Active Skills

Active Skills represent simple physical tasks, such as jumping over a fence, hiding in the brush, or Swimming across a raging river. While many people can complete some aspect of these skills without training, they become better with experience and practice. For example, while anyone can attempt to climb a tree, even with no training or Ranks in Climb, it would take an experienced climber to successfully scale a sheer cliff.

Check Penalties

Certain armors impose a check penalty to some physical Active Skills, since wearing armor can make it more difficult or cumbersome to complete these tasks. For example, a character cannot climb as easily while in heavy armor as he can without it, therefore the armor imposes a check penalty. The value of the check penalty is determined by the armor and/or shield a character wields and can be looked up on the Armor and Shield tables.

Any check penalties incurred are applied directly to the Skill Check Bonus for each physical Basic Skill. Skills subject to the Check Penalty are indicated with a CP next to the attributes on the Skill pages and with the CP column on the Character Sheet.