Personal defense skills are somewhat of a catch-all defending against attacks to a character's person without being damaging attacks against them (which are covered under force defense or elemental defense) or attacks against their mind (which are covered under mental defense). These include attacks against a character's personal space (like pickpocketing) as well as attacks against the character as they define themselves (including changing their size, shape, etc).

Personal resistance is a characters natural ability to recognize and resist when someone is invading their person or personal belongings.