Forgery Skill

Forgery (Int)
Use this skill to fake an electronic document from the Grand Moff instructing an Imperial warden to release prisoners, to create an authentic-looking star chart to a newly discovered planet, to falsify a starship permit or transponder code, or to detect forgeries that others try to pass off on you.

Check: Forgery requires materials appropriate to the document being forged (a computer or datapad, platisheets, datacards, etc), and some time. To forge a document such as military orders, a government decree, a business ledger, a merchandise order form, or the like, you need to have seen a similar document before. You can’t forge something you haven’t seen. Your degree of familiarity with the document provides a modifier to your Forgery check, as shown below.

Familiarity Check Modifier
Unfamiliar: Document seen once for less than a minute -4
Fairly familiar: Document seen for several minutes +0
Quite familiar: Document has been studied at leisure +4
Intimately familiar: Forger has produced other documents of the same type +8

Some documents require security or authorization codes, whether authentic ones or additional forgeries. The GM makes your check secretly so you’re not sure how good your forgery is.

The Forgery skill is also used to detect someone else’s forgery. The result of the original Forgery check that created the document is opposed by a Forgery check by the person who examines the document to check its authenticity. If the examiner’s check result is equal to or higher than the original Forgery check, the document is determined to be fraudulent. The examiner gains bonuses or penalties to his or her check as given in the table below.

Condition Examiner’s Check Modifier
Type of document unknown to examiner -4
Type of document somewhat known to examiner -2
Type of document well known to examiner +0
Document is put through additional tests (computer, droid, analyzer)* +4
Examiner only casually reviews the document* -2

*Cumulative with any of the first three conditions on the table. Apply this modifier along with one of the other three whenever appropriate.

A document that contradicts procedure, orders, or previous knowledge, or one that requires the examiner to relinquish a possession or a piece of information can increase the examiner’s suspicion (and thus create favorable circumstances for the examiner’s opposed Forgery check).

Every starship is equipped with a HoloNet transponder that broadcasts its class, ownership, and licenses to any ship that scans it with sensors. The Forgery skill can be used to create a false HoloNet signal with whatever information the forger desires to include. This requires 1d4 hours of work and access to a datapad and hypertransceiver or blank transponder. The deceiver’s Forgery check is opposed by the Computer Use check of someone receiving the transponder’s message. It is important to note that claiming an X-Wing is a Y-Wing is theoretically possible with this skill, but anyone who checks the ship with sensors can easily tell this is not the case. (Note: The HoloNet transponder is very different from a HoloNet transceiver mentioned under Computer Use).

Retry: No, since the forger isn’t sure of the quality of the original forgery.

Special: To forge documents and detect forgeries, one must be able to read and write the language in question. (The skill is language-dependent.)

You can take 10 when making a Forgery check, but you can’t take 20.

A character with the Impersonator feat gets a +2 aptitude bonus on Disguise checks.

Time: Forging a short and simple document takes about 1 minute. Longer or more complex documents take 1d4 minutes per page or screen. Forging a ship’s transponder takes 1d4 hours.

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