Overview

This is an overview of what each skill means and does when you excel at it. They're sorted alphabetically, and their color matches their Primary Aspect.

Each skill has a Natural Bonus for investing enough XP into the skill.

For details on how to use each skill, type HELP (skillname). For example, HELP SEARCH.


APPEARANCE - The Diva
    You are pretty, handsome, and every adjective in between! You also know exactly what to wear, what pairs best with that top, and how to accessorize. In fact, you can make anything dazzle with the right odds and ends. Appearance encompasses the skill of practicing self-care, self-expression and item customization.
    - Increase the amount of text you can write in your character's description.
    - Increase the number of shortdesc adjectives you can choose from.
    - Customize the descriptions of items.
    - Apply a skill bonus to customized items.
    - Natural Bonus - Brilliant: A custom colored hairstyle.

BLADES - The Trapper
    Swinging a blade of any length comes easy to you, and there's at least some part of you that enjoys the thrill of the hunt. Using blades is all about out-maneuvering your opponents and keeping close distance. Even if they escape, they'll bleed out eventually.
    - Blades can cause bleeding.
    - Deal more damage to gun users.
    - Deal less damage to melee users.
    - Natural Bonus - Experienced: Deal critical hits with bladed weapons.

CHEMISTRY - The Researcher
    Are you a pharmacist, therapist or researcher? Chemistry is your knowledge of creating drugs from compounds. A chemist strives to develop a variety of pills, inhalants, and other drugs that grant positive benefits to those who need them. An inexperienced chemist may also produce long-lasting hallucinogenic, hypnotic, or otherwise undesirable side effects.
    - Craft drugs in a chemistry lab.
    - Overuse of drugs can result in an overdose.
    - Mixing drugs with food reduces the likeliness of overdose.
    - Natural Bonus - Astonishing: Resistance to toxic gases.

CHRONICLE - The Archivist
    You are a novelist, journalist, technical writer, blogger, or creative writer. You have the ability to compose excellent reports, journals, newspapers, letters, posters, or other written documents. Whenever someone tries to cover up their schemes, you make sure they'll never be forgotten. Nobody will notice if you embellish the truth, right?
    - Write better, longer, more legible documents using paper or a paper-loaded typing item.
    - Take better photos using a camera.
    - Natural Bonus - Brilliant: Take perfect photos.

CLIMB - The Mountaineer
    When people tell you to get a grip on things, you take it literally. Whether you're an indoor rock climber or deep water soloist, you have the ability to safely scale sharply-graded, uneven, or obstructed paths. Your sense of balance can also help during altercations.
    - Access new locations or use shortcuts.
    - Use climbing gear to move through difficult terrain.
    - Increase the chance your character can break free while being thrown.
    - Natural Bonus - Brilliant: Move through difficult terrain without climbing gear.

COOKING - The Supplier
    You're a chef, a recipe-hoarder, or simply someone whose kitchen space accounts for half of their domicile. Maybe your fallout shelter is packed to the brim with all sorts of canned goods. Regardless of the occasion, you can turn any set of ingredients into a premium entrée. Or you can poison that food critic who only gave you three stars.
    - Craft food to keep people healthy.
    - Beneficial drugs or harmful toxins can be laced into food by others.
    - Natural Bonus - Astonishing: Violence against your character uses more stamina.

CREATIVITY - The Artist
    You've always had a knack for creative pursuits such as painting, sculpting, or tailoring. You could be a hobbyist, or even a well-known artist or brand-name tailor!
    - Use a workbench to craft clothing or props for people to wear or hold.
    - Use an art studio to craft artwork to raise people's spirits.
    - Natural Bonus: Coming soon.

DECEPTION - The Illusionist
    You know how to lie and you keep your lies in order. Perhaps you're an actor? Regardless of why you have so many personas, one proficient in Deception can change many aspects of their physical and behavioral appearance for extended periods of time, going so far as to assume an entirely new identity.
    - Use a disguise box to temporarily create new identities for your character.
    - Take on a new description, gait, and voice to hide your character's true identity.
    - Reuse a customized disguise box to easily continue being a previous persona.
    - Natural Bonus - Competitive: Know at a glance how much longer your character can maintain their disguise.

DILIGENCE - The Triple-Checker
    You have always been meticulous in everything you do, never leaving things up to chance, always making sure things go exactly as planned. Diligence is the act of ensuring that your actions are free of significant errors.
    - Reduce your odds of getting a Fail rating when rolling skill checks.
    - Natural Bonus - Astonishing: Reroll once on failed rolls.

