Base Skill vs. Effective Skill

Your base skill is your actual level
in a skill, as recorded on your charac-
ter sheet. Your effective skill for a par-
ticular task is your base skill plus or
minus any modifiers for that task. In
the Lockpicking examples above, base
skill is 9 in all cases, while effective
skill is 4, 19, and 14 in three different
situations.
The terms “base skill” and “effec-
tive skill” apply to all success rolls, not
just to skill rolls. When you make an