Category: Skills Page 1 of 6

What are Skills?
Skills are the numerical representation of how competent someone is at a particular ability or knowledge set. Skills here are used as a guide to show growth and knowledge for characters. Skills are found within individual Character Sheets and NPC write ups. Skills are primarily utilized for measuring difficulty and success while in a Moderated Thread or in Player vs Player (PvP) situation.

Skills should be played to fairly realistically, however, skills will not be utilized as a way for moderators and reviewers to police and otherwise browbeat writers. The goal of our site is to write stories together, not to create “the best” characters with the highest numbers in various metrics.

How do I track and advance skills?

Tracking the CS
Skills should be tracked within your Character Sheet. Skills here are intended to be quite specific, both to allow for more customization and differentiation between PCs. This is represented in how we organize skill sets. Skills are written as such in your CS.

Skill Group (Sub-type): #/100 Competency
Ex.
Cooking (Barbecue): 55/100 Apprentice

Skill Group – This is the category the skill falls under. Skills within this group should be fairly similar, and may have a moderate amount of crossover with one another.
Sub-type – This is the specific direction of the skill. This is often referred to as a specialization. This is what will often set characters apart in terms of skills.
#/100 – This is the numerical value of the skill, based out of 100 points. Depending on the amount of points the character has, the character will be of differing competencies.
0-24 – Novice – The character is either completely devoid of knowledge of this skill or is barely beginning to learn it. A lot of mistakes are expected and common at this competency.
25-49 – Competent – The character has grasped the basics and should start gaining some confidence in the skill. The majority of normal people in the world will be Competent at the skills they use daily. Mistakes still happen, and the character will often realize that they still have far to go, in spite of their recent growth.
50-74 – Adept – The character has surpassed the majority of people that use the skill. At this state, mistakes typically only happen when focusing on new aspects of the skill. This tier is where the character should have both a confidence in further advancing themselves in the skill, as well as teaching it to others.
75-99 – Expert – The character is among the best in the world at this competency. They should have a strong grasp of nearly every single aspect of the skill, with a confidence in their own abilities to utilize the skill, teach the skill, and advance the skill, both for themselves and for all who use it.
100 – Master – The pinnacle of the skill, Masters truly are the absolute best. They can advance the skill in ways not even believed to be possible by others, and often their abilities might seem divine or supernatural, unsurpassable, so far above and beyond others in the field.
Competency – This is the current competency in the skill.

Advancing skills
Advancing skills happen in exactly one way, writing. All writing that utilizes the character can advance that character’s skills. Upon the completion of a story, it gets submitted to be reviewed. Upon a successful review, the character will receive 5 points per 1000 words written, rounded up. These points may be applied to any Skill, Language, Magic, or Boon as the writer sees fit.

Starting Skills
At character creation, a PC receives 600 Skill Points. These can be dispersed in any way the writer sees fit among Skills, Languages, Magic, or Boons.

Limit Breaks
Limit Breaks become possible once a PC becomes a Master in a skill (100/100). Limit Breaks are abilities within the skill that can push the skill beyond the normal, the physical, and the seemingly possible. Many of these abilities seem to be supernatural or divine, and in many cases, they are in fact supernaturally enhanced. Limit Breaks can surpass the limits of physics and biology. Limit Breaks are unlocked by adding in more points beyond the 100 needed for Mastery. There is no limit to the amount of Limit Breaks one may earn in an individual skill (or across any number of skills), however, each Limit Break within in individual skill does become progressively more difficult to earn.

Formula for calculating Limit Breaks
100 + (Z x 25) = Threshold for next Limit Break
Z = The number value of the next LB. This extends forever.

1st Limit Break – 125/100 points
2nd LB – 175/100 points
3rd LB – 250/100 points
4th LB – 350/100 points
5th LB – 450/100 points
and so on.

Advantages of having multiple sub-types within a Skill Group
If a character is particularly advanced in a skill sub-type (Expert or Master+), this can be reflected within other sub-types of the same skill as showing faster learning of the skill, fewer mistakes, and greater confidence in the lesser sub-type. This only works on sub-types of Novice or Competent levels of the sub-type being utilized. This is an In-Character (IC) representation only, and does not affect actual point values.

Ex.
Bob the Human is 98/100 Expert in 1-Handed Blades (Machete) and wishes to learn 1-Handed Blades (Shortsword). While Bob is Novice and Competent in Shortsword, he can use what he knows from Machete to better utilize the Shortsword. However, as he advances into Adept, he realizes that while similar, there are many more nuances to Shortsword, and has adjusted his learning to be specific to Shortsword.