Skill Lists - Coming Together

This is a summary post to put together my thoughts on skills to build three semi-complete skill lists. Its a work in progress and I will continue to add to it.

Artes Liberales	Artes Mechanicae	Artes Probitates
Grammar	Fabric Making	Shooting
Rhetoric	Hunting	Fencing
Logic	Commerce/Navigation	Wrestling
Geometry	Armaments/Smithing	Riding/Jousting
Arithmetic	Medicine/Healing	Swimming
Music	Agriculture	Dancing
Astronomy	Cooking	Climbing
	Architecture
	Theatrics

Resolution Mechanics

In general, a skill should be combined with an ability; you get a bonus if you are trained in the skill and another bonus if you have that ability as a prime. STR/DEX/CHA should be given strong preference in active skill usage, with STR being used for tasks requiring toughness and raw power, DEX for those requiring cunning or agility, and CHA for those requiring influence or manipulation.

CON/INT/WIS might be used more reactively, or in lieu of skills. So, for an NPC who does not have skills selected (lower level of detail for skills), instead of CHA + RHETORIC to make a speech, it might just be CHA + WIS. Likewise, combining two ability scores could be used for saving throws made as a reaction to something else's action.

Thus, there should ideally be a usage for every skill when combined with one of the main proactive abilities (STR/DEX/CHA). These usages should reinforce our desired character archetypes: STR should be combined in ways that make sense for Warriors, Eldritch Knights, and Paladins; DEX for Swashbucklers, Wizards, and Monks; CHA for Skalds, Beguilers/Sorcerers, and Priests (I kind of want to call priests "Prophets!").

If there is not a good pairing and the skill is weak, then it should provide a flat static benefit to make it useful.

The Liberal Arts

Artes Liberales	STRENGTH	DEXTERITY	CHARISMA
Grammar
Rhetoric	Inspire in Battle	Memory of a quote	Teaching, informing, persuading
Logic	Assess Foe	Analysis	Dialectic
Geometry
Arithmetic
Music	Use oversized instrument	Composition, keen listening, harmonic analysis	Use musical instrument/performance
Astronomy	Blind Fighting?	Mapping & Timing	Predict Awe Inspiring Event

Grammar is weak for active use but a foundational skill; it could provide literacy, or perhaps training in pidgin languages.

Rhetoric is fairly useful. I can see allowing STR + RHETORIC to allow a front-line warrior to inspire routed or shaken troops, sort of a rallying cry. With DEX, rhetoric might allow a cunning individual to pull out a useful quote from a famous speech or bit of writing; after all, classical rhetorical training involved brute memorization of important texts. And CHA + rhetoric is a strong and obvious combination that empowers persuasion in order to gain action.

Logic is a bit weaker than Rhetoric in many ways. STR + Logic could be used to assess the difficulty of a foe or challenge, which lets a front line warrior size up the opposition. DEX + Logic is the realm of analyis, looking for things that are consistent or inconsistent -- quite useful for an adventurer in many cases, whether its needing a clue to narrow down a puzzle or searching through tomes and ledgers for a special incantation. Logical "analysis" could include topics like identifying the "type" of a creature (understanding the great chain of being fell under "logic" to medieval scholars). CHA + Logic is used for dialectic; both rhetoric and dialectic are persuasive, but usually dialectic implies a dialogue or weighty meeting of minds. It is most useful with someone that may disagree on a specific topic but shares a fundamental worldview. It is used to determine the truth of something. So, perhaps CHA + Logic could be used as a sort of "BS-meter," allowing the skilled user to winnow out truth from lies. That would be handy.

There should be a bonus for getting training in Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric; these three were foundational studies picked up by students before they went on to the other topics. So, perhaps once you select Grammar, Rhetoric, AND Logic as trained skills, you get a bonus to your Wisdom score or some other significant benefit. If you don't get all 3, tough luck. You could also treat the Trivium as "Perception;" because Perception is the most highly prized of adventurer skills, it means that adventurers will be keenly interested in seeking out at least a basic formal education.

Now, for the remaining four arts.

