To attempt an action, roll a number of ten-sided dice (a dice pool) equal to the total of the relevant Attribute and the relevant Ability. For example, to sneak down an alley, roll Dexterity + Stealth. (If your Dexterity is 3 and your Stealth is 2, you should roll 5 dice.) Each roll equal to or greater than the Difficulty is a success. If the Difficulty is 6 and your results are 2, 4, 5, 6, and 8, you have 2 successes.
Difficulty 6 indicates average difficulty.
For example: Smitty the hacker wants to access a restricted website. His GM tells him to make an Intelligence + Computer roll at Difficulty 6. This means Smitty takes his Intelligence (3) and adds it to his ranks in Computer (5) and rolls the appropriate number of dice (a total of 8). Any die that comes up equal to or higher than the Difficulty (in this case 6) is considered a success.
If you do not have any ranks in the relevant Ability, you may roll using only the Attribute, but the Difficulty is increased by 1. For example, if you are attempting to sneak down an alley but do not have any Stealth, you may roll only Dexterity, but the Difficulty will be 7 rather than 6.
When you roll a 1, one success is subtracted from your total successes. (Exception: 1's are not subtracted from successes with damage rolls and soak rolls.)
The more successes you roll, the better you succeed. One indicates you barely or only partially succeed, three indicates average success, and five indicates complete success.
If the modified Difficulty is greater than 10, the number of successes required is increased by a number equal to (Difficulty – 10). If the number of successes required is greater than you can possibly obtain, you cannot succeed.
If you have 0 successes, you fail. If you roll more 1’s than successes (giving you an end result below 0), you "Botch" and something goes horribly wrong with your attempted action.
A character who fails an action may try again, but the Difficulty increases by one for each unsuccessful attempt.
When taking a contested action, both parties roll, and the party with the greater number of successes is the victor. The successes of the loser are subtracted from those of the winner. A tie goes to the defender (because the winner has 0 successes).
In a contested action, the Difficulty is 6 unless the rules or the GM indicate otherwise.
If two characters are able to work together, each rolls separately and their successes are totaled.
Specialization
Once you have reached 4 in an Ability, you may specialize it in a certain field. Write this down next to the Ability in question. When rolling in your specialty field, you may reroll 10's. 1's rolled on these rerolls are not subtracted from your total successes.
Choosing a specialty is free and can be done as soon as you achieve four ranks in an Ability; however, it cannot be changed. As always, choose wisely.
Actions
You have 1 action per three-second turn. You may attempt to multitask this action (dodging and shooting for example) by splitting your dice pool. This is done by dividing the LOWER dice pool of the 2 (or more) actions you want to take between the rolls. A dice pool must consist of at least two dice. Roll all actions at the reduced number of dice. While split actions are simultaneous, they are subject to interruption. If this occurs, you may lose the other split actions.
Extra actions from any source may not be split in this manner.
Initiative
To determine initiative, each character rolls 1d10 and adds Dexterity and Wits.
Initiative = Dexterity + Wits + 1d10
For example, if you have Dexterity 5, Wits 3, and roll a 6, your initiative is 14.
The Nerves of Steel background may allow one reroll.
All characters go in sequence from highest to lowest. All characters take their initial actions, then second actions are taken in the same sequence, then third actions in sequence, and so forth. However, you may take a defensive action at any time, provided you have actions remaining.
Any action which is instant and purely defensive is considered a Defensive Action. (Mythos spells generally take at least a full turn to cast and thus don't qualify, though exceptions may be possible. Similarly, Sorcery is always a full-turn action.)
