Skill Rate: Fast
Uses: Your character is smart. Very smart . Probably smarter than anyone sitting around the table, so who's to say he didn't think of this ahead of time? Ingenuity does not have, or need techniques.
The Great Reveal: If this were a movie, this is where your character gets to reveal what he was planning 'all along.' Make an Ingenuity check in order to get the opportunity to describe actions your character took in the past without the knowledge of your other party members, the GM, or, in fact, you yourself. The GM gets to make a call on the plausibility level of the actions you describe.
Having beaten the plausibility of figuring out something ahead of time, you can retroactively take any actions you wish based off of that decision, but you must make any skill checks necessary both to succeed what your goal is, and to explain why nobody noticed what you did. If you fail any of these skill checks, your entire attempt fails. It is therefore recommended that you play your character as mysteriously as possible in order to increase the plausibility later on that you did things in the past.
The GM assigns the DC based on your explanation and the situation.
|
DC |
Plausibility |
Description |
Example |
|
3 |
Embarrassingly Obvious |
Something that a character really should have thought of. Somebody with normal intelligence would have thought to do this (though you didn't). |
-Being the party thief and bringing lockpicks on a heist. -Packing food before going on a trip. -You know the local count is a vampire, you obviously brought along stakes and a holy symbol. |
|
6 |
Plausible |
Is obvious with information available to your character at the time , but you still didn't think to do. |
You are on the trail of a vampire. You hear that the local count is allergic to garlic. Your character retroactively figured out that he is the vampire. -You are dining at a known enemy's house. You drink the wine, and your GM tells you that you are poisoned. You reveal that actuall y , you switched glasses and your enemy is poisoned. |
|
10 |
Suspect. |
Something the GM has dropped hints about but nobody in the party picked up on |
Last week in a tavern, you overhear an in-game conversation that the local Count is allergic to garlic. Now, the Count has just revealed with a wicked cackle that he is about to suck your blood. You reveal that you brought a holy symbol along. |
|
15 |
Just Possible/ Sure, Sherlock |
Knowledge that has just been revealed to you, you turned out to have discovered in the past given resources your character had at the time. |
The count has cornered you and revealed his fangs. You pipe up "last week while we were in town I overheard in a tavern that he had an aversion to garlic. Combining this with my knowledge of vampires, I brought along a holy symbol and a set of stakes". Note that the GM never actually dropped any clues about garlic. -You are dining at a known friend's house, who turns out to be an enemy in disguise. Your glass of wine is poisoned, and you reveal that you suspected ahead of time that the glass was poisoned, and switched glasses. |
|
20 |
Retroactive Backstory |
Thrown into a situation with which you had no possible forewarning- a random occurrence, even- you retroactively have the tools, and knowledge, to deal with the situation. |
You stumble across a vampire in the woods. There is no reasonable forewarning for this. It is a "random encounter." You reveal that, sometime in your murky past your uncle was a vampire and from then on, you've always carried a holy symbol and garlic on your person. |
You may be called upon to explain how you go to where you are now, having done this. You are responsible for your explanation maintaining continuity given events that are known to have occurred.
You cannot use this technique to emulate another skill, i.e. "I learned how to pick locks ten years ago!". The GM is justified in saying, "Then make a Engineering check. Your modifier doesn't change, though."
You can only do something retroactively that you had the skills to do at the time.
You may not use this technique to change your ranks in skills, change the components of combos, spells, or the like. Regardless of the DC, you fail on a 1.
Using the Great Reveal generally is a 0SA, but the Gm may impose a time constraint.
The GM sets the DC, not you. And he doesn't have to tell you, at that.
Retries : You can't ever use ingenuity twice to get to the same effect. For example, if there is a guard about to arrest you and you use ingenuity to have tied his shoes together earlier, and fail, you can't use ingenuity to have unloaded his firearm. However, if you succeed in tying his shoes together but that still doesn't solve the problem, you can try something else - but the DC increases by +2 every time. For this purpose, 'goal' is very loosely defined, and the GM is the final arbiter as always.