EAVESDROP - The Spy
    Why are you listening in on their conversation? Do you even care about these people? Who cares what they had a meeting about? You do! If people are discussing something behind closed doors, you want to know what it is, because you simply must know! Eavesdropping is the ability to listen in on private conversations being held in nearby rooms.
    - Listen to anything said in an adjacent room.
    - Listen up to 2 rooms away with the right tools.
    - Any action, emote, or communication you make will break your concentration when listening.
    - Natural Bonus - Competitive: Know how many characters are in the adjacent room.

ESCAPE - The Flight Risk
    Whenever a fight is about to break out, you've already planned the easiest escape route. You know the layout of every building, and you're ready to duck out at a moment's notice. Escape is the skill of extracting oneself from active conflicts alive. If you want nothing to do with combat or you rely on hit-and-run tactics, learning to escape is paramount.
    - Gives you a chance of escaping from combat if you're being attacked.
    - Bonus to fleeing while holding a melee weapon.
    - Lose a turn of combat if escaping fails.
    - Natural Bonus - Brilliant: Sense when someone arrives nearby.

FISTS - The Economist
    When the going gets dirty, you know that a punch in the right spot is more effective and reliable than any weapon. Using your fists is a basic and effective method of fighting. You need to have your hands free in order to be using your fists for fighting.
    - Can attack without a weapon.
    - Deal and take more damage against other unarmed fighters.
    - Deal and take less damage against melee users.
    - Natural Bonus - Experienced: Deal critical hits when unarmed.

GUNS - The Ambusher
    From gunslinger to sniper, you feel right at home with a piece at your side. Guns allow you to cause harm from a distance. You can provide support fire, or, less wisely, enter the fray up-close to take on your opponents. Be sure to have a reliable supply of ammunition on-hand.
    - Guns can attack from adjacent rooms.
    - Guns can cause bleeding.
    - Guns require ammo.
    - Melee users deal less damage to you.
    - Blade users deal more damage to you.
    - Natural Bonus - Experienced: Deal critical hits with guns.

HEALTH - The Dietician
    You're a health nut. You probably eat a balanced diet and get 8 hours of sleep every night. Yoga is a lifestyle. Your Health is your ability to withstand both physical and emotional pain.
    - Greater willpower allows you to withstand extra damage before falling unconscious.
    - Natural Bonus - Astonishing: Double willpower recovery.

INVESTIGATE - The Sleuth
    Not only have you heard of paraffin and diacetylene, you know exactly how to use them to find out who fired the gun and whose fingerprints were on that plastic glove. Using a forensics kit, you can collect various datapoints on locations, people, bodies and items.
    - Gather data necessary to collect historical datapoints and piece together what happened in the recent past.
    - Natural Bonus - Brilliant: Know at a glance how much evidence is on something, including characters, rooms, and items.

LABOR - The Muscle
    Never skip leg day! Whether you're a gym enthusiast or day contractor, you've got the muscle to get it done. Part of one's physical fitness, Labor encompasses training for strength.
    - Carry more stuff.
    - Hold more weight before it starts to impact the performance of your other skills.
    - Grab people easier.
    - Shove people easier.
    - Throw people easier.
    - Take less damage from falling.
    - Perform better at work sites.
    - Natural Bonus - Astonishing: WORK faster.

MEDICINE - The Doctor
    Paramedic, nurse, doctor, EMT, or otherwise, you have a desire to heal all that ails humanity. The field of Medicine involves resuscitating, treating and/or detoxing patients. Maybe sometimes, though, your mind wanders and considers whether or not each patient is truly a life worth saving.
    - Treat overdoses, loss of consciousness, open wounds, and injuries.
    - Can draw blood and run blood tests.
    - Can harvest organs from unconscious patients.
    - Natural Bonus - Astonishing: TREAT much faster.

MELEE - The Defender
    From wooden planks to chainsaws, you excel at using improvised weapons found around town. With melee weapons, you can keep your distance from your opponents, giving you a strategic edge in defensive combat, and an easier time escaping. Less effective if someone is shooting at you, of course.
    - Bonus to fleeing.
    - Consumes the least stamina of all weapon types.
    - Deal and take more damage against other melee users.
    - Deal and take less damage against unarmed fighters.
    - Take less damage from blade users.
    - Deal less damage to gun users.
    - Natural Bonus - Experienced: Deal critical hits with melee weapons.

OCCULT - The Cultist
    Religion fascinates you, either as a scholar, or as an initiate seeking to join a cult, or as one looking to be ordained by otherworldly forces. One in tune with the Occult finds better harmony with the elements in Silent Heaven.
    - Harmonize better with the town's powers.
    - Natural Bonus - Astonishing: Identify like-minded characters at a glance.

