Advanced Skills

Advanced Skills are functionally identical to skills in the fact that they can be leveled up by spending skill points. Unlike regular skills, however, Advanced Skills require certain prerequisites to be met before they can be taken.

By default, Advanced Skills are considered usable if untrained, however incur a -5 penalty on any roll to perform that Advanced Skill if the character has no levels in it. Any Advanced Skill that is considered trained only cannot be performed by anyone without any ranks in it.

See the Skills article for a list of basic skills.

Training Advanced Skills
Training an Advanced Skill costs 2 skill points per level and assumes that the character learning the skill has the proper resources available to teach themselves including learning materials and a method of practicing the skill. A character may choose to learn an Advanced Skill from a trainer, but this process requires the character to find a trainer willing to teach the character and an additional cost of per level, but halves the time required to gain each level.

Characters require 40 hours of dedicated study per level gained. Characters may opt to continue adventuring while learning Advanced Skills. In this event, characters may allocate time each day for studying skills, up to 8 hours per day, accumulating up to 40 hours. This training time cannot be done during dedicated resting time. Once a character reaches 40 hours of training in the Advanced Skill, they receive the additional level in that skill. Utilizing a trainer for learning an Advanced Skill requires only 20 hours of dedicated study per level gained.

An Advanced Skill's maximum level is equal to that of a normal skill at the character's level.

Crafting Skills
This category of Advanced Skills includes everything including creating, repairing, modifying and salvaging items. See Crafting for more information and a list of applicable skills and prerequisites.

Vehicle Piloting (Trained Only)
Vehicle Piloting is the determining factor in how skillful a character is in flying or driving. At Skill Level 10, the character is considered proficient in piloting that particular vehicle and no longer needs to make a Skill Test whenever they want to perform a basic action such as moving or activating systems. The character still benefits from having a higher Skill Level than 10 for the purposes of Evasive Maneuvers, which always require a Skill Test.

Whenever a character moves or activates a system on the vehicle, they roll a basic piloting Skill Test, unless their Skill Level meets or exceeds 10 with that piloting skill. Evasive Maneuverse act like Evasion when piloting a vehicle. Dodging dangerous terrain or enemy fire requires a Piloting Skill Test.