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Skill Catalog

Purpose

This file lists the core player skills that emerge from the systems planned so far. These skills replace a global character level as the main progression model.

Display Rule

The backend can store numeric mastery, but the browser UI should present readable proficiency bands such as:

  • Untrained
  • Familiar
  • Practiced
  • Skilled
  • Veteran
  • Expert
  • Master

The player should see grouped categories, recent growth, and the skills relevant to their current activity instead of a giant flat wall of numbers.

UI Visibility Model

The full skill system can stay rich on the backend, but the UI should not expose the whole catalog to a new player at once.

Use a two-layer model:

  • starter-visible: broad skill families shown early and used in most default summaries
  • advanced-visible: narrower specializations revealed when the player starts using them, is taught them, or opens the advanced skill journal

Starter-Visible Skill Families

These should be the main skills shown to a new player.

1. Frontline Combat

What it means:

  • close-range fighting
  • blocking and holding the line
  • surviving direct pressure

Usually fed by:

  • Blades
  • Axes and Hammers
  • Polearms
  • Shielding
  • Heavy Armor
  • Light Armor
  • Evasion
  • Endurance

2. Ranged and Hunt

What it means:

  • ranged pressure
  • beast pursuit
  • safe opening control

Usually fed by:

  • Archery
  • Tracking
  • Hunting and Trapping

3. Arcana

What it means:

  • magical offense
  • magical defense
  • ritual counters

Usually fed by:

  • Arcane Theory
  • Elementalism
  • Restoration
  • Warding
  • Ritualism

4. Recovery

What it means:

  • healing
  • poison and wound response
  • keeping an expedition functional after a fight

Usually fed by:

  • Restoration
  • Field Medicine
  • Herbalism
  • Endurance

5. Scouting and Travel

What it means:

  • spotting danger
  • reading terrain and weather
  • moving safely through the world

Usually fed by:

  • Routefinding
  • Surveying
  • Cartography
  • Weather Sense
  • Campcraft
  • Waterfinding

6. Handling and Logistics

What it means:

  • animals
  • cargo
  • retreat quality
  • convoy stability

Usually fed by:

  • Animal Handling
  • Pack Handling
  • Caravan Handling
  • Leadership

7. Gathering

What it means:

  • extracting materials
  • finding useful sites
  • recovering value from the field

Usually fed by:

  • Logging
  • Mining
  • Quarrying
  • Herbalism
  • Fishing
  • Hunting and Trapping
  • Farming
  • Scavenging
  • Salvage Recovery

8. Crafting

What it means:

  • turning raw inputs into equipment, supplies, and public works goods

Usually fed by:

  • Smithing
  • Carpentry
  • Leatherworking
  • Clothworking
  • Cooking
  • Preservation
  • Alchemy
  • Tinkering
  • Masonry
  • Artifice

9. Trade and Stewardship

What it means:

  • value judgment
  • commerce
  • administration
  • training and documentation

Usually fed by:

  • Trade
  • Appraisal
  • Negotiation
  • Stewardship
  • Teaching
  • Scribing
  • Leadership

Advanced-Visible Specializations

These are the narrower skills the player grows into.

The UI should reveal them when at least one of these is true:

  • the player uses a linked loadout or profession often
  • the skill reaches Practiced
  • the player is taught the skill by a mentor
  • the player opens the advanced skill journal
  • the current activity strongly depends on the skill

Advanced Combat Specializations

Martial Weapon Skills

  • Blades: swords, knives, and duelist weapons.
  • Axes and Hammers: impact weapons, armor-breaking, and heavy strikes.
  • Polearms: spears, pikes, halberds, and reach-based fighting.
  • Archery: bows, long-range pressure, and hunting shots.
  • Shielding: blocking, cover, escort protection, and staying power.

Defensive and Survival Combat Skills

  • Heavy Armor: plate, mail, burden management, and direct mitigation.
  • Light Armor: mobility armor, balance, and skirmish protection.
  • Evasion: dodging, repositioning, and reducing exposure.
  • Endurance: stamina resilience, long-fight performance, and march tolerance.
  • Combat Judgment: threat reading, target priority, retreat discipline, and group efficiency in shared expeditions.
  • Field Medicine: battlefield stabilization, wound control, and expedition recovery.

Arcane Combat and Support Skills

  • Arcane Theory: general magical understanding and higher-tier spell discipline.
  • Elementalism: destructive elemental practice, elemental control, and affinity use.
  • Restoration: healing, cleansing, and recovery magic.
  • Warding: barriers, protection rites, and resistance effects.
  • Ritualism: slower but broader magical actions, site interaction, and omen work.

