In Nomine Rules - Attributes, Skills, and Success Tests

Attributes

There are nine attributes, divided between the Corporeal, Ethereal and Celestial realms as follows. The three attributes roughly correspond to power, resilience and control in each realm.

Corporeal
Strength - Ability to exert force.
Stamina - Resistance damage and fatigue.
Agility - Control of bodily movement.

Ethereal
Intelligence - Memory, fact-linking, problem-solving abilities.
Wits - Speed of reaction to new conditions.
Precision - Fine motor coordination, and attention to details.

Celestial
Charisma - Altering the world and others to your desires.
Willpower - Maintaining your mind against outside influence.
Perception - Awareness of surroundings, and the Symphony.

Note: For those who want to know, Demonic/Kyrio resonances are based on Charisma, and Angelic/Djinn/Lilim resonances on Perception.

If such values are needed, then:
total forces = (total attributes)/4
forces in a realm = (total attributes in that realm)/4
In both cases, round fractions down.

A rough scale of the meaning of varying values for attributes is as follows. Human average is between 2 and 3, average for a 7 force mini-demon is 3, and average for a 9-force PC celestial is 4.

0 - Crippled. Very young child, retard, or invalid.
1 - Weak. Child, disabled, impeded.
2 - Low human average. Not particularly able.
3 - High human average. Talented, capable, noteworthy.
4 - High human. Perhaps top percentile, certainly remarkable.
5 - Human limit. World class, genius.
6 - Superhuman, supernatural ability.
7 - Noteworthy even for a celestial.
8 - Limit of starting PC-level attributes. Top percentile even for a celestial.
9+ Attributes of this level are possessed only by the truly powerful among celestials.

Skills

Skills are generally rated 0 to 4, with occasional higher values, but a skill of 0 may well be converted into a 'default' of less than zero when used.

They represent ability to perform certain groups of related actions, or familiarity with certain branches of knowledge or study, as follows:

-4 - Incapable. No knowledge of an obscure subject, like higher maths, the street plan of Dehli, or how to read.

-3 - Incapable. As above, but perhaps with a very long shot at improvising. The GM may well rule that actions covered by a -3 or -4 skill automatically fail.

-2 - Clueless. No ability in a difficult skill, or perhaps a natural ineptitude or disability. This covers situations where you can only succeed through sheer determination and luck.

-1 - Guessing. No ability in a moderately difficult skill. Perhaps some chance of success at certain tasks within the skill.

0 - 'Learning Cusp'. No training in a skill which nevertheless everyone can do, such as running, or alternatively the result of, for example, a short primer course of study.

1 - Capable. Basic training or ability.

2 - Skilled. A thorough basic knowledge, and some higher ability. Usually acquirable through constant use of a skill over a reasonable time.

3 - Expert. Someone who is both experienced and talented at his job will have this skill level.

4 - Master. This is as far as most humans go. A recognised authority or champion.

5 - Genius. Attained only through GM approval. This is the level of skill that will have you talked about decades or centuries after your death. It can only be attained by someone with natural aptitude (the right attributes), and perseverence (it usually includes a wide range of knowledge and techniques). Even if you have a skill at this level, you should probably only have one, and you should concentrate on it, or lose your edge. Even celestials will have to work to maintain this level.

Success Tests

Occasionally, the success or failure of an action by a character will be in doubt. In such cases the GM must determine the relevant attribute and skill, and a difficulty. If you don't have the right skill, (or have something which you think ought to substitute), then say so. The GM will allow or disallow it, and possibly modify the difficulty.

Subtract your skill from the difficulty to give the target number.
Roll a number of 10-sided dice equal to your attribute. Count the number which equal or exceed the target number. This is your number of successes.
If you have no successes, then in general you have failed. In this case, count the number of 1's on the dice. This is your botch level, (or negative success level, if you like).

The following is a general guideline:

-2 - Disaster. Everything goes wrong. You will almost certainly end up worse off than you feared.
-1 - Mistake. You probably end up worse off than you started, but if you were rolling to avoid something, there are probably no ill effects beyond your failure. This is as bad as you feared.
0 - Failure. You failed. Could be worse, could be much better.
1 - Success. You did it, but not as well as you hoped.
2 - Success. That probably *is* as good as you hoped. Complete success.
3 - Remarkable Success. Unless you are very good, or the task was very easy, you did better than you expected. This is where you expect a little 'something extra' from the GM.
4 - Storming Success. This is where your skill and brilliance causes something really good to happen. Note that you can't even get this unless you have attribute 4.
5+ GM's choice as to how world-class that particular venture was.

Number of Dice Rolled

Occasionally, this has importance. It is equal to the number of 10 sided dice rolled, as distinct from the base attribute.

Complication - Target Numbers higher than 10

The GM decides between:

Case 1: You cannot attempt the action. You simply don't know how.

Case 2: You can attempt the action with a target number of 10, but must make up the difference with extra successes. So for example of the TN is 12, and you roll 10, 10, 10, 9, then you have succeeded with a single success. If you score 10, 10, 9, 1, you have botched.

Case 3: You can directly buy off points of TN with dice: -1 die, -1 TN. This is intended for super-celestials with 10+ attributes. One option is that you roll 10 dice no matter what, and subtract any extra from the TN.

Complication - Target Numbers lower than 2

The GM decides between:

Case 1: You automatically succeed.
Case 2: You treat the TN as 2.

Complication - Automatic Success

The GM might like to award automatic success in any or all of the following circumstances:

Case 1: TN less than 2
Case 2: TN less than the number of dice you are going to roll (NOT equal).
Case 3: TN at most the number of dice you have, plus the number of successes you want. So for example 8 dice vs. a target of 6 succeeds with 2 successes.

Complication - Essence

You can spend essence to boost a roll. Non-aware characters can do this only unconsciously, spending all their essence in the process.

Each point of essence spent in this way gives you an extra die to roll. If this takes you into auto-success land, you might want to roll anyway, in the hope of getting a better success, but that decision is an exercise in probability and risk management which I don't want to go into.

A Quick Difficulty Guide

6 - Ridiculously easy if you know how, except possibly when using skill defaults.
8 - Still quite easy if you know how, and not too tough if you don't (failure prob is only 34% with attribute 3 skill 0).
10 - A bit tricky, requires some skill or lots of talent.
12 - Really quite hard now. If you have no skill, and non-super attribute, you can't do it.
14 - Actually challenging. Basically, you need skill 4, stat 7 to have a half chance.

Essence Use - Comparisons with In Nomine

IN If you have average celest. stat (6), and no skill (0), you spend 6 essence for an auto-success.

ME If you have average attribute (4), and no skill (0), you spend 6 essence to roll 10 dice, which might give you an auto-success at difficulty 9, which is 'reasonably hard'.

IN If you have high stat (9) and skill (5), and spend a couple of essence, you get auto, CD+4.

ME If you have high stat (6) and skill (4), and spend 2, you get auto at difficulty 11, and rolling at difficulty 9 the essence has given you an expected 2*(6/10) = 1.2 extra successes.

Problem is that this makes essence much more useful the higher your skill, but then it always was. The essence-magnifying effects of high attribute have been reduced.