Arithmetic is the Discrete At Rest
Astronomy is the Discrete In Motion
Geometry is the Continuous At Rest
Music is the Continuous In Motion

Arithmetic was very important to the educated Medieval individual. It encompassed basic mathematical operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division); ideas like fractions and fractional operations; and decimal notation. This is situationally useful for puzzles and construction projects as well as public administration, but not very handy for day-to-day adventuring. In order to capture this value, I propose tying Arithmatic to Encumbrance. Someone who isn't good at numbers might run out of stuff unexpectedly! As an example of how this could be done:
- Normal ENC: Item is not used up (1) or it is gone (0). Every time you use it, roll 1d20; if its a 1, its used up. Item will be all gone after 20 uses.
- Trained ENC: Item is not used up (1), somewhat used up (0.5), or gone (0). Every time you use it roll 1d20; if its a 1-2, the item is degrades one step. On average, the item is still gone after 20 uses, but the degradation is much more expected.

This allows players who want to fiddle with ENC more to take training, and those who don't to not. It also makes Arithmetic very important for the starting adventurer who needs to know how to estimate how long those torches will last or how many fights he can get into before he runs out of arrows.

Astronomy is pretty useful for an adventurer. It was the GPS of the middle ages. Practically, Astronomy was essential for precision navigation (using an astrolabe to determine latitude) and precision timing (again, often with an astrolabe or celestial observations). Someone with knowledge of astronomy could predict an eclipse or planetary movement, something that inspired almost magical awe. Thinking about my archetypes, I want CHA-types to be awe-inspiring. So, CHA + Astronomy = Predict Celestial Event. DEX + Astronomy is ueful for precision timing and location (latitude only). I'm not sure what STR + Astronomy is useful for; perhaps night fighting or blind fighting?

You could nicely capture some real medieval flavor by allowing players to use a "newly discovered" Astronomical model (perhaps, the *gasp* heliocentric model) that gives a bonus to all Astronomy checks, but at the risk of being labeled as Heretics by the authorities. Fun!

Geometry should be pretty easy to make relevant to the adventurer. After all, mapping obscure ruins is an adventurer's bread and butter, right? Geometry is the foundation for engineering as well, and many adventurers want to build strongholds. While there were more philosophical and abstract scientific applications to geometry, those most practically applicable are likely mapping and engineering. I'm not sure how to tie mapping in -- because maps are a shared party resource, making Geometry training essential for accurate mapping just means that one player in each party will be "taxed" with being trained. Perhaps it could be used for secret door detection? I do not want to blur the line too much with Architecture, however. Training could be required to utilize some magical tools such as a special compass and straightedge.

Music was traditionally restricted to a theoretical appreciation of harmonies. However, the liberal arts broaded in the renaissance to include other aspects of the fine arts including drawing and composition. So, one could easily expand "music" to be the "fine arts." CHA + Music could be impressing others by means of music, or using musical magical items (or using mundane musical instruments for fantastic effect!). DEX + Music could be used for harmonic analysis or composition, or even as a perception type skill for listening carefully. I'm not sure how to tie it in with STR other than with certain very large instruments, or martial instruments; it might be appropriate to let Warriors "play" hunting horns and drums, the musical tools of war, using STR.

The Mechanical Arts

Artes Mechanicae	STRENGTH	DEXTERITY	CHARISMA
Fabric Making
Hunting
Commerce
Armaments/Smithing
Medicine/Healing
Agriculture
Cooking
Architecture
Theatrics

Two things need to get the axe on the Mechanical Arts in order to cut it down to Seven. The items in italics are less common in our historical sources; those in yellow highlighting are least common.

I can live with eliminating theatrics. Many of the liberal arts like Rhetoric or Music could be plied to an entertaining end, so including theatrics is somewhat redundant.

Architecture and Armaments could be rolled into one, but that creates a Super Category that is easily quite useful for any adventurer. So they should stay separate.

It may be possible to combine cooking, agriculture, and healing into one. This is what Hugh of St Victor does; he eliminates both cooking and agriculture in favor of medicine (and theatrics).

Phys Ed

Artes Probitates	STRENGTH	DEXTERITY	CHARISMA
Shooting
Fencing
Wrestling
Riding
Swimming
Dancing
Climbing
Jousting

Jousting could be split apart to be seperate, making it a hyper specific skill only taken by a few (so, knights can use lances; rangers cannot).