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-[[start|Dice Mob Home]] > [[dice_mob_rules|Dice Mob Rules]]
-====== Skills in General ======
-===== What is a Dice Mob skill? =====
-In real life, a skill is something that not everyone can do but many people can learn to do given enough practice. Sometimes a person has come innate ability or talent that makes this easier to become proficient or exceptional in, but sometimes a person with no initial innate ability also learns how to do it with enough practice.
-A skill in Dice Mob is more or less the same thing in theory, but because of the premium placed on learning skills, a skill has to be something more than that. And because we aren't limiting ourselves to humans or even just creatures found in the real world, depending on the genre, skills can also be something more akin to attributes, powers, or magical abilities than they are simply skills.
-In real life, when we talk about a skill, sometimes we talk about a skill and sometimes we're talking about a set of skills. Are gymnasts skilled in gymnastics? Maybe. But just because a gymnast is skilled in the high bar doesn't mean they are skilled on the pommel horse or the floor exercises. They have to practice each of them individually. Flexibility, strength, and balance are all needed to be successful, but being good at one does not automatically make one good at the other. But we group them together anyway because there does seem to be a natural grouping that we can make.
-By necessity, Dice Mob will employ all of these principles as much as makes sense and with the guiding principles of keeping the game easy-to-learn, versatile, and fun to play for far longer than just a week.
-==== Valuable, Equal, Sensible, and Standard ====
-In Dice Mob, a skill is a nebulous concept that describes one thing a character can do or a group of smaller related things that can be reasonably grouped together to describe what a character can do. In creating skills, we consider four principles.
-First, a particular skill should be something a player is willing to expend a valuable resource on, namely skill points, when compared with other "skills". If a skill is never worth having, no matter the genre, it's probably worthless to spend time defining it. We call this making a skill valuable.
-Second, skills should be more or less equal when compared with each other. There shouldn't be one skill that every character picks just because it's so much better than other skills that it's a no-brainer. The point of dividing character classes up into the more basic components of skills is supposed to make characters more unique and by extension more fun to play as an individual rather than a role. We call this making a skill equal.
-Third, skills should make sense. A flying skill shouldn't also give the character the ability to throw fireballs. Knot-tying shouldn't also give the ability to eat a hundred hot dogs in two minutes. We may be tempted to put two skills together to make them valuable enough together when they're not valuable enough separately, but we won't do it. Where we can, we'll fine something overarching concept that can group enough skills together to make them valuable and equal, but sometimes we'll just have to live with a skill being what it is.
-Fourth, skills should be more or less easy to determine how, how often, and how much they affect the game without having to look them up every time a player wants their character to perform that skill. Now we could do this by only having a few skills to choose from, but we want characters to have many, many skills to choose from so there are many thousands of different class combinations a character could theoretically be. Instead of limiting the number of skills to make it easy to remember, we'll make skills determinable by coming up with common ways almost all skills interact with the rules. In other words, skills will be as standard as possible. We'll probably have skills that can't be standard, especially when doing so break ones or more of the other rules, but where we can make them standard we will.
-In other words, skills should be valuable, equal, sensible, and standard.
-In making skills valuable, equal, sensible, and standard, we might be required to make a skill less standard to make it more sensible and equal. Or to make it less valuable, to make it more standard, sensible, and equal. Skills like regeneration have required some nerfing to make them more equal, but we've tried to do so in the most sensible way possible. Skills like the mariner trade have included a lot of small skills together to make it valuable enough that a player might choose that skill for their character, but we've also tried to do this in a way that is both standard and sensible.
-In making skills valuable, equal, sensible, and standard, we're going to talk about how to do in the following sections:
-  * [[standards_for_skills|Standards for Skills]]
-    * [[skill_points_and_degrees|Skill Points and Degrees]]
-    * [[proficiency|Proficiency]]
-    * [[skills_affecting_other_skills|Skills affecting other skills]]
-    * [[pooling_powers|Pooling Powers]]
-    * [[standard_effects_degrees_levels|Standard Effects of Degrees and Levels]]
-      * [[standard_effects_degrees_levels#distance|Distance]]
-      * [[standard_effects_degrees_levels#size|Size]]
-      * [[standard_effects_degrees_levels#duration|Duration]]
-  * [[skills_vs_items|Skills vs Items]]
-  * [[standards_for_items|Standards for Items]]
-    * [[skill_degrees_in_items|Skill Degrees in Items]]
-===== Skills vs Items =====
-It might not seem like the skills and attributes a character has, believable skills like acrobatics or more fantastical skills like magic, psionic, technological, or super powers, and the weapons, armor, and other items that a character possesses have anything to do with each other. Most systems, in fact, would say these are different.
