Past Lives as skills in and of itself

5e revised the skill mechanics to treat past lives as skills in and of themselves. As suggested by “mandrill_one”, here is a house rule for adapting this to BRP rules:

in the 5th edition, past or present "lives" ("vécus") are rated on a 1-10 scale, which is then multiplied by 10 to obtain a percentage to roll under. So, it is quite easy to devise a BRP variant, where each vécu is a "skill group" rated 1-100. Each vécu is a skill group since it includes all knowledges, abilities, skills and aptitudes that are commonly, or conceivably, associated with that vécu: e.g., a "medieval female condottiere" vécu could include abilities related to diplomacy, financial administration, accounting, sword combat, dodge, shield use, horse riding, communication skills, leadership, Italian geography, catholic religion, strategy and tactics, outdoor survival, encampment life, travel. All these skills have the same rating as the vécu itself. 

If you want to enhance your success chances, you can use Ka-points, with 1 Ka-point = +10% to the vécu rating. However, this (called "approach") is risky, since it makes your metamorphosis visible and the Minor Arcana much more likely to pinpoint and find your location. 

If none of your vécus can be construed as providing skills suitable for the task at hand, you can use "Sapience Points" ("wisdom points", basically experience points) for a one-off use of a skill that was until now not included in any of your vécus: you spend 1 SP for each 10% of success chance you want to buy. This is called a "Mnemos effect", because in-game you are supposed to suddenly have a reminiscence of events you didn't remember until now. Basically, you have to invent a story to explain why that specific vécu has acquired the desired skill (for example, if the needed skill was "mathematics", the condottiere came from a noble family and thus had learned mathematics from a tutor when she was young). If you spend 5 more SPs (in addition to the ones already spent to buy the success chance), this effect becomes permanent and you add this skill to your vécu's description. 

Of course, in BRP you don't have experience points, so it's difficult to include the Mnemos effect in the system.

In the future I’ll try adapting this to the 3e rules. Hope you enjoyed!

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