Abilities - Abilities allow you to do certain types of actions. Abilities often have an ability level which may give you a bonuses to success when those actions require a success roll, but if you have an ability with no levels, it is often better than not having the ability at all.
Natural Abilities - A character's race gives them some abilities and bonuses to abilities levels. The PPV of these natural abilities and levels are part of the race's PPV, but any ability or skill development beyond that adds to the character's total PPV.
Special PPV - Special Abilities, (or in other words exceptionally powerful abilities like flight,) have Special PPV. An ability's Special PPV is the player point value (PPV) of the having the special ability at ability level 0. This does not include the PPV of any ability levels. The Special PPV of a natural ability is part of the race's PPV, so it is not added again to the character's PPV.
For example, just to have ability level 0 flight, it requires 5 PPV. Ability level 3 flight costs the same as ability level 3, 4 PPV, plus it's Special PPV, 5, for a total of 9 PPV for ability level 3 flight.
Ability Levels - The player point value (PPV) of a character's ability level and their race's ability levels are kept seperate, so a character can add 5 levels of ability for 16 points even if their natural ability level is 4. The character's total ability level would then be 9. This table lists the PPV of each ability level:
Level ½ 1 1½ 2 2½ 3 3½ 4 4½ 5 5½ 6 6½ 7 7½ 8 8½ PPV ½ 1 1½ 2 3 4 6 8 12 16 24 32 48 64 96 128 192
General Abilities - Some abilities are general bonuses which can be applied to many actions. For example: Hand to Hand ability gives you bonuses to close range fighting with hand weapons or natural weapons. Every game using the Hack and Slash should have it's own ability list, adapted to the needs of the game and it's setting, but here is an example of a general ability list:
Acrobatics Art Climbing Communication Craftmanship Detection Hand to Hand Marksmanship Music Power Recovery Regeneration Running Stealth Strength Swimming Teaching Toughness
Strength and Regeneration - These abilities are related to hit points, so they need to be included in the game's list of abilities to use the hit point system. Strength reflects the character's general speed and strength relative to their size, and Regeneration is the character's ability to heal quickly. (See Action Rules/Hit Points.)
Power and Toughness - The character's toughness bonus from size is increased by a half point for every 2 levels of their Toughness ability. The attack power bonus for size is increased by a half point for every 2 levels of Power ability. (See Characters/Description/Size.)
Movement Abilities - Movement abilities like running, swimming and flight give the character special advantages based on their movement ability level. (See Action Rules/Maneuvering.)
Running - A character's stride is increased by another ½ meter for every 3 levels of running ability. For example, if a character's stride were origionally level 1, and the character had a running ability level of level 6, then the character's stride would be level 2 .
Stride can be reduced by the "Lame" Disablility (see below.) For every half level of Lame, stride is reduced by another ½ level. For example, if a character had a stride of level 1, and a Lame level of 4, then the character's stride would be level -3. (See the stride table.)
Swimming - Swimming bonus is the number of quarter meters a character can travel per hit point each round when over half submerged or over one's head in the water. In this situation characters have a -4 to their combat rolls. For every level of swimming ability up to level 4 characters get a +1 to combat rolls when swimming. After level 4 they still only have +4 to swimming combat rolls. When attacking from a situation where swimming skill applies, stun damage is halved, except in the case of grappling attacks.
Flight - Flight bonus is the number of meters a character can fly per hit point each round. The Special PPV of this ability is 5.
Skills - Skills are specialized abilities. You can use a skill's ability level as a bonus to related actions, or often you can combine the skill with another ability (usually a general ability.) When you use the skill with another ability your bonus is the other ability's level plus half of the skill's ability level (The result is rounded down to the nearest half point, so half levels of the skill don't contribute to this bonus.) For example, if your Hand to Hand ability is level 5, and you apply your level 4 fencing skill, your bonus with the fencing weapon is 5 plus half of 4, resulting in a bonus of 7. These are some examples of skills:
Acting Animal Handling Cooking Gardening Law Literacy Medicine Piloting Sailing Sign language Slight of Hand Speed
The best bonus for the least PPV is usually acheived by balancing the PPV of the general ability with the PPV of the skills used with that general ability. Sometimes a skill can be used with different abilities in different situations.
Disabilities - Disabilities are a different type of ability. While other Abilities have a Positive PPV and a positive effect on a Character, Disabilities on the other hand have a negetive PPV, and a negetive effect on the character. Disabilities should be more general than "General Abilities." Here are some typical Dissabilities:
Ignorance - a negetive bonus to any action for which you do not have an applicable ability.
Thumbless - a negetive bonus to any action using a tool or weapon that is not part of or restrictively* mounted on the character's body. (*"Restrictively" means that the character can't easily take it off by himself.) This disability is important for generating races that don't naturally use tools!
Farsighted - a negetive bonus to any close range action, particularly Hand to Hand and Craftsmanship
Nearsighted - a negetive bonus to any long range action, particularly Navigation and Marksmanship
Deaf - a negetive bonus to any sound dependant action, particularly detection and communication
Lame - a negetive bonus to any movement ability, particularly Acrobatics, Running, swimming, climbing
Disability Levels - Unless other wise specified, Disabilities have a maximum level of 4 (or in other words a maximum bonus of negetive 4.) Disability levels are similar to normal ability levels, the main difference being that the Disability Levels inflict negetive PPV, instead of adding PPV. (The Negetive PPV actually lowers the Character's PPV.) Disability Level bonuses are totally accumulative: for example, if I had Level 3 Thumbless and Level 4 Nearsighted, then I would have a total of a -7 to use a crossbow (-3 for using a weapon and -4 for doing a ranged attack equals -7 for using a crossbow.) This table lists the PPV range of each disability level:
Disability Level ½ 1 1½ 2 2½ 3 3½ 4 Negetive PPV ½ 1 1½ 2 2½-3 3½-4 4½-6 6½-8