Athletics (Strength)

Acolytes are often dependent upon their physical abilities, particularly when situations become violent. Athletics measures a character’s ability to run long distances without tiring, climb sheer surfaces, and lift heavy loads. It also allows a character to push himself to greater levels of endurance and shrug off the effects of fatigue when running, swimming, or climbing. A character’s background might dispose him more towards certain types of athletics. A GM can keep this in mind when determining the difficulty of a test. For example, a character from a desert world or could be required to make more difficult Athletics tests to swim across a river than an Acolyte who grew up on an aquatic agri-world would.

Endurance
Trained athletes are extremely fit and can push themselves far beyond the ability of normal people. As a Free Action, a character with the Athletics skill can make a Difficult (–10) Athletics skill test whenever he suffers a level of Fatigue (see page 233) as a result of running, swimming, or climbing to ignore its effects. The character can continue to take tests and ignore Fatigue gained in this way indefinitely; however, as soon as he fails a test, he must rest for at least 4 hours and cannot use his Athletics skill again during that time.

Heft
Athletes are also known for their strength and can lift great weights for short periods of time. As a Free Action, a character can make a Challenging (+0) Athletics skill test to increase his carrying capability for a single encounter. For every degree of success the character achieves, his Strength is increased by 10 for the purposes of how much weight he can carry, lift, or drag (see page 248), to a maximum modified Strength of 100. Hefting can only be attempted once, and if the character fails the test, he cannot try again until the next encounter.

When to use Athletics as a GM
The GM can call on a player to use the Athletics skill when they must swim across a body of water or try to stay afloat, when they want to push themselves beyond their limits and keep going even when exhausted, or when they would like to climb a cliff or cross extremely rough ground. Some example modifiers include. against a current. waters in a violent storm.
 * +30: Climbing a ladder in a hurry or staying afloat in very calm water.
 * +20: Climbing across a gantry or swimming in calm water.
 * +10: Climbing a hive or swimming with specialised aquatic gear.
 * +0: Climbing a rough rock wall, or swimming a long distance.
 * –10: Climbing a brick wall or swimming across a slow river.
 * –20: Climbing a ferrocrete wall without climbing aids or swimming
 * –30: Climbing up a slick plasteel bulkhead or swimming rough