The Gameplay

Aero's footsteps sang across the cobbled rooftops as he made his way parallel to Market Street. His prey raced below him, slowed by the endless throngs of those eager to spy the newest goods on display. Aero's Elvish senses were heightened by adrenaline. Without slowing, Aero slid under a rooftop clothesline, leap-leapfrogged a chimney polluting the air with steam and soot, and leapt the 2 meter gap over the empty alley and onto the next building. His light, narrow frame was perfect for this form of traveling. Below him, on the city's streets, his target had created quite the mess. After becoming entangled with an unsuspecting group of citizens, the clumsy Orc had tripped and fallen into one of the market stands which came crashing down atop him. Aero skidded to a stop and loosed the pistol from his waist. With one click the safety was off and Aero was taking aim.

BANG

A weapon discharged, but it was not his. His instincts urged him to dive and he moved just in time to hear the bullet whiz by his ear. Obviously, the Orc was not alone. Aero did a quick check but saw no sign of the attacker. He did, however, see a large divot cracking the tilted roof behind him. Long range, heavy ballistic impact, and no sign of the shooter. He considered his options. Sniper. He came to the conclusion and propelled himself forward just in time: another shot ricocheted off a protruding steel pipe behind him. He feared he would loose sight of the Orc in the confusion but he managed to spot his foe turning a sharp corner. Exactly where his team wanted him to be. Right into the waiting trap of a fully armed dwarf and a very angry Ogre.

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This example of fast paced, high energy game-play is what you will find when you play Edara. Everything that happened in the above paragraphs can be recreated using Edara's original D12 based skill system. Aero the elf moves across rooftops and over dangerous terrain without slowing down due to a successful roll on his Acrobatics (Parkour) skill test.

The Orc he was pursuing, however, lacked that ability and was forced to move at a slow speed due to the density of the crowd on the street. This allowed Aero to easily keep up with his target.

The mysterious sniper used adaptable lenses and weapon modifications to gain sight on his target from a great distance. However, due to the penalties from firing such a long shot, he was not able to roll high enough to score a hit. Aero's innate Agility grants him a high defense, and so he was able to easily dodge the incoming shots.

These calculations are done on the fly and easily incorporated into the game play  The action never needs to slow down due to dense calculations inside or out of combat.

Every time you roll the D12 you will succeed or fail. However the action does not end with a "success." Edara uses a threshold-based system on its Tests of Skill. It's not a matter of simply meeting an arbitrary "Target Number." Its a matter of how well did you score against that target? A character who barely meets the target number for a Test of Skill will be able to complete their action. A character who scores 5 higher than the target number? They will excel at the task. And a character who scores 20 higher than the target number? They are performing the task with an ease and skill that far surpasses anything that has been seen before.

This same Threshold system is used in combat. The higher you roll the more successful your attack is and the more damage you will deal with it.

With this D12 System in place, allocating skills to the correct categories becomes more important than rolling lucky numbers.

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