Skills

Skills give players special or improved abilities. Some require that you learn other skills first, and a few are available only to a certain class or side. Skills are bought with experience points (XP).

Certain skills, like haunting scream and nasic tracking, unlock actions which consume AP. Other skills, like trekking and close quarter combat, are passive and do not need to be activated after being purchased for the player to benefit from them. While most skills in a tree have effects that stack on one another, haunting scream and shocking shriek remain individual skills (but banshee wail will replace shocking shriek).

Learning an initial skill costs 100 XP. After that, each learned skill costs 25 XP more than the previous one. Hence the formula for a skill's XP cost is 100 + 25 * (your level). (Your character's level, which you can see in your profile, is the number of skills you have learned.)

It costs 10,000 XP to buy all 25 skills for settlers, villagers, soldiers, and warriors. Buying all 23 skills for everyone else requires a total of 8,625 XP.

Generic skills

• Basic language - Understand the smaller words of foreign languages
  See Language for more information.
  • Advanced language - Better understanding of foreign languages
    • Expert language - Full comprehension of foreign languages

• Close quarter combat - Gain 10% to hit with melee attacks (e.g., 20% to 30% with a machete)
  • Advanced close quarter combat - Gain 15% to hit with melee attacks (e.g., 30% to 45% with a machete)

• Body building - Increases melee damage (+1 damage; e.g., 2 to 3 with a machete)
  • Stamina - Increases max HP by 20

• Ghostly whisper - Allows spirits to communicate
  With ghostly whisper, spirits can speak to any player that has the sixth sense skill. Other spirits can hear ghostly whispers, even if they lack sixth sense.
  • Haunting scream - Attract other spirits and scare nearby living players
    It is believed that haunting scream gives spirits a chance of dealing 1 HP of damage to living players in the area at the cost of 1-2 AP. All nearby players hear the scream, and some percentage of them take damage. It is believed that a spirit receives 0-2 XP per scream depending upon the number of listeners (perhaps 0, 1, 2+ yields 0, 1, 2 XP).
    • Shocking shriek - Scare nearby living players
      Shocking shriek is similar to haunting scream but allows spirits to deal more damage to players they frighten. Shocking shriek is superceded and replaced by the more powerful banshee wail.
      • Banshee wail - Frighten nearby living players
        Spirits with banshee wail can emit powerful wails for a cost of up to 6 AP per wail. All characters in the area of effect hear the wail, and a small percentage of hearers take 4 HP of damage. XP reward for wailing is 0-15 XP per wail depending on damage caused, averaging 8 XP in crowded locations.

• Exploration - Helps you remember some of the places you've been
  Enables the "Map" button, which gives you a large-scale map of places you've visited while alive and haven't forgotten.
  • Cartography - Stops you forgetting anywhere you've visited
    Note that map information is rarely forgotten and that meta-gamers can use the Shartak overlay.
  • Trekking - Faster movement through the jungle
    Makes movement through grassland, beach, and d1-d6 jungle terrain cost 0.5 AP instead of 1.
  • Swimming - Faster movement through water
    Makes movement through water cost 1 AP instead of 2; deep water costs 2 AP to move through instead of 3.

• Basic tracking - With some difficulty, you can track animals and people. (2 AP; e.g., "wild boar went south")
  See Tracking for more information.
  • Advanced tracking - You can track animals and people who were here recently. (1.5 AP; often gives 3-6 most recent tracks)
    • Expert tracking - You can track animals and people who were here several days ago. (1 AP?)

• Clan leadership - Allows you to start your own clan or help lead one.

• Native knowledge - Outsiders gain basic native knowledge (outsiders only)
  Allows outsiders to use and recognize items such as blowpipes (and poison darts) and healing herbs (which normal outsiders see as "dried herbs") and to tell the difference between tasty and poison berries (which normal outsiders can only do by eating them).

• Outsider knowledge - Natives gain basic outsider knowledge (natives only)
  Allows natives to use and recognize items such as rifles (and bullets), first aid kits, and GPS units.

• Triage - Be able to tell who is most injured
  • Natural medicine - Heal 10 HP with healing herbs (natives only)
  • First aid - Heal 10 HP with first-aid kit (outsiders only)

• Sixth sense - Sense presence of and hear spirits
  • Psychic recognition - Lets you recognise active spirits
    • Seance - Holding a seance can identify passive spirits (shamans only? 5AP?)

Settler and villager skills

• Animal affinity - Lessens the chance of animals attacking (settlers and villagers only)
• Scavenging - Assists in finding things within certain areas. (settlers and villagers only)
  Improves search odds by an unknown amount in certain (unknown) areas.

Soldier skills

• Firearms training - Gain 20% on firearms attacks (20% to 40%; soldiers only)
  • Advanced firearms training - Gain 20% on firearms attacks (40% to 60%; soldiers only)

Warrior skills

• Blowpipe training - Gain 20% on blowpipe accuracy (20% to 40%; warriors only)
  • Advanced blowpipe training - Gain another 20% on blowpipe accuracy (40% to 60%; warriors only)