Stealth

Properties

Actions: gen(main-action) chk|sv +M(this), hide set(PC) 10+M
Aspects: Body, Mind, Skill

Definition

A trait skill that tests whether you can successfully conceal yourself from enemies. Stealth is mostly used to set Perception Challenges.

Exactly how you set that PC and under what circumstances is govered by three possible aspects in this skill.

• Selecting the Body aspect means that Stealth is your ability to move silently and hide in shadows. The skill is associated with acts of Stealth with your body as you slink past guards, slip away without being noticed, or sneak up on someone without being seen or heard. This meaning of this skill is the default.
• Selecting the Mind aspect means that Stealth is your ability to blend into a crowd, make yourself look like you're supposed to be there, or when conversing with someone, make yourself forgettable. The skill is associated with the art of blending-in. You play a confidence trick on all observers in that while they do see you, you do not appear out of place. This might mean that you have just enough personality so that you remain wholly unremarkable and so not memorable.
• Selecting the Skill aspect means that Stealth is your ability to make the (usually) vehicle your're driving/piloting hard to find or not where your opponents expect it to be.

Until you put ranks on this skill, all aspects are considered the same.

When you do put ranks into the skill, you must then select the aspect to which those ranks apply. From this point on, your have two modifiers in the skill:

1. one that includes the ranks for when you are using the skill in your chosen aspect
2. another without those ranks, for when you must use the skill outside of your chosen aspect.

You use Stealth's Body aspect, when you need to hode from your enemies in a physical sense. The circumstances dictate how easy it may be to do this. In a cluttered room, that's dark, with lots of nooks or crannies, this kind of physical hioding is easy. If you are walking on sand at a beach with crashing waves, your footfalls are hard for anyone to hear.

If you are in a hallway and there are lots of onlookers, you are wearing a clown's outfit at an accountacy conference, it really isn't possible to physically hide. If you could ditch the clown's suit, it may be possible to use the Mind aspect of Stealth to be seen, but not really noticed or remembered.

If however you are on a motorbike and you are travelling through a crowded city, you can't use your Body aspect, because your body is stuck on the back of a motorcycle. You can't use your Mind aspect because you can't just act natural on a motorcycle. This is where the Skill aspect comes in. Here you are using your Vcl-Ground qualifier as an aspect on Stealth, and thus employing its Skill aspect.

Using the Skill aspect you are perhaps using the terrain as camouflage, or performing some kind of confidence trick, by positioning yourself in a place that your opponent does not expect. It may be used to hide evidence of your passage, by covering or concealing tracks, laying down various forms of distraction, or performing misdirections. This is a good example for determining the success of your getaway manoeuvring.

Not many characters use Stealth in two or three of the Body, Mind and a Skill aspect, but you may do so by spending an extra skill rank, acquiring the second or third aspect.