Skills

Skills are learned abilities. The class you choose when you generate a character determines the skills in which you were trained before setting out as a hero, though you will know them only at the most basic level. As you gain experience, you will be given Skill Points, which you may spend to improve your skills. At level 1 in a skill, you are barely competent in it; at higher levels, your proficiency increases until you have gained mastery of the skill.

You may acquire new skills during your journey by convincing someone who already knows them to teach you. Be warned, however: instructors demand substantial payment for their expertise.

Alchemy
Mastering this skill sharpens your ability to transform gathered herbs into potent potions, significantly boosting your success rate in brewing and mixing.

Athletics
Athletics pushes your body to its limits through relentless training, making it far easier to build raw strength and better your dexterity.

Backstabbing
The art of unleash a deadly strike with perfect precision, exploiting the opponents's moment of vulnerability to deliver a critical blow before it even flinches.

Climbing
Falling into a pit is easy; getting out of it again is what this skill is for. When a pit or a spear pit gives way beneath you, the next step you take is a scramble for the rim rather than a step, and you get out only if you make it. Nimbleness counts for as much here as practice does, and practice counts for a great deal, so a hero who has spent time in holes climbs out of them far more readily than one who has not. You need not be skilled to escape at all - most heroes manage sooner or later - but a poor climber loses turns to the attempt, and now and again loses more than that: a pit you fail to leave may collect its due from you a second time, and a spear pit has spears in it. Only the one who set the pit off has to climb; anybody arriving afterwards walks in and out as they please. Every attempt teaches you something, whether or not it succeeds.

Cooking
Anyone thinking that they can cook, but only those of them who know this skill can prepare a delicious meal even from bad-looking corpses.

Concentration
Increasing knowledge of the Concentration skill speeds the rate at which you will regain Power Points.

Create Trap
Traps are not the exclusive privilege of dungeon builders. This skill lets you lay one of your own on the ground you stand on, provided the square holds nothing of note already, and then lure your pursuers across it. The simplest contrivances need no more than a bundle of arrows; more elaborate ones cost you a spear, or a pickaxe wielded in your tool hand to dig the pit, and the deadliest of them are woven from magic and demand both the knowledge of the appropriate spell and a good deal of your Power Points - the more power you pour into such a trap, the more times it will spring before it is spent. Only the crudest traps are within reach of a beginner; as your skill grows, so does the list of what you can build. Every trap you lay teaches you something about laying the next.

Detect Trap
Surely you didn't think that someone would leave valuables around unguarded? Pitfalls, jets of flame, poisoned needles, exploding door-handles... the legends of the subterranean buildings and caves of Avanor are full of traps for the unwary. Learning Detect Trap will give you some knowledge of these, along with hints on how to avoid them.

Disarm Trap
This invaluable skill allows you to render traps harmless, at least some of the time.

Dodge
Armour turns a blow aside; dodging means the blow was never there to turn. Training in Dodge teaches you to read an attack as it comes and step out of its way, and each level you gain makes you that much harder to hit. It will not save you from what you cannot see, however: an attacker you have no way of perceiving gives you nothing to react to, and against such a one your skill counts for nothing at all. Every attack you avoid teaches you a little more about avoiding the next.

Find Weakness
This skill grants knowledge of the limitations of armour. The higher your level in Find Weakness, the more often you will be able to penetrate an opponent's armour or skin in order to land a devastating blow, known as a Critical Hit.

First Aid
This skill increases the speed of curing of wounds and poison.

Healing
The more skilled you are in Healing, the more rapidly you will heal damage from injuries.

Herbalism
Herbalism is the knowledge of plants and their uses. Not all herbs are useful; many are worthless, and some are exceedingly dangerous. Improving your skill in Herbalism will increase your chances of finding useful herbs.

Literacy
Without this skill, you are illiterate, and will be unable to read scrolls and books. Reading a scroll in order to invoke its effect takes little time, but learning a spell from a book is a lengthy process. Improving your Literacy skill will greatly shorten the time it takes to understand the contents of a book.

Mining
Usually digging trough a rock takes a huge amount of time, but digger-professionals can crush rocks very quick.

Religion
Anyone can pray to the gods, and no doubt the gods take notice of everything that people do in Avanor. Learning the Religion skill makes you increasingly more noticeable to the gods. Whether this is a good thing or not depends on how pious you are prepared to be...

Stealing
Learning the Stealing skill allows you a chance, which is increased by improving the skill, of stealing equipment or treasure that another creature has in its possession. Failing an attempt to steal from a creature will generally cause it to notice you, and its opinion of you will not be improved.

Tactics
During a combat you can increase your offence for the cost of defence and vice versa. Knowing of this skill improves bonuses and removes penalties.