[[start|Dice Mob Home]] > [[dice_mob_rules|Dice Mob Rules]] > [[skills|Skills]]

====== Skill Points ======

Skill points are essentially a unit of currency allotted to a character at startup and again with every experience level gained. The use of Skill Points in Dice Mob are very similar to how they are used in RPG video games. They are spent to increase the Defenses, Attributes, or Knowledge of a character so that character can face more difficult challenges. 

To begin with, each character is allotted **ten** skill points. With each experience level increase, the character is awarded an additional **three** more skill points.

===== Attributes =====

Attributes are increased in a straightforward though progressive way. Before increasing attributes through the addition of Skill Point, make sure that the attributes gained through your professions are added first. Then additional Attribute dice may be "purchased" through the use of Skill Points.

Here is how the purchasing of Attribute dice works. When the attribute is between one and five, one skill point equals one attribute die. When the attribute is between six and ten, two skill points are required to advance the Attribute by one die. From eleven to fifteen, three skill points. Etc. There is no actual limit to how high Attributes can be, but at some point it becomes prohibitively expensive to advance above a certain number.

See [[attributes|Attributes]] for more information on how these are used and why they might be important.

===== Defenses =====

Defenses are even more straightforward. One skill point adds one to any of the ten defenses the player wishes. On standard character sheets, this is placed into the "Learned" column. Because armor, clothing, professions, and magical items all add to a character's defense it is often important to keep this separate and recalculate as equipment changes. Although adding dice to Defenses doesn't seem all that glamorous, a character's defense, either through points or through other types of defensive actions, is the single most important thing they can do to survive, considering that hit points are at such a premium.

See [[defense|Defense]] for more information on the ten Defenses and why they are important.

===== Knowledge =====

Unlike using Skill Points to "purchase" additional Defense or Attribute dice, using Skill Points to "purchase" Knowledge, on the other hand, is more complex. Knowledge is divided into Attribute Knowledge, Mundane Knowledge, and Specialized Knowledge. We've already mentioned Attribute Knowledge a little bit, but we'll explain why this is a type of knowledge. Then we'll go into the more complex types of Knowledge purchase.

==== Attribute Knowledge ====

Attribute knowledge is just a combination of skills a character can do based on a single attribute like Strength or Perception. Grouping them as such vastly reduces the amount of other knowledge that needs to be addressed specifically or "purchased" using Skill Points. Tightrope walking, for example, just fits under Dexterity rather than requiring its own skill and its own purchase. Disarming a trap would also fit under Dexterity. Tracking just fits under Perception as does finding a trap.

==== Mundane Knowledge ====

Mundane knowledge is used for skills which don't just result in a simple skill check. They are generally more advanced than just lumping them together under Attribute Knowledge, but they aren't so advanced as to have a number of Disciplines beneath them including the ability to continually increase those Disciplines. 

Mundane Knowledge is increased equal to the number of skill points each piece of knowledge has listed under the Skill Points to Learn. Generally this is one, but some of the more advanced skills cost more. All of these pieces of knowledge a character either knows or they don't. As mentioned before, there aren't any Degrees or Disciplines associated with these.

==== Specialized Knowledge ====

There are also five categories of knowledge--Weapon Proficiency, Arcane Knowledge, Divine Knowledge, Martial Arts, and Psionics--that have sub-pieces of knowledge beneath them called Disciplines. These categories themselves need only be "purchased" once, just as Mundane Knowledge was. Purchasing a Specialized Knowledge automatically comes with a few abilities, but it does not come with any of the Disciplines. Those must all be purchased separately.

==== Disciplines ====

The Disciplines, on the other hand, can be increased by one die per skill point and can be so increased indefinitely. The dice, in addition to being actual dice related to dice roll, also measure how the skill can be used through Skill Degrees. (See [[standard_effects_degrees_levels|Standard Effects of Degrees and Levels]] for more information on Skill Degrees and how they are determined.) 

===== Professions =====

At the GMs discretion, a character may also choose a profession using a skill point, but that profession would not gain any of the offensive skills, defensive skills, attributes, or knowledge that generally comes along with a profession that is chosen as part of the character creation process. It would come with any of the intangibles that a person of that profession would know, almost as if they'd learned it as some sort of hobby later on. The GM could require some or all of the Knowledge pieces to already be known before a profession can be chosen in this manner if it would stand to reason that they would have to know them to be of the profession. They might also require the characters to have participated in an adventure where that profession would reasonably be learned, at least to the level of a hobby (e.g. Whaler might be available as a choice of profession after concluding the adventure searching for the illusive white whale aboard a chartered whaling vessel).  

===== Attacks =====

Unlike Defenses, Attacks cannot be simply increased using Skill Points. Attacks are increased through switching out Weapons, increasing Knowledge or Attributes, adding Weapon Proficiencies or dice under Disciplines, improving Arcane Knowledge and its Disciplines, Martial Arts, and other means.