Cool (Presence)

Staying calm and maintaining composure, outwaiting an opponent, generally being cool: these exemplify things your character does with the Cool skill. Cool is something of a defensive skill in nature, since it most often comes up as the skill your character uses to resist attempts to sway or affect them. Cool also represents how your character appears to other people. If your character doesn’t want to show that something affected them, they would use the Cool skill to keep their emotions invisible.
Even though Cool isn’t a social skill, it is often used in social encounters. If you want to make a character who is particularly effective in social encounters, you may want to invest in Cool.
Your character should use this skill if…
• Your character begins laying a trap, staging an ambush, or otherwise setting up a combat encounter in which your character initiates the combat and has to judge the right time to do so.
• Your character needs to stay calm and unaffected when being flattered or charmed by someone.
• Your character needs to refrain from saying or doing something foolish during a tense situation.
• Your character needs to keep their nerve in a tense situation, such as when piloting one of two vehicles headed toward each other at high speed.
• Your character plays a card game or other game of chance in which bluffing, luck, and gambling are all intertwined.
Your character should not use this skill if…
• Your character tries to prevent being surprised. The Vigilance skill would work better in that situation.
• Your character tries to maintain inner self-control, such as when meditating or resisting the effects of fear. When your character is concerned with inner composure, they should use the Discipline skill.