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Body Talents

AX.C.04.02 - Body Talents

Athletics

  • Movement, climbing, swimming, and basic physical coordination.
  • Parent Attribute: Body
  • Untrained: Yes (anyone can try)

Uses:

  • Running and sprinting
  • Jumping (long jump, high jump)
  • Climbing (walls, cliffs, trees, ropes)
  • Swimming and diving
  • Breaking falls
  • Maintaining balance on unstable surfaces

Common Foci:

  • Climbing (vertical surfaces)
  • Swimming, Diving (aquatic movement)
  • Running, Sprinting (foot speed and burst movement)
  • Jumping, Parkour (dynamic movement)
  • Balance (narrow surfaces, moving platforms)

Craft

  • Creating, repairing, and understanding physical objects and components.
  • Parent Attribute: Body
  • Untrained: Yes (crude repairs only)

Uses:

  • Building and repairing items
  • Fabricating individual components and parts
  • Blacksmithing, carpentry, basic mechanics
  • Jury-rigging and field improvisation
  • Appraising crafted goods

Common Foci:

  • Weapon Smithing, Armor Smithing (fantasy)
  • Carpentry, Masonry
  • Mechanics, Electronics (modern/sci-fi)
  • Jury-Rigging, Field Repair
  • Clockwork, Artifice (steampunk)
  • Starship Repair, Robotics (sci-fi)

Craft vs. Technical

Craft (Body) covers the fabrication of individual physical components and objects. Technical (Wit) covers the design and integration of those components into functioning systems.

The dividing line is complexity and interdependence: - Fabricating individual pistons and an engine block = Craft - Designing and assembling a functioning race car engine from those parts = Technical - Carving a wooden box = Craft - Building a mechanical lock with tumblers, springs, and a key mechanism = Technical

When a task involves making a single thing, use Craft. When a task involves making many things work together as a system, use Technical. In ambiguous cases the GM determines which Talent applies, or may call for both if the task genuinely requires fabrication and integration in sequence.

Fortitude

  • Physical resilience and resistance to acute harm.
  • Parent Attribute: Body
  • Untrained: Yes (limited to raw constitution)

Uses:

  • Resisting disease, poison, and toxins
  • Enduring environmental hazards (heat, cold, radiation, vacuum)
  • Stabilizing when at zero Health
  • Pain tolerance and concentration under duress
  • Resisting effects that would incapacitate or kill

Common Foci:

  • Resist Poison, Resist Disease, Resist Elements
  • Pain Tolerance
  • Environmental Survival (specific hazard types)
  • Combat Stamina (maintaining function through injury)

Note: Fortitude governs resistance to acute harm, sudden, potentially lethal threats to the body. Sustained effort and cumulative exhaustion are governed by Endurance.

Endurance

  • Sustained physical effort, cumulative pressure, and resistance to exhaustion.
  • Parent Attribute: Body
  • Untrained: Yes (basic physical labor)

Uses:

  • Forced marches and extended overland travel
  • Carrying heavy loads across distance
  • Working or fighting through fatigue and hunger
  • Prolonged physical tasks requiring hours of sustained effort
  • Resource gathering, construction, and manual labor
  • Basic shelter construction and camp establishment

Common Foci:

  • Load Bearing (sustained heavy carry)
  • Marathon (extended travel and forced march)
  • Labor (mining, logging, construction, harvesting)
  • Wilderness Survival (camp craft, exposure management)

Extended Athletics Synergy:

When a character makes an Athletics roll that involves sustained effort over multiple actions or an extended period, climbing a long cliff face, swimming against a current across multiple Turns, hauling a heavy object across significant distance, they may add their Endurance dice to the Athletics pool. Single-action Athletics checks use Athletics alone. Extended effort challenges use Athletics + Endurance.

The GM determines whether a given Athletics challenge qualifies as extended effort based on duration and cumulative physical demand.

Armor Penalty Offset:

Heavy armor imposes a penalty to Athletics, Acrobatics, and Odd Talent action pools equal to the armor's modifier value. Endurance training allows a character to work within that restriction more effectively. For every 2D in Endurance, reduce the Armor Penalty on these pools by 1 (minimum 0).

Endurance Penalty Reduction
1D 0
2D −1
3D −1
4D −2
5D −2
6D −3

The penalty reduction applies passively at all times, no action required.

Exhausted Condition Mitigation:

The Exhausted combat condition imposes −1D to all action pools. A character with 3D or more in Endurance has trained to function under accumulated fatigue, this penalty is reduced to 0 while Exhausted. The Exhausted condition still applies normally in all other respects (movement halved, recovery requirements). Endurance does not prevent Exhaustion, it reduces its mechanical cost for those who have invested in sustained effort training.

Strike

  • Physical power, close combat, and forceful actions.
  • Parent Attribute: Body
  • Untrained: Yes (raw strength and instinct)

Uses:

  • Melee weapon attacks
  • Unarmed combat
  • Breaking objects and forcing doors
  • Lifting, pushing, and pulling heavy objects
  • Feats of strength
  • Physical intimidation through presence

Common Foci:

  • Longswords, Axes, Hammers, Spears (weapon-specific)
  • Grappling, Boxing, Martial Arts (unarmed styles)
  • Breaking & Forcing (destroying obstacles)
  • Intimidation (threatening through physical presence)