[Turadis]

Adderall makes you pace around your room thinking about dice math for 70 minutes.

A while ago, there was a brief discussion in the discord about adding optional skill modifiers to dice rolls, similar to tabletop RPGs like D&D or Pathfinder. Dev even weighed in with his early thoughts on the subject. I've been ruminiating for a bit about how I'd want to handle it, and this is the first draft of what I've come up with.

Some Design Goals:
-Not everyone likes dice, so they should be an optional system with no mechanical impact. Used only at the discretion of eventmins or players.
-I want to let characters be good at many things, and hyper-competent at a few specialized niches. This should allow for fantasy heroes be multitalented but also get their own moments to really shine above their peers.
-In a game where RP is the central focus, I want to leave a character's social impact entirely to RP. So no 'Deception' or 'Intimidation' or the like. In this specific context I feel that skill modifiers are best used as a supplement to express additional characterization, not a replacement for it.
-I want to avoid redundancies with professions for the most part, so I'd personally avoid making any sort of Crafting or Performance checks either.
-I want to let a character's skill modifiers exist independently of other aspects of their build like Attributes, Talents, or Class, as these modifiers are considerably less abstract than those mechanics in what they represent. Race isn't abstract at all, so it'd be fine to use. However, as of now I haven't included any racial bonuses in this design.

With all that in mind I call this system: Knacks.

Knacks would get a new menu on the sidebar, and represent a character's specific knowledge and training in non-combat skillsets, such as their athleticism or theoretical knowledge of spellcraft. They are used to apply modifiers to dice rolls, and have no direct mechanical effect at all.

When you attempt to roll dice, you can optionally apply a particular Knack or Focus (Detailed Below) as an additive bonus to the result, rolling with this bonus is called a Check. I designed these Knacks expecting most people to use the d20, but they could be applied to any roll.

A player character recieves their first Knack point at level 3 and every 3rd level thereafter, for a total of 20 points at level 60. Each Knack can have a maximum of 3 points invested into it. Each point invested grants a stacking +2 bonus to the associated Check, for a max of +6.

Additionally, investing 3 knack points into a given Knack will grant the character a free Focus within that Knack. A Focus is a considerably more specific application of that Knack. For example, the Athletics Knack may have things like Swimming, Climbing, and Sprinting as foci. If your Focus is applicable to a Check, your Knack bonus is doubled (up to +12!). You can optionally spend 3 knack points to gain additional foci within a knack you already have a focus in.

I've designed ten Knacks here, each with various Foci presented in paranthesis. I've designed it so that every Check I could think of could reasonably fall under a certain focus. But there might be some I've missed, so let me know if you have any more ideas.

Athletics (Sprint, Climb, Swim, Drag/Lift, Break)
Agility (Acrobatics, Escape, Balance)
Thievery (Stealth, Sleight of Hand, Disguise, Devices)
Perception (Spot, Listen, Smell, Investigation)
Survival (Track, Endure, Forage)

Magecraft (Nerifian, Sylphid, Isespian, Aquarian, Runecraft)
Occultism (Spiritualism, Mercalan, Huggessoan, Galdr)
Nature (Plants, Animals, Nature Magic)
Lore (Engineering, History, Monsters)
Medicine (First Aid, Surgery, Poison, Disease)

Finally, I'd want to let players freely take penalties in whatever and however many Knacks or Foci they wanted, purely for the character expression. Anywhere from -1 to -6 or so, probably. If you have a penalty in both a Knack and a relevant Focus, only the highest penalty applies. Taking penalties would have no benefit elsewhere, it's purely for characterization.