Skill Descriptions

Basic Skills

These skills are broken up into different categories such as Crafting, General, Social, and Thievery. Skills listed in the General category can be used during combat as free actions provided you have reached the Novice tier for the respected skill. See combat in the Game Rules, Combat: Actions for more information.

The type of skills in this section focused on their different categories. Each category has a specialization that helps to narrow down your skill focus. Such as skills related to crafting fall under the crafting category. Likewise, skills related to thievery and stealth fall under the thievery category. The only category that is unique to the others is the general category, as it does not have a specific focus.

Acrobatics

This skill represents the training you have undergone to become agile. It helps when trying to tumble, jump, or to determine your balance when moving along a narrow surface, such as a narrow ledge.

Acting

When using the acting skill, you are putting on a performance in order to entertain and draw attention to yourself. Whether that is reciting lines from a play or strumming on your lute, your acting skill shows how well you perform the action.

What excites the people when entertaining differs from knowing the proper notes and octaves when using an instrument (or voice). Musically entertaining people requires not only skill but practice. The Musician Mastery is required in order to add your acting skill total to acting checks when using instruments.

Animal Empathy

For some people, it is easy to talk with others while others prefer to communicate with animals. The skill of animal empathy is used to communicate with animals and empathize with them. It can allow you to understand if they are a friendly, hostile, or neutral; and to calm them down or befriend them. However, befriending an animal requires special abilities.

Body language is more effective than verbal communication when using this skill with animals. This skill reflects using those mannerisms and body language.

Apothecary

The primary skill used for brewing potions, antitoxins, and other alchemical substances and cures. After using the harvest skill to gather ingredients, this skill is used to determine the potency of the item being crafted.

This skill is used when making any kind of medical check. Make an apothecary check to identify poisons, diseases, or ailments and to stabilize a dying creature.

Athletics

This skill represents the training you have undergone in order to improve your abilities to run, climb, and swim.

Automation

The Automation skill represents your character’s ability to manipulate and craft mechanical devices. Clockwork devices include locks, traps, and steam powered systems.

Picking locks requires not only the skill of automation but also lock picking tools. Without the tools, it is not possible to pick locks. However, gaining the Locksmith Tools mastery, you learn how to pick locks, gain a lock pick and learn where to purchase more.

With traps, this skill is used to detect, disarm, disassemble, and assemble traps. This skill differs from the other basic skills because it has its own skill tiers which focus on your ability to manipulate traps.

Each trap detection check lasts for 10 in-game minutes or until the character gets distracted. A distraction is things such as combat or searching for specific items/resources.

Automation is also used for crafting technological equipment.

Barter

This skill is used when purchasing or selling items. Bartering with the shop clerk is trying to haggle the price to your favor. See bartering in the marketplace chapter for more information.

Forgery

The aspects this skill allows you to perform are creating fakes, or forgeries of many items. From official documents, to painting, to official seals, this skill determines the quality of the fake. When determining the quality of a fake, use the following table. The better your forgery, the harder it is for your opponent to detect it.

Harvest

In order to craft, you must have the proper ingredients/ material. This skill is used to find and harvest the ingredients/material needed for crafting. See the crafting chapter for more information about the different ways to harvest.

Hide

This is your trained ability to remain unseen and unheard. It requires you to have an area in which you can hide such as shadows, crowds of people, physical objects, and other obstructions.

When hidden, those around you gain a free perception check to determine their perception of their surroundings. They are not specifically looking for a hidden target, but passively those who are hidden can be spotted.

Influence

Convincing someone to see things your way is influencing them. How you do the convincing could deceive them, persuading them or even bribing them. It is also used when gather information. You can influence someone to overlook things or share secrets, but not make them do everything you say.

Intimidate

When you don’t have a quick lip or sliver tongue but have a strong composure, you can intimidate someone into seeing things your way. Intimidating someone means to threaten them with retaliation if they don’t do what you’re asking. This doesn't mean that you will follow through on your threats but just that you are making them.

Intuition

Intuition is your ability to sense if someone is being truthful. Reading their mannerisms and tone of voice, you try to discern if they can be trusted. This is used to see if someone is trying to influence you.

