Skills, Spells & Perks
You Are What You Do
Your character's Stats, Attributes and Derivatives, along with their species and their social status, are all nouns that describe your character. As with any game, however, Mythmaster is defined by its verbs; by the things your character does to advance their ambition, achieve their goals, and to become the person they aspire to be.Perhaps you aspire to be a sneaky pickpocket, a fearsome battlemage or an unstoppable berserker. Each of these characters is defined by the things they do.
The sneaky pickpocket blends into crowds, stealthily approaches their target, and then deftly pilfers the coin from their purse. This requires the Tailing skill, the Sneaking skill and the Pickpocket skill. The fearsome battlemage weilds a sword (using the Weapon skill), wears armour (using the Medium Armour or Heavy Armour skill) and hurls bolts of lightning to strike down their foes (using the Lightning Spell). The unstoppable berserker uses the Weapon skill, the Off-Hand Weapon skill and the Dual Wield Perk to swing two battle-axes, while using the Berserk skill and the Melee Stack skill to multiply their attacks and stack their damage. These different charaters will surely have differences in their Stats, Attributes and Derivatives, but their differences are manifest in the things they do.
Gaining Skills, Spells & Perks
You gain Skills or Spells either by purchasing rolls in one of the 28 Skill Fields or 9 Spell Fields, or by gaining Rank in an Organization. You gain Perks by purchasing them once they are unlocked through your mastery of those Skill or Spell Fields. These purchases are made using experience points awarded each four years during the character creation process, or given out during play.
Reference Attributes and Difficulty Modifier
Every skill is associated with one of your Attributes, and has a modifier representing how difficult the skill is. If a skill that is rated Ment (-3) this means that the reference Attribute is your Mental Attribute, and the difficulty is -3.
Example:
The reference Attribute for the Accounting skill is Mental, and the difficulty is (-3). If your Mental is 10, then spending one Skill Point on the Accounting skill gives you a skill of (10-3) = 7. Every additional Skill Point invested increases your skill by 1. To have an Accounting skill of 15, you would need to invest nine Skill Points. During character creation, always keep track of the number of Skill Points you have invested in a skill - as your Stats and Attributes will change during the character creation process, which will affect your skill.
Untrained Skill Use
Can someone who does not have the Lying skill tell a lie? In some cases, they can try, but in any case, they will not be very good at it. In order to attempt to use a skill you do not have, you must use the untrained attempt rules.