(23) Count Down – Crew Dice Skills (part 4 of 4)

Yeooowwwww!

Joppe Ulrich sheepishly came out from behind the cabinet in the back of the kitchen area of the mess hall.

VR was unconcerned and just giggled, for she was the one that put that mouse trap next to the sandwich on the shelf. I told you to quit stealing food from the kitchen. You are a good cook yourself! You should be in here helping me, not stealing from me!

And Levi O’Connor walked in just then and put in his two cents:
Yes, Joppe! For your penance, you should help VR with meals for the rest of the week!

Joppe just walked out, holding his painful fingers, glancing over at Levi wondering what had happened to that joyful chaplain from the Piano Jam Dance Party last night!
Well, VR… Ready for Mess Call?

Levi knew that the crew was really hungry today after all the “exercise” at last nights dance party.
Yep… ready to roll… ring the cowbell.

Levi just happened to have the mobile system speaker system microphone with him :)

Attention. Attention. This is not a drill. This is a real call to the Mess Hall. May God bless this food and make each of us worthy of the lives he has called us to live and fulfill our desires for goodness.
=> Blessing 8 (Engineering) (full blessing – printable PDF with clickable links)

Today we we conclude our look at the many different and unique crew Skills – this time the Skills all involve the Section dice – an integral part of every mission. I noted the number of charges each crewmember starts with in (blue).
=> Crewmembers Skill Order v4 (search through the list of all crew to find the crewmembers you find interesting!)

Assisting Another With Dice

Assisting each other in dice rolls is an important aspect of ISS Vanguard, and these crew Skills give a little extra Oooomph to that! Normally the othet crewmembet had to in the same sector as you and can asdist with just one die. But crew with these Skills avoid some of the restrictions.

1. Advisor (3) – assist another without being in the same Sector
2. Selfless (1) – assist with any number of dice (not just 1) PLUS return them to available afterwards
3. Team Player (2) – assist with 2 dice instead of 1 and afterwards return them to available

Change A Die Icon

If you don’t like the result on a dice… just change it! And some crewmembers HAVE THAT SKILL:

1. Adaptive (2) – change a die face to the side you want.
2. Alpha (3) – change the face of one die in an Assisting Crewmembers roll
3. Disciplined (2) – change one bad / accident into a wild

Help with Sacrificing a Die Situation

Unless it is at the very end of a mission, being required to sacrifice a Section die is even worse than it sounds. When you sacrifice a die, it is removed from the game until the end of the mission. Yes, that means you will have one less die and those dice are important! A very select few of the crew have a Skill that can prevent the sacrifice of a die.

1. Efficient (2) – save from losing / sacrificing a die

Refresh Dice

Once you “use” a Section die, you cannot use it again unless you “refresh” it. Normally you need to “rest” in order to refresh your dice, and this requires using one of your supplies. But what if you run out of supplies? These crew Skills help get your dice refreshed!

1. Brute Force (2) – refresh 1 die for each Section card you discard
2. Energetic (3) – refresh 1 die and draw 1 extra Section card
3. Fortitude (2) – refresh three dice, one of each color
4. Hidden Reserves (1) – refresh all red dice
5. Methodical (1) – refresh all blue dice
6. Systematic (1) – refresh all green dice

Remove Dice

Quite often during a mission you will have things PROGRESS … either as a matter of time, or as a result of Section dice rolled. You want to progress the GREEN or YELLOW tracks with good dice rolls. You want to avoid progressing the RED track, and quite often rolling the bad/accident icon will progress that RED track! So… why not just remove a bad roll? Some crew have a skill that let’s them do just that!

1. Careful (4) – eliminate one bad / accident die (note that this is the only skill that starts with 4 charges)
2. Wild Card (2) – if two wild in the roll pool, remove one bad / accident to the spent pool

Rolling an Extra Die

Sometimes you will be in a situation where you tried to achieve a certain dice combination, but you were short by one die. You “luck” ran out and you just need one more die to try to recover your “plan”. Some of the crew are elite in that they have a skill to recover a die from your spent pool and let you roll it again… right now!

1. Record Keeper (2) – roll a die from your spent pool into your roll pool

That’s it for a quick look at the various crew Skills.

Who knows what will be next

Only the Shadow knows!
And Lindsey Stirling knows all about Shadows!

Fun Fact: Eight years ago Len (aka Levi O’Connor in this Count Down) wrote one prayer every day for a year for Lindsey Stirling. Of course, Lindsey was “famous”, so Len had to go through her “agent”. After a few months of passing along the prayers her agent asked Len if he would pray for her too. And he did (er, “I did” :) And now you can see the answer to one of your burning questions … what does one year of printed daily prayers look like? See three photos at the end of the “contents” for the eBook version:
=> eBook: One Year of Prayers for Lindsey Stirling

Or, to save you time, here is a photo I just took (yes, when I make a book for someone I make two copies of it, one for them and one for me to remember what I did):

Yes… it is quite OK to zoom in if you wish (you can even see that I was also the photographer for the cover photos of the special book of 40 prayers). And her agent also got a book that I called simply “Favored”:

Previous Count Down article=> Crew Skills Part 3
Next Count Down article=> Building Our Crew

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