Skills Guide
Athletics
"Adventuring is tiring work. Traveling, fighting, and scrambling up fallen statues can take its toll. The Athletics skill counters the effects of accrued Fatigue, allowing characters to go farther and fight longer before they suffer penalties. In conversations and scripted interactions, Athletics is used for physical feats like climbing, swimming, and jumping."
Endurance and fatigue can play a role both in and out of battle, and the athletics skill helps combat the effects of those elements. It also allows characters to use certain athletic skills in conversation if the situation allows for it.
Ideal Classes
- Barbarians
- Fighters
- Monks
- Paladins
- Priests
Lore
"Lore represents a character's accumulated miscellaneous knowledge and trivia, often of occult or esoteric topics. In combat, it helps characters learn about enemy defenses and capabilities. Each time a character attacks an enemy, their Lore skill helps contribute to revealing their defenses and, for common enemies, filling in their Bestiary entries."
A character with high lore is like a scout of sorts. They use their knowledge of the battlefield to learn about enemy defenses, which can help the entire party.
Ideal Classes
- Chanters
- Ciphers
- Druids
- Fighters
- Paladins
- Priests
- Wizards
Mechanics
"Traps and locks can be a problem for even the toughest adventurers, draining their resources and maiming or killing those who are unfortunate enough to trigger an unseen floor plate. The Mechanics skill makes it easier to open locks and find and disable traps. Additionally, any character can use the Mechanics skill to place traps of their own. The higher the Mechanics skill, the more accurate the trap. In conversations and scripted interactions, Mechanics can be used to activate or disable a variety of machines."
Traps can be very useful in the game, and a character with a high mechanics skill both uses and detects traps better than anyone else. Mechanics also helps with opening locks, so doors are of little worry when the party has a character well-versed in mechanics.
Ideal Classes
- Chanters
- Ciphers
- Rogues
- Wizards
Stealth
"Stealth allows characters of any class to attempt to avoid being seen or heard. It is used automatically whenever the character is in Scouting mode. The higher the character's skill, the closer they can get to enemies before being detected."
As the name implies, stealth allows characters to move around undetected. This can be useful for battles if you want to move your stealthiest characters in first for a sneak attack and potentially extra damage. Stealth can also be used to avoid combat encounters completely.
Ideal Classes
- Ciphers
- Monks
- Rangers
- Rogues
Survival
"Survival allows characters to make better use of the food and potion items they find. The higher the character's Survival skill, the longer the duration of such items. Survival can also be used in conversations and scripted interactions that involve wilderness challenges or specialization information."
Food items and potions are more effective when a character's survival skill is higher. The duration of the effect in particular increases by 5%. In addition, some conversations will allow characters to select special choices if their survival skill is high enough.
Ideal Classes
- Barbarians
- Druids
- Fighters
- Monks
- Rangers