NWod Mass Effect/Skills
Skills
This is largely a cosmetic change to rename and rebrand Skills from the nWoD core rules, but there are a few merges/deletions/additions too. In addition, an important basic rule change:
- There are no unskilled penalties for any Skill
The reason for this is fairly simple; to remove the perverse incentive to get 1-dot in any Skill you might think you need, because of the penalty for unskilled use. This is particularly punitive in the case of Mental Skills, which by default carry a -3 penalty if unskilled.
Onto the Skills.
Mental
These are largely unchanged, barring renaming and some new Specialities. Four of them, Engineering, Interface, Medicine and Science are of particular importance to those with Tech Powers.
Academics
Engineering (Crafts)
Interface (Computers)
Investigation
Medicine
Politics
Science
Physical
There's been a bit of rebranding and shuffling in this section, the primary change is to merge all close combat, whether armed or unarmed, into a single Assault Skill.
Assault (Brawling and Weaponry)
Covert/Spycraft (Larceny)
- tech steals some of its clothes
Firearms
Fitness (Athletics)
Piloting (Drive)
- all personal vehicles whether ground/air/sea/space
Stealth
Survival
Social
The main changes here are the removal of Animal Ken, merging of Expression into Persuasion, and addition of Barter and Contacts.
Barter/Business
Contacts
(Merit turned into a Skill)
Empathy
Intimidation
Persuasion (includes Expression)
Socialise
Streetwise
(to be turned into a general underworld/black market Skill?)
Subterfuge