Skill Checks

Often tasks are performed in the presence of uncertainty. In Mythic Epoch, the primary mechanism for resolving this uncertainty and figuring out whether a character performs a task successfully is the Skill Check. Skill checks can be opposed or unopposed depending on whether there other people actively trying to prevent you from succeeding. In either case, skill checks are performed by rolling dice and determining the result via Mythic Epoch's Prismatic Dice Pool mechanic. The result from the Prismatic Dice Pool is added to your skill rating in that skill to give your final skill check total.

Prismatic Dice Pool

Each player creatures a dice pool by assembling eight d6s, each of different colours. These should be the same for each player, we will assume for the sake of illustration that the colours are: Black, Red, Yellow, Orange, Green, Blue, Purple and White. When a check is called, the player rolls all of the dice in their pool and the colour of the dice upon which the first 1 is rolled determines the result.

If you roll multiple 1s just use the one that would give the lowest result.

Table: Skill Check Resolution

First 6
Result
Black
0
Red
1
Orange
2
Yellow
3
Green
4
Blue
5
Purple
6
White
7
None
8+ re-roll

As shown on the table above, if the player does not roll a 6 on any of the dice. They roll their dice poll again, adding 8 to the result of the next roll. This can happen repeatedly to model increasingly outlandish events!

Once you have determined the result from your dice pool roll, add your skill modifier and any other appropriate modifiers in order to determine your total.

Opposed Skill Checks

Some skill checks will be opposed by another character or creature. In this case you need to calculate the different between your skill check total and your opponent's skill check total in order to calculate your total.

Inverted Skill Checks

Certain conditions may cause a character to have to "invert" their skill check. This is designed to represent circumstances like adverse mental states where the character is terrified of making a mistake. In such circumstances, the best the character can hope for is an above average result but the worst outcomes may be utterly disastrous!

Difficulty Thresholds (DTs)

The difficulty of achieving a particular outcome with a skill is measured by that task's Difficulty Threshold (DT). An increase of 1 in the DT always corresponds to the task being exactly 20% more difficult, an increase of 4 corresponds to the task being approximately 2x more difficult. This means that the GM in a game of Mythic Epoch can always make a task predictably easier or more difficult without reference to the player's skill level.

Table: Skill Difficulty

Difficulty Threshold (DT) Standard Relative Difficulty Example Task
Skill Example
0 Trivial 1x Hearing Hear a nearby person calling your name in the absence of any distractions.
6 Amateur 3x Climbing Climb a 5 metre high rock wall with ample large holds.
10 Skilled Amateur 6x Astrophysics Preparing a student-level essay on Special Relativity at Starfleet Academy.
18 Professional 27x Starship Operations Understanding how to successfully disable the shields of the hijacked Starfleet vessel currently attacking you by sending the prefix codes.
26 Experienced Professional 114x Combat Tactics (Starship) Luring the attacking Klingon ship in close by feigning vulnerability before cutting in warp power and disabling them with a volley of photon torpedoes.
35 World Leading 591x Military Deception Saving your ship during a hopeless attack by deceiving the attacking Romulans into backing away from your Starship by transmitting a message using the already broken subspace code-2.
42 Legendary 2116x Persuasion Convincing an artificially super-intelligent probe that its existence is illogical and that it must destroy itself.