hole a pressure wall, and in corridors too narrow to swing a rifle.

Example uses:

• Fight in an access corridor too tight for a rifle
• Use a vibroblade in a boarding action
• Disarm an opponent with a strike to the weapon hand
• Hold a doorway against several attackers

Talents: Zero-G Aptitude, Zero-G Combat, Station Brawler, Boarding Champion; Analytical Combat (Ossen); Predatory Rush (Zosa).

Attacking at range with personal weapons fired or thrown by hand: sidearms, carbines, rifles, shotguns, energy weapons, and grenades. Weapons mounted on ships or vehicles and fired from a station use Gunnery.

Example uses:

• Draw and fire at a threat closing fast in a docking terminal
• Lay suppressing fire so allies can move
• Throw a stun grenade into a room before entry
• Fire through a narrow gap from cover

Talents: Controlled Burst (suppressing fire with personal weapons), Corridor Fighter, Breach Tactics, Zero-G Combat; Analytical Combat (Ossen).

Strength and endurance tasks: climbing, swimming, jumping, sprinting, lifting, forcing a hatch, carrying a load, and pushing off in low gravity. Athletics is the default check for movement under the gravity rules in Chapter Ten.

Typical difficulties: regain control after a ship's artificial gravity fails, Average; break free of binders, Hard; stay upright in Extreme gravity, Hard each round.

Example uses:

• Climb an exterior hull ladder during an evacuation
• Force a jammed airlock hatch open
• Carry an injured crewmate out of a burning compartment
• Push off hard in microgravity to reach a moving target

Talents and gear: Zero-G Aptitude, EVA Specialist; Dense Frame Leverage (Dhoran, resisting being moved). Hoverboots (Chapter Ten, Gravity Equipment), grapple line (Chapter Nine).

Noticing details, spotting hidden things, hearing danger, and reading your surroundings. Perception answers "Do I notice it?"; Lore answers what it means. Savvy + Perception is the Initiative check when you are on watch.

Example uses:

• Spot a concealed sentry before walking into the line of fire
• Notice that a cargo seal has been tampered with
• Hear the hiss of a slow hull leak
• Scan a landing zone for hazards before setting down

Talents and gear: Pressure Sense, Diagnostic Eye; Analytical Combat (Ossen); the Zosa Predator Reflexes trait (Chapter Five). Personal scanner (Chapter Nine).

Acting under sudden pressure, staying alert, and resisting surprise. Willpower + Readiness is the Initiative check when you are surprised.

Readiness is the default skill for resisting fear, intimidation, despair, coercion, and sudden mental pressure when the resistance is about nerve and composure. The GM may call another skill when it fits better: Fortitude against environmental dread, Lore against a threat you can place in context.

Example uses:

• React first when an ambush opens in a corridor you thought was clear
• Keep your composure under aggressive interrogation
• Keep working through a sudden decompression while others panic
• Resist an Intimidation check

Talents and gear: the Zosa Predator Reflexes trait (Chapter Five).

Tracking, foraging, navigation on foot, shelter, reading hazardous terrain, handling ordinary animals, and staying alive away from infrastructure. In Void Drifters, Survival also covers vacuum protocols and emergency procedures in a failing hull or derelict.

Example uses:

• Cross an uncharted planetary surface by stellar positioning
• Set up emergency shelter in a damaged ship section
• Tell edible local plants from toxic ones
• Stretch the air in a compromised suit

Gear: filtration unit, emergency beacon, emergency rations (Chapter Nine).

History, cultures, factions, laws, religions, the five powers, and the geography of known space. Lore also interprets a clue once Perception has found it: what a hull marking means, why a faction is here, what a symbol obliges its bearer to do.

Example uses:

• Identify a ship's power from its markings and guess its mission
• Recall a treaty clause that affects a negotiation
• Recognize a religious symbol and the obligations it carries
• Predict how a faction responds to pressure

Talents: Quick Read, Builder Recognition. Chapter Three, Languages: a relevant Lore rank can justify an additional language.

Treating injury and illness, diagnosis, stabilizing the wounded, surgery, managing recovery, and identifying poison or disease. Field treatment, Wound recovery, and treating Critical Injuries are in Chapter Fourteen, Ending an Encounter and Recovery.

