A character, who cannot hear for one reason or another, can attempt to work out what a person is saying through close observation of how his/her lips are moving. This is only possible if the character can see the other person's lips (i.e. they are not wearing a mask or closed helmet, and are facing towards the character). To do this successfully, the character must make a dice roll using his/her Empathy (including lipreading specialism) + PE.
The difficulty of the dice roll is as follows:
| Situation | Difficulty value |
| Face to face communication (say 1 metre away) | 6 |
| Across a room (say 3 metres away) | 8 |
| A long way away (say 6 metres away) | 11 |
| A very long way away (say 10 metres away) | 15 |
| Other person has extensive facial hair (moustache or beard) obsuring his mouth | +2 |
| Character does not know the language in which the other person is speaking (in which case successful lipreading will enable the character to work out the words used, but he/she will have no idea what they mean) | +2 |
If the character succeeds, he/she will work out everything the other person is saying. If he/she fails by 3 points or less, he/she will work out most of what is being said, but may fail to recognise some of the words. If he/she fails by more than 3 points, he/she may recognise the odd word, but will have no idea what the other person was saying.