Skills

A character’s skills are the PC’s learned abilities. A newly-created character starts with a few relevant skills and may acquire more as they advance in level. NPCs do not have individual skills, instead relying on their combat stat line’s skill bonus when relevant. See section 2.3.0 for the rules for making skill checks.

Skill Level

Skills are rated on a scale between level-0 and level-4. A character must reach a certain minimum experience level to develop a skill to level-2 or beyond.

Level-0	Basic competence in the skill, such as an ordinary practitioner would have
Level-1	An experienced professional in the skill, clearly better than most
Level-2	Veteran expert, one respected even by those with considerable experience
Level-3	Master of the skill, likely one of the best in the city
Level-4	Superlative expertise, one of the best in the world

Gaining Skills in Character Creation

Characters gain skills from their Backgrounds as described below and from a single free pick as noted in Final Touches. Some Foci also grant particular skills. The first time a skill is picked or given, a character obtains it at level-0. The second time it is picked or given, the skill becomes level-1. The third and further times a skill is picked or given during character creation, the player instead picks any other skill that is not already level-1. No character can begin play with skills above level-1.

The Skill List

The following skills are standard choices for most campaigns. Games set in a particularly unusual kind of cyberpunk dystopia may use different ones.

Skills are general, and some of them may overlap in some situations. An operator trying to clear a jammed combat shotgun before the corp cops bust through the door might plausibly check either Fix to repair it or Shoot to represent their familiarity with weapons maintenance. Assuming the GM agrees, you can roll whichever skill is better for you.

Administer

Manage an organization, handle paperwork, analyze records, and keep an institution functioning on a daily basis. Roll it for bureaucratic expertise, organizational management, legal knowledge, dealing with government agencies, and understanding how corps really work.

Connect

Find people who can be helpful to your purposes and get them to cooperate with you. Roll it to make useful connections with others, find people you know, know where to get illicit goods and services, and be familiar with foreign cultures and languages. You can use it in place of Talk for persuading people you find via this skill. Note that the people you meet via Connect are not necessarily inclined to work with you without a good reason; if you want reliably cooperative allies, you need Contacts.

Drive

Drive vehicles, sail ships, fly planes, pilot drones, and perform maintenance and basic repairs on such devices. A PC’s background may incline them to a particular kind of driving, but with some practice this skill can be applied generally.

Exert

Apply trained speed, strength, or stamina in some feat of physical exertion. Roll it to run, jump, lift, swim, climb, throw, and so forth. You can use it as a combat skill when throwing things, though it doesn’t qualify as a combat skill for other uses.

Fix

Create and repair devices both simple and complex. Your PC may be specialized in some field depending on their background, but this skill can be applied generally by most operators. Roll it to fix things, build things, and identify what something is supposed to do.

Heal

Employ medical and psychological treatment for the injured or disturbed. Roll it to cure diseases, stabilize the critically injured, treat psychological disorders, or diagnose illnesses. It’s also an important skill for implanting and maintaining cyberware.

Know

Know facts about academic or scientific fields. Roll it to understand academic topics, remember relevant history, solve science mysteries, and know the basic facts about rare or esoteric topics.

Lead

Convince others to also do whatever it is you’re trying to do. Talk might persuade them that following you is smart, but Lead can make them do it even when they think it’s a bad idea. Roll it to lead troops in combat, convince others to follow you, inspire employee loyalty, or maintain morale and discipline.

Notice

Spot anomalies or interesting facts about your environment. Roll it for searching places, detecting ambushes, spotting things, and reading the emotional state of other people.

Perform

Exhibit some performance skill. Roll it to dance, sing, orate, act, or otherwise put on a convincing or emotionally moving performance.

Program

Operating or hacking computing and communications hardware. Roll it to program or hack computers, control computer-operated hardware, operate communications tech, or decrypt things. Hacker PCs rely heavily on this skill.

Punch

Use it as a combat skill when fighting unarmed. If your PC means to make a habit of this rather than as a recourse of desperation, you should take the Unarmed Combatant Focus described later.

Shoot

Use it as a combat skill when using ranged weaponry, whether thrown weapons, bows, gunlinked pistols, combat rifles, or heavy artillery.

Sneak

Move without drawing notice. Roll it for stealth, disguise, infiltration, manual legerdemain, pickpocketing, and the physical defeating of security measures such as electronic locks.

Stab

Use it as a combat skill when wielding melee weapons, whether primitive or complex. It can also be used when throwing weapons.

Survive

Depending on the character’s background, this might be more a matter of street smarts and urban survival or it might be directed towards outlands bushcraft and wilderness living. Regardless of the original focus, some time and practice can allow it to be generalized by a PC.

Talk

Convince other people of the facts you want them to believe. What they do with that conviction may not be completely predictable. Roll it to persuade, charm, or deceive others in conversation.

Trade

Find what you need on the market and sell what you have. Roll it to sell or buy things, figure out where to purchase hard-to-get or illicit goods, deal with customs agents, or run a business.

Work

This is a catch-all skill for professions not represented by other skills. When you take it, pick a particular profession, such as lawyering, stevedore work, painting, or some other career. The skill then applies to performing that work or making contacts with people in its sphere.