Typical difficulties: battlefield care with no difficulty listed, Average.

Example uses:

• Stop a crewmate's bleeding before the next round
• Diagnose a Hazren crewmate's condition that a human-calibrated scanner misreads
• Recognize poisoning in a contact's symptoms
• Manage recovery for several injured crew during a long transit

Talents and gear: Field Stabilization, Pain Management, Diagnostic Eye, Xenomedicine, Battle Medic, Surgical Precision; Precision Reach (Ossen). Field medkit (required for most Medicine checks), xenomedical supplement kit, species-specific medical pack, stimpacks (Chapter Nine).

Repairing, building, modifying, maintaining, salvaging, sabotaging, and improvising ships, equipment, weapons, and structures. Craft is the engineer's core skill and the skill for ship damage control.

Typical difficulties: Boost Power, Average; Emergency Repair, by damage severity (Chapter Eight, Ship Station Actions).

Example uses:

• Patch a hull breach with salvaged materials
• Jury-rig a damaged weapon to fire once more
• Refit a pressure suit for a Hazren crewmate
• Fabricate a replacement part from stock

Talents and gear: Tinkerer, Jury Rig, Stress Engineer, Emergency Protocols, Living Ship, Xenotech, Prototype Operator; Precision Reach (Ossen). Basic toolkit (required for most Craft checks), engineer's kit, diagnostic scanner, patch compound (Chapter Nine). The KR-41's Field-Service Access trait (Chapter Eleven).

Slipstream navigation: finding seams, reading corridor data, plotting courses, timing transits, offset exits, and recovering from a transit gone wrong. Navigating an established corridor from a charted seam needs no check; Chapter Ten, Slipstream Navigation Rules, lists when a check is needed.

Example uses:

• Plot a course that avoids patrol windows in a disputed corridor
• Find a frontier or fading seam
• Make an offset exit away from the monitored seam arc
• Rebuild a damaged nav chart from partial data

Talents and gear: Corridor Memory, Rapid Plot, Slipstream Reader, Seam Finder, Dark Route, Offset Mastery, Emergency Routing, Void Intuition. A directive AI with the Navigation package removes 1 Trial Die; a damaged Navigation Suite adds 2 Bane Dice (Chapters Ten and Eight).

Warmth, humor, sincerity, and likability, plus performance: music, oratory, storytelling, and acting. Charm gets people to want to help you; Deception gets them to believe something false.

When the target's species or culture is one your character knows little about, the GM may add 1 Bane Die.

Example uses:

• Win over a suspicious dockmaster
• Perform at a freeport gathering to earn a community's goodwill
• Calm a tense standoff by finding common ground
• Make a first impression before you have any credentials

Talents: Silver Words, Port Authority; the human Cultural Adaptability trait (Chapter Five).

Flying and driving under pressure: ships, small craft, atmospheric vehicles, and ground vehicles. Pilot covers docking, maneuvering, evasion, pursuit, difficult approaches, and keeping control after damage. Pilot replaces the core skill Operate.

Typical difficulties: routine docking needs no check; Hard Turn, Average; Evasive Maneuver, Average (Chapter Eight, Ship Station Actions).

Example uses:

• Dock in a crowded freeport berth under time pressure
• Make an emergency burn to break pursuit
• Dock with a tumbling derelict
• Fly a surface approach with no traffic control

Talents: Smooth Operator, Evasive Instinct, Combat Pilot, Reaction Pilot, Ghost Run, Prototype Operator; Defensive Operator (universal talent).

Ship-scale and vehicle-mounted weapons fired from a station: fire control, aimed fire, system targeting, torpedo targeting, and point defense. Personal weapons use Ranged.

Typical difficulties: Target Systems, Hard (Chapter Eight, Ship Station Actions). Other attack difficulties follow the ship combat rules in the Vehicles Manual.

Example uses:

• Fire the main battery during an attack run
• Intercept an incoming torpedo with point defense
• Manage weapon Heat through a long engagement
• Fire a fixed emplacement to repel a boarding party

Talents: Fire Control, Weapon Familiarity, Controlled Burst, System Targeting, Point Defense Mastery, Overcharge, Dead Eye.