Alertness

Alertness
Alertness is a measure of your character’s passive awareness—his ability to stay on his toes and react to sudden changes in his environment. In short, it is the perception skill to notice things that you are not looking for. High Alertness characters strike early in a fight, tend to pick up on details of a scene simply by entering it, and are rarely surprised. They include bodyguards, outdoorsmen, and sneaky criminals.



Avoiding Surprise
''Whenever the trap is sprung in an ambush (see Stealth), you can make one final Alertness check against the Stealth of your attacker in order to see if you are surprised. If you fail this check, roll all your defenses as if they were Mediocre for the first exchange. If you succeed, you may defend normally at your full skill levels. ''

  

Combat Initiative
''Alertness determines <span style="font-family:"AJensonPro-Bold","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:AJensonPro-Bold;mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">initiative  <span style="font-family:"AJensonPro-Regular","serif";mso-bidi-font-family:AJensonPro-Regular">(order of action) in any physical conflict. To minimize the die rolling, your group can use the listed value for everyone’s Alertness to determine the order of everyone’s actions. ''<span style="font-family:"AJensonPro-Regular","serif";mso-bidi-font-family:AJensonPro-Regular">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;font-family:"NewcomenBlack","serif";mso-bidi-font-family:NewcomenBlack">  

<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;font-family:"NewcomenBlack","serif";mso-bidi-font-family:NewcomenBlack">Passive Awareness
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;line-height:normal;margin-left:24px;">''<span style="font-family: "AJensonPro-Regular","serif";mso-bidi-font-family:AJensonPro-Regular">You will rarely <span style="font-family:"AJensonPro-It","serif";mso-bidi-font-family: AJensonPro-It">ask <span style="font-family:"AJensonPro-Regular","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:AJensonPro-Regular">to roll Alertness—if you are actively looking for something, Investigation is usually more appropriate. Alertness is reactive perception. That is, Alertness is more appropriate for things that  <span style="font-family:AJensonPro-Regular,serif;">you do not expect or are not looking for—such as the spiked pit trap in the hallway you’re casually walking through. It’s a skill that, typically, the GM calls for you to roll. ''