-In Dice Mob, these are all the same thing. They are generally all modifiers to the Dice Rolls as grouped into our rules sections, i.e. Actions and Initiative, Defense, Hit Points, Mana, Race, Encumbrance, etc. The beauty of making them the same is that a player doesn't need some long description explaining what an item can do nor is there a very finite number of items that have been predetermined for giving to a character. As far as items go, anything goes. A GM picks an item, gives it one or more skills, and voila! A new item!
-Swords and guns allow a person to kill more efficiently and often at a distance. Armor protects against more efficient killers. Rope can aid in climbing or restraining an opponent for transport to jail. Magical rings, cloaks, boots, and other items can aid a character through modifying dice rolls, defense, improving initiative, increasing the number of actions, artificially increasing hit points or mana or the rates which those regenerate, shapeshifting the race, or even increasing the encumbrance limit, the same things a skill would be able to do. Items are really just carryable skills, extensions and augmentations of a person’s natural abilities limited only by the number of items which can be carried at any one time.
-===== Trying and Degrees of Proficiency =====
-Here is how the dice for almost all skills are added up. Everybody, proficient or non-proficient, has a chance of performing most skills. (See the [[general_rules_skills#non-proficient_skills|non-proficient skills]] section below for more explanation). We call this “two for trying”. In other words, every character always starts off with two dice. If combinations of skills are added together for multiple benefits, there is still only one "two for trying".
-If a character is proficient in a skill, like swordfighting or hiding in shadows, they have a degree of proficiency starting at first degree and moving up infinitely. For most skills, a character gets two additional dice for each degree of proficiency, so they would move up infinitely, two at a time, e.g. second degree six dice ("two for trying" + two times two dice), third degree eight dice, and so forth.
-Defense works exactly the same. A first degree defensive proficiency against fire would be worth four dice whereas no proficiency would only be two dice.
-**Exceptions:** There are exceptions to this "two for trying" plus "two per degree" stepping. In fact, for these types of skills, there is no "two for trying" at all. They are just straight numbers of dice affected per degree. But these are rare. Good examples of these are regeneration and luck, where there is only one die per degree, or healing where there are five dice per degree.
-**Note:** In case it wasn’t obvious, proficiency ONLY applies to skills a character has learned or knows instinctually. It doesn’t apply to items of any sort. A sword isn’t “proficient” in and of itself unless it’s some sort of sentient blade that wields itself.
-===== Skill Points and Degrees =====
-Each character is allotted ten skill points to start with and gains three more skill points as they level up. (We’ve briefly mentioned this in the levels section.) Skill points can be used to add a new skill or they can be used to level up a particular skill. To avoid confusion, we call these skill levels “degrees”.
-A character might be a first degree archer or a first degree tracker. This means they are proficient in archery or tracking, but they aren’t as proficient as someone who has practiced even more than they have… or in other words, a second degree archer or a second degree tracker. Degrees aren’t limited. But the higher the degree, the harder it is to attain. Here’s how it works. Becoming proficient in a skill (first degree) costs one skill point. Advancing from first degree to second degree costs two skill points. Moving from second to third, three points. Etc.
-Easy, right?
-If you wanted to create a new character who is already a second degree swordfighter, you would add the degrees together (one plus two equals three). That means three of a character’s initial ten skill points have gone towards swordfighting. Initial degrees are fairly easy to obtain. Moving into higher degrees of proficiency, a fifth degree swordsman or a seventh degree natural healer, requires a lot of skill points.
-So why would someone want to spend two points moving from a first degree swordfighter to a  second degree swordfighter rather than learning two new skills? For multiple reasons.
-First each degree of skill adds an additional two dice. A proficient (first degree) character generally rolls four dice. Second degree, six dice. Third degree, eight dice. And so forth. (As a rule of thumb, it’s “two for trying” and two for each degree of proficiency.) And that doesn’t even count the sword itself.
-But that’s not all. Additional degrees also allow characters to do things they couldn’t do as lower degrees. But we’ll discuss those more as we get into the actual specifics of skills, spells, and items.
-==== Skill Degrees in Items ====
-Many items also have skill degrees, though this generally only affects the number of dice rolled for whatever skill is manifested by the item. Rather than list them in degrees, we list items by the following adjectives which describe them:
-  * First Degree - Lesser
-  * Second Degree - This is the default or standard version of the item, so no adjective is listed.
-  * Third Degree - Extra
-  * Fourth Degree - Greater
-  * Fifth Degree - Super
-  * Sixth Degree - Ultra
-In the case of attack or defense, the number of dice rolled is generally the same as other skills, two for trying plus two per degree of the item. If this is adding onto an attack or defense, the dice of the degree alone are added to the other dice. You never add the "two for trying" more than once.
-Example: A first degree fire magician drinking a potion of extra fire would roll two dice (for trying) plus two dice for their degree of proficiency plus six dice for the potion being “extra” or third degree. Or ten dice total.
