Skills

      In Fading Suns, what your character knows is represented by skills. There are two types of skills, natural and learned. Skills are rated from zero to ten. One is barely acquainted with the skill, while ten indicates one of the Known World's great masters. In character generation, no character can have higher than an eight in a skill.

Natural Skills
  
     Natural skills are those that are innate. Your character was born knowing the rudiments of Natural skills.  Characters begin character generation with a level 3 in each natural skill.

Charm: a measure of your character's charisma.        
Dodge: a measure of your character's ability to dodge or avoid attacks.
Fight: a measure of your character's ability to fight hand-to-hand.       
Melee: a measure of your character's ability to use melee weapons, like knives or swords.       
Shoot: a measure of your character's ability to fire a ranged weapon.       
Impress: a measure of your character's ability to sway or bully others.       
Observe: a measure of your character's ability to see details.       
Sneak: a measure of your character's ability to move undetected.       
Vigor: a measure of your character's athletic ability. 

Learned Skills

    There are more than a hundred learned skills that can be purchased by players.  They range from specific combat actions like fencing and martial arts, to more mundane skills like gambling and tracking, to esoteric skills such as alchemy and stoic mind. Beginning characters have a zero rating in all learned skills, and must purchase higher ratings during character generation. In the MUSH, some learned skills have no meaning outside of roleplay. Others have coded functions within the game.

USING SKILLS 

     Skills are used in Fading Suns by pairing them up with the appropriate trait. For example, a fencer would add up her Dexterity rating and his Fencing rating. This would give her a number called the goal.  In Fading Suns, you roll a twenty sided dice and compare it to the goal. The Fading Suns MUSH has coded commands to simplify your use of skills in roleplay.