Sub-skills

Many of the skills are broken up into sub-skills.  For any such skill, you can choose to have all the sub-skills be at level defined by that skill's position in they pyramid. OR You can choose to elevate one of the sub-skills at the cost of all the others.  That one sub-skill will be at one shift higher than the overall skill's position in the pyramid, and the other sub-skills will be at one shift lower.

For example, say John puts the skill Computer software as one of the skills at which he is Great (+4). Note that this skill offers three specialties: Hacking, Robotics programming, and Automation and general software. He can choose to say that he is great at all the sub-skills, or he can decide that he is Superb (+5) at one and only Good (+3) at the two others.

The player can choose either of the two approaches below for a skill that has sub-skills.  However, once selected, he is locked in with that choice, at least for the time being  Depending on the choices the GM has made for managing the game, there are opportunities both for moving skills within the skills pyramid and for changing skills from specialized to unspecialized and back again.

When you enter these on the character sheet, you just enter the skill name in the slot it occupies, with the specialty sub-skill in parentheses.  Then just remember to add one when rolling the specialty sub-skill, and subtract one when rolling any of the other sub-skills.


Example:  With the skill Computer Software in a Great (+4) slot, you could choose either of these.  For the second column, you could choose any one of the three sub-skills to be the specialty.

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Quick List of Skills

Physical Skills

• Melee Combat
  
  • Unarmed (includes brass knuckles and non-weapon martial arts)
  • Blade weapons
  • Blunt weapons
  • Thrust weapons
• Defense
• Endurance
• Might
• Athletics
  
  • Speed
  • Acrobatics, Climbing, and Balance
  • Eye-hand coordination

Coordination Skills

• Burglary
  
  • Pick locks
  • Disable Security Systems
  • Sleight of Hand (includes picking pockets)
• Driving
  
  • Cars and small trucks
  • Motorcycles, jet skis, snow mobiles
  • Heavy trucks (semis, tanker trucks, dump trucks)
  • Heavy machinery (cranes, front-end loaders, etc.)
• Piloting
  
  • Planes
  • Helicopters
  • Lighter than air ships (balloons, zeppelins)
  • Watercraft  (sailing, motorboats, and other boats)
• Ranged Combat
  
  • Thrown weapons (includes grenades, molotov cocktails, knives, spears, darts)
  • Bows, crossbows, miscellaneous (e.g. blowgun, slingshot)
  • Firearms
  • Energy weapons
• Stealth
  
  • Staying out of sight (opposed by investigation)
  • Moving silently (opposed by alertness)
  • Mixing into a crowd (opposed by investigation)

Social Skills

• Resolve
• Empathy
  
  • Reading Emotions (opposes Deceit/Spoken)
  • Understanding Backgrounds
  • Leadership
• Diplomacy
  
  • Contacting Network
  • Information Gathering
  • Convincing Others
• Deceit
  
  • Disguise (opposed by Alertness or Investigation)
  • Forgery (opposed by Investigation or some Knowledge skills)
  • Spoken (i.e. lying, conning)  (opposed by Empathy/Reading Emotions)
• Resources

Knowledge Skills

• Computer Software
  
  • Hacking
  • Robotics Programming
  • Automation and General Software
• Electronics and Electrical
  
  • Radio and recording (includes tracking devices, visual and auditory bugs, GPS, telephony)
  • Energy weapons and lasers (construction and maintenance)
  • Computer hardware and miscellaneous (includes construction and maintenance of robots, electrical detonators, electric motors, and everything in electronics that is otherwise not covered)
• Medicine
  
  • Poisons and antidotes
  • Surgery and Field Medicine
  • Diagnostic medicine, diseases, and pharmaceuticals
• Mechanical
  
  • Engines (includes internal combustion engines and electric vehicle motors, plus the drive train and steering systems)
  • Firearms:  Construction and maintenance
  • Construction (includes basic building construction, plumbing, heat, and air conditioning systems)
  • Basic mechanics (includes parts of a vehicle that aren't covered under Engines, including body work; mechanical clocks, watches and the like; also any mechanical traps or devices.)
• General Science
  
  • Physics and Math
  • Chemistry (including explosives, some simple poisons, polymers, organic chemistry.)
  • Botany and zoology
  • Everything else
• Humanities
  
  • History
  • Law, politics, current events
  • Languages
• Arts
  
  • Literature, Writing
  • Singing, Performing
  • Drawing, Painting

Perception Skills

• Alertness
• Investigation
• Outdoorsman
  
  • Riding and Animal Handling
  • Tracking and Scavenging (includes finding food and water in hostile environments, making ropes, knives, axes from natural sources, and having a basic intuition for the outdoors)
  • Snares and Traps (includes making and disarming of physical traps.  Spotting them is Investigation.)

This message was last edited by the GM at 13:14, Thu 06 May 2021.

Melee Combat
The art of poking someone (or something) else in the eye with a sharp stick.

Sub-skills

• Unarmed (includes brass knuckles and non-weapon martial arts)
• Blade weapons
• Blunt weapons
• Thrust weapons

Opposed By: Defense or Melee Combat

This is, of course, an over-simplified view of combat, but it works well with the FATE system.  All weapons will have an inherent bonus of -1 to +1, and unarmed is considered to be a -1 weapon.  (However, it has the  advantage of being always prepared.  Also, there are devices, such as brass knuckles, that add 1 or 2 to your unarmed skill, making them essentially a +0 or +1 unarmed weapon.)  Some weapons fit more than one category, allowing someone who has specialized in one of the sub-skills to take advantage of his ability.  Different types of armor will have a defense bonus of +1 against certain weapon types, as well.
This message was last edited by the GM at 01:18, Wed 10 Feb 2021.