Below is the list of skills available to characters. Each class has a list of skills that it grants as class skills. Any of these class skills will cost 1 skill point per Rank you purchase in the skill. Any skills that lay outside of your class skills are considered cross-class skills, and will cost 2 skill points per rank. Some skills are useable without any Ranks in them, using only the ability score modifier keyed to that skill. They are denoted by notes in italics within each skills description below as to whether you need Ranks in the skill (trained only), or not. Some have prerequisites, which are listed in italics as well.
The amount of skill points you gain per level is given on the page for each individual class.
Once we get time to do so, we will list the DC’s for various tasks along with the skill descriptions below, but it will be a while in coming.
Appraise
Use this skill to tell an antique from old junk, a sword that's old and fancy from an elven heirloom, and high-quality jewelry from cheap stuff made to look good.
You can also assess a potential sexual partner's stamina and skill. By studying a target for at least 1 minute, you can make some general judgments. The DC for this new use is 15.
Autohypnosis
Trained only; Psionicist only
You have trained your mind to resist certain injuries and threats, as well as gain a few select benefits.
Balance
Armor Check Penalty applies
You can keep your balance while walking on a tightrope, a narrow beam, a ledge, or even an unseen floor.
Bluff
You can make the outrageous or the untrue seem plausible. The skill encompasses acting, conning, fast talking, misdirection, prevarication, and misleading body language. Use a bluff to sow temporary confusion, get someone to turn his head to look where you point, or simply look innocuous. This skill is also used for seduction attempts.
Other uses include helping connect with a potential sexual partner. A successful check makes a target interested in you sexually. Often, it means the target is willing to go off to some private corner, invite you to her place of residence, or go to yours for sex. It can also make the target believe your interest is deeper than a mere sexual encounter.
The target must be a sexually active individual who is willing and able to copulate. This seductive aspect of the Bluff skill does not force someone to do something outside his or her nature. This means not everyone can be duped into having sex, such as those that are in a committed relationship or taken of vow of chastity.
Climb
Armor Check Penalty applies
Use this skill to scale a cliff, to get to the window on the second story of a wizard's tower, or to climb out of a pit after falling through a trapdoor.
Concentration
You are particularly good at focusing your mind.
Craft
You are trained in a craft, trade, or art, such as armorsmithing, basketweaving, blacksmithing, bondage gear, bookbinding, bowmaking, calligraphy, carpentry, cobbling, gemcutting, leatherworking, locksmithing, painting, pottery, scarification artist, sculpture, sexual items, shipmaking, stone carving, stonemasonry, tattoo artist, trapmaking, weaponsmithing, weaving, or woodcarving.
Craft is actually a number of separate skills. For instance, you could have the skill of Craft(Trapmaking). Your ranks in that skill don't affect any checks you happen to make for pottery or leatherworking, for example. You could have several Craft skills, each with its own ranks, each purchased as a separate skill.
A Craft skill is specifically focused on creating something; if it is not, it is a Profession (see the Profession skill below).
Decipher Script
Trained only
Use this skill to piece together the meaning of ancient runes carved into the wall of an abandoned temple, to get the gist of an intercepted letter written in the Infernal language, to follow the directions on a treasure map written in a foreign alphabet, or to interpret the mysterious glyphs painted on a cave wall.
Diplomacy
Use this skill to persuade the chamberlain to let you see the king, to negotiate peace between feuding barbarian tribes, or to convince the ogre mages that have captured you that they should ransom you back to your friends instead of twisting your limbs off one by one. Diplomacy includes etiquette, social grace, tact, formal and informal rules of conduct, social expectations, proper forms of address, and so on. This skill represents the ability to give others the right impression of one, to negotiate effectively, and to influence others. Another use of this skill is to know how to address someone.
Disable Device
Trained only
Use this skill to disarm a trap, jam a lock (in either the open or closed position), or rig a wagon wheel to fall off. You can examine a fairly simple or fairly small mechanical device and disable it. The effort requires at least a simple tool of the appropriate sort (a pick, pry bar, saw file, etc). Attempting a Disable Device check with out a set of thieves’ tools carries a -2 circumstance penalty, even if a simple tool is still employed. The use of masterwork thieves’ tools enables you to make a check with a +2 circumstance bonus. Though very difficult, this skill can be used to disable magic runes.
