Besides, statistics skills are the backbone of your character. They help to determine your accuracy in combat, the difficulty of a spell, talking your way out of a situation, and even your ability to run, jump, and climb. Each skill is associated with one statistic, which helps determine the base of the skill. However, there are three types of skills: expertise, untrained, and wild (see wild energy in the energetics chapter for more information about wild skills).
The major difference between untrained and expertise skills is that untrained skills have half their associated statistic minus one as their skill total. Expertise skills also have half their associated statistic but they get plus one to their skill total. You can increase expertise skills by purchasing skill points with talents and from free talents when leveling.
Untrained Skills
Untrained skills are areas that your character has little to no knowledge in. Almost all skills start as untrained (Instinctual skills and unarmored being the exceptions). During character creation, you gain a set number of skills you can make expertise. Untrained skills require experience points to be expertise.. Untrained skills cannot have skill points but can gain bonuses (or negatives) from miscellaneous aspects (masteries, traits, mutations, etc.).
Expertise Skills
The other type of skill is expertise skill. These skills are untrained skilled that you have upgraded to become expertise skills. Expertise skills are areas in which your character has practiced, studied, and trained.
Regardless as to if your skill is untrained or expertise, there are different categories of which skills fall under. The different categories are Basic Skills, Channeling Skills, Combat Skills, and Instinctual Skills. Each section has its own connection to other aspects of the game.
You can select four basic skills and one channeling or combat skill to upgrade to expertise skills automatically for free during character creation. If selecting a channeling skill, it is up to you if it is wild or expertise.
Instinctual Skills (Instincts)
Instinctual skills or commonly referred to as instincts, represent your ability to overcome specific threats. There are four instincts: Guts, Psyche, Reaction, and Stamina. Each one represents a different area of your character’s abilities to resist or react. They are all associated with a statistic such as Guts uses Might, Psyche uses Mental, Reaction uses Agility, and Stamina uses Vitality. Instincts equal half the associated statistics plus one. You can increase them as you level and through spending experience points on them. See the instinctual skills section in the skills chapter for more information.
See the skills chapter for more information and specific details as to the differences between instincts and other skills.
Selecting Skills
A major part of your character is their skills and how trained they are in each one, but being trained in a skill is not the first step. When selecting your seven expertise skills, you must determine which statistic each of them is associated with. Some of them only have one statistic, while others have more options. However, you can only connect one statistic to a skill when selecting the associated statistic, so choose wisely. For instance, you can associate intimidate with either agility, might, persona, or fighting. What this means is that you select one of those statistics to be associated with your intimidate. In this example, we will say you are a character who is focusing on might, which means you use your strength to intimidate others. So, your intimidate skill would be associated with your might statistic. This is done with all basic skills except for skills that only have one connected statistic. Those are automatically associated with each other (I.e. harvest is associated with only crafting). Any skills not selected as expertise automatically are associated to a statistic (see the table below).
Basic skills are the only skills that you associate with statistics. This association does not include combat, channeling, or instinct skills.
Choose seven skills (including combat and channeling) to be expertise. Unarmored is automatically expertise. Of the seven, up to three can be combat or channeling skills and the rest have to be basic skills.
Unarmored, up to 3 combat/channeling, and 4-7 basic skills = 8 expertise skills
Once all skills are associated with their statistics and you have selected which are expertise, you cannot change them later. All untrained skill's associated statistic is indicated in the Untrained Statistic column.
A Note About Skills
Your expertise combat skills show your ability to wield a specific style of weapon, specifically when reaching the different skill tiers and unlocking new abilities. However, that is not everything that is needed, which is where specific masteries come into play. Any weapon that is not listed as a common weapon in the marketplace chapter (refer to the weapons table) has a required mastery in order to not suffer penalties (-2 on rolls related to the weapon).
The weapon masteries are: Archery Weapons, Kobudo Weapons, Martial Weapons, Melee Tech Weapons, Ranged Tech Weapons, and Throwing Weapons, which are in the Combat Masteries. Keep in mind that all technology-based weapons are automatically not common weapons.
Unlike the weapons, armor does not have masteries and only relies on skill and statistic requirements. There are no common types of armor and the respected armor skills and requirements need to be met to not suffer penalties while wearing them.
Just like combat skills, some basic skills require masteries and tools to use the skill to its full potential. For example, lock picking uses the automation skill but requires the locksmith tools mastery to gain the pick locks bonus. The skill represents your ability to manipulate mechanical devices. The locking picking tools let you manipulate the device with the bonus a lock pick gives.
In the same way, this also applies to musical instruments. Having the musician mastery lets you add your acting skill total to acting checks when performing with a musical instrument. This represents your practice and training with that specific instrument.
Step Summary
Refer to Chapter 5: SkillsUntrained Skills
Untrained skill totals = half the associated statistic – 1
Expertise Skills
Expertise skill totals = half the associated statistic + 1 + skill points
Starting Expertise Skills
Basic skills = min 5, max 8
Channeling or combat skill = min 0, max 3
Unarmored is automatically expertise.
Instincts are automatically expertise.
Total = 8 (not including instincts)
Instinctual Skills
Guts total = Might / 2 + 1 + skill points
Psyche total = Mental / 2 + 1 + skill points
Reaction total = Agility / 2 + 1 + skill points
Stamina total = Vitality / 2 + 1 + skill points
Character Sheet Reference
