Skills

Skills can be used outside of combat for a variety of purposes and they grant auxiliary combat bonuses. The five skills are Stealth, Athletics, Lore, Mechanics and Survival. Every class gains initial proficiency bonus in two skills, but not limited to them. Non-combat skills are gained separately from combat skills(Abilities, Talents) and they do not use the same resources.

Description

Skill affect character stats, interaction with items and new dialogue options, and can be used to avoided fighting. There will often be ways to avoid fighting. Examples: standard methods of talking your way out of a fight or sneaking around an encounter, but there will be other ways too. Perhaps you can re-sanctify a desecrated cemetery to prevent any further undead from rising, or maybe figuring out a way across a ruined bridge will always avoid the bandits on this side of the river.

During any situation where a skill is checked against a challenge’s level of difficulty, the party member with the highest relevant skill is represented as the starting benchmark. If their skill outweighs the difficulty score, the player’s efforts succeed.

Some items are used in different scenarios to alter how skill checks occur. These items are categorized as ingredients and helpers. Ingredients are used for recipes, and are typically consumed in the process. Helpers come into play during scripted interactions, where the presence of an item during a scenario (e.g. having rope at a ledge) can shift the trajectory of the narrative.

Skill list

Skill	Description	Bonus per Point
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.
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.	+10% Max Fatigue -40% Combat Fatigue Gain (1 point) -80% Combat Fatigue Gain (2 point) -90% Combat Fatigue Gain (3 point)
Lore	Lore represents a character's accumulated miscellaneous knowledge and trivia, often of occult or esoteric topics. Outside of conversations and scripted interactions, Lore is used to activate scrolls. Higher Lore values allow the character to use higher level scrolls.	Use Level 1 Scrolls (1-3 points) Use Level 2 Scrolls (4-5 points) Use Level 3 Scrolls (6-? points)
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.	Disarm Difficulty 1 Traps Pick Difficulty 1 Lock +3 Trap Accuracy
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.	+5% Consumable Duration

Skill Advancement

At first level, characters only have their class and background inherent bonuses to skills. Each class confers bonuses in two or three skills. These bonuses are constant and always considered when measuring the character's total skill value, but are not counted when they advance their skill.

The advancement of skills is weighted, increasing skill by one level at the beginning costs one point and with each level is priced one point more. So increasing only one skill is not particularly efficient, though it will give you the highest score possible. If you divide your points between many skills, you won't be dramatically behind the specialist. But you'll be less likely to pass any threshold checks, but you also have higher skill scores on average and so more combat bonuses.

Class bonuses

Skill bonus\Class	Barbarian	Chanter	Cipher	Druid	Fighter	Monk	Paladin	Priest	Ranger	Rogue	Wizard
Stealth
Athletics
Lore
Mechanics
Survival

Background bonuses

TBD