Advanced Expedition and Survival Specializations

  • Tracking: following beasts, raiders, and monster movement.
  • Routefinding: safer travel planning, shortcut use, and path optimization.
  • Cartography: recording tile knowledge, copying charts, annotating hazards, and preserving map freshness.
  • Campcraft: camp setup, fire discipline, shelter efficiency, and expedition comfort.
  • Waterfinding: locating, preserving, and stretching usable water.
  • Weather Sense: reading risk from climate and seasonal pressure.
  • Animal Handling: mounts, pack animals, and herd work.
  • Pack Handling: cargo balance, encumbrance efficiency, and transport safety.
  • Scavenging: salvage from ruined, abandoned, or storm-hit areas.

Advanced Gathering Specializations

  • Logging: timber cutting, wood quality, and forestry output.
  • Mining: ore extraction, vein handling, and mine efficiency.
  • Quarrying: stone extraction, shaping yield, and masonry feedstock.
  • Herbalism: herb location, harvesting quality, and medicinal botany.
  • Fishing: fisheries, nets, preservation prep, and aquatic harvest.
  • Hunting and Trapping: meat, hides, pest control, and beast harvest.
  • Farming: crop rotation, field management, soil conditioning, and yield improvement.
  • Surveying: site discovery, route confirmation, and coordinate precision.
  • Salvage Recovery: recovering useful components from ruins, wrecks, and broken gear.

Advanced Crafting and Refining Specializations

  • Smithing: metal shaping, weapon heads, fittings, and armor components.
  • Carpentry: hafts, planks, shields, crates, wagons, and wood structures.
  • Leatherworking: straps, packs, armor pieces, bindings, and treated hides.
  • Clothworking: garments, padding, tents, thread work, and wraps.
  • Cooking: meals, morale food, and efficient ration prep.
  • Preservation: drying, smoking, salting, brewing, pickling, and storage extension.
  • Alchemy: salves, extracts, solvents, catalysts, toxins, and medicine base work.
  • Tinkering: mechanisms, traps, utility devices, repair kits, and field tools.
  • Masonry: kiln work, stone construction, wells, walls, and civic building inputs.
  • Artifice: advanced magical or hybrid crafting for rare components and arcane tools.

Advanced Trade, Social, and Governance Specializations

  • Trade: buying, selling, pricing intuition, and exchange efficiency.
  • Appraisal: identifying value, spotting quality, and reading marketable goods.
  • Negotiation: better contract terms, cheaper hires, and social leverage.
  • Caravan Handling: route logistics, convoy efficiency, and shipment resilience.
  • Stewardship: reserve planning, project contribution, and local administration.
  • Leadership: group coordination, guild utility, public works influence, and militia support.
  • Teaching: training effectiveness, lesson quality, and mentorship outcomes.
  • Scribing: recipe copying, codex maintenance, contract documentation, and archive work.

Emergent Role Clusters

Roles should emerge from skill groups rather than from hard class ladders.

Vanguard Profile

  • Shielding
  • Heavy Armor
  • Endurance
  • Combat Judgment

Ranger Profile

  • Archery
  • Tracking
  • Routefinding
  • Hunting and Trapping

Arcanist Profile

  • Arcane Theory
  • Elementalism
  • Ritualism
  • Warding

Warden Profile

  • Restoration
  • Field Medicine
  • Herbalism
  • Campcraft

Artificer Profile

  • Tinkering
  • Smithing
  • Carpentry
  • Salvage Recovery

Duelist Profile

  • Blades
  • Light Armor
  • Evasion
  • Endurance

Unlock Philosophy

Systems should unlock from the relevant skills rather than from a universal level.

Examples:

  • advanced gather sites require the matching gather skill plus route knowledge
  • high-risk expedition roles require relevant combat and survival skill bands
  • advanced recipes require matching craft skills plus material knowledge
  • player contract posting should require a trusted social or domain skill plus local renown

New Player Presentation Rule

For a new player, the home screen should usually show:

  • the 3 to 5 most relevant starter-visible skill families for the current loadout
  • recent gains
  • one suggested next action

The player should not need to open the advanced specialization list until they want deeper control.

