Skills

The Basics:

Skills are obtained in Endeavour through the expenditure of skill points. Any class can take any skill. There are multiple ranks of skills. All skills fall under an overarching category called Innate Skills. Next are General Skills, such as Acrobatics or Climbing, and a few General Skills, such as Ride, have a smaller more specific branch underneath called Specific Skills. In the Skills Tree the skills are denoted with a closed dot, an open dot and a square respectively.

No ranks can be put into an Innate Skill, such as Athletics or Awareness. However, class, culture, race and other miscellaneous sources can modify these skills. The bonus provided by an Innate Skill is always applied to the skills under it. Additionally, the corresponding attribute is factored into the Innate Skill, with many Innate Skills being derived from the average of two attributes.

A character can invest ranks into a General Skill even if it has branching Specific Skills. Like Innate Skills, General Skills can still be modified by abilities or traits. Their bonus is applied alongside the Innate Skill bonus to any related Specific Skills. Specific Skills are the most specialized type and allow the most ranks to be assigned.

The maximum number of skill points that can be assigned to a General Skill is equal to its related attribute. If a skill is associated with two attributes, the maximum rank is determined by the higher attribute. Specific Skills can have skill ranks up to twice the value of their related attribute.

Weapon and Shield skills fall under a different category and use a separate secondary set of skill points that are gained every level. Weapon and Shield skills otherwise follow the same formula with Innate Skills, General Skills and Specific Skills, except any number of ranks may be placed in General and Specific Weapon and Shield skills.

Gaining Skills:

At level 1, a character starts with 40 skill points plus an additional 5 skill points for every point of Intellect above 1. Each level after the first, the character gains 20+(character level*5) skill points. Whenever a character would permanently gain or lose Intellect above 1, they gain (or lose) 5 skill points. Skill points lost this way are always the most recent points that were invested.

For Weapon and Shield skills, a character starts with 27 points at level 1. These points may be distributed among any skill on the weapon skill tree. Each level after the first, the character gains 12 weapon skill points.

Skills in Practice:

In Endeavour, there are two forms of skill checks, there are difficulty class based checks and contested checks. When making a difficulty class based skill check, a character rolls a 1d100 in a percentage based roll where the total level of a skill sets the difficulty of the check. The result of the die roll needs to be less than or equal to the total skill value. A die result of 100 is always considered to be a failure on the check. If the total skill level after modifiers would put the difficulty to below 1, the skill check cannot be succeeded. Weapon skills are an exception to this and always succeed on a natural 1. When making a contested skill check, each character involved rolls a 1d100 plus their total skill value and compares their success level against each other character contesting the check.

In the world of Endeavour, not all skills share the same inherent difficulty. Some can be performed with a reasonable degree of success even without formal training, while others are significantly more challenging or even impossible without specialized knowledge. Each skill has a standard level of rarity that determines how commonly it can be used without prior training. These levels are Common, Uncommon, and Rare.

• Common skills—such as Climbing or Sight—are those that most people have a basic understanding of and can perform with ease. These skills have an inherent +25.


• Uncommon skills—such as Diplomacy or History—are less frequently practiced, though the average person may still have some familiarity with them. These skills have an inherent +5.


• Rare skills—such as Create Poison or Rifles—require specialized knowledge or training, making them inaccessible to those without proper instruction. These skills have an inherent -15.

Circumstances surrounding a skill check can alter the difficulty of a check. When determining the difficulty of a skill check, if the ability doesn't notate a success category, the Game Master can declare the challenge is easier or harder than normal. Refer to the following table for the different success categories:

Check Success Chart

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Formula	Type of Success	Success Level
X * 3	Trivial	1
X * 2	Very Easy	2
X * 1.5	Easy Success	3
X	Normal Success	4
X / 2	Hard Success	5
X / 4	Very Hard Success	6
X / 8	Challenging Success	7
X / 16	Extreme Success	8
X / 32	Absurd Success	9
X / 64	Impossible Success	10

Exceptions:

Resistance skills are a unique skill where you must have a racial, cultural, class bonus or another permanent miscellaneous source bonus in them before you can start putting ranks. Whenever a source would deal damage of the corresponding skill, a character may attempt a resistance check to determine if the damage is resisted. Resisted damage is reduced to zero.

The Mana skill is an exception to other rules. Unlimited ranks can be put into the Mana skill. The Mana skill gives bonus Mana in a 1:1 ratio.

All skill modifiers gained or lost from classes, race, traits or culture are not calculated when determining the amount of ranks that can be put in a skill.

If Jak the Marksman wanted to scale a rocky cliff to get to a more advantageous position. He would first determine what skill is needed to perform the action, which in this case would be Climbing. Climbing is a General Skill with no specific skill under it; he would only use his Climbing ranks plus his ranks in Athletics to calculate the difficulty of the climb. If Jak had a 20 in Athletics and a 3 in Climbing then the overall check would be a 23 to succeed. The GM tells Jak that because the cliff is very rocky that it is an easy check, this alters the difficulty of the check by 1.5x to be 34. Jak rolls and his result is a 29 so he succeeds.

If Jak the Marksman was trying to hide from Valerie the Crusader while she was actively looking for him, it would be a contested check to determine if Valerie spots Jak. After all his modifers, Jak's Hide is a 66. Therefore his spread would be 99, 66, 33, 17, 8, 4, 2, 1. Valerie would be using Sight to try and see Jak and after her modifiers her Sight is a 54. Therefore her spread would be 81, 54, 27, 14, 7, 3, 2, 0. After they roll, Jak gets a 43 and Valerie gets a 21, and because Valerie then has 3 successes compared to Jak's 2 she is able to spot him.