Skills and Skill Use

Whenever a character tries to do something that is out of the realm of routine actions, they will need to rely upon skills. Skills are those abilities which are learned, unlike inherent attributes. The skills listed below are only an initial suggestion. You are free to add any new skills that you wish.

Every skill is assigned a number. This number is the level of proficiency that the character has in a particular skill. The higher the skill level, the better the character is. More information on skill rolls is given below.

You will need to choose skills for your new character. In order to do that, you must determine how many initial skill points the character has to spend on skills. Each character starts with 20 skill points. Each skill costs one point per level, except for magical skills which cost 2 points per level. No new characters can have a beginning skill over level 5. As characters become more experienced their skills will improve. As a general rule, skills have no upper limitation. Characters can advance infinitely in their skills, but it will take a lot of time and even more training, studying, and experience.

Alchemy: This skill encompasses the ability to mix potions, elixirs, and balms. This is the science of magic and also deals with the production of fetishes and spell components.

Animal Handling: With this skill the character can train and command non-magical animals.

Archery: This is the ability to use either bows or crossbows, though they are separate skills.

Armorsmith: The building and repairing of body armor is covered by this skill. The character must choose an armorsmith form: metallic, fabrics or organics.

Athletics: This is a general skill for typical athletic maneuvers such as jumping, tumbling, and throwing.

Bardic: This is the skill of telling tales and the passing of legends down through the ages via the spoken word or by song.

Brawling: This is an unarmed fighting type that doesn't rely upon a single style or fighting technique. It is street fighting at its worst.

Composition: Much like the perform skill, this requires the character to choose an art form, song writing, musical composition, or writing books.

Disguise: Changing one's appearance by non-magical means is only part of this skill. The other is being able to play the part so that the actions match the looks.

Dodge: This skill is representative of one's ability to get out of harm's way and escape physical damage from attacks.

Endurance: When you need to keep going even though your body is physically exhausted, endurance will give you that extra lift to go the extra mile.

Etiquette: This skill determines how favorably one can perform in front of others by relying upon knowledge of what is socially acceptable according to the current environment. The character must choose a specific category of etiquette based upon what they desire, be it street smarts, interacting with royalty, or racial customs.

Expertise: This is the broadest skill available. The character must choose a field to have expertise in. This can be anything, history, physics, or literature. It is this skill that would be used to acquire extra fluency levels for languages.

Fast Talk: Fast talking is the ability to talk one's way out of trouble. Unlike persuasion it isn't just getting someone to come to your way of thinking, it is thinking on the fly and most importantly, being able to lie convincingly.

First Aid: This is the ability to deliver immediate care for minor injuries. By using first aid immediately after an injury occurs, the recipient gains back 1 body point.

Forgery: Falsifying documents and identification fall under the jurisdiction of this skill.

Gambling: Knowing how different games work and how and when to place bets is the forte of this skill.

Hide/Evade: Avoiding detection and lying low is the function of this skill. It also has to deal with covering your tracks so you can't be followed by a tracker.

Hunt: Hunting, the basic knowledge of tracking animals and knowing where to find what type of game and when the best time to them is.

Intimidate: This skills allows you to force others into doing what you want by a show of strength. A mean look may be enough for some people, while others may need more encouragement.

Interrogation: This is the ability to extract information from unwilling subjects, knowing what to do and when to do it.

Leadership: This represents how good a leader you are and whether or not others will follow you or take orders. This skill works really well when trying to sway large groups into following you.

Melee: This skill covers the ability to use weapons such as swords, maces, knives and the like. One must choose a weapon group, such as swords, axes, or clubs.

Organitechnology: This skill bestows the ability to repair, design, diagnose organiware. This skill is also needed along with first aid to implant organiware.

Perform: This is another broad skill where the character must choose a form. This form can be singing, dancing, or a musical style.

Persuasion: This is the ability to sway someone to your way of thinking. This is a very helpful skill when one needs to talk their way out of a sticky situation.

Pharmaceuticals: This skill allows the character to create and reproduce medicines and narcotics. It can also be used to make poisons and other toxins.

Piloting: Like driving, this is a broad skill type. The character must choose a specific vehicle type to possess a piloting skill for: water ships, airborne vehicles, or mistbarges.

Projectiles: With this skill the character understands how to use and care for projectile weapons, not including bows. One must choose between slug, bolt, or incendiary type projectiles.

Seduction: This is the ability to exert your will over someone else by the use of physical beauty or flattery. This skill has limitations based upon race and sex.

Stealth: Moving silently and stalking the shadows are covered by this skill, as well as blending in with the crowd.

Strength Feat: When you need to push your body past its muscular limitations you can use this skill. You can lift more weight and punch harder.

Survival: The character must choose a specific environment type for survival, be it mountains, arctic, sea, or any other major land type. Then this skill will provide the ability to find and make shelter, locate food and water.

