Skills

I am not giving away numbers, but still the below can make you more
powerful so you may need to increase difficulty if you want to keep the
game challenging despite knowing all the ins and outs.

WEAPON SKILLS. Each relates to a weapon type, including unarmed if
you wield none. Increasing a weapon skill gives additional accuracy for
every single point, but only when you are hitting, this impact is NOT
showing in the stats screen because the stats screen shows just
intrinsic abilities and equipment modifiers. In addition, every item has
 a set of weapon attack styles that you can use, and has a different
threshold for the weapon skill from when it becomes available. Example:
there is a 2h axe which allows you to use a SPIN attack after you reach a
 2h axe skill level of about 70 from memory. SPIN hits ALL adjacent
enemies around the attacker. Cool, eh? But another 2h axe may NOT have
this attack style, but instead have others. Unarmed has a set of styles
similar to weapons, with ‘final touch’ being the most powerful one.
Attack styles grant bonus and penalties to things like speed, accuracy,
damage, stun, bleed, crib hit%. You need to check you are changing your
attack style after you increase your skill, it does not go automatic.

IDENTIFY: increases chance of an item in treasure or fight loot being
 identified. You generally fail if a condition, suffix or prefix is new.
 Apart from the skill level, it also helps if you have already found
many of the same type.

PERCEPTION: determines many things: if you spot a secret passage when
 you walk past, if you spot a secret passage when you specifically
SEARCH the right spot (low skill and you may still not see it even if
you stare at it!), whether you notice monsters approaching while you
rest. This a grouped skill.

SNEAKING: even when you enter the range by which a monster group can
notice you, this grouped skill gives you a chance to continue without
being spotted.

RAGE: low duration, fairly powerful attack buff. A daily skill. The
speed and accuracy are slightly higher, and the damage is significantly
higher. Evasion is far worse though. So this is used when you need to
make it count. Invoking rage takes a small amount of time. This is a
‘levelled skill’ whereby once you hit a proficiency level of 10,20,30
etc. you see it labels as a new level, and it will be available more
often per day, and be more powerful.

DETERMINATION: daily skill that simply speaking makes sure you make
the next attack count. You get a significant bonus to accuracy and a
slight bonus to crit hit%. It takes NO time, so in effect you just
declare an attack a special attack by invoking this, no loss of time, no
 friend or foe is acting before you use it. Also a levelled skill.

SHADOW SHIFT: allows you to teleport into the shadow of a creature,
friend or foe, that is a few tiles away. Takes a small amount of time. Best used to create quick flanking benefits or to make sure the boss enemy is not teleporting too far away and recovering. Daily skill, levelled skill.

ENDURE ELEMENTS: permanent increase in basic resistances. fully passive, and impact visible in RESIST view instantly.

TAUNT: reduces all enemies’ accuracy and physical armor by
distracting them. It is a fine art, think ‘Men in Black distracting the
boss cockroach’. Impact is small though, but cheap. Daily skill,
levelled skill. Well-timed, it is an easy benefit. Using this while you
are already in range to hit and be hit? probably a bad idea, spend your
turn hitting them hard.

DIVINE FAVOUR: not yet fully implemented in the game, at present this grants a powerful healing to all players.

EXORCISE – a daily skill which a cleric or priest can get some
rudimentary proficiency in (and rarely, monks have been seen having this
 skill from ‘birth’), but higher levels are restricted to the exorcist
class. It is a ritual that REALLY hurts an undead creature. At lower
levels the range is 2 tiles, so you don’t need to get as close to the
monster as your fighters get. At higher levels,
this is even a bit more than 2. The damage is massive compared to
anything else you would have at your disposal early on, and there is no
protection that would really help the target. Against enemies that
otherwise try to shelter themselves from damage (casting resistances, or
 be naturally immune to physical attacks etc), this can be an instant
kill.

REPULSION – a daily skill that is really useful against swarming
smaller creatures. Imagine you are letting the mobs get particularly
close for a second, only to burst out and hurt them with force damage,
and potentially push them tile away (if there is no space, additional
damage is dealt), and potentially stun them.
All three effects are stronger based on skill level and user’s strength.
 You will not do much to a big boss monster, but if he is troubling you
with minions, they will disappear from around you for a small while and
take damage and/or be stunned. Also nice to look at.

HARDEN UP – a basic cooldown skill, where a fighter for example
braces himself for taking damage. Impact is a % bonus to armor class
(15% at lowest level, more with higher levels). At higher levels, you
also get resistances against elements (and even magic at level 5+, and
poison at level 7+). This is one of the skills that are used
automatically once recharged if you select the “use defensive buff
skills” auto option for a player. This works even if the skill is not
one of your quick action buttons.

DARK CHANNELING – well, this skill only comes into play in the 2nd
half of the game and I don’t want to explain these in too much detail.
Essentially, you give up health for mana. Somehow
the weaker you are already and the weaker you make yourself in the
process, the more mana you get. Rumour has it, if you are on the brink
of death, it costs no further health and gives you FULL mana.

WEAPON SWAP – a key skill known to the ranger, it allows him to put a
 1h weapon or ranged weapon each in its main hand and off-hand.
  It does not allow for dual wield attacks, but rather gives him the
option to use this cooldown skill to swap between those two.  It
resembles his agility and versatility.  You can use it to swap between
melee and ranged attack style, but also to swap two weapons/bows with
different attributes (vs undead bonus against damage and speed
attributes).

