Skills
Skills are suggestions for things your character is particularly good at. You are free to invent new areas of specialization.
When your character's skill would apply to a roll, add it to your target number.
[Sh]ine - Likeable and lucky. Use Shine to get a discount at a boarding-house, trick a suspicious sargento, or win a hand of cards.
- Oration
- Tell a good story, make a convincing argument, give a speech.
- Music and Dance
- Perform in front of others for rituals, money, or favor.
- Bartering
- Haggle for goods.
- A successful Bartering test reduces all prices of a merchant by 1 die.
- Carousing
- Eat, drink, smoke, cook, and make merry. Live the good life.
[Wi]ts - Quick-thinking and erudite. Use Wits to remember the migratory patterns of ((geese)), calculate the amount of gunpowder needed to blow up a wall, or draw an accurate map.
- Woodcraft
- Track, hunt, trap, gather, and fish. Understand plants and animals.
- History
- Remember the past, through stories, songs, and legends.
- Cultures
- Recall details about other peoples and places in ((California)).
- Crafting
- Create, repair, or disassemble worked goods.
- Science
- Understand physics and mathematics, perform alchemy, create gadgets.
- Medicine
- Treat wounds and sickness, understand anatomy.
[Gr]it - Strong, tough, fierce. Use Grit to stare down a charging demon, break a jaw, or outlast a bout of weeping fever.
- Brawling
- Punch, wrestle, kick, bite, choke.
- Axes and Clubs
- Swing brutal and bludgeoning weapons.
- Athletics
- Climb, swim, jump, sprint.
[Qu]ick - Fast and accurate. Use Quick to palm a bead necklace, outrun a canoe, or shoot a deer.
- Spears and Staves
- Wield hafted weapons.
- Knives and Swords
- Stab and slash with precision.
- Guns and Bows
- Draw, aim, fire, reload.
- Horsemanship
- Ride well, tend to your mount, rope a calf.
- Boating
- Manage vessels large and small on the water.
- Sneaking
- Walk softly, pick a pocket, make an item disappear.
[Sp]irit - Supernatural, otherworldly. Use Spirit to perform a conjuring, banish a ghost, or find a path to the lower world.
- Prayer
- Invoke the blessings of beings from the Upper World.
- Astrology
- Predict the future and see the present through the stars.
- Shape-changing
- Take on the aspects of plants and animals.
- Elementalism
- Channel the energy of the natural world.
Magical Skills
Magical skills (marked in italics) require talents or spells to use to full effect, they are not a catch-all.
Being skilled in a school of magic or science grants minimal cosmetic abilities - like the ability to make a puff of air with elementalism or lengthen your nails with shape-changing. To perform true feats of magic you need the associated Talents.
Advancing Skills
Every time you fail a test you are skilled at, mark it down. At the end of the session, roll a D20. If it is less than your total failures, increase your skill by one (to a maximum of 20) and reset your failures.
Learning Skills
A character who is untrained at a skill may seek out a teacher. If they impress their teacher (by coin or by deed) and spend a few days in tutelage, they become trained in the skill and gain a point in it.
Your skill improves with failure as normal.
Dragonbane skills range from 3-14 with saves from 3-18. Blurry distinction between skills and saves. Can advance skills, not saves.
BSH has stats only, 8-14 (maybe 15?), stats used for both skills & saves. Can advance to 18.
Cairn has 3-18, stats for both skills + saves, no advancement.
Advancing skills:
- Feeling of incremental progression
- Range of strengths and weaknesses to a character
- Some character sheet clues for actions to take when stumped
Downsides:
- More numbers to keep track of, busier character sheet.
- Longer character creation.
- Can discourage creative thinking if a skill is covered.