Swimming: This skill represents more than just the ability to keep your head above water. The higher the skill level, the better and faster you can swim.

Tactics: This skill involves the knowledge of battle and a sense for combat. Knowing how to plan an attack or defense and how to sot enemy weaknesses.

Tech Lore: This skill incorporates the knowledge of old tech and how to operate and repair such items.

Thievery: These are the core skills of any rogue, allowing them to pick pockets, open locks, and disarm non-electrical traps and alarms.

Tracking: This skill represents the ability to follow someone by the signs they leave behind. An experienced tracker can determine number of people, size, and other vital bits of information.

Weaponsmith: This is the skill of repairing and designing weapons. The character must choose a weapon type such as melee weapons or projectiles.

Magical skills are different from other skills. It costs double the number of points to purchase a level in all magical skills.

Control: This magical skill gives the wielder the ability to control objects, animals and even people.

Creation: This magical skill covers the creation of objects from “thin air”. The character conjures an image of something in their mind and then proceeds to form the object. The more complex the object, the more difficult the spell.

Divine Magic: This magical form relies upon the character's faith in a deity. Divine Magic cover healing and commune type magic.

Druidic Magic: The power to harness and control the forces of nature fall under the realm of Druidic Magic.

Elemental: This is the magic of the powers of the elements. One must choose one of the four basic elements, water, earth, fire or air.

Enchantment: This is the skill to magically enhance or enchant something material.

Mistrunning: This is the ability to move about within the Mists, and the skill to manipulate and bend the Mists to the character's will.

Necromancy: These are the black arts, magic of the dead. This art form is not very well accepted in most areas and is considered vile and corrupt.

Runes: Runes are ancient inscriptions which hold great power. This is a rather secretive art, and those who possess it don't like others to know about it.

Every skill that a character possesses can be improved over time through training or experience. At the end of every gaming session the GM should assign experience points to skills that characters used. The average should only be one or two points, if the character used the skill really well, three, or in rare occasions even four, points can be awarded. In order for a skill to improve to the next level one needs experience equal to double the new level. So in order to go from level 4 to level 5 costs 10 experience points. Once again, magical skills costs double the normal rate.

Training can also help to improve skill levels. In order to train one must find a teacher of at least two levels higher than their own current level. For every two weeks of training under a teacher one experience point is gained. This is a slow process, but it helps to advance your character during down times or to improve those skills that your character does not use often enough to improve naturally.

One can also acquire skills they don't currently possess. By using an unknown skill the character begins to learn it. Just like a learned skill, an unknown skill gains experience points as you use it. However to reach level one in a skill requires five experience points.

Mistrunner uses ten-sided dice, known as d10s. When making a skill roll, your skill level is the number of dice that are rolled. The highest number rolled is taken, and modified by the appropriate attribute. If a 10 is rolled, the dice is rolled again and added. If a 10 is rolled the second time, it is rolled again, and so on. If additional 10s are rolled originally, they each add 1 to the final result. Then, compare this result with to a target number based upon the difficulty of the task at hand. Whenever the total meets or exceeds the target number, the skill was used successfully.

For example, Morris the Charek is attempting to pick a lock. He has a Thievery skill of 4, and a Coordination of +2. The player rolls four d10s, and gets a 2, 6, 3, and 7. His result is the high roll (7), adjusted by his Coordination (+2), for a result of 9, good enough to spring an average lock. Later, Morris attempts to pick an Arbitrator's pocket. He rolls a 7, 3, 10, and 10. He re-rolls one dice, and gets a 9. His final result is 10 + 9 + 1 + 2 = 22. The Arbitrator doesn't notice a thing.

Note that the attribute used is determined by the GM and how the skill is being used. Using a long bow to shoot someone would rely upon your coordination skill, while fixing a bow would need knowledge.

A simple skill use without any modifiers would require a target number of 6. The higher above the target number the character gets, the better they performed. Generally anything with a target number below five should be allowed automatically as the action is obviously very simple.

When trying to use a skill that your character does not possess you roll 2d10 and take the lower of the two dice and add your corresponding attribute. So rolls of 9 and 3, you would take the 3 instead of the 9.

Whenever all the dice show up ones it is a fumble. With an unknown skill only a single one is needed for a fumble. The results of a fumble are up to the GM. It depends on what the character was trying to do and any other circumstances that may result due to the fumble.

Below is a list of sample target numbers and their difficulty.

A resisted skill is when two people are attempting to do the same thing to each other, such as intimidation, or to counter another skill. When resisted skill rolls are required, there is no target number. Instead, the person with the highest skill roll achieves the success. This type of roll is also used to counter the effects of magic that falls under the same skill category as that of the character. A character with elemental magic can resist other elemental magic more easily than those without that skill.

In order to resist a skill that one does not possess is similar to using an unknown skill. Roll 2d10 and take the lowest number as the result plus the corresponding attribute. Obviously, one who knows how to wrestle would be better at it than someone with no skill at all.