Positional Effects

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Concealment

Concealment is a situation that occurs when a character is harder to spot because of environmental effects such as darkness, smoke, tall grass, or mist. Concealment imposes penalties on ranged attacks and sight-based skill checks such as Perception. Conversely, it can provide bonuses for other skill checks, such as Stealth.

The exact bonuses and penalties can be modified by the GM if needed. However, in general, Concealment can be divided into levels based on how obscuring the Concealment is:

Cover

See also: Maneuvers - Taking Cover

Being behind some sort of cover — a rock, crate, wall, or vehicle, for example — increases the character's Ranged Defense by 1 and can add to certain Skill checks, such as Perception. A single is sufficient for most situations, although the GM may add additional if the target is particularly well covered, such as a target firing from within a trench, inside a blockhouse, or any other prepared position.

Terrain

Difficult Terrain

Difficult Terrain is terrain that is hard to move through or over. It can include tight passageways, slippery ice, thick undergrowth, loose rubble, shifting sand, or waist-deep water (or any number of other circumstances). Essentially, it's terrain that characters move through with difficulty.

Characters entering or moving through Difficult Terrain must perform twice as many Maneuvers to move the same distance they would in normal terrain.

Impassable Terrain

Impassable Terrain is terrain that is impossible to move through via Maneuvers. This includes sheer cliffs, walls higher than a character can reach through jumping, or deep pits. Impassable Terrain is not always an insurmountable obstacle, but it is an obstacle that requires special skills to circumvent.

Depending on the Impassable Terrain in question and the resources at the character's disposal, the GM may allow the character to overcome Impassable Terrain by using a skill, probably the Athletics or Coordination Skill. During an encounter, this means the character must spend at least one Action (and possibly give up one or more Maneuvers) to accomplish this.

Swimming and Water

Bodies of water such as lakes, rivers, oceans, or swamps are types of terrain encountered on most planets in the galaxy, and sometimes characters must cross them. Most species have some ability to swim through liquid water, although some species are more adapted to it than others.

Unless otherwise noted, characters treat any body of water as Difficult Terrain.

The GM may also decide that some bodies of water, such as a river with a swift current or an ocean in a storm, are so difficult to move through that they require a successful Athletics check to swim. In this case, swimming through the water requires at least one Action as well as any number of Maneuvers to traverse.

Diving

If completely submerged in water, a character can hold their breath for a number of rounds equal to their Brawn Characteristic. Once this number is reached, the character starts to drown and is treated as Suffocating on each successive round (until they surface or find some other source of air).

Gravity

Although antigravity has existed in the galaxy for thousands of years, characters might still find themselves in a situation where they are away from an antigrav device, floating in open space, or walking in the crushing gravity of a supergiant planet.

Gravity Levels

Normal

Normal gravity is the default and does not affect any skill checks, attacks, and the like. Most habitable planets possess gravity close enough to normal as to be unnoticeable. Starships and space stations also possess devices that provide normal gravity. However, sometimes the characters end up in an environment without normal gravity.

Heavier-than-Normal

Heavier-than-Normal gravity adds up to to any Brawn-based skill checks (except Resilience) and the Coordination skill, depending on how heavy the gravity is.

Lighter-than-Normal

Lighter-than-Normal gravity adds up to to any Brawn-based skill checks (except Resilience) and the Coordination skill, depending on how light the gravity is.

Zero

Zero gravity, on the other hand, does not grant any or to Brawn or Agility-based checks, because moving in Zero gravity is completely different than moving in a gravity field. Characters can move in three dimensions in Zero gravity, but they count all movement as through Difficult Terrain, due to having to constantly grab handholds, evaluate angles, and so-forth.

Gravity and Encumbrance

A character's Encumbrance Threshold does not change due to different gravity, and items still maintain their usual Encumbrance. This is because an item's weight may change, but its size and mass (and therefore its inertia) do not. Those pesky details can prove an unpleasant surprise to inexperienced spacers who attempt to shift something large and heavy while in zero gravity.

Falling

Gravity kills. If a character falls from a height, the GM should determine the distance between where the character falls from and their point of impact below, and apply the closest comparable range band. Then, determine the damage suffered.

Damage is reduced by soak; however, the Strain suffered is not.

A character can reduce the damage taken from falling by making an Average () Athletics or Coordination check.

Each reduces the Damage suffered by one, while each reduces the Strain suffered by one.

A could, at the GM's discretion, reduce the overall distance fallen by one range band as the character grabs onto a handhold or does something else to slow their fall.