Expert Skills

by Steve Kenson

While feats provide the fantastic stunts and special tricks heroes can do, the real foundation of a hero's capabilities in Blue Rose comes from skills.

Skills represent training and talent in particular tasks and provide bonuses to the normal ability checks used for those tasks. For example, anyone can try and jump a distance using Strength, but training in the Jump skill makes the character better at it. Some skills allow characters to accomplish things nobody can do without proper training, whether it's pick open a lock or properly treat a wound.

The masters of many skills in Blue Rose are the experts, since skill is the focus of their role, rather than the martial abilities of warriors or the arcane powers of adepts.

Skills

You choose a certain number of skills your character knows at 1st level, based on your role and your Intelligence. For example, a warrior is trained in two skills at 1st level, plus or minus the character's Intelligence score. A 1st-level character is always trained in at least one skill, regardless of Intelligence. So a warrior with Intelligence +0 is trained in two skills at 1st-level. A warrior with Intelligence +2 knows four skills, while a warrior with Intelligence -2 still knows at least one.

Heroes with a human background know an additional skill at 1st level.

Favored Skills

Each role has a list of favored skills. Your rank in a known favored skill is equal to your level +3. So a 1st-level character has 4 ranks in all known favored skills. When the character becomes 2nd-level, those skills increase to 5 ranks, and so forth. Heroes are less capable with skills their role does not favor: adepts aren't as good at outdoor activities as warriors, for example, nor are warriors as effective at scholarly pursuits as adepts.

Your hero's rank in other skills is equal to half the value of a favored skill: level +3, divided by 2 and rounded down. So a 1st-level character has only 2 ranks in a known skill not favored by her role.

Skill Training

How do heroes acquire more skills? One of the feats available in Blue Rose is called Skill Training, and it gives the hero two more known skills (whether favored or not). Alternately, you can choose one skill you already know and make it a favored skill with Skill Training, improving its rank to your role's favored skill level.

Specialty Skills

Some skills cover a wide range of knowledge or techniques. These skills are actually groups of similar skills, called specialty skills. When learning one of these skills, you must choose a specialty or a particular aspect of the skill your character is trained in. For example, you might choose the History specialty of Knowledge or the Smithing specialty of Craft. Skill ranks in one specialty do not provide training in the skill's other specialties.

The Skill List

Blue Rose has descriptions of 25 skills available to heroes. They are: Acrobatics, Bluff, Climb, Concentration, Craft, Diplomacy, Disable Device, Disguise, Escape Artist, Gather Information, Handle Animal, Heal, Intimidate, Jump, Knowledge, Language, Notice, Perform, Ride, Search, Sense Motive, Sleight of Hand, Sneak, Survival, and Swim.

Some feats affect how different skills work and how they are used. For example, Fascinate allows you to use an interaction skill to catch and hold an audience's attention. Improvised Tools allows you to get by without the usual tools needed for your skills, making do with what's available. Skill Focus gives you a bonus with a particular skill, while Skill Mastery allows you to take 10 on certain skill checks in difficult circumstances.

The Expert Role

The nations and lands of Blue Rose are bound together by complex social ties. The job of creating, maintaining (and occasionally exploiting) these ties belongs to the expert. Experts range from the well-schooled nobles and regional administrators to traveling bards and storytellers, from merchants with an eye for profit to cunning thieves with an eye for an easy mark. Some experts focus on the ability to handle any social situation, while others emphasize physical skills, allowing them to avoid unwanted social entanglements, including the niceties of the law. Many Envoys of the Sovereign's Finest are experts.

Adventuring experts tend to combine a measure of physical and social skill. They have to be able to endure long journeys and yet be ready and able to negotiate with various parties when they reach the journey's end. Experts fill the widest number of roles in the world of Blue Rose, essentially handling everything adepts and warriors do not.

Game Abilities

Experts have the following game abilities in Blue Rose:

Abilities: Agility is the name of the game for experts, both physical agility (represented by Dexterity) and social agility (represented by Charisma), with a bit of mental agility (represented by Intelligence) thrown in for good measure. Nimble experts are often trained in skills like Acrobatics and Ride, while the personable and charming members of the expert set focus on things like Bluff and Diplomacy. Wisdom is useful to experts in using Notice to avoid danger of all sorts, from traps to deception, and keen Intelligence can help an expert go far (and pick up a few extra useful skills).

Good Saving Throws: Experts choose either two good saves or one good save and a +1 bonus to starting Defense.

Favored Skills: Experts choose any 12 skills, plus Craft, as their favored skills.

Known Skills: Experts choose (6 + Intelligence score) skills as known skills at 1st-level.

Starting Feats: Experts have the Armor Training (light) feat and choose 3 other feats at 1st-level.

Attack & Defense: Experts progress almost as quickly in Defense as warriors (and an expert focusing on Defense progresses just as quickly as a warrior), but they progress slower in attack ability. Experts have only basic weapon and armor training rather than the advanced weapon and armor training of warriors as well.