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Character Skills

This page owns skill growth for the MC and other named characters. Skills explain differentiated people and assignments, not locked professions.

Canonical wording here defers to ../gd-canon.md and ../gd-glossary.md. Queue and execution wording live in gd-queue-and-activity-execution.md.

Role​

Skills should explain why two named characters solve the same problem differently.

  • Skills shape expedition success, combat performance, diplomacy, leadership, crafting, and specialized site interaction.
  • Skills are not fixed jobs or permanent profession labels.
  • Skill growth must matter from Act 0 survival through late-game command.

Progression Model​

  • A Skill is a long-term competence track that records what a named character can reliably learn, practice, and improve over time.
  • A Skill Tag is metadata that groups skills by domain for routing, discovery, teaching, and affinity targeting.
  • A Skill Family is the larger grouping of related skills above any one exact skill.
  • An Affinity is a learning, discovery, and proof bias that can target one exact skill, a skill tag, or a skill family.
  • A Technique is a learned method a character can bring into player-facing activities, missions, or assignments; at execution time it can be invoked by an activity.
  • Exercises are repeatable practice or study patterns that help a character build competence and discover better methods.
  • Breakthroughs are punctuated gains in understanding that unlock or stabilize higher-order capability instead of acting like flat XP ticks.

Growth Sources​

  • repeated use in grounded activities
  • directed training and study
  • equipment, titles, injuries, blessings, curses, or site-derived effects
  • assignment to real roles that expose the character to the work

Trait, Condition, And Injury Taxonomy​

  • Traits describe long-term identity, origin, background, personality, belief, work style, or acquired history. They answer who the person is.
  • Conditions describe temporary mutable state such as Hungry, Cold, Exhausted, Afraid, Bleeding, Tainted, or Poisoned. They answer what is happening right now.
  • Injuries describe mutable medical or physical harm such as Wounded, Sprained Ankle, Burned Hands, Broken Rib, or Concussion.
  • Acquired traits describe permanent or semi-permanent marks of history such as Scarred Hands, Limp, Demon-Scarred, Veteran of the First Night, or Taint-Touched.
  • Origin and background traits are normally immutable. (See lore exposure: lh-game1-world-hooks.md — Earthborn backgrounds row)
  • Personality traits rarely change and should move only through major events.
  • Acquired traits can be gained, lost, or transformed through major events.
  • Conditions are temporary and mutable.
  • Injuries are mutable, but they usually change more slowly than conditions.
  • Wounded now belongs in condition or injury space. A lasting scar belongs in acquired-trait space.

How Skills Feed Outcomes​

  • Skills feed resolved channels through modifiers and formulas; they are not collapsed into generic attributes.
  • A single skill can contribute to multiple channels, and a single channel can receive contributions from multiple skills.
  • Affinities mainly affect XP gain, technique discovery, technique proof gain, exercise discovery, breakthrough chance, teacher compatibility, and early backfire reduction.
  • Affinity is not a default raw output multiplier.
  • Traits can grant exact-skill, skill-tag, or skill-family affinities where the fiction supports it.
  • Traits can also modify channel resolution in context, behavior weights, event choice availability, assignment output, relationship gain or loss, mission risk, requests, and character conflict where the fiction supports it.
  • Conditions and injuries can push current execution values, risk, safety, and availability without redefining long-term identity.
  • Players do not directly use skills. They act through techniques, activities, missions, and assignments, and the executable layer still resolves as activities and policies.

Example Only: Trait Reads​

Examples only. These illustrate the taxonomy and are not a canon catalog.

  • Example only: Patient is a personality trait. It can improve long-form work stability, support teaching compatibility, and make careful assignment output more reliable.
  • Example only: Reckless is a personality trait. It can increase aggressive or high-risk behavior weights, improve bold pushes in some contexts, and create conflict or event pressure in others.
  • Example only: Village Smith is a background trait. It can grant smithing skill affinity, metalwork tag or family affinity, better early forge-side assignment output, and event choices tied to practical craft knowledge.
  • Example only: Taint-Sensitive is a trait. It can improve detection, interpretation, or caution around tainted places while also modifying stress, requests, or mission risk around those same contexts.
  • Example only: Scarred Hands is an acquired trait. It can reduce fine-hand precision, change which assignments are attractive, create conflict around pain or memory, and still leave room for expertise built through practice.