FLAME ARROWS – Not just arrows, but any ranged ammunition, an archer
learns pretty early that preparing some with a fire substance can make
his ranged attacks a fair bit deadlier.  The preparation time is
significant (a bit over what is usually one fight turn), and the fire
also wears off after a few turns.  But this daily skill, timed well, can
 prove invaluable against enemies that are weak against fire.
 Often followed by the use of the determination skill, archers can make
the fight turn in your favour.

SPRINT – this is a cooldown skill that is also used by auto mode, if
you activate it and make a move action, the move is much faster. if you
activate it and do an action that is not a move, than it has no effect.
You can use it to reach ranged attackers faster to take them out, or
assume a flanking position quickly. or to make sure you stay ahead of a
chasing enemy while your ranged attackers weaken him. Higher skill level
 means faster sprint, and shorter cooldown required.

NO ESCAPE – a passive skill that increases the benefit YOU get from
flanking an enemy. You know how to direct a blow so that your target has
 lesser change of evasion.

NIMBLE – a passive skill that lowers the impact that flanking benefits have when you are attacked.

HOLY CHANT – a daily skill that grants small bonuses to accuracy,
evasion and crate hit chance (so always useful), and a SIGNIFICANT boost
 to “vs. undead” damage modifier. You can essentially save the day if
you have melee fighters that do not ave vs. undead bonuses, and they are
 facing spectres or ghosts which are immune to physical damage. Once
triggered, they are all getting a significant bonus, which turns their
0% damage into at least 200% damage. undead creatures that are immune to
 physical attacks normally have low health so you will cut them down
very quickly. Note: several players using holy
chant has a compounding effect. But the same person cannot invoke a
second chant while the first is still having an effect.

SHIELD BASH – a cooldown skill that is also used by auto mode. You
effectively add more force damage and stun chance to your melee attack.
Higher skill means more impact and shorter cooldown.

SHOULDER BASH – similar to shield bash, but weaker. If you have both,
 you will effectively be using your entire body to pummel your opponents
 in whatever way you can.

HEALING HANDS – daily skill. heal an adjacent player. the healing
impact is stronger the weaker the player is. So very effective if you
are in trouble and have made sure you are close to your fighters.

MAGIC LORE – if you want to not just increase your spell proficiency
by using a spell, but want to increase proficiency fast by using talent
points, then magic lore has too impacts: first it is your natural MAX
level because at higher spell proficiency, it is harder to know what you
 can improve. Spell books help with the amount of increase gained per
TP, but cannot raise the MAX. Magic lore also helps increasing the gain
per TP.

LOCK PICKING – ability to open locked chests or doors. The player
with the highest score is what matters most, with a small impact from
what skill other players have.

MANA FUNNEL – you use your arcane powers to direct the flow of mana
in a way that it hurts a target. None of your own mana is used, so it
has no cost. The damage is small, but can make a difference if you are
out of mana. Also, legend has it that have studied
 this art to such an extent that they can rival people using the more
common attack spells. At no cost…

MONSTER LORE – the party’s total score in monster lore, as well as
the distance to an enemy, are compared to the difficulty in reading a
monster’s health. The outcome determines at what distance, if at all,
you can tell the health of a monster. this shows in combat. Some
monsters are very difficult to read as they are not your normal living
being.

TANK STANCE – a bit similar to HARDEN UP, but more powerful. So
powerful in fact that it also has a downside: it reduces accuracy and
speed. But the armor boost and evasion is probably worth it.

BERSERKER’S WILL – ability to ignore/withstand a STUN impact
inflicted by your opponents. May not seemlier a big deal until you start
 to fight stone golems, minotaurs or dragons …

POISON BOOST – an assassin’s common daily skill. he has some poison
ready and can spend some time out of combat to apply it to his weapon.
The poison is very strong, and will crystalise/neutralise after a few
turns. But in that time, it can prove very deadly.

HOLY WARD – a cleric’s non-health contribution to he party’s
wellbeing.  There can at times be many negative effects at play in a
battle: the curses of ghosts and spectres, and more sinister debuffs
from undead wizards and the lich.  This daily skill casts a ward over a
player target making him immune to all negative elements of those, while
 still allowing all positives to work on him.  Even removes the partial
bad aspects of RAGE for example while allowing the boosts.  It also
removes paralysis if present at the time the ward is put in effect, and
grants some paralysis resistance thereafter for the duration of the
ward.

NATURE ALLY – a starting skill for the ranger (and at lower level for
 druids), Nature Ally is a nice skill to have early in the game, it can
if successful make one or more wolves appear.  Chance of failure reduces
 with level, and wolf count increases.  At high level it is also rumored
 to summon a more fierce nature ally.  Can help a lot with low level
fights at the start, but also provide a valuable distraction in later
fights to throw in some wolves and chew on the back rank spellcaster
type mobs that otherwise take too much time to reach and silence.

SUMMON DRAGON – A skill not usually obtainable.  But there are
achievements that may make a ‘DRAGON BLOOD’ birth feat available, and
those possess the ‘skill’ if you may call it that to ask Zomok for help
in a fight.  Zomok may do nothing.  Or he may send you a dragon as an
ally during combat.  Or you may catch him in a bad mood, and a dragon
appears in the enemies’ ranks… and don’t even ask what he will do if you
 dare to ask twice in the same fight (which is by the way only possible
if you have two players with the skill, because despite the skill level
increasing the dragon’s power, it can only ever be used ONCE a day).

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