Numenera 2.5 - Skills

Skills

Sometimes your character gains training in a specific skill or task. For example, your focus might mean that you’re trained in sneaking, in climbing and jumping, or in social interactions. Other times, your character can choose a skill to become trained in, and you can pick a skill from below or propose something more character-related.

If you gain a skill that you’re already trained in, you become specialized in that skill, which eases related tasks by two steps instead of one.

If Descriptor, Type or Focus gives you training in some narrow skill then you should take it. Common skills that include these narrow skills will give your specialization in this narrow skill. For example, if Descriptor gives you training in Climbing, then if you take training in Athletics later, you will get specialization in Climbing.

Such cases also include social skills: pleasant & positive social interactions, detecting hidden motives, etc.

Only skills gained through character type abilities (such as the Glaive’s fighting moves), focus abilities, or other rare instances allow you to become skilled with attack or defense tasks.

If you gain a special ability through your type, your focus, or some other aspect of your character, you can choose it in place of a skill and become trained or specialized in that ability. For example, if you have a mind blast, when it’s time to choose a skill to be trained in, you can select your mind blast as your skill. That would ease the task every time you used it. Each ability you have counts as a separate skill for this purpose. You can’t select “all mind powers” or “all esoteries” as one skill and become trained or specialized in such a broad category.

Special skills:

These skills require detailed knowledge. If you aren’t trained or specialized in this skill, you have an inability in the skill (you’re hindered whenever you attempt that task).

Crafting Numenera, in addition to its main uses, allows you to understand how something was built or what kind of protection the creature has (even if it is inanimate).

Salvaging Numenera, The skill, in addition to its main uses, allows you to understand how to destroy something and what are the vulnerabilities of the creature (even if it is alive).

To take a specialization in Understanding Numenera you must choose one of two options below:

Common skills:

Knowledge Skills:

Profession skills:

Social skills: