Stats & Skills
Every character in Shadows is built from the same set of traits — they just tell the city how hard it has to hit before you break.
Stats
Stats describe how your body and mind function when things go wrong. Most people fall somewhere in the middle. Drop too far below that, and the world starts pushing back harder. Rise above it, and doors begin to open…sometimes dangerous ones.
BOD — Body
Health, endurance, raw physical damage. The machine you were issued at birth.
REF — Reflexes
Hand-eye coordination and reaction speed. Combat, spellcasting under pressure, any moment hesitation gets you killed.
MOB — Mobility
How fast you move when staying put stops being an option. Sets your run and sprint speed.
INT — Intelligence
Pattern recognition, argumentation, thinking three moves ahead.
TECH — Technical Aptitude
How well you understand the machines that run the city — and how badly it goes when you don't.
COOL — Cool
How you act when everything's on the line and everyone's watching. Panic is contagious. So is confidence.
MAG — Magnetism
Presence. The way a room shifts when you walk in. That's not charm — that's gravity.
EMP — Empathy
Your overall humanity, tied directly to Sanity. It's also the first thing NYTE City takes.
Attributes
Three more traits get derived from your Stats — Tolerance, your ceiling for pushing magic or cybernetics before your body pushes back; Will, your defense against anything trying to break you from the inside; and Sanity, your grip on reality. In Shadows, no one is completely sane.
How a check resolves
At the table, most Skill Checks come down to one roll of a ten-sided die, plus your training and the relevant Stat, against a difficulty the GM sets. Untrained, you're leaning on raw talent alone. Roll high enough and the die can keep exploding for more; roll the worst result and things don't just fail, they get worse. It's simple to run and leaves room for the moment to actually matter.
Skills, at a glance
Skills fall into three categories — Combat, Utility, and General — covering everything from gunplay to hacking to talking your way out of a room:
"The half-second between noticing and reacting is where most people die." — Combat Sense
"Everything leaves a trace. Investigation is knowing which ones matter." — Investigation
"Every city has an official map. NYTE City has another one underneath." — Streetwise