Secondary Mastery

A character tests one thing at a time. But a task rarely draws on one thing alone: the fletcher needs the smith’s grasp of metal, the surgeon’s steadiness matters as much as their learning, the climber’s endurance decides how much of the ascent they have left in them.

Secondary Mastery is how a second skill or attribute bears on a test of the first, without becoming the thing being tested. It takes two forms — a Secondary Modifier, which shifts the EML of the test, and a Secondary Roll, which is a small roll of its own made alongside it.

Both are read from the Index of the secondary skill or attribute, never from its EML. Bonuses and penalties apply to the d100 test only; they never move a Secondary Modifier or a Secondary Roll.

Secondary Modifier

A separate skill or attribute lends a bonus or penalty to the EML of the test, derived from its Index:

Index 5 — a Mastery Level in the 50s — is the neutral point: competent enough to be no drag on the work, not good enough to lift it. Below that the secondary skill actively hinders.

When a test calls for more than one Secondary Modifier, all of them are summed and the total applies to the EML. A test is written with the tested skill first and its Secondary Modifier skills in parentheses — Fletching (Metalcraft).

Secondary Roll

A separate skill or attribute may instead lend its Index as the Target Number (TN) of a Secondary Roll (SR) — a d10 rolled alongside the main test. A result less than or equal to the TN is a Success; greater is a Failure. There are no critical results. A TN of 0 or less always fails, and a TN of 10 or more always succeeds.

A Secondary Roll accompanies a Success Test or a Success Value test and does not change its outcome; it decides something beside it. A successful Endurance SR may spare the character fatigue; a crafting SR may add a point to a Success Value. What the roll buys is stated by the rule that calls for it.

Secondary Rolls are written after any Secondary Modifiers, followed by “SR” — Fletching (Metalcraft, Dexterity SR).

Requiring Secondary Mastery

Secondary Mastery is called for sparingly; most tests need none.

Where a test does call for a Secondary Modifier, a character who has no Mastery Level in that secondary skill may not make the test at all — however good they are at the primary one. The fletcher who has never worked metal cannot make an arrowhead, whatever their fletching.

A Secondary Roll carries no such bar. The primary test may be attempted without mastery in the skill rolled as an SR — though the GM should consider whether the absence ought to count as an automatic Failure on that roll.

Proxy Secondary Modifier

Sometimes one character supplies the Secondary Modifier for another’s test. Making arrows calls for a Fletching (Metalcraft) Success Value test; if a smith provides the arrowheads, the Metalcraft modifier derives from the smith’s Index, not the fletcher’s. The test is still the fletcher’s to make and to fail.