Proficiency Impact by Skill Category

This section defines what each proficiency band actually does for a character in each skill category. The bands are:

Untrained → Familiar → Practiced → Skilled → Veteran → Expert → Master

The pattern across all categories follows the same structure:

  • Untrained: heavy penalties; the character can attempt but outcomes are poor; linked equipment loses effectiveness
  • Familiar: penalties removed; basic use functions correctly; minimum equipment requirements met
  • Practiced: small positive bonus; core uses reliable; first content gate passed
  • Skilled: meaningful bonus; advanced uses available; harder content unlocked
  • Veteran: strong bonus; efficient resource use; expert content tier unlocked
  • Expert: near-ceiling bonus; specialization and teaching eligibility
  • Master: maximum bonus; unique outcome interactions; can teach formally; signature expedition effects

Frontline Combat

(Blades, Axes and Hammers, Polearms, Shielding, Heavy Armor, Light Armor, Evasion, Endurance)

Band Effect
Untrained High injury risk in melee. Armor slows without protecting. No opener control. Melee weapon bonuses negated.
Familiar Attacks connect. Armor works without encumbrance penalty. Basic blocks succeed.
Practiced Reliable parry. Can hold a line under moderate pressure. Armor efficiency bonus begins. Counter-attacks available.
Skilled Hold line against elite enemies. Armor negates minor status effects. Can anchor escort missions.
Veteran Strong reactive pressure. Heavy armor burden eliminated. Protects adjacent group members in escort encounters.
Expert Elite frontline stability. Armor synergy bonuses active. Can absorb elite mechanics without retreat pressure.
Master Pinnacle melee. Can anchor boss encounters. Signature guard effects (e.g. Shielding reduces group injury risk in one Clash per encounter).

Specific skill notes: - Shielding: Practiced = intercepts one hit per Clash reliably; Veteran = group shield cover in escort; Master = group-wide mitigation trigger - Heavy Armor: Familiar = no encumbrance penalty; Veteran = negates bleed and minor poison stacks; Master = immune to fear effects - Endurance: Practiced = no march fatigue penalty; Veteran = fights two extra Clash rounds before degrading; Master = moderate poison and bleed ignored on resolution

Ranged and Hunt

(Archery, Tracking, Hunting and Trapping)

Band Effect
Untrained Shots frequently miss. Cannot read trails. Ambush detection near zero.
Familiar Basic shots connect. Obvious trails readable. Simple hunt targets locatable.
Practiced Reliable shots including moving targets. Monster trail reading available. Hunting yield consistent.
Skilled Longer effective range. Weak-point shots available (Approach bonus vs known targets). Rare beast trails accessible.
Veteran Precise shots exploit tagged weaknesses. Expert beast tracking. Opener control reliable in beast encounters.
Expert Near-guaranteed Approach advantage vs beasts. Rare shot types (e.g. disabling, fire arrow). Elite prey readable.
Master Boss weak spots revealed before expedition launch. Maximum opener control. Tracking cannot be broken by standard concealment.

Arcana

(Arcane Theory, Elementalism, Restoration, Warding, Ritualism)

Band Effect
Untrained Spells misfire or fizzle. Rituals fail or produce hazardous backfire.
Familiar Basic spells succeed. Simple protective rites complete.
Practiced Reliable moderate damage and control. Effective ward basics. Ritual site interaction available.
Skilled Elemental affinity unlocked (double bonus on matched element encounters). Restoration stabilizes heavy wounds. Advanced rites available.
Veteran Burst elemental effects. Strong wards that persist across phases. Ritual site outcomes improve.
Expert Powerful arcane pressure equivalent to elite melee offense. Near-ceiling magical defense. Boss elemental mechanics readable.
Master Full elemental mastery. Signature ritual outcomes unlock unique site rewards. Magic barrier at boss level.

Specific skill notes: - Restoration: Skilled = revives downed allies before end of Recovery phase; Master = prevents one death per expedition - Warding: Veteran = ward persists across entire Clash phase; Master = ward absorbs one elite mechanic per encounter

Recovery

(Field Medicine, Herbalism, Endurance — overlap with Frontline for Endurance)

Band Effect
Untrained Injuries worsen. Medicine items misused and wasted. Herbs unidentified.
Familiar Wounds stabilized. Medicine items used without waste. Common herbs identified.
Practiced Injury severity reduced after combat. Medicine efficiency improved. Reliable herb harvest.
Skilled Serious wounds treated in the field. Better herb yield. Post-fight recovery time reduced.
Veteran Can recover from critical injuries during an expedition without a full retreat. Rare herb identification.
Expert Near-zero attrition loss from wounds when supplies are present. Full herb range identifiable.
Master Full field recovery from near-fatal outcomes. Keeps expedition alive through extreme scenarios. Medicine crafted in the field from foraged herbs.

