Skills

Skills are a measure of the training and experience in a variety of tasks, social, mental, and physical.

At Character Creation, each character beings with 20 points to spend among the skills. Most races have an additional skill benefit in either points or granted skills.

Untrained Penalties

Utilizing a skill which a character is unfamiliar with (untrained) will incur penalties:

Base Stat of Skill	Penalty
Charisma/Willpower	0
Strength	-1
Dexterity	-1
Intelligence	-2

Core Skills

There are several Core Skills, which most characters will have at least some proficiency in, often starting play with 3 or more ranks in each:

• One Weapon Skill (Unarmed, Melee, Thrown, or Ranged). Assuming your character uses some sort of weapon, you will want a weapon skill
• One Source skill (Magecraft, Sorcerery, Shamanism, Channelling). While Adepts don't have a key core skill, they often have abilities which use a non-core skills.
• Perception. Perception is one of the most called for skills in-game.

Other non-Core skills should be selected by what is appropriate to your character's background and training.

After Character Creation, raising skills cost 3 SXP times the rank you want to raise the skill to.

Skill Name	Required Statistic	Description
Unarmed Combat	Strength, Dexterity	Martial arts, natural weapons, brawling, boxing, touch attacks.
Melee Weapons	Strength	Melee weapons. Longswords, warhammers, and spears.
Thrown Weapons	Strength	Throwing weapons. Bolas, throwing stars, throwing daggers, throwing axes, javelins.
Ranged Weapons	Dexterity	Ranged projectile weapons. Bows, crossbows, magitech weapons.
Exotic Weapons	Strength, Dexterity	Exotic weapons. Spiked chains, clawed gauntlets, elven longblades.
Channeling	Intelligence	Channeling Source casting ability
Magecraft	Intelligence	Magecraft Source casting ability.
Shamanism	Intelligence, Willpower	Shamanism Source casting ability.
Sorcery	Willpower	Sorcery Source casting ability.
Perception	Intelligence	Detect or sense a change in your environment.

Non-Core Skills

Skill Name	Required Statistic	Description
Acrobatics	Dexterity	Tricky or flashy movement, balance checks, jumps.
Athletics	Strength	Scaling vertical objects or surfaces. Trees, cliffs, walls, ropes.
Business	Intelligence, Charisma	Haggling, trading, ledgers, bills, economics.
Craft	Intelligence	Creating, manufacturing, brewing, assembling in a particular field. Must select a subcraft.
Deception	Charisma, Willpower	Lies, trickery, concealing intent or truth.
Diplomacy	Charisma	Negotiation, persuasion.
Disable Device	Dexterity	Disarming traps, working with intricate devices.
Escape Artist	Strength, Dexterity	Freeing yourself from bonds or restraints
Gather Information	Charisma	Information through small talk, eavesdropping, social settings, informants.
Handle Animal	Charisma, Willpower	Body language, words, and touch to prevent animals from panicking.
Intimidate	Charisma, Willpower	Threatening, frightening, bullying.
Knowledge	Intelligence	Book or experience knowledge about a specific topic. Must select a subtopic.
Leadership	Charisma, Willpower	Inspiration, moral boosting, loyalty of subordinates.
Medicine	Intelligence	Binding of wounds, tending of injuries, countering sicknesses.
Perform	Charisma	Dance, musical instrument, singing, oratory, acting. Must select a subtype.
Pick Lock	Dexterity	Opening locks without a key.
Ride	Dexterity	Skill at fighting on a mount or moving quickly on a mount.
Search	Intelligence	Careful methodical inspection of an area, tracking
Sense Motive	Intelligence	Understand emotions and intents through facial expressions and body language.
Sleight of Hand	Dexterity	Subtle tricks with distractions and quick fingers.
Stealth	Dexterity	Moving silently, hiding.
Survival	Intelligence	Direction sense, foraging, weathering hostile environments, understanding nature
Swim	Strength, Dexterity	Swimming in liquid, difficulty and/or speed check.

Additional Uses of Skills

Seafaring

Seafaring - operation and navigation of a water-based vessel such as a ship - requires successful Knowledge: Nautical checks.

Skyfaring

There are a number of ways that the inhabitants of Lorithandar have developed to traverse long distances. Perhaps the most impressive and expensive method of travel is via airship. An airship is most often a mechanical vessel powered by arcane energies from a particular Source (Magecraft, Sorcery, Shamanism). To effectively man and pilot one of these special crafts requires successful Knowlege: Airships skill checks, as well as the presence of a designated Arcane Engineer (who must be able to utilize the same Source as the airship's Arcane Engine) to ensure that the ship moves properly through the sky. For a small enough ship, the Pilot may also serve as the Arcane Engineer, however, larger ships with more than one engine may require multiple operators to fulfill those responsibilities.

The most common airships are those that rely on Magecraft to power them, following the Ley lines across the width and breadth of the world. Transferring between Ley is the purview of the ship's Arcane Engineer. The Engineer must succeed on Knowledge: Magic skill checks to ensure that the ship keeps its course and does not lose power. In some cases, Channelers of the Magic Domain may be able to successfully take on the responsibilities of an Arcane Engineer on a ship powered by Magecraft, though this is at the discretion of the Storyteller.