Skills

If you're looking for the basic rules you should start with the Quickstart Rules.

Skills are a major way in which you customise your character, deciding what special skills they have that set them apart from others.

Skills are divided into Combat and Profession skills. They are further divided into General skills and skills belonging to the four Discplines.

Combat skills are directly usable in combat or for survival. Profession skills are rarely useful in combat and are used in investigation, problem solving or social interactions.

You can take most skills for any Discipline that you've unlocked, but some signature skills you can only choose if that Discipline is your starting discipline. These are marked below with "(Name) Starting Discipline".

Active Abilities

Some skills give you an Active Ability. You can use one Active Ability (marked with⚡) every 10 seconds. The cooldown is shared between all skills. This cooldown begins when you successfully use the skill. If the skill requires charging, you cannot begin charging until the full 10 seconds have passed.

Free Skills

Every Player Character starts with these.

One-Handed Training	You can use one melee weapon of 8”-42”.
First Aid	With 30 seconds of stationary touch range appropriate roleplay with both hands you can HEAL another character. With 5 seconds of touch range appropriate roleplay inspecting a character you can ask "OC are you incapacitated, terminal or dead?".

Combat Skills

Combat skills are skills directly useful in combat or for survival.

Some combat abilities are Charged. These abilities have a 5 second charge time, during which the user must manipulate a technological item with an otherwise empty hand, and can move and parry but can’t attack or use other skills. Your ability cooldown starts when you successfully get off a power, and you can only start charging if your cooldown is up.

To use an Analytical ⚡ability the user must briefly manipulate a technological item with an otherwise empty hand.

Skill	Prerequisite	Description
Tough(*)		One extra hit point.
Extra Combat Discipline(*)		Unlock an extra Discipline for combat skills.
Power Field	Tesla Starting Discipline	Two extra hit points one melee RESIST per encounter +5 seconds ⚡ Ability Cooldown.
Advanced Power Field	Power Field	Two extra hit points one melee RESIST per encounter +5 seconds ⚡ Ability Cooldown.
Tesla Stun	Tesla Discipline	⚡Charged MASS TECH STUN
Tesla Repel	Tesla Discipline	⚡Charged MASS TECH REPEL
Tesla Strike	Tesla Discipline	⚡Charged MASS TECH BASH ⚡Melee TECH BASH
Countermeasures	Analytical Starting Discipline	Two TECH RESISTs per encounter.
Quick Mind	Analytical Starting Discipline	Once per encounter you can use an Analytical ⚡ability off cooldown and without starting your cooldown.
Heal	Analytical Discipline	⚡HEAL other at touch range. ⚡Charged HEAL self.
Analytical Strike	Analytical Discipline	⚡Ranged TECH BASH
Analytical Suppression	Analytical Discipline	⚡Ranged TECH SUPPRESS
Danger Sense	Intuition Starting Discipline	Two ranged RESISTs per encounter (except against Would You Kindly or EFFECT).
Danger Awareness	Danger Sense	One extra hit point. ⚡Regain a Danger Sense RESIST with a short vocal.
Finesse Weapon Proficiency	Intuition Discipline	You can use a melee weapon of 8"-42" in your off-hand. You can carry up to five thrown weapons and use them. You can use a Buckler.
Finesse Stun	Intuition Discipline	⚡Melee BACKSTAB STUN ⚡STUN with a thrown weapon or melee weapon under 24".
Finesse Suppression	Intuition Discipline	⚡Melee BACKSTAB SUPPRESS ⚡SUPPRESS with a thrown weapon or a melee weapon under 24"
Armour	Survival Starting Discipline	One extra hit point one non-TECH RESIST per encounter (except against Would You Kindly or EFFECT).
Advanced Armour	Armour	One extra hit point one non-TECH RESIST per encounter (except against Would You Kindly or EFFECT).
Grit Weapon Proficiency	Survival Discipline	You can use melee weapons of 42"-60" with both hands. You can use a Buckler.
Polearm Proficiency	Grit Weapon Proficiency	You can use a weapon 60”-84” with both hands. These can be stab safe and if so can be used for thrusting. You can use a stab-safe spear 60”-84” in one hand to thrust only.
Weapon Prowess	Survival Discipline	⚡Two melee BASHes. ⚡"Would You Kindly attack me instead"
Grit Weapon Expertise	Survival Discipline	⚡STUN with a melee weapon 42"-60". ⚡REPEL with a melee weapon 8"-42". ⚡REPEL with a shield block. ⚡"Would You Kindly attack me instead"

Profession Skills

Profession skills are rarely useful in combat and are used in investigation, problem solving or social interactions.

Skill	Prerequisite	Description
Extra Income(*)		Gain an extra income each interactive.
Extra Profession Discipline(*)		Unlock an extra profession discipline.
Create Device	Tesla Starting Discipline	Create devices for yourself or the party, and can maintain an extra Device on a linear.
Destruction	Tesla Discipline	Destroy resilient objects.
Scramble Effect	Tesla Discipline	Destroy lesser EFFECTs or break down big EFFECTs into smaller ones.
Protective Field	Tesla Discipline	Create an EFFECT on an area to contain or keep out dangers.
Empower	Tesla Discipline	Empower skills to be an order of magnitude wider or longer lasting.
Summon and Link AI	Analytical Starting Discipline	Summon Analytical Intelligences and link them to characters.
Technical Analysis	Analytical Discipline	Analyse technological items.
Isolate	Analytical Discipline	Isolate a character or item to cut it off from technological communication.
Cryptographer	Analytical Discipline	Send secure and anonymous messages.
Automaton Engineer	Analytical Discipline	Alleviate wounds and tinker with automata.
Instil Mantra	Intuition Starting Discpline	Instil mantras into other characters.
Investigate	Intuition Discpline	Analyse a location or problem to get clues about it.
Smooth Talker	Intuition Discpline	Defuse fights and discern truth.
Hearts and Minds	Intuition Discpline	Cause emotions by talking to people.
Iron Will	Intuition Discpline	Resist emotion and mind control effects.
Pharmacy	Survival Starting Discpline	Create pharmaceuticals
Scout	Survival Discpline	Analyse mundane items and get clues about what lies ahead.
Scavenge	Survival Discpline	Dismantle items and dead creatures for resources
Smuggler	Survival Discpline	You can conceal items on your person.
Medicine	Survival Discpline	Alleviate and treat wounds. Analyse corpses.