Scouting and Travel

(Routefinding, Surveying, Cartography, Weather Sense, Campcraft, Waterfinding)

Band Effect
Untrained Wrong route choices increase travel time and ambush risk. No map output. Weather unreadable.
Familiar Basic routes reliable. Simple terrain readable. Camp functions without waste.
Practiced Ambush risk reduced. Weather patterns readable. Survey begins producing revealed tile knowledge. Charted output possible.
Skilled Shortcut use. Survey grade improves toward charted quality. Weather window exploitation available. Water sources identifiable.
Veteran Ambush risk nearly eliminated in known regions. High-confidence survey output. Multiple weather windows per route.
Expert Perfect route optimization. High-grade cartography items. Survey recon output usable for contracts.
Master Maximum survey quality. Signature route knowledge (e.g. safe passage through otherwise impassable terrain). Weather immunity effects on expedition.

Specific skill notes: - Cartography: Skilled = produces tradable tile_snapshot items; Veteran = produces map_sheet items; Master = map sheets carry permanent freshness and command premium trade value - Surveying: each band adds one more detail field to the survey output record - Campcraft: Practiced = no camp supply waste; Veteran = camp restores one injury level overnight

Handling and Logistics

(Animal Handling, Pack Handling, Caravan Handling, Leadership)

Band Effect
Untrained Animals bolt under pressure. Cargo falls or damages. Group morale drops faster.
Familiar Animals stay calm. Cargo balanced and secured. Morale stable in low-pressure situations.
Practiced Convoy stable under moderate threat. Supply stretch begins. Basic group morale maintained under stress.
Skilled Convoy resilient under significant threat. Animal efficiency improved. Morale holds in difficult encounters.
Veteran Convoy holds under elite-level threat. Cargo loss minimized even in Collapse outcomes. Leadership boosts group skill coverage scoring.
Expert Near-zero logistics attrition. Animals push through extreme terrain.
Master Maximum logistics performance. Signature convoy effect (e.g. one cargo loss prevented per expedition). Leadership enables militia or reinforcement support in applicable contracts.

Gathering

(Logging, Mining, Quarrying, Herbalism, Fishing, Hunting and Trapping, Farming, Scavenging, Salvage Recovery)

Band Effect
Untrained Low yield. Material damage on extraction. Sites give minimum output.
Familiar Basic yield works. No material waste. Standard site access.
Practiced Reliable yield. Basic quality variants accessible. Site output consistent.
Skilled Improved yield. Quality tiers accessible. Rare material variants occasionally found.
Veteran Strong yield efficiency. Rare variants reliably found. Advanced site tiers unlocked.
Expert Near-maximum site output. Advanced material tiers accessible. Can identify depleted vs productive sites before committing extraction time.
Master Maximum yield. Signature rare finds per expedition possible. Site productivity deducible from regional state and drift data alone.

Crafting

(Smithing, Carpentry, Leatherworking, Clothworking, Cooking, Preservation, Alchemy, Tinkering, Masonry, Artifice)

Band Effect
Untrained Crafts fail or produce broken items. Materials wasted.
Familiar Basic items craft without waste. Common recipes available.
Practiced Crafted-tier items produced consistently. Recipe catalog expands.
Skilled Fine-tier items possible. Advanced recipe access.
Veteran Superior-tier items possible. Material efficiency improves. Repair quality significantly better.
Expert Exceptional-tier items possible. Mastery recipe access. Teaching eligibility begins.
Master Masterwork-tier items possible. Signature craft outcomes (unique properties). Formal teaching certification.

Note: Quality tier output is a ceiling, not a guarantee. Actual tier depends on material quality and recipe complexity as well. The band sets what is achievable, not what always happens.

Trade and Stewardship

(Trade, Appraisal, Negotiation, Stewardship, Teaching, Scribing, Leadership — governance overlap with Handling)

Band Effect
Untrained Bad deals. Poor value reads. No contract posting.
Familiar Basic commerce works. Simple value judgment functional.
Practiced Fair deal recognition. Contract posting unlocked when combined with local renown. Basic administration.
Skilled Good price negotiation. Solid administration. Town governance participation eligible.
Veteran Strong economic position. Bulk trade efficiency. Town governance voting weight increased.
Expert Excellent contract terms. Archive-quality scribing output. Mentor teaching sessions available.
Master Maximum economic influence. Formal teaching certification across the guild system. Signature governance effects (e.g. militia levy or town project fast-track).
  • character progression and roles
  • equipment and gear
  • teaching and apprenticeship
  • crafting and gathering
  • social, trade, and governance