Skills can be roughly divided into three categories: Magic, Combat, and Misc. Magic skills are schools of magic, like Fire Magic or Necromancy. Combat skills are military disciplines, like Swords or Dodging. Miscellaneous skills are everything that isn't one or the other, like Diplomacy or Carpentry.
Skills provide bonuses to rolls made using them. Additionally, every time you level up a skill, you may select a perk to go with it. Perks are usually situational bonuses related to the skill in question.
Name | Bonus | Experience to Next Level | Total Experience to Attain |
Inexperienced | -1 | 2 | 0 |
Dabbling | +0 | 4 | 2 |
Novice | +1 | 8 | 6 |
Apprentice | +2 | 16 | 14 |
Adept | +3 | 32 | 30 |
Expert | +4 | 64 | 62 |
Master | +5 | 128 | 126 |
Skills increase through use. More specifically, rolling higher numbers gives experience in that action. Not only does experience gain ignore modifiers, it actually adds their inverse directly to experience gained. In other words, attempting an action with a -1 penalty will always grant at least one experience point; a -2 will grant 2, etc.
Roll | Experience | Effect |
6 | +2 | You succeeded better than expected. May have unfortunate side effects. |
5 | +2 | You succeeded perfectly, or at least as perfectly as you could given the circumstances. |
4 | +1 | You succeeded. Note that depending on the action, this might still not be quite what you wanted. |
3 | +1 | You succeeded somewhat. Usually this means less of an effect than you intended, or progress made but not completion. |
2 | +0 | You failed. Depending on the action, this might just mean nothing happened, or it could have negative consequences. |
1 | +0 | You failed miserably, making the situation worse. Good luck. |
Above 6 or below 1 are generally just more severe forms of their respective effects.
A more detailed explanation of skill levels is as such:
Inexperienced means you have little or no technical knowledge of something, meaning you're probably not even sure where to begin. Expect to accomplish laughably crude or simple effects, if you succeed at all.
Dabbling means you understand roughly how something works, but lack technical knowledge in it. Expect to achieve very limited, specific effects.
Novice means you have some experience and deeper understanding of something, but still not enough to be very impressive. Expect to achieve useful but situational or lackluster effects.
Examples: Basic fireball, weak feint, making a simple chestApprentice means you understand the subject well enough to be dangerous, but you've still got a lot to learn. Expect to achieve creative or powerful effects, but probably not both.
Examples: Lighting someone on fire, feinting for a more vicious blow, making a locking chest with a hidden compartment in itAdept means you have a good mastery of the subject, and can achieve powerful and creative effects with it. Expect to be able to do things that leave the unskilled gawking in surprise.
Examples: Roasting someone to an ashy shell, dismembering a target, making a trapped, locked puzzle chest with multiple compartmentsExpert means you're incredibly skilled in a given area, able to accomplish things that probably shouldn't be possible. Expect to laugh maniacally a lot.
Examples: Creating a searing inferno around yourself, grabbing an enemy's weapon midswing and attacking them with it, creating a fiendish trap system to guard a vaultMaster means you're unbelievably skilled in a given area, able to do things that definitely shouldn't be possible. Expect to go mad with power.
Examples: Wiping out most of a village in one shot, making a time lapse between when you attack someone and when they fall apart, creating a puzzle so fiendish it defeats most magical attempts to solve itSkill levels higher than Master are theoretically possible, but even Master is a rare and dangerous feat by itself.