Spot (Action)

Heroic Action Role-Play

Spot is how aware you are of your surroundings, how quick you react to new dangers, and your ability to discern and analyze detail.

Unskilled Use

Spot defaults to Mind. Most Spot stunts can be done unskilled, but as it comes up so frequently, most characters will want at least a modest training in the skill.

Use in Action

Spot is used as a defense against traps and sneaking, to notice hidden clues and dangers, and to quickly gather and understand information. For humans sight is the most important (and cinematic) sense, but the skill covers all senses, including such things as muscle memory, balance, and intuition.

Knowledge

You are not only able to notice things, you also remember what you've seen and perceived. Want a visual image of a cathedral? How many spires has the Notre Dame? Or to know how many light poles there were along the road you just rode down? What was the registration number of the third red car or the shoe size of the custom's inspector on the photograph? What is the angle between the stars in Ursus Major? This is the kind of trivia and everyday observation you thrive on.

If you are a visual artist, you know of other artists throughout history and the techniques they used. If you are a military spotter or recon specialist, you know the latest gear, techniques, and operating methods. You can give amazingly quick reports on a target's location and nature. If you are a detective, you can summarize your observations into pithy reports that another detective can make sense of. If you are a bird watcher, train spotter, comet spotter or other specialized enthusiast, you have amazingly detailed information on your narrow field, the things you look for, the gear used, who first spotted a particular thing, and so on.

Some characters are not only skilled in Spot but also understand the theory behind how we perceive things, but that is covered more under the Know skill.

Contacts

People in diverse fields have "the eye" and ability to see that special angle, and when you see them you generally recognize and respect each others. You have met observant people and developed a mutual respect, from painters and photographers to bird spotters, artillery observers, and sniper spotters. Depending on your background, some of these will respect you while others will think you wasted your observational talent in pointless or destructive ways. There is not much cohesion among these people, no such thing as a worldwide spotter community. Instead there is a number so small groups that are each more or less closed to outsiders. Thus, the contact element of Spot is very much dependent on your background.

Spot also gives you an ability to remember faces. And if you can remember many people, chances are one of them might pop up where they are useful to you. The chance that one of the technicians at the villain base were at the tech shop at the mall in the next town are actually pretty good, and while you might not be best buddies just because you saw him there, you at least have an opening line for a conversation.

Stunts

Many Spot stunts are reactive; you notice danger in time to react or analyze a situation as it comes up.

Frisk

Varies

Make a quick examination of someone, looking for hidden weapons, contraband, and so on. This is an opposed roll compared to the target's Charm, Create, or Impress skill. Depending on what you are looking for and how you do it, there are several modifiers. In order to even try to hide an item like this, the character must be carrying enough clothes.

Circumstance	Modifier
You are using a detection device of the same or higher sophistication that the item sought.	+5
You know exactly what you are looking for.	+5
Person carries the object inside his body (swallowed, surgically implanted).	-10
Type of search	Modifier
No Action Passive search; you are not actively searching, but the concealed object would attract your notice if you did search (not an action)	-10
Trigger Action Visual observation only.	-5
Basic Action Pat-down	+0
Limit Break Body cavity search	+10

In general, you only get one chance at frisking. But if you can change your modifiers so you get better odds, you can try again.

Sometimes, the GM will give you hints even on a failed roll, especially if the plot demands it; you generally get a bad feeling about a the situation even if you failed to find exactly what you looked for as long as you did not fail by a margin greater than your Mind. This realization might not come at once, and you might not be certain who your suspect is, but it gives you incentive to look more closely. The GM will often use this to set the stage.

When a player tries to smuggle something past a guard, the GM should generally let the player roll their Charm, Create, or Impress skill against the guard's modified Spot; it is much more interesting to have the players be the active party.

Various stunts can be used to distract a guard or fool someone into revealing what they carry, these generally modify the Spot check further. A Setback on such a stunt makes either avoidance or discovery automatic.

Now and then the GM will have to fudge these rolls; generally to allow either a hero or villain to pass inspection but still cause suspicion - this is often the best setup for an exiting action scene.

Keep Watch

Trigger Action (Defense)

You get a +3 bonus to your Spot when it is used as the difficulty of an action. Keeping watch for an extended time takes quite a lot of attention; outside of action scenes you cannot initiate actions or stunts of your own while constantly keeping watch.

Scan

Basic Action

You look around, trying to spot hidden enemies and dangers. Make a Spot check against the Maneuver of an enemy trying to Sneak or against the difficulty of spotting a trap or other danger. Scan cannot find someone using Surveillance unless you are actively out scouting for them.

Search

Limit Break

You search an area (crime scene, fight scene, hall, apartment), looking for clues, hidden dangers, and clues. You automatically find all things a normal spot roll can find - anyone simply using Stealth to hide, casually concealed objects and doors, and other things that could be found with a quick scan are obvious to a search. You can also find hidden clues, deduce what happened in the area recently, and find carefully hidden devices such as advanced traps and secret doors with a successful Spot check.

Thing to notice	Difficulty
Carefully hidden device or door.	Create skill of the builder.
Find physical clues, hidden notes and such.	5
Reconstruct events at a fight or crime scene by physical evidence.	10
Recognize people you know of by physical evidence.	15
Identify people you do not know anything of by physical evidence.	20

Surveillance

Basic Action

You stay hidden at a distance, trying to keep a place under surveillance, concentrating on staying hidden. You are far away and under cover, enough that foes will only find you if you fumble or if they start an active search, but you have a limited perception of what goes on. The better the opponent's security measures, the deeper you must cover and the less you will notice.

You automatically notice very obvious things, such as vehicles arriving or an explosion. For anything more subtle than that make an opposed Spot roll against the highest skill present - depending on the security present your opponent might use other skills to defend, such as Create for an electronic counter-surveillance system. If you succeed you notice that something is happening; as your outcome get better you get more and more hints as to what it is. If you score an Outcome matching the highest Mind among your targets, you get a reasonably complete picture, tough there can still be details missing.