Skills
Skills are the abilities and expertise of a character with or without magic. Skills range from physical to magical abilities. A character can only have a limited number of skills which increase at every merchant rank. The effectiveness of skills depend on the ability score they are connected to.
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A Merchant has two types of skills - General Skills are Merchant Skills.
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Merchant Skills are what your merchant need and can do for their business. Depending on the merchant trade, it can include Charming customers, Admixture, to Advanced Forgery, to Identifying imperfections in a creation.
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These skills are an exception magic, as these can be done with the help of other tools or acquired knowledge. Example: Having the ability to see imperfection does not require Divination magic. ​
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Merchant skills are learned through experience and study.
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These skills are used in commissions or managing your shop and products, but not in DnD campaigns. ​
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These skills are what is absolutely necesary in their business and is directly helpful to their business
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A merchant cannot create an item if they do not have the respective merchant skill for it.
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A merchant cannot tame beasts if they do not have taming skills
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A merchant cannot loot monsters if they do not have loot skills
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General Skills can be any skill or talent they can do out of the ordinary ranging from anything physical or magical. Anything outside the definition of their ability scores must also be defined as a General Skill.
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General skills depend on what Magic Type / Element a character has, except for the exceptions (see Types of Magic). If they do not require elemental use, it means the magic can be done without the need of the character's element.
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These skills are either acquired, inherited, or natural to them.​
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Skills that involve any kind of magic is scaled to INT.
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These skills shall be used in DnD campaigns in the group.
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Defining Merchant Skills
A guide on how to define your General skills
1. Usability
A merchant skill MUST be of use to the business and directly affects the business. Without this skill, the business would not be what it is. The merchant skill must be what defines the business.
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Example of a skill USEFUL to the business: An apothecary with the skill to craft potions.
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Example of a skill not direction useful to the business: An apothecary that has the skill to sing and charm people.
Types of Merchant Skill
There are a number of things a merchant can do that is categorized to types to easier identify it. Your skill must belong to any of the types to be considered a Merchant Skill. Otherwise, it will be considered a General Skill.
Type | Description | OOC usage |
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Bartering | Skills that describe your merchant's ability to barter for lower prices, or sell your items for higher. | This will enable your merchant to easily negotiate prices with NPCs or Merchants, when possible. |
Refinements | Skills that describe the merchant's ability to improve existing items. | This will enable your merchant to improve existing items by adding more effects. |
Foraging | Skills that describe the proficiency to venture out and gather materials for your business. Farming skills also belong in this type. | This will enable your merchant to get more resources when foraging / looting / farming. This will also enable merchants to create raw resources. |
Crafting | Skills that describe the proficiency of merchants to create items, or tame beasts. Taming skills belong in this type. | This will enable your merchant to create items, or concepts of beasts for your shop to sell. Without this skill, you won't have anything to sell in your shop. |
Advancement | Skills that describe the merchant's knowledge on products or skills | This will enable your merchant to improve on their trade, and able to create items for cheaper requirements or more powerful effects. |
2. Skill from Experience / Skill from Magic
Merchant Skills can rely on the magic abilities of a merchant, or from experience and can be performed with tools and other abilities.
If a merchant skill require magic ability, this skill must depend on the unlocked abilities of a merchant (e.g. if the skill requires Necromancy, the merchant must have Necromancy Magic Type)
If a merchant skill can be done with just tools and experience, then they don't need to depend on magic.
3. Scope of a Skill
A skill cannot have many dependent factors, and can only have ONE activity.
Think of it as an action in a game that they can do on ONE click of a button.
If a skill has more than one activity, it must be separated to smaller ones.
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Example of a skill with more than one activity - a player can identify dents and fortify a weapon
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Result of separation: (1) 1 Skill to identify dents, (2) 1 Skill to fortify a weapon
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4. Defining Limitations
A skill must be balanced and must have limitations. The stronger it is, the bigger the drawback is.
A mun is free to define what limitation they have. The following are advised to be added when necessary as well:
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Distance - The distance / reach of the skill. (e.g. how far can your punch reach, how near do you need to be to read someone's mind).
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Area of Effect - The area that is affected by the magic. (e.g. how many targets is affected)
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Concentration - If your skill requires large magic energy, then concentration time is highly advised. The longer the concentration is, the stronger the magic is.
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Item Requirement - To have a more extensive magic that isn't exclusive to your element, then you can define the skill to require an item to be more effective. The stronger the item is, the stronger the magic is.
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Saving Throw - Introduce the ability of a target to evade / resist / overpower your skill by defining the saving throw - a d20 roll the target must do against your ability to be saved.
5. References
Having a reference makes skill defining easier. As general skills are heavily used in events and DnD campaigns in the group, DnD spells are recommended to be the point of reference.
6. Exceptions
The administration is open to discuss other possibilities of a skill and/or exceptions to the skill rules. You can drop a DM in our twitter for a skill discussion, or DM us in our discord.