Perception

Using your five senses of listening, sight, smell, taste, and touch, this skill actively observes your surroundings. Perception is used to investigate objects, places, and the appearance of creatures. It is used when looking for an enemy of in the distance (or in a crowd), hidden areas, objects or specific people. It is also used to determine if something is a forgery or the real thing; along with detecting if someone is in the process of pick pocketing you. If something is related to one of your five senses and you are not sure what to roll, use perception.

Pilot

This skill is used to control transportation devices like wagons, trains, and ships. Riding horses and other creatures at fast speeds is considered piloting.

There will be times when you are on your mount and must make complex movements or compensate for how fast you are moving. Whenever the following happens, a pilot check is required, and the check must equal or exceed the difficulty rating listed.

Failing the piloting check results in being thrown from your mount. A one on the die, results in an automatic failure. You take a minimum of five feet of fall damage when thrown from your mount.

Similarly, if having to pilot a vehicle at fast speeds, you must be able to compensate when making difficult maneuvers.

Sleight of Hand

Your sleight of hand determines your skill at performing intricate actions with your hands. Examples of these actions include pick pocketing, street tricks, reverse pick pocketing, and hiding items on yourself.

This skill does not allow you to disarm traps or other devices. See the automation skill.

Smith

Your smith skill represents your ability to craft equipment and other items. It also allows you to make repairs on equipment, provided you have the proper materials. See the crafting chapter for more information on what you can craft.

This skill does not allow you to craft apothecary or steam powered items. See the apothecary and steam tech skills.

Survival

Survival is a critical skill in order to survive in the wilderness (or civilized areas). It, however, is not just for hunting, finding clean water sources, food, or finding shelter. It is also for tracking, building fires and preventing yourself from getting lost. While traveling, survival checks can determine road safety and unexpected delays.

Other Skills Table

Channeling Skills

These skills focus on your ability to channel energetics. Each skill is connected to an energy type, such as the Chrono skill affects channeling Chrono energy.

There are two types for these skills, wild and educated. The first type, wild, costs less but has a risk of energy surges from channeled spells. The second type, educated, costs more, but there are no chances to cause energy surges. If starting out with a wild channeling skill, you can pay the difference between the two types in order to upgrade the skill to an educated channeling skill. Regardless, which type of channeling skill you have, learning the skill gives you the ability to recognize the color of the connected energy.

Using an untrained channeling skill increases the cost by two and has a chance for energy surges and over channeling.

These skills in this section determine your proficiency with each energy type. Your magic attack accuracy and spell difficulty depend on your skill totals for each energy type. See spell difficulty in the spells section of the energetics chapter.

Combat Skills

These skills all focus on different aspects of combat that are not connected to energetics. Each skill in this section reflects your character’s different fighting and defensive styles. Such as single-handed, two-handed, archery, throwing, tech melee and ranged weapons, light or heavy armor, dodge, and even explosives.

Being an expertise in these skills shows that you have had training in the techniques related to their focused areas.

These skills are broken up into two categories: offensive and defensive. Offensive skills are used to attack during combat. Their total is used as your accuracy when determining if your attack is successful. Defensive skills are also used in combat but are mainly used to protect you from attacks. Except for the shield skill, the skills total are used as your protection when determining if you can avoid an attack against you. See combat in the game rules chapter for more information.

Defensive Combat Skills

Dodge

Dodge represents your ability to be dexterous enough to avoid damage while not wearing any protection. When this skill becomes an expertise skill, it replaces the unarmored skill. It also changes the dice rolled for defense to 2d6. While this skill offers a higher chance of evading attacks at novice tier, it unlocks the ability of Critical Defense. See the Skill Tier: Critical Defense in this chapter for more information.

The Dodge skill cannot be used while wearing armor. This skill’s total is added to the 2d6 when defensive rolls are made using this skill.

Heavy Armor

Metal armor is heavy, bulky, and can be cumbersome, which is why training in this skill is important when donning it. This skill represents your training with heavy armors and its skill total is added to the armor’s protection dice when making a defensive roll. See defense in the game rules chapter and armor in the marketplace for more information.

While being a novice in heavy armor doesn’t provide any bonus, the Adept and Master tiers both give additional damage reduction. See Skill Tier: Damage Reduction in this chapter for more information.

Light Armor

Although light armors are lighter and less restrictive than heavy armor, it is still important to train in order to don them properly. This skill represents that training when wearing light armor. Its skill total is added to the armor’s protection dice when making a defensive roll. See defense in the game rules chapter and armor in the marketplace for more information.

