Stats & Skills
Every character in Shadows is built from the same set of traits: what you're good at, what you're trained in, and how much the city can take out of you before something gives.
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
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.
Sanity
Your grip on reality. In Shadows, no one is completely sane.
How risk resolves
You can always try. The dice decide what it costs you, how bad it gets if you fail, and how hard the city pushes back when you succeed. Different moments call for different rolls:
- One decisive moment: a Skill Check. Most of the time it's 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 keeps exploding for more; roll the worst result and things don't just fail, they get worse.
- Pushing past your limits: an Essence Check. Lifting a car off a teammate, holding out against something in your head, casting a spell. You roll a handful of dice at once and need enough of them to land, and pushing harder doesn't avoid the strain. It compounds it.
- What's still holding: a Breaker Check. Some moments don't ask what you can do. They ask whether your Sanity, a ward, or the chrome you're running too hot holds together. One roll says whether it holds or breaks.
- Someone pushing back: a contested roll. Your stealth against their awareness, your grip against their escape. Both sides roll, and the better result wins.
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