Channel Taxonomy​

  • Character channels stay granular. Do not collapse them into Strength, Dexterity, or similar generic attribute buckets.
  • Skills, traits, gear, injuries, site conditions, and other effects feed resolved channels through modifiers and formulas.
  • Distinguish current pools from caps, recovery, and resolved execution values.
  • Mutable pools or pressures are current-state values such as Stamina, Fatigue, and Mana.
  • Max channels are separate caps such as MaxMana when a pool needs clear headroom.
  • Regen or recovery channels are separate channels such as ManaRegen; do not fold recovery into the pool or its cap.
  • Resolved execution channels cover movement, work, combat, and magic output. Current examples include MoveSpeed, CraftQuality, RepairQuality, ResourceFidelity, ManaEfficiency, SpellPower, RitualPower, CastSpeed, ChannelStability, SpellStability, BackfireResist, FirePower, and FireControl.
  • Names such as Accuracy or Dodge can be ratings that resolve through hit or avoid formulas. Do not assume every displayed value is already a raw percent chance.
  • Power means magnitude or output. Control means precision, safety, shaping, and collateral reduction.

Magic And Elemental Pattern​

  • Mana is the current spellcasting pool. MaxMana is its cap. ManaRegen is its recovery rate. ManaEfficiency improves what a caster gets from each point spent or reduces waste without redefining the technique itself.
  • SpellPower is broad spell magnitude. RitualPower is deliberate ritual-scale magnitude. CastSpeed affects release speed. ChannelStability governs sustained or maintained effects. SpellStability governs whether a spell resolves cleanly. BackfireResist reduces failure, backlash, or corruption risk.
  • Elemental capability follows a narrow <Element>Power and <Element>Control pattern. FirePower and FireControl are the starter examples already implied by the docs.
  • Example only: adjacent starter-pattern extensions can use names such as FrostPower and FrostControl or HolyPower and HolyControl when a technique family truly needs them. This wave does not canonize every possible element.

Skills In Assignment Context​

Skills should pay off across the assignment surfaces the docs already name.

  • CoreBuilding work, Camp roles, Location Site support, Dungeon Site support roles, Missions, SettlementBuilding specialist work, Party or expedition duty, training or teaching, and later management or governance should each expose different skill mixes.
  • A character's skills should change what work the player requests from them, not only the size of a hidden modifier.

Examples only. Assignment context does not turn a person into a fixed job.

  • Example only: a person with Smithing skill, metalwork affinities, Village Smith background, Patient personality, Scarred Hands as an acquired trait, and the right tools can be assigned as the current forge specialist at a SettlementBuilding, a repair lead at the Core, or salvage support at a Site. The assignment changes with context. The character is not a permanent Job=Blacksmith identity.

What Skills Can Change​

  • the requested work itself, plus quality, safety, speed, or yield modifiers on grounded activities
  • unlocks or safer approaches to missions, sites, and support routines
  • clue generation, interpretation, or validation
  • incidental side results where the fiction supports them
  • teaching quality and training efficiency
  • event triggers tied to expertise, failure, loyalty, injury, or renown

Example Skill Mappings​

Examples only. These examples illustrate the model and are not a canon catalog.

  • Example only: Walking can modify MoveSpeed, travel Stamina cost, Fatigue gain, FallRisk, and travel interruption chance, and can unlock techniques such as Pacing, Sure Step, and Forced March.
  • Example only: Smithing can modify CraftQuality, RepairQuality, and ResourceFidelity for metalwork, and can unlock Clean Weld, Forge Heat, and Tempering Method.
  • Example only: Fire Magic can modify FirePower, FireControl, and SpellStability for fire techniques, and can unlock Firebolt, Warm Camp, Forge Heat, and Controlled Burn.
  • Example only: Ritual can modify RitualPower, ChannelStability, and BackfireResist, and can support warding, Nexus work, cleansing, and leyline work.

Example Only: Technique Reads​

  • Example only: Firebolt can read FirePower, AccuracyRating, and SpellStability.
  • Example only: Warm Camp can read FireControl, ManaEfficiency, and the relevant Campcraft or Survival context.
  • Example only: Wall of Flame can read FirePower, FireControl, and ChannelStability.
  • Example only: Forge Heat can read FireControl, Smithing, CraftQuality, and current Core forge quality.
  • Example only: Controlled Burn can read FireControl, RitualPower, and the relevant Forestry or Nature context.
  • Example only: Cleanse Taint with flame can read FirePower, RitualPower, BackfireResist, and possibly HolyControl.

Design Rules​

  • Training should improve a character, not erase the value of field use.
  • Skills should change what choices are attractive, not only add flat numbers.
  • Named characters should grow along understandable lines the player can read on the character surface.
  • Pops fill ordinary jobs; named characters carry the differentiated edges.
  • Skills and assignments should read together so the player can tell why a character belongs in one role and not another.