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 Basic Skills and a few skills have a smaller more specific branch called Specific Skills. The maximum number of ranks in each category is equal to the relevant attribute corresponding to the skill. 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 a Basic Skill, such as Athletics or Awareness. However, special abilities or traits can modify these. The bonus given by a Basic Skill is always added to skills under it. The corresponding attribute is also added to the Basic skill.

You can put ranks into a General Skill as long as there is no possible Specific Skills that branches off of it. As with Basic Skills special abilities or traits can still modify them and a General Skill adds its bonus in addition to the Basic Skill bonus to Specific Skills.

Specific Skills are the most specialized variety and can always be put into ranks. Skill ranks can be put on any viable skill under the Skill Tree or Weapon Skill Tree.

Gaining Skills:

At level 1 at character starts with 20+(Int*6) in Skill Points. Each level after the first the character gains 20+(character level*5) skill points. Whenever a character would upgrade their INT, they gain (character level*3) in Skill points for each point of INT gained.

Skills in Practice:

When making a 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.

Some skills have penalties for attempting the skill untrained. These maluses apply when a check is made with no ranks in the specific skill. If at least one point is in the skill, the malus is nullified. These skills that have untrained penalties are denoted in the skill tree by a ‘ , “ , ^, or *.

‘ = -25
“ = = -50
^ = -75
* = -100

Circumstances surrounding a skill check can alter the difficulty of a check. When determining the difficulty of a skill check, the Game Master can declare the challenge is easier or harder than normal. The following modifiers are then applied to the difficulty.

Very Easy = +50
Easy = +25
Hard = -25
Very Hard = -50
Impossible = -100

Exceptions:

Resistance skills are a unique skill where you must have a racial, cultural, class bonus or another 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 25 to be 48. Jak rolls and his result is a 35 so he succeeds.