Skills fall into the combat, thieving, social, and technological categories.
Your options in Arcanum will be determined by the skills you have, where you put your points initially, and where you dump points as you progress, as Arcanum is a level-less game where you simply increase in skills. Although your skills points are assigned, you will need trainers to increase you from apprentice, to expert, to master and to do that requires that you find them. The initial trainers are easy to find, but by the time you reach expert, trainers are going to be somewhat of a challenge, requiring major cash or large quests. As if you didn't have enough to worry about with skills and statistics, Arcanum gives a dizzying choice of technological disciplines and magical colleges as well. Once you're done with character generation, your character begins his odyssey in the single-player adventure.