Know Stunts (Action)
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| Heroic Action Role-Play |
- Main article: Action
Analyze Weakness
Basic Action
Make a Know roll against the target's 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 an Advantage.
The GM makes the decisions whether you gain an advantage or a secret; if there are significant secrets to reveal, you gain knowledge. If not, you gain an Advantage.
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 either him or the audience 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 Mortal Wounded 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.
Refute Effort
Basic Action
So, if they fire their weapons in there, won't they rupture the cooling system? - Ripley, Aliens (1986).
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. Refute Effort cannot hinder everyday actions such as walking or actions the targets have already undertaken this round, such as firing a gun. But if conditions have changed or are somehow extraordinary, Refute Action can work.
Make an opposed Know roll against your target. If you succeed the target's next action has a minimum difficulty equal to your Know. It you score an Outcome matching the target's Mind, and the target fails the specified skill check, he suffers a Setback
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).
Seal Power
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.
Search
Limit Break
You search an area (crime scene, fight scene, hall, apartment), looking for hidden dangers and clues. You automatically find all things a normal Recon roll can find - anyone simply using Sneak, normal 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 Know 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 |
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. You cannot bluff ordinary people this way, only those with special resistances such as Automatons or those with Logical Detachment.