Simple, maybe stupid, question: can a character roll on just their ring, if they don’t have any rank in a skill? Is there a penalty?

1 hour ago, Toku said:

Simple, maybe stupid, question: can a character roll on just their ring, if they don’t have any rank in a skill? Is there a penalty?

Yes they can, all Skills and Approaches are available to all characters. The penalty is in the limited number of dice they have to choose from, by adding Skill dice they increase the chance of rolling success/opportunity without Strife.

Also the skill dice are better at providing success without strife, but no, there is no actual penalty for not having a skill, other than not having that skill.

6 hours ago, minoru said:

Also the skill dice are better at providing success without strife, but no, there is no actual penalty for not having a skill, other than not having that skill.

Skill dice alo give better opportunity, and a slightly higher (7/12 vs 6/12) overall success rate