Know Stunts (Action)

Heroic Action Role-Play

Main article: Action

Analyze Weakness

Basic Action

Make a Know roll against the target's Dodge or Know. On a success you either learn one of the targets weaknesses or gain an Advantage against that opponent. If you score an Outcome matching the target's Mind, you either analyze all special weaknesses or defenses have, specifically all their Dodge powers and schticks. If the target has some specific secret or weakness, you learn them. If you have already completely analyzed the creature, you instead gain two Advantages.

Debate

Limit Break

A debate is a scientific or theological discussion about points of fact and theory - not a piece of oratory. It only works if both sides are willing to discuss the issue in a rational manner. But it is also very persuasive - convincing someone in a debate can often change their entire world-view, as well as that of your audience.

A debate is run in rounds of approximately 15 minutes. Generally a debate is 1-2 hours long. To successfully debate, you need to beat your opponent in an opposed Know roll. An outcome equal to your opponent's Mind counts as two successes. The side with the most successes at the end wins the debate, but with no major repercussions. If you manage to score successes equal to a listener's Mind you have convinced him you are right. If the opponent scored less than half as many successes as you did in the debate, the result is a lasting one and the listener is permanently swayed; otherwise it is merely a temporary conviction, maybe the permanent ceding of some minor point.

If either side is "in the right" - that is has significantly more proof than the opposition - they get a bonus of +3 or even +5 on their debate rolls.

First Aid

Basic Action

You can stabilize a Critically Hurt character you touch. This takes a Know roll against the damage value of the attack, and must be done soon; in an action scene you can try this again and again, but outside of combat you only get one attempt per victim you try to help. It reduces the lasting effect of such damage, saving lives and helping future recovery. It does nothing for the immediate situation.

Lore

Basic Action

You can make a focused attempt to remember something out of your background and education, such as a particular name, date, or simple fact. The difficulty depends on the obscurity of the fact and how it relates to your background and experiences.

Roll	Knowledge
5	Common knowledge
10	General context and background
15	Detailed knowledge
20	Detailed context, background, and motivations

You get only one chance per scene at recalling something with Lore; if you do not remember it at once, you will have to use Research or wait until later. This is similar to, and in addition to, any Knowledge Element rolls your skills may entitle you to do - you can do one Lore and one Knowledge Element check for each topic, but the difficulty might well be different depening on how scholarly the information is.

Mental Push

Trigger Action

You can use this stunt to focus in order to function at a higher Mind rating for one action. This is useful with a lot of powers whose effect derives from Mind. This works only for effects whose effectiveness is solely determined by Mind. You cannot do this for a power where the Outcome is directly added to Mind to derive an effect, such as most attacks.

An illustrative example is the Telekinesis power. The amount you lift depends on a skill roll and cannot be pushed, but the speed at which you move it is determined solely by Mind and can thus be pushed.

This is a trigger action triggered by whatever action you needed greater mental power for. Make a Know roll against your own Mind; for every 3 points you score on this roll, your effective Mind is increased by one, with a minimum of +1 for a successful roll. An Outcome of 1-5 allows +1 Mind, 6+ allows +2 Mind, 9+ allows +3, 12+ allows +4 and so on.

Power Suppression

Trigger Action (Finisher)

This stunt allows you to capture power-users, preventing them from using their powers. The result is that you can actually keep a powered character as a prisoner instead of having to kill them.

All Traditions have weaknesses and flaws that can be used to suppress power use. But beside those limitations severe enough to become Methods or Power Loss Limitations, all traditions also include smaller flaws, not significant enough to count as one of the above, but which can still be used to temporarily suppress power use. Exactly how this is done depends on the situation, tradition, and the gamemaster's whim.

Make a Trigger Action (Finisher) to actually apply the power suppressor, make an opposed Know roll against the target to see if the method you are trying works. If you succeed, the target suffers from Power Loss. This roll is modified depending on how well you know the target's powers and tradition.

Condition	Modifier
Unknown tradition	-10
Strange tradition, observed but not studied	-5
Strange or foreign tradition you have limited experience with	-2
Common tradition	+0
Well-known tradition	+2
You have successfully power-suppressed this individual before	+5

This kind of restraint involves an object; a seal, talisman, plug, or other inhibitor placed on the target. Seal is fairly easy to remove, which means the target must generally be restrained or kept under watch to make sure the seal is not broken.

Refute Effort

Basic Action

A theory can never be verified; it only stands until refuted. You can refute what another is trying to do, and why it cannot succeed as well as they think.

Make an opposed Know roll against your target. If you succeed the target is Stymied. It you score an Outcome matching the target's Mind, you inflict a Setback; the target suffers some direct penalty, as appropriate to the situation and what you did to him. He might fumble, give up his effort, or fail spectacularly.

Research

Limit Break

You can find information in reference books; from small handbooks like a travel guide or Woodchuck guide to whole libraries. Make a Know roll to find the actual facts you seek; the difficulty is generally the same as Lore. Books and libraries are limited mainly in the number of research attempts you can make in them; a small reference work is exhausted after one attempt, the congressional library or internet is good for years of research on almost any subject.

Certain libraries are especially good in some fields, and make research in these fields easier. Big libraries give this bonus in many fields, but really esoteric information might require looking in out-of-the way repositories of knowledge. Research in such a library is Confident. This never applies to the internet.

Sage Advise

Basic Action

Decide upon a task and make a Know roll against the normal difficulty of this task. It doesn't matter if you know the skill that would normally be used. If you succeed, the next attempt to succeed at this task gets a +3 bonus. This lasts until used or until the end of the round. You can use the bonus yourself, or give others advice (and the bonus).

Speed Read

Inherent

You can skim great volumes of text, finding the salient details. Make a Know roll and square the result; this is the number of pages you can read in an hour - tough in the case of heavy scientific texts, this is just skimming. You can also study a text thoroughly, getting as much out of it as from a verbal presentation of the same length by someone as skilled as the author is at his subject or you are at Know, whichever is less.

Spurious Logic

Inherent

You can create logical conundrums; tricks that can be simple for normal common sense to see through, but which are at least superficially logical and can fool logical automatons and others lacking common sense. In this way, you can bluff anyone who is immune or resistant to normal Charm, using your Know skill as tough it was Charm and bypassing any Charm resistance the target has. You cannot bluff ordinary people this way, only those with special resistances such as Automatons or those with Logical Detachment.