Disguise
Use this skill to change your appearance or someone else's. The effort requires at least a few props, some makeup, and 1d3X10 minutes of work. The use of a disguise kit provides a +2 circumstance bonus to a Disguise check. A disguise can include an apparent change of height or weight of no more than one-tenth the original.
You can also impersonate people, either individuals or types, so that, for example, you might, with little or no actual disguise, make yourself seem like a traveler even if you are a local.
Escape Artist
Armor Check Penalty applies
Use this skill to slip bonds or manacles, wriggle through tight spaces, or escape the grip of a monster that ensnares you, such as a roper.
Forgery
Use this skill to fake a written order from the duchess instructing a jailer to release prisoners, to create an authentic-looking treasure map, or to detect forgeries that others might try to pass off.
Gather Information
Use this skill for making contacts in an area, finding out local gossip, rumor mongering, and collecting general information. You can also find out who is really in charge in a situation or area with this skill, or to find out the "who's who" in an area.
Handle Animal
Trained only
Use this skill to drive a team of horses pulling a wagon over rough terrain, to teach a dog to guard, to raise an owlbear chick as a devoted pet, or to teach a tyrannosaur to "speak" on your command.
Heal
Use this skill to keep a badly wounded friend from dying, to help others recover faster from wounds, to keep your friend from succumbing to a wyvern's sting, or to treat disease.
Hide
Armor Check Penalty applies
Use this skill to sink back into the shadows and proceed unseen, to approach a wizard's tower under cover of brush, or to tail someone through a busy street without being noticed.
Intimidate
Use this skill to get a bully to back down or to make a prisoner give you the information you want. Intimidation includes verbal threats and body language.
Jump
Use this skill to leap over pits, vault low fences, or reach a tree's lowest branches.
Knowledge
Trained only
Like the Craft and Profession skills, Knowledge actually encompasses a number of unrelated skills. Knowledge represents a study of some body lore, possible an academic or even scientific discipline. Below are typical fields of study. With your DM's approval, you can invent new areas of knowledge.
- Arcana (ancient mysteries, magic traditions, arcane symbols, cryptic phrases, sex magic)
- Architecture and Engineering (buildings, aqueducts, bridges, fortifications)
- Geography (lands, terrain, climate, people, customs)
- Hearth Wisdom (folk-lore, myths, origins of place names, folk remedies for common ailments)
- History (royalty, wars, colonies, migrations, founding of cities)
- Literature (stories, plays, ballads, epic poetry, legends)
- Local (legends, personalities, inhabitants, laws, traditions, including ones governing sex and private customs including norms and fetishes)
- Mathematics (basic math, geometry, algebra)
- Nature (plants and animals, seasons and cycles, weather)
- Nobility and Royalty (lineage, heraldry, customs, family trees, mottoes, personalities, laws)
- The Planes (the Planes, inhabitants, magic related to the Planes, sexual knowledge related to the planes and outsiders)
- Politics (government beauracracies, petitions, bribes, subterfuge, art of compromise)
- Psionics (lore and phenomena of psionics in general)
- Religion (gods, mythic lore, history, ecclesiastic traditions, holy symbols, the deity’s sexual habits and relationships, sexual taboos pertaining to religion)
- Space (planetary motion, the Void, space creatures)
- Streetwise (drinking, fighting, flirting, gambling, tailing)
- War (siege engines, sapping, siege tactics and strategy)
- Undead (nature and tactics of undead creatures)
Listen
Use this skill to hear approaching enemies, to detect someone sneaking up on you from behind, or to eavesdrop on someone else's conversation.
Move Silently
Armor Check Penalty applies
You can use this skill to sneak up behind an enemy or to slink away without being noticed.
Open Lock
Trained only
You can pick padlocks, finesse combination locks, and solve puzzle locks. The effort requires at least a simple tool of the appropriate sort.
Perform
You are skilled in several types of artistic expression and know how to put on a show. Possible Perform types include ballad, buffoonery, chant, comedy, dance, drama, drums, epic, flute, harp, juggling, limericks, lute, mandolin, melody, mime, ode, pan pipes, recorder, sexual techniques, sham, singing, storytelling, and trumpet. (The DM may authorize other types.) You are capable of one form of Performance per rank.
Pilot Spelljammer
You can make a spelljamming ship perform a maneuver greater than normally allowed to it with a successful check.
This is a cross-class skill for any character who has not selected the Spelljammer Pilot feat. If you have selected that feat, Pilot Spelljammer is treated as a class skill for all of your classes.
