Each player gets 60 points to spend on general abilities, regardless of group size.
General abilities use different rules than investigative ones, which allow for possible failure. They help you survive while you investigating. When choosing general abilities, you’ll want to concentrate your points among a few abilities, giving your comparatively higher ratings than you want in the investigative category.
When assigning build points to abilities, your second highest ability must equal at least half the score of your highest ability, rounded up. If your highest General Ability has a score of 20, your second highest must have a score of at least 10. Obviously, aiming too high with your build at character generation will significantly narrow the range of your potential, despite the lure of ultra-competency in beating on your opponents with a Street Fighter score of 20!
A rating of 1-3 indicates that the ability is a sideline. 4-7 is solid but not off the charts. 8 or more suggests a dedicated expertise that will be immediately apparent to observers when they see you in action.
If you have a rating of 0 in a general ability, that is you have put no build points into it, you cannot make a test on that ability. That is not to say you can't do the thing at all; it's only if you want to attempt something requiring a roll that you will not succeed. You character might be able to drive a cart, but with a Drive Cart rating of 0 you will not be able to deal with a chase or a potential crash.
You possess expertise in the art of altering your appearance and delivering a convincing performance under pressure, making your appearance, posture, and voice unrecognisable. Acting allows you to maintain a disguise over a prolonged period, with something more than just a broad-brimmed hat and a dipped gaze.
This ability involves selling yourself as a different person: vocal mannerisms, altered body language, dress and motion sense, and realistic-seeming reactions.
Successfully disguising yourself as an actual person already known to those you’re interacting with is extraordinarily difficult. Brief voice-only mimicry pits you against a Difficulty of 4. Face-to-face impersonation requires a successful roll against a Difficulty of 7 for every five minutes of sustained contact between you and the object of your impersonation.
Acting doubles as an Investigative ability when judging a performance, identifying a play, or tracing the link between an impersonation and a famous origin. It does not handle the penetration of disguises or deceit - managed with Sense Motive.
Athletics allows you to perform general acts of physical derring-do, from running to jumping to dodging falling or oncoming objects. Any physical action not covered by another ability, probably falls under the rubric of Athletics.
If your Athletics rating is 8 or more, your Hit Threshold, the Target Number your opponents use when attempting to hit you in combat, is 4. Otherwise, your Hit Threshold is 3.
You can hide things from view and conceal them from search. Your methods might include camouflage, holding items out on your person, snaking things into drawers unobserved, building secret compartments, or even altering a thing’s visual signature with paint or plaster.
This ability also allows you to discover things intentionally concealed.
You can create useful physical objects, working with materials and tools you have to hand. You focus on function and utility over workmanship most of the time, though given an appropriate environment, stress-free and well-equipped, you can create items of beauty - more so if you have a grounding in Art History. A rating of 1 in Craft allows you to select a single pursuit - like carpentry, jeweller, smithing, glasswork. For every three additional points, you may select an additional line of Craft expertise to add to your repertoire. You may also choose to add specialties opportunistically in play if you have unassigned points.
You’re skilled in the handling and maintenance of heavy semi-mechanised devices, including carts, wagons, cranes, mechanised locks, and similar devices. At a basic level you can:
You are conversant with the rules and etiquette of all forms of gambling. To win (or strategically lose) at a game of chance or sporting flutter requires a Gambling test, or a contest if played against an NPC with the Gambling ability. In addition to playing by the rules and winning, you can:
Palming cards, tiles, or dice is allowed as a Gambling test; anything else requires Conceal or Palm Object.
Gambling doubles as an Investigative ability when used to:
You can perform first aid on sick or injured individuals.
You cannot purchase Magic as part of character creation. The ability requires that you acquire sources of study or fragments of warpstone during the course of the game and then spend Build Points. Study and warpstone set a Potential ceiling, above which you cannot normally increase your personal Magic score/pool.
You are adept with projectile weapons.
Your nimble fingers allow you to unobtrusively manipulate small objects. You can:
You expertly anticipate the needs of any situation by packing a kit efficiently arranged with necessary gear. Assuming you have immediate access to your kit, you can produce whatever object the team needs to overcome an obstacle. You make a simple test; if you succeed, you have the item you want. You needn’t do this in advance of the adventure, but can dig into your kit bag (provided you’re able to get to it) as the need arises.
Other abilities imply the possession of basic gear suitable to their core tasks. Characters with Heal Wounds, for example, have their own kit made up, including needle, thread, bandages, antiseptic preparations, and so forth. Preparedness does not intrude into the territory of individual abilities. It covers general-purpose investigative equipment, plus more outré items that might suddenly come in handy in the course of a story (“Would you like a jelly baby?”).
If the GM determines that your possession of an item would seem ludicrous or and/or out of genre, you don’t get to roll for it. You simply don’t have it.
You’re good at building, repairing, and disabling devices. Given the right tools and components, you can create jury-rigged contraptions from bits of scrap, or disassemble same without risking injury or alarm to yourself or others.
Set Trap doubles as an Investigative ability when used to:
You’re good at getting yourself inside places you have no right to be, and moving around locations without drawing undesirable attention. You can:
You are adept in the use of unusual and exotic weaponry, generally not seen on the battlefield of the Old World - unless in the hands of the perverse and multifarious forces of Chaos.
You can hold your own in a hand-to-hand conflict, whether seeking to kill, restrain, knock-out or evade your opponent
You physical prowess allows you to perform acts of strength and excel in activities of resilience or endurance. Sports that derive achievement from actions of physical derring-do and raw power have their place within this Ability - like power lifting, climbing, endurance, throwing, swimming and so forth, while the rest fall to Athletics.
You are adept at handling hand-to-hand weapons.