Skills & Perks

Skills are the main way of determining a character’s ability to perform an action – Dawntide does not have levels. Skills may be increased up to a point by NPC trainers or a PC with sufficient skill, but all characters start with all skills.
Skills increase as they are used. The rate of skill increase is affected by your Core Attributes as well as your total Skill Points, such that a fresh character with few Skill Points will train skills faster than a character with a very high amount of Skill Points. Basic skills can be learned freely without suffering attrition.

Basic Skills

• Brawl: Brawl grants you a basic modifier that is applied to your skill at any weapon or armor you are using.
• Cooking: Making healthy and nourishing food by using components taken from animals and plants.
• Brewing: Making drinks by using components taken from animals and plants.
• Hiding: Staying perfectly still and hiding oneself behind cover.
• Fishing: Using a rod and bait to catch fish.
• Survival: Making tools out of what can be found in nature and surviving in dangerous conditions.

Profession Skills

• Skinning: Using a sharp knife to recover skins, fangs and other valuable parts of dead creatures.
• Herbalism: Locating and harvesting rare plants.
• Mining: Harvesting metal ore and gems from the earth.
• Lumberjacking: Harvesting wood from trees.
• Tailoring: Crafting armor, clothes and decorative items from materials such as wool, linen and hides.
• Alchemy: Creating potions and poisons using components taken from animals and plants.
• Blacksmithing: Creating armor, weapons and tools from metal ore
• Fletching: Creating bows and arrows from wood.
• Jewelcrafting: Making jewelry and ornaments from gems and rare metals.
• Carpentry: Crafting large wooden objects, such as furniture and ships.
• Masonry: Building houses and fortifications.
• Cartography: Working with clay and sand to make everyday objects such as containers.
• Enchanting: Crafting runic enchantments used on weapons and attire from sorcerous materials.
• Horsemanship: Properly using and directing mounts.
• Animal Training: Taming and directing animals and beasts.
• Stealth: Moving about unseen in the shadows.
• Thieving: Opening locks, picking pockets, and stealing objects without being noticed.
• Speechcraft: Charming and persuading NPCs into liking you more and doing things they otherwise might not do. Speechcraft also plays a role in effectively managing hireling NPCs.
• Tracking: Locating and following creatures at a distance.
• Navigation: Directing sea-going vessels.

Combat Skills

• Unarmed: Learning to use your body as a weapon, allowing you to fight unarmed and unarmored.
• Short Blades: Dagger, short sword and broad sword combat.
• Long Blades: Using long swords and great swords in melee combat.
• Polearms: Fighting with staves, spears and halberds in melee combat
• Maces: Using maces, clubs and morning stars in melee combat.
• Axes: Using one and two-handed axes in melee combat.
• Block: Defending with shields in melee combat.
• Light Armor: Wearing and moving in padded, hide, leather and studded leather armor.
• Medium Armor: Wearing and moving in Ringmail, Chainmail and Scalemail armor.
• Heavy Armor: Wearing and moving in Splintmail, Halfplate and Platemail armor.
• Anticipation: Reading your opponent and anticipating his moves, giving you an idea of what his next actions in combat will be and allowing you to come up with a counter.
• Marksmanship: Using bows, crossbows and primitive gunpowder weapons.
• Throwing: Throwing weapons and objects in combat.
• Siege Weapons: Using ballistae, catapults and other siege weapons.
• Gunnery: Using gunpowder-based weaponry in combat.
• Mounted Combat: Fighting in melee combat while on horseback.
• Mounted Archery: Using ranged weapons while on horseback.

Sorcery Skills

• Alteration: Sorcery school that concerns itself with changing and empowering living and dead materials both. Alteration spells will typically boost a creature's attributes or an item's property to a higher level of effect.
• Conjuration: Sorcery school that concerns itself with divine summons and blessings. Conjuration will typically conjure spiritual creatures to fight for the caster or bestow blessings upon the caster and his allies.
• Elementalism: Sorcery school that concerns itself with the primal, destructive magic of the elements. Elementalism spells will typically cause direct harm using the forces of the four elements.
• Illusion: Sorcery school that concerns itself with manipulation and trickery. Illusion spells will typically attempt to fool or coerce a creature into doing something it would not otherwise do.
• Necromancy: Sorcery school that concerns itself with unholy summons and curses. Necromancy will typically conjure undead creatures to fight for the caster or curse the caster's enemies.
• Preservation: Sorcery school that concerns itself with restorative and warding magic. Preservation spells will typically be some form of magical defense or healing.
• Primalism: Sorcery school that concerns itself with manipulating massive raw energies through the use of ritual magic. Primalism spells require multiple highly skilled players to cast.

Perks

Perks are special abilities tied to your skills. Each time you gain a new title in a skill such as Apprentice to Journeyman, you unlock one additional perk which can be picked from that skill's perk list. Perks will provide bonuses relevant to your skill, such as faster mining for a miner or a new type of attack for a long blades fighter. Perks have pre-requirements, and in the final game there will be more perks available than you can pick, forcing you to specialize.