Ability Checks

An ability check represents a ship's ability to overcome a challenge. The GM calls for an ability check when a ship, or a crewmember, attempts an action (other than an attack) that has a chance of failure. When the outcome is uncertain, the dice determine the results.

For every ability check, the GM decides which of the 6 abilities is relevant to the task at hand and the difficulty of the task, represented by Difficulty Class. The more difficult a task, the higher its DC. The Typical Difficulty Classes table shows the most common DCs.

To make an ability check, roll a d20 and add the relevant ability modifier. As with other d20 rolls, apply bonuses and penalties, and compare the total to the DC. If the total equals or exceeds the DC, the ability check is a success-the ship, or crewmember, overcomes the challenge at hand. Otherwise, it's a failure, which means the ship or crewmember makes no progress toward the objective or makes progress combined with a setback determined by the GM.

When making an ability check that involves your ship's abilities, you use the ship's score instead of your own, as dictated by logic.

Contests

Sometimes one ship's or crewmember's efforts are directly opposed to another's. This can occur when both of them are trying to do the same thing and only one can succeed, such as attempting to pass through a narrow gap simultaneously. This situation also applies when one of them is trying to prevent the other one from accomplishing a goal—for example, when a ship's gravity projector tries to prevent another ship from jumping to hyperspace. In situations like these, the outcome is determined by a special form of ability check, called a contest.

Both participants in a contest make ability checks appropriate to their efforts. They apply all appropriate bonuses and penalties, but instead of comparing the total to a DC, they compare the totals of their two checks. The participant with the higher check total wins the contest. That ship or crewmember either succeeds at the action or prevents the other one from succeeding.

If the contest results in a tie, the situation remains the same as it was before the contest. Thus, one contestant might win the contest by default. If two ships tie in a contest to pass through a narrow gap, neither ship makes it. In a contest between a ship's gravity generator trying to prevent another ship from jumping to hyperspace, a tie means that the second ship fails to jump.

Passive Checks

A passive check is a special kind of ability check that doesn't involve any die rolls. Such a check can represent the average result for a task done repeatedly, such as probing meteors over and over, or can be used when the GM wants to secretly determine whether the characters succeed at something without rolling dice, such as noticing a hidden ship.

Here's how to determine a ship's total for a passive check:

10 + all modifiers that normally apply to the check. If the ship has advantage on the check, add 5. For disadvantage, subtract 5. The game refers to a passive check total as a score.

For example. if a 1st-tier ship has a Wisdom of 15 and is proficiently equipped in Scan, it has a passive Wisdom (Scan) score of 13.