Skills

Skills are a type of proficiency mechanic available for all player characters to invest Skill Points into in order to use various actions and commands in an adventure. Skills range from effectiveness of equipment such as weapons, armour and tools. They are also important for allowing characters to overcome obstacles such as terrain, barriers, or to influence other non-playable characters. Other skills deal with the Metaforce, allowing characters to use fantastic abilities such as magic, psionics or Ki. Compared to other game systems that operate with a class structure, Viridian uses skills as a replacement to classes, enabling characters to mix and match their abilities and proficiencies.

Skills are considered as important as Attributes and Perks combined since they can provide bonuses and extra abilities at the same time. Also, Skill points are acquired every level whereas perks and attributes do not.

List of Skills

Use the above link to view a list of skill groups and skills. The Glossary below will explain the terms used relating to Skills in general.

Skill Mechanics & Glossary

Skill Points: Invest to increase Skills

Skill points are used to invest in Skills to gain Skill Ranks and improve skill bonuses, if applicable.

A character gains 15 skill points every level, including 1st level during character creation.

Skill Bonus: A Bonus given for having a high Skill-Rating

If a character has 21 or more skill points in a skill, the character may receive a certain kind of Skill Bonus which can enhance aspects of a character's commands and abilities. The benefits of a Skill-bonus is relative between the character's current skill rating compared to a skill rating of 100. A character who is able to get a skill rating higher than 100 due to bonuses can gain a higher skill bonus than skill points alone.

Read the description of a Skill in order to find out what Bonus it grants, if anything.

Skill-Focus: A head-start into mastering skills

Plural: Skill-Focuses; is a special bonus that is applied to Skills that gives a character a head-start in terms of skill point investment. As the first skill rank starts at 20 and skill bonuses apply at skill-rating 21 and beyond, a Skill-Focus is designed to give a character 20 skill points to affected skills immediately.

That apply to Skill GROUPS
♦ If the Racial Trait for a character race grants Skill-Focuses.
♦ If the Archetype trait for a character race grants Skill-Focuses.
♦ The one free Skill-Focus granted at character creation (player decides).

That apply to SINGLE skills
♦ Skill-Focus granted by Intelligence score above 0 and each time it increases (due to levelling up).

Skill-Focus Definition
♦ Grants a base +20 bonus to affected Skills. This grants Novice Rank and the Novice rank skill perk to the character.
♦ Base bonus increases by another +5 for each Intelligence point above 0.
♦ Skill-Focuses are still affected by the Skill Point Cap, the player cannot invest points if the Skill is capped.

Skill Rating: The total, effective skill effectiveness

Skill Rating is the effective total of all factors including invested skill points, Skill-Focus and bonuses from other sources.

♦ A skill with a Focus (20) plus 15 invested points (15) and a +10 bonus from another source will mean the skill has a rating of 45.
♦ A skill used in the context of a skill check or a command will be treated as 45, however for the purposes of unlocking skill ranks, it is only considered to be 35.

Skill Ranks: Skill milestones that grant perks

Skill Ranks refer to the milestones that all Skills possess, the initial number of ranks goes up to 5. Some mechanics uses Skill Ranks as a gate or as a way to scale up or down bonuses and penalties.

The first five ranks are Novice (20), Competent (40), Adept (60), Expert (80) and Master (100). The number in parentheses references the number of skill points required to acquire that rank.

A character is always rewarded with a Skill Perk upon reaching a new rank, how the reward is given depends on the skill and rank obtained.

(In the case that there is not enough Skill Perks available on the Wiki, the player may ask to use a third-party 'Feat' in place of a skill perk, as long as it relates to the skill in question.)

Skill Perks: Bonuses and additional options granted by Skill Ranks

Depending on the skill, a character will gain a Skill Perk each time they reach a new rank by investing Skill points or by gaining a Skill-Focus. Most ranks will allow the player to choose what Skill perk to apply, but sometimes a skill rank will be fixed and other times skill perks have prerequisites before they can be selected.

When a Skill reaches Master (100), the character can use Perk Points in order to obtain any missing skill perks they can't obtain due to maxing out their skill ranks.

Skill Group: Multiple skills with a similar theme

Skills are usually categorized into Skill Groups, especially when the skills are closely related to each other by theme or that they're similar enough that a character could have transferable skills to the other. Skill-Focuses usually enhance a number of skills at once as they target Skill Groups instead of just individual skills.

Racial Traits, Archetypes and the free Skill-Focus at creation are designed to help characters establish necessary skills quickly to do their job.

Skill-Point Cap: To stop characters from one-tricking a single skill to 100 before 4th level.

To prevent characters from mastering skills too quickly for their level, there is a maximum Skill-Point Cap determined by the character's level. At regular intervals, the skill cap will be increased to allow them to access higher ranks. By default, all characters can reach Competent (40) rank at Lv1 and unlock Master (100) rank at Lv12.

Max Skill Cap Chart
♦ 1st level: Competent (40)
♦ 4th level: Adept (60)
♦ 8th level: Expert (80)
♦ 12th level: Master (100)

(Due to the way skill points are granted, a character may not actually achieve Master (100) rank until they reach Lv14, as they only unlock the ability to surpass Expert (80) by Lv12.)