Extra Income

You receive an extra income per interactive. You may be offered to exchange some or all of your income for an exotic income on some weeks.

Destruction

Group skill. You can use brute force on an object you can see to destroy or wreck it. Can be used on doors, obstacles, etc on linears, or on items that are otherwise resistant to mundane destruction.

Scramble Effect

Group skill. You can use brute force to blow up an EFFECT. This will blow away lesser EFFECTs; larger EFFECTs may be replaced by lesser ones, possibly spread around. This will likely improve the situation in some way.

Empower

You can empower a group skill that you are leading or participating in. This can cause a longer lasting or wider effect, but require (extra) resources, wound draws or other drawbacks.

Other skills that aren’t normally group skills can be performed as group skills to combine them with this (for example, Hearts and Minds).

Protective Field

Group skill. You can set up an EFFECT on an area to keep dangers out (or in), which you can specify when you make it. This will usually only be a temporary fix for a problem, but can give you time.

Technical Analysis

Group skill. You can analyse EFFECTs and technological items. This will usually have side effects on the user. More participants will reduce the side effects per person.

Isolate

You can spend one minute isolating a piece of technology or a person to cut off any technological communication, including to any linked Analytical Intelligence.

Automaton Engineer

You can use analytical technology to alleviate wounds until the beginning of the next event.

You can bolster Terminal characters to allow them to function normally, but they will still die at the end of their Terminal state.

Group skill. Should you come into possession of an interesting automaton, this can be used to modify it.

You can analyse automaton wreckage.

Cryptographer

You can send secure messages via the Teslagraph, which can only be read by the recipient and may be sent anonymously. Anonymous messages sent to a players will be delivered later that event by a ref. One message per event sent to an NPC can be marked high priority, guaranteeing a timely response.

(If you know what message you want to send to a player, printing it off in advance from Google Docs using Special Elite 16pt. font will ensure that it looks the same as other anonymous messages.)

Investigate

Group skill. You can discuss or meditate on a particular problem or examine a scene. Using a pharmaceutical that grants an Intuition buff as a meditation aid may allow you to come to greater revelations and yield more information. Analysing the same target again on the same day won't give new information.

You can quickly assess a scene to see if an investigation might provide useful information. You may sometimes spot that things are out of place and get a ref hint that examining a scene might yield information, but this shouldn't be relied upon.

Smooth Talker

Once per encounter you can call "MASS EFFECT: Don’t start a fight" after 15 seconds of conversation.

Once per encounter you can ask “Would You Kindly tell me, was that the truth?”

Hearts and Minds

Following 15 seconds of conversation you can call “EFFECT: <emotion>” to a single character. This works on machines, and creatures that can't understand you, though unintelligent targets may not react sensibly (or at all) to some emotions.

Iron Will

You can RESIST emotion EFFECTs by instead responding with an emotion of your choice.

Once per encounter you can RESIST a Would You Kindly with a declaration of resistance, individuality or other roleplay appropriate to your character. You may freely RESIST further Would You Kindlys from the same source for the rest of the encounter.

Scout

You can examine mundane items to discern information about them.

Group skill. You can theorise about what lies ahead.

Smuggler

You can make a quick assessment of a character to determine if they are carrying any valuables, or specifically weapons (you can ask “OC do you have any unsmuggled game items?” and “OC do you have any unsmuggled weapons?”). This can't be used while under pressure.

You can smuggle one item up to the size of a one-handed weapon or buckler, and a second item up to the size of a dagger. Do not hand over those items to a searcher on the completion of a search, unless you are terminal or dead. You must plausibly physically conceal the items.

Scavenge

You can disassemble tech items, automaton wreckage and unusual biological corpses for resources. No useful resources can be extracted from normal humans. This must be done quickly, so will only reliably work on one remains per encounter per scavenger. This does not grant the ability to disassemble resistant objects (that’s what Destruction is for).

Medicine

A common requirement for treating wounds in an appropriate venue.

You can use your medical skills to alleviate wounds until the beginning of the next event.

You can use First Aid in 5 seconds when not under pressure.

You can discern information about biological corpses.

Skill Rules

• General Skills (Tough, Extra Income, Extra Discipline) can be taken multiple times. Discipline skills can only be taken once each.
• Touch range skills can be used on yourself unless otherwise specified.
• If you are leading a skill and stop roleplaying the skill is cancelled with no consumption of resources.
• You automatically stop performing a skill if incapacitated.
• When performing a skill you cannot attack or use another active skill, except using RESISTs. You can block or parry as long as you otherwise continue your roleplay.
• You cannot combine effects that grant calls. For example you can't use a STUN weapon skill and a BASH weapon oil in the same strike.
• Skills can be learned freely between events. You can also learn them in uptime from a character who knows it with at least 5 minutes of teaching roleplay.

Group Skills

Many Profession skills are performed as Group Skills. A group skill is led by a character with the skill, but other characters can assist them to increase the effect. Group skills take at least one minute to perform. It is possible to perform a group skill alone if needed.

If you are participating in but not leading a group skill and you stop roleplaying your contribution is lost from the result and you cannot rejoin, but the skill can continue.