Building an Infiltration

The first thing you'll need to determine is the party's objective, or broad goal. Maybe the PCs need to find their way into a hidden laboratory, locate a particular person within a corporation, rob a bank, or plant a piece of incriminating evidence. An infiltration can consist of a single objective, but a more complex one might include two or more objectives in sequence—the PCs might first need to find a way to enter the corporation's headquarters, then find the starship with the experimental Drift engine, and then escape in the ship before the authorities have a chance to set up a blockade.

To achieve an objective, the PCs must overcome a certain number of obstacles—specific challenges the PCs face, such as maneuvering past a laser sensor grid or persistent paparazzi. For a simple objective, they might need to overcome only one or two obstacles, while a more complex one might require several.

It's a good idea to offer more obstacles as options than the characters need to overcome, and the PCs don't all have to choose the same ones. This represents the fact that there's more than one way into a base and allows PCs to choose obstacles that play to their strengths. It also means you have more options you can adapt if the PCs decide on a truly novel way to tackle their objective.

Once a character has overcome the required number of obstacles to reach the objective, they move on to the next objective. This might mean that some characters move on to a second objective and start making progress toward it while other characters are still completing obstacles from the first objective. When all characters have completed the final objective, the infiltration is a success!

While the characters are pursuing their objectives, however, they need to avoid notice. Awareness Points (AP) measure the extent to which an opposing party is aware of the PCs' actions and apply to the party as a whole. As the PCs' Awareness Points increase, the infiltration becomes more difficult as the opposition shores up its defenses. If the PCs generate too many Awareness Points, they're found out, and their infiltration fails altogether!

Each obstacle has certain statistics that define how it works in play. Infiltration Points (IP) represent a character's progress toward overcoming an obstacle. Each obstacle requires gaining a certain number of Infiltration Points to overcome—typically 1 or 2, but some challenging obstacles might require more. PCs can gain Infiltration Points in multiple ways—usually through a skill or Perception check, but sometimes another roll or even the use of a spell or item. These methods are listed in the obstacle's Overcome entry. Unlike obstacles for chases, these use a difficulty range for the PCs' level instead of set DCs.

The Overcome entry also lists whether the PCs need to overcome an object individually or as a group. For individual obstacles, each PC needs to earn the required number of Infiltration Points themself, while for group obstacles, all PCs working toward that obstacle pool their Infiltration Points toward it together. For example, each PC trying to scale a wall needs to earn points on their own, but the PCs could work together to search a storage unit for clues, and once one PC has disabled a lock, everyone can enter.

A particular PC can overcome an individual obstacle only once during an objective; likewise, the party can overcome a group obstacle only once.

The trick to any infiltration is to get it done before anyone notices. Awareness Points measure the opposition's awareness of the PCs' efforts, helping you keep the pressure on and ramp up the urgency. While Infiltration Points are specific to a given obstacle, Awareness Points are a single pool spanning the entire infiltration and all participants.

Awareness Points increase in three different ways. When a PC fails a check to overcome an obstacle, they incur 1 Awareness Point (or 2 on a critical failure). Other failed checks during the infiltration typically don't increase the Awareness Point total unless the failure would reasonably cause a disruption. Awareness Points also increase by 1 at the end of each round of the infiltration, as the passage of time makes it more likely that the PCs will be discovered. Finally, the PCs earn Awareness Points whenever their activities are disruptive enough to draw attention to the infiltration, subject to GM discretion.

The effects of Awareness Points occur when the PCs reach certain thresholds. The specific effects and thresholds are up to you and your story, but typically for every 5 AP the PCs accrue, the challenges become harder, and if the PCs accrue enough Awareness Points (usually equal to twice the number of Infiltration Points necessary for the party as a whole to overcome all necessary obstacles), the infiltration fails.

Each threshold should have an effect. It might increase the DCs for obstacles, introduce a complication, spark a combat encounter, or have other effects. Reaching the highest tier of Awareness Points means that the PCs fail, but that doesn't have to be the end of the story! Failed infiltrations are an opportunity to introduce new challenges and move the story forward in a different way.

This basic Awareness Point scheme for an infiltration requiring the PCs to earn 10 IP can be used as is or tailored to your game.

5 Awareness Points: Suspicions are raised. Increase the DCs for obstacles by 1. The first time the PCs reach this tier, a complication occurs.

10 Awareness Points: The first time the PCs reach this tier, a complication occurs.

15 Awareness Points: Increase the DCs for obstacles by a total of 2, and the first time the PCs reach this tier, a complication occurs.

20 Awareness Points: The infiltration fails.

Sometimes, when a plan goes sour and seems like it can't get worse, it does. Complications are unexpected problems that compound the difficulty of a challenge. The party might trigger a complication by critically failing a check to overcome a challenge, by reaching a certain threshold of Awareness Points, if you need to spice up the infiltration, or through their own decisions—maybe the supernatural research station is protected by several magical wards, each triggering different traps when a PC attempts to use a different kind of magic.

Many complications increase Awareness Points or otherwise make infiltration more difficult. A common form of complication is attracting the attention of security guards or robots who try to stop, capture, or even kill the PCs. When this happens, the infiltration might briefly shift into encounter mode as the PCs attempt to defeat their assailants. The sounds of battle are loud, and guards often have ways to trigger alarms or call for backup, so unless combat occurs in an isolated area or the PCs take precautions, each round of unmitigated combat causes them to gain Awareness Points, at the very least.

Each complication has a trigger that determines when it occurs. It might affect only a single character, or it might affect everyone in a certain area, and you'll need to determine whether multiple PCs can work together to overcome it or whether only one can. Complications must be overcome before the characters involved can overcome other obstacles, and attempting to overcome a complication takes a character's turn just like trying to overcome an obstacle. Many complications are one-off events and are overcome automatically, even on a failure, though not without a cost. If a complication requires PCs to gain Infiltration Points to clear it, it has an Infiltration Points entry, just like an obstacle.

Don't overwhelm the characters with complications. Typically, you'll want to aim for two complications per AP threshold. Otherwise, the PCs might end up spending more time on the complications than on the infiltration itself, and the chance of failure might be too high.

The following example is a common complication that could occur in almost any infiltration.

Submit Identification Complication

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Trigger The PCs reach 5 Awareness Points for the first time.
Overcome standard, hard, or very hard Deception, Computers, Crafting, or Stealth

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A security drone confronts the party and demands to see their credentials before asking them to vacate the area.

Not everything that happens during an infiltration is a challenge that must be solved—sometimes PCs can use their turns to aid the group in some way. Opportunities are very similar to obstacles, but they don't provide Infiltration Points or count toward the objective. They instead provide some kind of benefit, such as a password to disable security features further along, reducing the party's Awareness Points, or lowering the DC for a later challenge. But opportunities sometimes come with risks—failing can increase the PCs' Awareness Points or trigger complications. You'll need to decide what opportunities are available and when, and whether they can be completed multiple times or only once. For example, the PCs can steal the CEO's keycard only once but can cause a distraction several times.

Some opportunities might be available at almost any time in any infiltration, like this example.

Smooth the PathOpportunity

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Requirements The PC has successfully completed an individual objective, and some other PCs haven't.

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Having completed your objective, you help an ally who's still trying to reach that goal. Describe how you're helping. This gives the ally the benefits of Following the Expert. In unusual cases, the GM might allow you to attempt a relevant skill check to overcome the obstacle on behalf of the other PC instead.