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(Note: I'm still editing this and trying to make it clear, with lots of examples, so if it sucks, let me know.) Ability Rating and Target NumberEvery ability has an ability rating, a number from 1 to 20 that lets you pit the ability against foes and obstacles. The higher the number, the better the ability or more extreme the trait. So you might have a skill of:
Or, even better...
Or, even better than that...
The skill's number is the score you have to roll __UNDER__ on a d20 to succeed. 1's are crits and 20's are fumbles, therefore you have four possible die-roll results:
So, for that First Aid skill up there, a 1 is a Crit, 2-18 is success, 19 is failure, and 20 is a fumble. But you usually don't roll against just the ability rating. You're also adding bonuses or penalties from any Augments you have (DnD people: think of Augments as very fluid synergy bonuses) -- these augments will add up to show you what your real target number is for the roll. (See the Augments link for examples of how this works.)
"Okay, I get the 18, but what the hell is a score of 10w, and how is it better than a score of 18?" A 10W indicates "you have a 10, PLUS a level of Mastery in this skill." Basically, your skill score 'wraps around' every time you pass 20 and starts over at 1, but every time you wrap around, you add a level of Mastery to your skill. (Another way (a somewhat confusing way) of looking at 10W is "a 30".)
"Okay, before we go any further, why the hell do you use a "W" for "mastery"? That's stupid. Oh yeah. See, the Heroquest rules use a lot of Runes. The Rune for 'mastery' looks like this:  . Most people don't have the "rune" font installed on their machine, so they just write is as a "W".
"Huh." Yeah. It's just one of those things. Use an M if it makes more sense to you.
Anyway, you might look at '10W' and think...
"But I have a better chance of success with a 17. A 10W still means I have to roll a 10 or lower to succeed!" Here's why it's better: when you have a level of mastery, whatever __result__ you get is improved by one level, just because you have the Mastery... so if you roll a failure, it becomes a success, and a success becomes a critical, et cetera.
Think of it like this. A 17 is a 17 on the 'Schlub' chart. A 10W is a rating of 10 on the "Skilled" chart. It's like saying to a five year old "you read really well!" and saying the same thing to a college student: "really well" doesn't mean the same thing. Even doing 'badly' at reading as a college student is probably still better than a "great!" job as a five-year-old.
Get it?
"Umm... maybe. I'll have to see it in play, maybe. What's the '5W2' skill mean?" Oh, that's the best part. Masteries continue to accumulate as you raise your skills -- when you pass 20 again, your '20W' wraps around again and becomes a '1W2' (a 1, with two masteries).
A guy with 10W2 (10, with two masteries) in a skill can roll a Fumble and his two masteries bump it twice, up to a Success. Or if he rolled a Success to start with, it would bump him to a Critical, and then his __other__ mastery that he didn't need can bump YOUR result __down__ a level. Badass? I think so.
Real badasses might even have a couple skills in the 10W4 range, and can boost that (with Augments, spells, items, and other stuff) up a whole extra mastery to something like 10W5.
Note: masteries between opponents cancel out: two guys debating each other in court that both have 10w3's in "Argue Law" will cancel each other's masteries out at a one-to-one basis -- they're badass to lesser people, but versus each other it's an even playing field -- it's a 10 vs. a 10.
Example Scale:Here's a sample scale that shows what the ratings are approximately equivalent to:
Superhuman Levels
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