-If this isn’t an attack or defense, but rather a healing roll, as is the case with a potion of healing or mana, the number of dice rolled is five dice per degree (as we mentioned in the opposing rolls section above.)
-In the case of skills that required some level for the determination of distance, duration, or size, the following is used as a general rule of thumb:
-  * Lesser (First Degree): As if performed by a second level character
-  * Standard (Second Degree): As if performed by a fifth level character
-  * Extra (Third Degree): As if performed by an eight level character
-  * Greater (Fourth Degree): As if performed by a twelfth level character
-  * Super (Fifth Degree): As if performed by a twentieth level character
-===== Non-proficient Skills =====
-One more thing before we move on to everything that skills, magic, and items have in common and how we use them. We call these non-proficient skills.
-Sometimes a skill could technically be performed by someone who hasn’t practiced much or at all with performing this. Examples of non-proficient skills include swimming, climbing, running, throwing, tracking, etc. Even someone not at all practiced with these skills would be able to attempt it and often succeed at it. Someone non-proficient at a task generally rolls two dice. (Two for trying, as we say.)
-Example: Jane, a degree five swordswoman would have nine dice, “two for trying”, “two for proficiency”, and five for her degree of swordsmanship, when using her trusty longsword. And that doesn’t even count her longsword’s effectiveness against whatever she was attacking. If she has her longsword knocked from her hand and had to pick up a fallen branch to fight with, she would do so with only two dice since she isn’t proficient with branches.
-Example: If our swordswoman Jane, also happened to be a degree one staff wielder, the GM could determine that the branch is close enough to a staff and thus she is proficient with it, even though it is an improvised weapon and not really a properly hardened and balanced staff, thus giving her five dice for the attack.
-For anything that a person wouldn’t be expected to accomplish unless they were practiced — magic being a good example — they would roll zero dice.
-===== Skills affecting other Skills =====
-No skill is an island. Having a skill with one thing could affect other skills a character also has. Or maybe even skills they don’t have. A fitness skill would affect a foot speed skill, especially at longer distances. A proficiency with a staff could provide implied proficiency with improvised weapons like branches. Skills with plants and herbs can affect a natural healing skill. A skill in weaponsmithing could allow the character to be at least proficient (roll three dice) with any weapon he would have smithed often. A skill with woodcarving could allow a character to carve a crude bow or arrows in a pinch, even if they aren’t really a bowyer or fletcher.
-But a word of warning. Just because a GM could make a complex system of skills interacting with other skills doesn’t mean they should. Most of this should be decided on the fly, especially at it usually just allows another die per degree of the skill or otherwise increases the duration, area of effect, or distance of the skill being augmented. A complex system of skills can make for a tedious character creation process and defeats the purpose of making this system easy for anyone to pick up and use. Keep it simple. But have fun too.
-===== Pooling Powers =====
-Akin to skills affecting other skills in a single character, they can also affect each other in a party.
-We’ve probably seen in books, movies, and television shows where magicians pool their powers to make much stronger attacks. In real life, people with the same skills can work faster and better through cooperation. In most RPGs, they don’t even try to handle something like this. In Dice Mob, this is super easy. Both characters must have prowess in the same skill, e.g. fire magic, but then they just add their extra dice together, two dice to try plus one die per degree of prowess for all of the characters involved. The levels, where appropriate, are also added together to determine range, area of effect, etc.
-When determining which form of a skill can be used, it would be the highest degree of one of the involved characters, not a sum of the degrees.
-Example: A trio of magicians want to burn down an orc encampment with a firestorm. Even pooling their powers, at least one fourth degree magician would be required, assuming that the storm version of fire magic required at least a fourth degree magician to cast. (We’ll talk more about elemental magic and how the various degrees work later.)
-So why would characters want to pool skills? Because two second degree fire magicians could roll eight attack dice (“two for trying”, “two for proficiency”, two for one magician’s skill degree, two for the second magician’s skill degree) against a single opponent instead of six dice and six dice. If the opponents are weak, rolling only three dice of defense, it would be better for each character to attack separately, i.e. divide and conquer. But if an opponent is particularly powerful, for example an eight defense against all attacks, eight dice attacking the opponent have a much better chance of causing at least some damage than the two characters acting individually. Also the additional range could mean the difference between hitting an enemy and having the spell fizzle out early.
-With defenses, this would work the same way. But the players would again have to decide whether it’s worth it for two characters to throw up two defenses (each with their own two “try” dice and “proficiency” dice) or to pool their powers to throw up a single pooled defense.
-And some pooling of powers just doesn’t make sense. Mental powers, for instance, can’t usually enhance one another, nor does it make sense for someone to lend a hand in dodging an attack.