PERFORMANCE - The Pacifier
    You are an entertainer at heart. You know how to put on a good act, whether your forte is singing, dancing, playing a musical instrument, or anything else where you're up on stage. You also know how to use your stage-smarts to distract, divert, and deflect, reducing the effectiveness of all combat.
    - Can write pre-written acts ahead of time, then perform them automatically while roleplaying.
    - Creates a safe-haven where all attacks are less effective, including incoming gunshots.
    - Better at deflecting thrown items.
    - Natural Bonus - Experienced: A chance to dodge attacks that target your character. Chance increases at higher ranks.

REPAIR - The Fixer
    People these days just consume, consume, consume, then throw away perfectly good stuff just because a wire is bent or a piece of plastic breaks. You know how easy it is to fix nearly anything under the sun. Your toolbelt is so all-encompassing, you've even patched up clothing to look like new! And if they just took some time to sort the stuff they're recycling, they'd get a lot more change back at the machine. Of course, you know this. You've done it for years.
    - Repair damaged items.
    - Better appraisal of item condition.
    - Better payout at recycling machines.
    - Natural Bonus - Astonishing: Items lose minimal durability when used.

SEARCH - The Scavenger
    You've grown up streetwise, or maybe you've just been good at knowing where things could be hidden. Searching is an important, basic survival skill that hones your spatial awareness. Catch movement out of the corner of your eye. Scavenge and find discarded or hidden items, or even well-hidden people. Frisk people who trust you. Or embrace sin and harvest from the unconscious.
    - Can passively notice hidden people.
    - Can scavenge to find discarded items, coins, hidden items, hidden paths, and well-hidden people.
    - Can frisk people who trust your character.
    - Increase the value of item gained from harvesting.
    - Natural Bonus - Astonishing: Sense when someone sneaks into the room.

SPRINT - The Runner
    You know where you want to go and you get there on foot as fast as possible. You probably clock a 400 meter race in under a minute, even.
    - Move through rooms faster.
    - Better ability to dodge grabs.
    - Can catch thrown items.
    - Better at deflecting thrown items.
    - Perform better at work sites.
    - Natural Bonus - Brilliant: Movement doesn't consume stamina.

STAMINA - The Cardiologist
    You woke up and jogged a mile, in this fog? It's a miracle you're still alive. Part of one's physical fitness, Stamina encompasses training for endurance.
    - Take more actions before becoming exhausted.
    - Take less damage from falling.
    - Perform better at work sites.
    - Better ability to maintain or resist grabs.
    - Natural Bonus - Astonishing: Double stamina recovery.

STEALTH - The Stalker
    You're a private investigator, or someone with a lot of secrets. Whatever the reason, you like it better when things go unseen. With a focus on Stealth, you can hide yourself, other people, and other things.
    - Disappear from view.
    - Avoid being seen during searches.
    - Sneak around unseen via normal movement.
    - Hide other characters and items.
    - Natural Bonus - Dedicated: Sense when someone notices you sneaking.

TALENT - The Gifted
    All straight-A's from high school to grad school! No, it's not because you cheated, it's because you're just that good. Or maybe you were just that good at cheating. Either way, Talent is a character's natural-born skill to excel in their specialized fields.
    - Increase your odds of getting a Perfect rating when rolling skill checks.
    - Natural Bonus - Astonishing: Roll twice for a Perfect.

TRAVEL - The Navigator
    Whether you're a hobbyist or a professional, you have the knowledge of how to pilot manual vehicles such as skateboards, bicycles and boats to travel speedily.
    - Use passages inaccessible to pedestrians.
    - Move much faster than if you were on foot.
    - Transport people with larger bikes and boats.
    - Secure vehicles to racks or piers to leave them safely out in the open.
    - Natural Bonus - Brilliant: Keep traveling even after crashing.

TOXINS - The Poisoner
    Somewhere along the line, your knowledge of chemistry and the human body turned to less-than-ethical practices. Mad scientist or government-funded operative? The line blurs. Toxins are your knowledge of mixing drugs to create a variety of scientific breakthroughs, including weaponized toxins. Weaponized toxins are delicate containers of noxious compounds. They are thrown from afar and explode at their target and those around, causing hazardous, negative effects to those engulfed in the toxin.
    - Can mix drugs to create vials.
    - Can mix drugs and vials into food.
    - Can coat ammo with drugs to create toxic ammo.
    - Can mix ammo with vials to create weaponized toxins.
    - Weaponized toxins cause a variety of terrible effects and can be thrown from a distance.
    - Natural Bonus: Coming soon.


Category: HELP 3 (Character)

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