Holdout

Name

Holdout

Skill Attribute & Difficulty

Int - Average

Defaults

5+Int, Sleight of Hand-3

Prerequisites

None

Description

This is the skill of concealing items on your person or on other people (Usually with their cooperation). An item's size and shape govern its concealability. Some examples include:

A BB-sized jewel, a postage stamp. +4

A pea-sized jewel. +3

One lockpick, a huge jewel, a dime, a TL9+ computer disk, a letter. +2

A set of lockpicks, a silver doller. +1

A TL8 floppy disk or CD, without case. +0

A dagger, a slingshot, the tiniest handgun or grenade. -1

An average handgun (E.g a luger), a grenade, a large knife. -2

A Submachine gun, a shortsword, a short carbine. -3

A broadsword, an assault rifle. -4

A bastard sword, a battle rifle. -5

A crossbow, a heavy sniper rifle. -6

Things that move or make noise give an additional -1 or more to skill. Clothing also modifies effective skill. Someone dressed in full robe (+5 to skill) could conceal a bazooka or a battle-axe from an eyeball search. An exotic dancer in costume (-5 to skill) would have trouble hiding even a dagger. Of course, the dancer might escape search entirely (unless the guards were bored) because “They obviously couldn’t hide anything in that outfit!” Full nudity is -7 to skill. A proper concealment holster helps conceal a weapon; Clothing designed specifically to hide things gives a bonus of up to +4. To spot a concealed item, roll a Quick Contest of Search skill vs. Holdout. Search defaults to 5+Per if you haven’t studied it.

Specializations

None

Modifiers

None