Skills, Crafting & the Market
Not everything is a fight. In SPAECIMH your skills, your craft, and your money all run on the same 4d6 engine — there is no separate handshake for making things or haggling. Know what you're good at, work the steps, and the world pays you back.
Skills are trained edges on your attributes
A skill is not a separate score — it is a mark that you're good at one face of an attribute. When a roll uses a matching attribute and falls inside the skill's domain, you get a −2 bonus (easier, because minus is a bonus). Untrained, you roll the attribute straight.
| Skill | Attribute | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Athletics | ST / AG | Climb, throw, swim, feats of limb |
| Acrobatics | AG | Dodge, balance, tumble, fine lockwork |
| Perception | PE | Notice, track, aim, read a room |
| Medicine | IN | Heal, diagnose, mend |
| Negotiate | CH | Lie, charm, haggle |
| Lore / Arcana | IN | Know the world and its magics |
The list is open — name a skill and tie it to an attribute. You earn new skills by doing the work: survive the trial, finish the apprenticeship, use a skill under real pressure. Services rendered under a skill reward you with the right to use it. No buying skills with attribute points.
Crafting is work you break into steps
A blueprint lists its materials and its steps, and each step is a 4d6 roll with your crafting skill:
- Critical (Sum 4–6, or 10+ below): the step is exceptional — the next one gets easier.
- Success: it lands clean.
- Failure: flawed but salvageable — your next step runs a
+2pressure. - Hard failure / crit fail: the material is spent; that step's parts are gone.
The finished piece's quality is the sum of its good steps. It sets how much the thing is worth and, if the blueprint earns it, its techLevel or magicRarity. Time is real too — an hour for simple work, a day for masterwork.
The market has tiers, not random prices
Money starts at Money = 4d6 × 500 × ORIGIN, and the world prices by tier relative to that:
| Tier | What it feels like | Rough share |
|---|---|---|
| Trivial | a meal, a drink | under 1% |
| Mundane | a tool, a day's wage | ~1–2% |
| Quality | a fine weapon, a mule | ~5–15% |
| Luxury | a horse, a bribe worth keeping | ~20–40% |
| Prestige | land, a title, a guild favor | 50%+, or favors |
Haggling is a Trade check (4d6 + CH or + IN; trained yet +1 for the −2). A great bargain shaves a tier; blowing the roll overpays or loses the deal. A house won't sell a sword to someone who can't afford the awkward pause.
Gather what you build
When you forage, hunt, or salvage, name what and where; the Master sets the time (an hour, a half-day) and you roll a d6 event left to luck — a 1 turns sour, a 5–6 finds a rare thing. A good Perception/Survival skill lifts the take a grade. What you gather feeds a blueprint directly, and a truly rich find can shape an enchanted (magicRarity) item's rarity.
Nothing is free. Work the steps, respect the market's teeth, and the world pays you back — exactly as much as you're worth.