While being a novice in light armor doesn’t provide any bonus, the Adept and Master tiers both give additional damage reduction. See Skill Tier: Damage Reduction in this chapter for more information.

Shield

This skill represents your ability to wield different shields. This skill must be an expertise in order to not suffer penalties for wielding shields when you are untrained.

The shield skill is only used in rolls if using them to make an attack. However, if dual wielding shields, the shield in your off-hand uses the off-hand skill for attacks. Otherwise, the skill is used to show your training and expertise with shields.

Unarmored

This skill is a universal expertise skill that all creatures have for their base defense. If a creature does not have expertise in Dodge, Heavy Armor, or Light Armor skills, this skill is used for their defense. For creatures that normally wear armor, if they cannot don armor, for whatever reason, this skill is used in place of their armor skill.

Offensive Combat Skills

Archery

This skill represents your ability to wield ranged weapons that use arrows or bolts as projectiles. The weapons associated with this skill are bows, crossbows, and other weapons of similar design; this includes the tech bows. When making an attack with archery weapons, this skill’s total is added to the attack as your accuracy.

Gun

The gun skill represents your ability to wield advanced ranged weaponry. Regardless of the number of hands, the Gun uses this skills total as your accuracy. This skill is used if wielding a gun in your off-hand, instead of the Off-Hand skill. However, the Ambidextrous mastery is required to dual wield short arms without penalties.

Martial Arts

The ability to use your body to make attacks against an opponent is based on this skill.

The martial arts skill is unique in a few ways. First, if using the martial arts skill untrained, it is based on your fighting statistic. However, upgrading this skill to expertise, you choose either your agility or fighting statistic as its base. Once this choice is made, it is final. Second, see the @skill for more unique aspects of this skill.

Martial Arts skill is used for unarmed attacks regardless of if it is an untrained or expertise skill. It also does not require the extra attack unlocked skill tier to make additional attacks once you have unlocked extra actions.

Off-Hand

Off-Hand represents your ability to fight using your less dominant hand and can only be used when dual wielding single-handed weapons. When attacking with your off-hand, this skill’s total is added to the attack as your accuracy.

If your character can use their feet (or paws) as hands, they have one main dominant limb, and the others are considered off hand limbs.

One-Handed

One-handed represents your ability to wield a single-handed weapon in your dominant hand. When attacking with your main hand, this skill’s total is added to the attack as your accuracy.

Throwing

This skill represents your ability to wield throwing weapons. Any time you attempt to throw an object (i.e. throwing weapons and explosives) this skill is used. When making an attack by throwing an item at a target, this skill’s total is added to the attack as your accuracy.

Two-Handed

Two-handed represents your ability to wield two-handed melee weapons. This skill is used to attack with a two-handed weapon using both hands. Attacking with this skill, the skills total are added to the attack as your accuracy.

Instinctual Skills (Instincts)

Instincts are natural skills in four areas: mind, strength, agility, and endurance. There are four different instinctual skills: Guts, Psyche, Reaction, and Stamina. While Instincts are classified as skills, they are their own unique type. They do not function in the same way as other skills in that they are typically used when your character is targeted and needs to resist an effect. Instincts are expertise skills and improve similarly.

Instincts are Automatically Expertise Skills

Just like skills, each instinct is associated with a statistic. As those statistics increase, so does the instinct. However, as instincts are more unique compared to other skills, they require more talents when training them. This is balanced with being able to increase a single instinct by one each time your character levels.

Level Up = +1 to One Instinctual Skill

A major difference between instinctual skills and all other skills is that are not affected by skill tiers. Regardless of how high your instinct becomes, there are no tier bonuses provided. They are mainly used to oppose an effect or situation that is against your character. For example, making a stamina check to avoid being poisoned. Or, a guts check when someone is trying to grapple you (or you are trying to grapple them).

Guts

This is your instinct connected to strength and might. It shows how much physical force you can withstand or apply.

Psyche

This is your instinct connected to will power. It measures your resistance to mind-altering effects and staying sane in baffling situations.

Reaction

This is your instinct connected to your reflexes and agility. It represents your ability to physically move out of the way of danger. It is used to move outside the area of effects and is used when determining your initiative during combat.

Stamina

This is your instinct connected to your constitution and vitality. It represents your ability to resist poisons, diseases, and when challenged to chug your tankard of ale, not puking.