Scores

One-pager. Every ability you roll — attribute or skill — has a Score (how good you are) and a Base Ease Factor (how hard a standard use is). This page is where scores come from.

Score = formula + level

An attribute's score is simply its value (Strength 11 is a score of 11).

A skill's score is built from two parts:

Score = formula + level

So a character with CO 12, PC 10 has a Firearms formula of 11; untrained (level 0) their Firearms score is 11, and ten levels of training make it 21. Skills can climb well past attributes — that's why a trained specialist outshoots a naturally well-coordinated amateur.

Talent-light skills (open question)

Some skills reward training far more than raw talent. The classic ForeSight move is to halve the formula for these — Score = (average of attributes) ÷ 2 + level — so the untrained baseline is low and almost all of a master's score is earned. Decision pending: keep this two-tier system (full-average vs. half-average formulas), or flatten to a single full-average rule for simplicity? The 2004 templates went further still, with quarter-average formulas for a few skills (e.g. Confidence at (AP+WP)÷4); those should probably collapse into whichever tiering we keep.

Limit (and maximum level)

Every skill has a Limit, which follows directly from its formula type: 1 for an average-formula skill, 1.5 for a half-average (talent-light) one. The Limit is the max-level multiplier:

Maximum level = highest constituent attribute × Limit.

So a talent-balanced skill tops out around its best attribute, while a training-dominated one can be pushed half again as far. You can't become world-class on mediocre fundamentals — and the cap is the strongest argument for keeping the half-average tier: it's not just a lower floor, it's a higher ceiling earned by training.

Cost

Every skill also has a Cost — the points it takes to raise one level, for advancement and point-buy. Most skills cost 1 or 2, the broader and more useful ones costing 2. A pervasive powerset — a whole school of magic or a Chi discipline reached through a single skill — costs far more, on the order of 6–8 per level, because that one skill unlocks an enormous, ever-expanding toolbox. Acquiring a skill from scratch (reaching its formula baseline) costs a small flat amount; thereafter each level costs the skill's Cost. (Full advancement economy lives with the experience rules.)

Beyond 20

Scores are counted as at most 20 for the multiplication — but they keep paying off above that as an ease-factor bonus: every full 3 points over 20 is +1 EF.

20–22 → 20 — 23–25 → 20+1 — 26–28 → 20+2 — and so on.

This is what lets the truly exceptional attempt things lesser practitioners simply cannot. A score of 20+2 doesn't just succeed more often; the extra ease factor opens up tasks that were at EF 0 (impossible) for everyone else. (See The One Rule for how a +1 EF is worth your whole score in the sweet spot — which is why these bonuses matter so much at the top end.)

Base Ease Factor

Each ability also carries a BEF — the ease factor of a standard application, before any situational modifiers. BEFs hover around 5 and may fold in a standing familiarity (e.g. an Initiative BEF written 3 + E builds in your environment familiarity). The Score × BEF product is your baseline success chance; the situation moves it from there.

Designer's Note: "formula + level" is why ForeSight needs no separate stat for natural talent versus trained skill — the attributes are the talent, the level is the training, and the same number captures both. Set your attributes once; everything you learn builds on them.