Step Five: Assign Initial Skills
Attributes represent your character’s raw potential, but skills represent the experience and training she’s received throughout her life — both mortal and immortal. A character with high skills is well-educated or has a great deal of knowledge about the world. A character with low skills might be naive, sheltered, or uneducated.
You can purchase up to 5 dots of each skill. It’s not normally possible to buy more than 5 dots in a skill.
Skills provide two kinds of bonuses to your character. First, they allow a character to perform certain actions that an untrained character simply cannot attempt. Second, they augment a character’s attributes, making certain actions easier because the character has experience or education with a related skill.
For example, a character with a high Physical attribute rating who does not have the Athletics skill might find it difficult to scale a wall or to leap a series of hurdles. A character with a high Social attribute who does not have the Intimidate skill might find it difficult to bully her way past a security guard.
You should select your character’s skills based on that character’s background, and then place (or purchase) more dots in the skills with which the character should be most proficient. Skill levels range from novice to master, as follows:
• Novice: You have learned the fundamentals of this field of knowledge.
•• Practiced: You have mastered the basics of this area of study.
••• Competent: You are good enough to earn a professional living in this field.
•••• Expert: You have surpassed the majority of your peers and are considered an expert.
••••• Master: You are world-class at this activity and considered to be amongst the best in the field.
Choosing Skills
Choose the skills that best reflect your character’s education and experiences, and assign starting dots to those skills as follows:
• Choose one skill and fill in the first 4 dots of that skill.
• Choose two skills and fill in the first 3 dots of those skills.
• Choose three skills and fill in the first 2 dots of those skills.
• Choose four skills and fill in the first dot of those skills.
Specific Skill descriptions can be found here: Skills
