Skills

Skills represent one’s training in various non-combat arts. These are commonly things like education in certain fields of study, experience in certain skill sets (like performing, living in the wilds, etc), or athletic skill at something. Some of these have some combat applications but largely they are for overcoming challenges that require more finesse, intelligence, and lateral thinking than simply “sword goes into the other guy until they stop swinging back”.

Skills are how you overcome challenges in the game that don’t directly involve combat. They represent how skilled and experienced you are in certain areas of study or training. In this system, some skills have overlapping benefits (For example: you can identify a magic sword with a Profession (Blacksmith), Arcane Lore, Merchant Lore, or even a Military Lore check).

Each skill has 1 or more associated ability modifiers and you add the most applicable one to your proficiency roll with the skill. For example: Animal Husbandry you can use Dexterity or Wisdom. When training an animal you’d use your Wisdom but when riding a horse you’d use your Dexterity. If it is not specifically called out in a particular use of the skill, the GM should make a call, with your input.

A GM should only call for skill checks when:

• Success or failure matters to the story.
• It is not a task one could do with ease (typically a DC Easy (10) or less).

Someone who is a skilled carpenter doesn’t need to make a check when crafting a chair unless how good it turns out is relevant to the story.

When a skill check is based on a particular ability score, it will be mentioned after the skill name in parentheses. For example, when making an Athletics check to keep running over a long distance, a GM could call for an Athletics (Con) check.

You will find that some situations allow for multiple skills to apply; if you find yourself in this situation, use the skill you have the highest bonus in. For example: both Athletics and Aquatic allow a character to swim. If you are better at Aquatic than Athletics, use Aquatic! This is an intentional design choice: certain skills are intended to overlap, this allows for more robust characters and solutions to come from multiple areas of expertise!