We have an updated Skill list for you to check out today. This update brings a lot of changes with it. The first is some simple format upgrades to make things a little easier on the eyes. Nothing super impressive, but it gives the whole list a nice pine-fresh spring clean feel.

In terms of mechanics, you’ll find a lot of skills have been upgraded to include uses and examples for both combat and non-combat. Many of the ‘talky’ skills now have specific Actions you can perform in conflict situations. We wanted to show more on how you can resolve conflicts of the not-stab-you-with-sharp-things nature. Our full rulebook will have plenty of information for players and game masters on using the Tide and Morale system to resolve things like investigations and political negotiations, but we felt it was important to bake some of that into the mechanics of skills so the overall system doesn’t feel hand-wavey.

You’ll find some new skills in the list, like “Weapons – Body” which models martial arts, or lets you fight with natural weapons like claws and fangs. Some skills have changed to make them more useful, such as the Profession skill, which now lets you count as having rolled a certain minimum number when you perform checks, based on how much Potential you invest in it. And, sadly, some skills have been rolled into others; fan favorites like Boating and Sake were deemed too specific and didn’t make the team this year. You can find their use in other skills. For example, parts of Boating are now rolled into Navigation, which also allows you to use the same skill with land-based travel.

This update also marks the first version of point-costing. You’ll notice it now takes different levels of Potential to reach bonuses in different skills. These values are still very much for playtesting purposes; we’re working more on finding the levels of Potential we want to give players to use, rather than locking in final numbers for balance purposes. Please let us know how you feel about the relative usefulness of Skills. Does one skill seem far more or less useful than another with the same Potential costs? Do any of the skills feel too weak, or like they’re missing the ability to do something you think should be included? We’d love to hear what you think.

You can grab the updated Skill document on our downloads page:
https://www.mysteriesoftheyokai.com/downloads/

Or download it directly here