Easing Tasks
You can potentially ease (decrease the difficulty) of any task to 0, making it routine and negating the need for a roll. Walking across a narrow wooden beam is tricky for most people, but for an experienced gymnast, it's routine. Repairing a car might be difficult for most people, but for a professional mechanic, it's routine.
There are three main ways for characters to ease tasks: skills, assets, and Effort.
Skill
A skill is something your character is better at than the average person. Athletics, computers, history, perception, and stealth are all examples of skills. You can even be trained in a combat skill like guns or dodging.
There are three possible levels to a skill: trained, specialized, and expert (but you can usually become expert in a skill only if your character has a special ability allowing it). Trained means you're good at it, specialized means you're great at it, and expert means you're amazing at it. For example, a high school or college gymnast is probably trained in gymnastics, an Olympic competitor is probably specialized in gymnastics, and a gymnast who breaks world records is probably an expert in gymnastics.
Being trained eases your task by one step, being specialized eases it by two, and being expert eases it by three. A skill can never ease a task by more than three steps.
Asset
An asset is any object, situation, or assistance that helps you with a task. If you're trying to force open a door, a crowbar is an asset. If you're trying to put out a fire, a rainstorm is an asset. If you're trying to climb over a fence, your friend giving you a boost (in other words, helping) is an asset. If you're fighting a monster, the monster being distracted by strong winds is an asset.
An asset usually eases a task by one step. A really good asset (or two regular assets) can ease a task by two steps. Assets can never ease a task by more than two steps—any more than two steps doesn't count.
Effort
Effort is when your character tries harder than normal at a task. Because you're pushing yourself to succeed, this costs points from one of your stat Pools. Which Pool these points come from depends on what kind of task it is; use your Might Pool for Effort on Might tasks, your Speed Pool for Effort on Speed tasks, and your Intellect Pool for Effort on Intellect tasks.
Using Effort costs 3 Pool points and eases the task by one step—this is often called applying one level of Effort. Remember to subtract your Edge from this cost.
You have to decide to use Effort (and spend the points for it) before you make the roll.
When you use Effort on an attack, you choose whether you're easing the roll by one step or increasing the damage by 3.
Applying More Effort: Tier 1 characters can only use one level of Effort on a task—your Effort score on your character sheet is the maximum number of levels of Effort you can use. More advanced characters can increase their Effort score (up to a maximum of six). Levels of Effort beyond the first one only cost 2 points instead of 3. So applying two levels of Effort costs 5 points (3 + 2), using three levels cost 7 points (3 + 2 + 2), and so on.
Effort on Multiple Tasks: Your Effort limit is per task or per action, so if you do multiple things in a turn, you can use Effort up to your limit on each of them. For example, you can use Effort up to your limit when making an attack on your turn, then use Effort up to your limit again when a foe attacks you on their turn, then use it up to your limit again when a second foe attacks you on their turn. And if you have an ability that gives you an extra action on your turn, that's a separate task, so you could use Effort up to your limit again. Of course, using Effort on four tasks in a round would cost a lot of Pool points!
Multiple Levels of Effort: If your Effort is 2 or higher, you can split your Effort between easing the attack roll and increasing the damage. For example, if your Effort is 3, you could use three levels of Effort on the attack roll, or two levels on the attack roll and one level on the damage, or one level on the attack roll and two levels on the damage, or three levels on the damage; your total Effort on the task is three, within your Effort limit.
Edge
Your Might, Speed, and Intellect Pools each have a linked Edge stat—Might Edge, Speed Edge, and Intellect Edge. Edge works like a "discount" when you spend points; whenever you spend points from a Pool, reduce the point cost by your Edge for that stat (to a minimum point cost of 0, which means it's free).
Generally, you can use your Edge only once per action (no "double-dipping"). So if you apply Effort to ease your pistol shot's chance of hitting and apply more Effort to increase damage, the two levels of Effort you apply (5 points from your Speed Pool) get the discount of your Edge only once.
Effort requires spending points from the stat Pool appropriate to the action, minus any Edge you have in that Pool. Each level of Effort eases the task by one step.
By using skills, assets, and Effort, you can ease a task by a maximum of eleven steps: one to three steps from skills, one or two steps from assets, and one to six steps from Effort.
Free Level of Effort
Some character abilities give you a free level of Effort on a task. This free level doesn't cost you any Pool points, and it doesn't count toward your Effort limit. However, even if you have free levels of Effort, you're still limited to applying a maximum of six levels of Effort for a task.