5.1 Skills

Much of your life in Imperian will revolve around your skills. Skills are either sets of abilities or a single ability representing how well you do something (like dodge arrows and sword blows, for instance). Typing SKILLS will list which ones you have, and typing HELP <skill name> will give you some more information on each skill. Furthermore, many skills have anywhere from 20 to 50 abilities within the skill. An ability could be an individual spell, or something like a particular type of kick or sword stroke.

You'll notice, when you type SKILLS that next to the name of each skill will be a word, like Inept. This word indicates your general proficiency in that skill. As your proficiency in that skill increases, you will gain more abilities, in the case of skills which have abilities in them, or you will grow better at whatever that skill represents. For instance, as you increase your Philosophy, you will take less and less damage from attacks on your mind (psionic attacks). The word next to your skill will also change, indicating your increased mastery of that skill. To see a list of skill ranks, type HELP SKILL RANKS.

To increase your skill rank in a particular skill you will need to learn more of that particular skill.  HELP LEARNING will explain how to do that.

You will notice that when you type SKILLS, mention is made of both skills and 'mini skills'. Mini skills differ from skills only in that they take far fewer lessons to master (see HELP LESSONS, HELP MINI SKILLS).

Though the general skills that you start off with are useful, it is the profession-specific skills that make up the core of your character. To gain these sets of skills, all of which will have many abilities in them, you will need to either find a Dean in your city or council, or a player to mentor you.

In order to see what abilities you have in a skill (if there are, indeed, any abilities in that particular skill), typing AB <skillname> will let you see them. After that, typing AB <skillname> <ability name> will give you help, generally speaking, on that individual ability. In addition, typing in AB <skillname> FULL, you will be able to see all the abilities in that skillset. Abilities that you do not have will be listed in red.

COMMANDS:

SKILLS
This command will list all of the skill sets your character has.

AB <skillname>
Displays what skills you currently know in the chosen skillset.

AB <skillname> <abilityname>
Displays specific information about how to use the chosen ability.

AB <skillname> FULL
Display all the abilities in a skillset. Abilities you do not have will be listed in red.

AB <skillname> RANKS 
Lists every ability in a skillset as well as the skillrank and percentage through that skillrank you get it at.

LESSONS
Displays how many lessons you've spent in each of your skillsets.