Profession
You are trained in a livelihood or a professional role, such as apothecary, astrologer, boater, bookkeeper, brewer, cook, courtesan, driver, farmer, fisher, guide, herbalist, herdsman, innkeeper, lumberjack, masseuse, master, midwife, miller, miner, piercer, porter, prostitute, purveyor, rancher, sailor, scarification artist, scribe, siege engineer, spacehand, stablehand, tanner, tattoo artist, teamster, woodcutter, and so forth.
Like Craft, Profession is actually a number of separate skills. For instance, you could have the skill Profession (Cook). Your ranks in that skill don't affect any checks you happen to make for milling or mining. You could have several Profession skills, each with its own ranks, each purchased as a separate skill.
While a Craft skill represents skill in creating or making an item, a Profession skill represents an aptitude in a vocation requiring a broader range of less specific knowledge. To draw a modern analogy, if an occupation is a service industry, it's probably a Profession skill. If it's in the manufacturing sector, it's probably a Craft skill.
Psicraft
Trained only
Use this skill to identify psionic powers as they manifest or psionic effects already in place.
Ride
You can ride a particular type of mount (usually a horse, but possibly a different mount). When you select this skill, choose the type of mount you are familiar with. For this purpose, "horses" includes mules, donkeys, and ponies. If you use the skill with a different mount (such as riding a giant lizard when you're used to riding horses), your rank is reduced by 2 (but not below 0). If you use this skill with a very different mount (such as riding a griffon when you're used to riding horses), your rank is reduced by 5 (but still not below 0).
Search
You can find secret doors, simple traps, hidden compartments, and other details not readily apparent. The Spot skill lets you notice something, such as a hiding thief. The Search skill lets a character discern some small detail or irregularity through active effort.
Search does not allow you to find complex traps unless you are a Thief.
Sense Motive
Use this skill to tell when someone is bluffing you. This skill represents sensitivity to the body language, speech habits, and mannerisms of others. You may also use this skill to gain combat predictions, sizing up your foe, per se, or to decipher a particular strategy that is being used in a given situation.
This skill can also be used to discover if a person is being faithful to her chosen union. Alternatively, Sense Motive can be used to determine another person's sexual orientation, especially if she's trying to hide it.
Sleight of Hand
Trained Only; Armor Check Penalty
You can cut or lift a purse and hide it on your person, palm an unattended object, hide a light weapon in your clothing, or perform some feat of legerdemain with an object no larger than a hat or loaf of bread.
Speak Language
Trained only
The Speak Language skill doesn't work like a standard skill :
- You start at 1st level knowing 1 or 2 languages (according to your race), plus an additional number of languages equal to your Intelligence bonus.
- Instead of buying a rank in Speak Language, you choose a new language that you want to speak.
- You don't make Speak Language checks. You either know a language or you don't.
- A literate character (anyone but a Barbarian) can read and write any language she speaks. Each language has an alphabet (though sometimes several spoken languages share a single alphabet).
The commonly practiced languages to choose from (aside from regional dialects) are Abyssal, Aquan, Auran, Celestial, Common, Draconic, Druidic, Dwarven, Elven, Giant, Gnome, Gnoll, Halfling, Ignan, Infernal, Orc, Sylvan, Terran, and Undercommon.
Spellcraft
Trained only
Use this skill to identify spells as they are cast or spells already in place.
Spot
Use this skill to notice bandits waiting in ambush, to see a thief lurking in the shadows, or to see the giant centipede in the pile of trash.
Survival
Use this skill to follow tracks, hunt wild game, guide a party safely through frozen wastelands, and identify signs that owlbears live nearby, predict the weather, or avoid quicksand and other natural hazards.
Swim
Using this skill, a land based creature can swim, dive, navigate underwater obstacles, and so on.
Tumble
Trained only; Armor Check Penalty
You can dive, roll, somersault, and flip, and so on. You can't use this skill if your speed has been reduced by armor, excess equipment, or loot.
Use Magic Device
Trained only
Use this skill to activate magic devices, including scrolls and wands, that otherwise you could not activate.
Use Psionic Device
Trained only
Use this skill to activate psionic devices, including power stones and dirges, that otherwise you could not activate.
Use Rope
With this skill, you can make firm knots, undo tricky knots, and bind prisoners with ropes.