-===== Effects of Degrees and Levels =====
-As we’ve mentioned before, each skill degree adds one or two more die to the dice rolled to accomplish a given skill. We’ve also mentioned that sometimes an additional skill degree can have a different effect. These vary greatly based on the type of skill, but when it comes to magic or magic-like effects, it is generally handled with the following effects:
-  * First Degree:
-    * Self
-    * Touch
-  * Second Degree:
-    * First degree effects at second degree dice
-    * Second degree effects at first degree dice
-      * Point to point
-      * Imbue weapon for one attack
-      * One-dimensional object at any distance within range
-  * Third Degree:
-    * First degree effects at third degree dice
-    * Second degree effects at second degree dice
-    * Third degree effects at first degree dice
-      * Fan (hits multiple opponents within the width of fan)
-      * Two-dimensional object at any distance within range
-        * Wall
-        * Plane
-      * Two of the second degree effects with one action
-  * Fourth Degree:
-    * First degree effects at fourth degree dice
-    * Second degree effects at third degree dice
-    * Third degree effects at second degree dice
-    * Fourth degree effects at first degree dice
-      * Area of Effect or three-dimensional object at any distance within range
-        * Storm
-        * Cloud
-        * Cube
-        * Sphere
-        * Prism
-      * Three of the second degree effects with one action as if each were cast individually (e.g. "two for trying" might apply to each effect, if applicable)
-  * Fifth Degree:
-    * First degree effects at fifth degree dice
-    * Second degree effects at fourth degree dice
-    * Third degree effects at third degree dice
-    * Fourth degree effects at second degree dice
-    * Fifth degree effects at first degree dice
-      * Imbue a weapon for an entire battle
-      * Two third degree effects at any distance within range with one action as if each were cast individually (e.g. "two for trying" might apply to each effect, if applicable)
-      * Four second degree effects at any distance within range with one action as if each were cast individually (e.g. "two for trying" might apply to each effect, if applicable)
-  * Sixth Degree and above:
-    * No additional effects but all of the above effects, even if they affect multiple opponents or cast multiple spells, are performed with the appropriate additional dice
-This may seem like it's a bit complicated, but it's not all that hard once you get the hang of it. If you gain a new ability at a higher degree, like embedding someone within an enormous ice cube or an ice storm, dice effects would be at first degree because this is the first degree that allows you to use that effect. The same would go for an area of effect healing or any other skill.
-==== Distance ====
-The distance away something can be affected, thrown, or shot (as applicable) are measured at 1 meter per level of the skill-user.
-Example: A magician with first degree fire defense magic can make himself or the character touched immune to fire. A second degree magician can make a person at a distance equal to one meter per level of the magician immune to fire. A fourth degree magician could surround a group up to one meter per level away with a sphere or other three dimensional object to protect them.
-==== Size ====
-One dimensional objects aren’t really one dimensional in the actual sense, but they are generally considered as something which is only large enough to affect one opponent at the end of it. A character with the second degree fire attack skill could conceivably shoot/hurl a grenade, arrow, bullet, or even spear-sized object at an opponent as long as they weren’t trying to use it in a way as to affect more than one opponent.
-Two-dimensional objects are 1 sq meter per level of the caster. Two dimensional objects are generally walls or floors, but they could be circles, squares, hexagons, or whatever other shape a character wants them to be as long as they are of a level sufficiently high to make them as large as they need to be.
-Three dimensional objects are 1 cubic meter per level of the caster. Three dimensional objects can be cubes, spheres, half spheres, elaborately shaped prisms, or any other three dimensional objects that make sense.
-Example: A magician with first degree fire attack magic can cause things to start on fire by touch, including candle wicks, swords, arrows, or clothing. A second degree can hurl the fire in the form of fireballs or light things like campfires or candles from a distance or weapons. A third degree could use it to create walls of fire or two fireballs. A fourth degree could use it to create firestorms.
-Does that mean a fourth-degree skilled character could make a key of a substance they are skilled in? Yes, theoretically, provided they know exactly how that key should be shaped. They couldn’t just say that a key is shaped right to fit the door lock they are looking at. They’d have to have some knowledge of how the inside mechanism of that lock functioned. And the substance they used would have to be something that could affect a lock without destroying it.
-==== Duration ====
-The length of time a skill can last is one round per level of the caster (but it drains an equal amount of mana each round as it did when it was initially cast).
-===== Other Forms of Skills =====
-Just because something might be entitled magic, doesn’t mean everything has to be shot out of fingers, hands, or feet toward the intended target. If a player wants to change things up for their character, they can toss around alchemical potions, magic dust, draw sigils with their fingers, a paintbrush, or chalk, sing, or any number of things to invoke the magic. There’s no penalty to any of these methods of attacking other than what’s already limited. In fact, it might be a lot of fun to not just do magic via handwavium and command words.