Attempting Ability and Skill Checks

The text of an adventure will often require players to attempt an Ability Check. It will look like this:

ABILITY (Skill) of # or higher

When you ask a player to attempt a “CHARISMA (Persuasion) check of 12 or higher”, the player will first roll a d20. Next, they add their bonus. Have the player check their character sheet to see if they have the appropriate skill listed in parentheses, in this case, Persuasion. If they have the appropriate skill, add that bonus to the total of the d20.

If they don’t have the specific skill called for in the text, they should default to the Ability Bonus, in this case, CHARISMA, and add that bonus instead.

The player adds the appropriate bonus to the d20 roll, and if the total is equal to or higher than the difficulty number, the check succeeds. If it is lower, the check fails.