Let’s learn all about using skills and their importance in the tabletop role-playing game In Nomine. In Nomine is a role-playing game designed by Derek Pearcy and published in 1997 by Steve Jackson Games. You can learn more on the official website here: http://www.sjgames.com/innomine/ or the Wikipedia page here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Nomine_(role-playing_game). You can buy In Nomine products here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/12199/Steve-Jackson-Games/subcategory/28908_30775/In-Nomine?affiliate_id=50797
About In Nomine
Written by Derek Pearcy + Illustrated by Dan Smith
Edited by Jeff Koke, Steve Jackson, and Susan Pinsonneault
Cover art by John Zeleznik (first printing) and Christopher Shy (second printing)
In Nomine is a modern roleplaying game in which the players take the part of celestial beings – angels and demons – as they struggle for control of humanity and themselves. The celestials, powerful though they may be, are merely pawns in a much larger game being played by their Superiors, the Archangels and Demon Princes. Based on the best-selling French RPG by the wonderfully diabolical Croc!
In Nomine won the Origins Award for Best Graphic Presentation of a Roleplaying Game, Adventure, or Supplement of 1997.
Transcript
Cold Open
Skills, unlike Songs, work within the Symphony.
Intro
Welcome to Eviliv3, the live media commentary show that answers the question, how do I know how accurately I can fire a gun? Subscribe if you’re new to the channel, because today we are continuing our In Nomine series with this episode, How to Use Skills
Discussion
It’s pretty easy to gauge how effective or powerful your character is by looking at how many Forces they have. This naturally reflects how many Character Points you have at character creation as it is the same number of Characteristics, that is, four times the number of Forces. You may earn more Character Points throughout play, which allow you to further improve on your existing Forces or Resources. With Resources, this may mean improving existing Skills, or even gaining new ones. Skills are initially learned or improved upon at a cost of one Character Point per level of the Skill up to a maximum of six levels per Skill.
As everything in In Nomine is based on the d666 roll, it should come as no surprise that all Resources are based on a level of one to six. One being proficient and six being excellent. However, unlike with other Resources, Skills can be attempted without having levels in them. Skills have an innate level of difficulty represented by its default number. This is a negative number that you subtract rather than add to the Skill’s related Characteristic in order to determine your Target Number. Your Target Number is what you need to roll under in order to succeed at a given action.
So for example, if you want to evade the old lady crossing the street during a high-speed chase, you would need to roll a Driving skill check. If you did not choose Driving as a skill, you would have to subtract two from your Precision to find your Target Number, in order to drive around her, as that is the default for the Driving Skill, minus two. Alternatively if you have even one level in Driving, you would have a plus one instead! Each level represents what you add to the related skill, in order to find your Target Number. The higher the number the easier it is to succeed, as you need to roll under the Target Number to succeed at the action. Your Check Digit will tell you how effective you were.
As Skills are learned abilities, unlike Songs for example, Skills work within the Symphony and therefore cannot be detected by Celestial sensing, and they do not require Essence to perform. You may choose to use Essence which improves the Target Number on a one to one basis. But, using Essence can be detected in the Symphony by Celestials. When a mundane uses Essence, it is always unconscious and they burn all of their Essence at once. Only Celestials and Soldiers who are aware of the Symphony are able to choose how much Essence they expend in a given action.
A few examples of basic Skills in In Nomine are Acrobatics (Agility) with a default of minus three, Computer Operation (Intelligence) with a default of minus four, Fighting (Strength, Intelligence, or Will depending on the type of combat) with a default of zero, and Tracking (Perception) with a default of minus two. Skills will always present its associated characteristic and its default value. While there are a number of Skills that can be used in In Nomine, as it is focused on the War between Heaven and Hell on the Corporeal Realm, or Earth, you may wish to create new Skills to suit your given game depending on the era or style of play you prefer. Always check with your Game Master, or GM, for approval before adding new skills to the game.
Let’s look at a skill based encounter between Carin our Malakite Angel and Matthew our Mummy of Saminga. We have already shown an example of Combat, so let’s instead focus on Matthew’s realization that he is facing an Angel. Mathew tried to knock Carin out, and when she easily dodged his attack, he turned to run to his car at the end of the cemetery block. He does not have the Running skill, so he uses his Strength characteristic of seven, minus the default of minus one to find his target number of six. He rolls an eight with a large check digit of five, so he turns to run only to trip over a gravestone. Carin tries to leap over the gravestone in order to corner Matthew but without the Acrobatics skill, she relies on her Agility of six minus three for the acrobatics default and needs to roll under the Target Number of three. She rolls really high with a seven, and her check digit is four so she also trips over the gravestone, landing on top of Matthew, and their combat continues with grappling .
As you can see it’s pretty important to be skilled in an action you are attempting, and at the cost of one character point per level, it can really come in handy!
Outro
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