Talents

A talent is a knack your character picks up as they grow: a little more of something the rules already measure, chosen by you. Talents come in trees (Vigour, Might, Finesse, and so on), and most ask something of you first.

When you get a talent

A new character picks two talents at creation, on the Talents step after the class. The bard, the lucky class, picks one more, and so does a human (their racial Versatile, below). A human bard picks four.

The list shows the talents your character so far may take. Its scores, skills, class abilities, and birth sign all count. Marking one may open another that needs it (Healthy, then Fast healer). The Random row lets chance pick them. A character started without picks (from the command line) gets those same random picks. The character screen counts your talents.

Every third level brings a talent: levels 3, 6, 9, and so on, twenty by level 60 (see Experience). You make the pick the moment the level comes. Nothing is banked for later, and until you have chosen you can do nothing else (“You must choose a talent first.”). A human’s Versatile brings a second talent at level 30. A kill that brings two levels at once brings both picks, lowest level first. You cannot change your mind afterwards: a talent, once learned, is yours for good.

Some classes also give a bonus talent at a few levels (the everyday folk at 10, 20, 30, 45, and 55), from the trees the class names: “You must choose a talent of Weaponcraft or Delver.” When a level brings both kinds, a talent from the class’s trees fills the bonus pick first. The commoner’s bonus talents come from any tree.

If there is nothing you can take (a run with no talents, or every talent you qualify for already learned), the pick is simply lost. A level never waits for the impossible.

The level-up screen opens by itself when a level comes. It walks through the level’s choices in order:

1. the skill rolls, each skill shown with the dice a roll on it adds;
2. a bonus talent;
3. the level’s talent, listing only the talents you may take now, by tree.

A talent with a choice (Weapon focus, Skill focus) asks for it next. The screen can’t be closed until everything is chosen. Two levels at once are one sequence, the lower level’s choices first.

The Talents page (G, or page 8 of the information pages) lists your talents, then every other talent you could still pick, by tree, with what it needs. The parts you already meet stand out from those you don’t, so you can plan a build there.

Class abilities are talents too, in a tree of their own. Your class gives them as its levels come (see Classes); you never pick them. If your class gives one you already learned, it is not given again, and that level gives you a talent pick in its place. Some are talents anyone may pick (the aristocrat’s Riposte, the commoner’s Second wind).

Choices and prerequisites

• A talent is picked once.
• A talent with a choice is picked for that choice: a weapon skill, a fighting style, a skill, or an element. The same talent may be picked again for another choice. Weapon focus with long blades and Weapon focus with bows are two talents. A weapon skill you choose must be one you attack with, a fighting style is chosen as a style, and a skill (Skill focus) must be one you are trained in.
• Prerequisites must all hold when you pick, and are never checked again. A Strength lowered by disease later does not take a talent away.

A prerequisite may be:

• another talent;
• a stat score: the score itself, as the character screen shows it, never what items or a sickness do to it;
• a skill at a value;
• a weapon skill or style at a rank, or any of a kind: “a missile weapon skill 3” is bows, crossbows, or slings;
• a character level;
• your race, your class, or your eyes (your race’s vision);
• your birth sign’s animal or element, or a lucky day (see Horoscope);
• your alignment band.

A few ask for either of two (“Intelligence 12 or Appraise 20”). The game names what you lack: “You cannot take Dodge: you need Dexterity 13.”

What nobody picks: the stars and class abilities

The first tree, Stars, holds what your birth sign gives you: the gifts of your animal and your element, your animal’s flaw, and a lucky day’s gift. They are yours from birth without a pick, and nobody can pick them. No talent ever asks for a flaw. The whole tree is on the Horoscope page.

The Class abilities are what your class teaches as its levels come. Nobody picks them either. Each is in its class’s level table on the Classes page.

The trees you can pick from are listed below.

What a talent does

In the game a talent is described in words; the tables on the tree pages state the rule exactly. Most talents simply change a rule for good. Where a talent scales (“one hit point per four levels”), what it gave earlier grows as you level: a talent taken at level 3 still matters at level 50.

An active talent (Second wind) is something you do. It appears in the abilities menu under Talents. After use it leaves a status (Winded) during which it cannot be used again. Blood magic is active too, with no waiting time: it costs hit points instead (see Mana).

Some talents need a word more:

• Five talents work on a class’s resources, and only that class can take them: Battle trance, Inner calm, Steady hand, Patient blade, and Zealot. One that needs the lantern’s hood (Hooded light) is still to come.
• Skill focus adds 25 to the skill you choose for what it gives, past 100 too. The value you trained stays as it was.
• Treasure hunter changes loot as it is made. A level you have already been to keeps what lies there, and the levels themselves never change.
• Breaker’s kick drives a foe one cell straight back when it hits, if that cell is free. A wall, a creature, a trap, or ice behind the foe holds it where it is.

The trees you can pick from are on five pages, by what they are about:

• Heritage, trades, and racial talents: Heritage and Crafts, taken only at character creation, and the Racial tree of each people’s gifts.
• Body talents: Vigour, Might, Finesse, and Grit.
• Fighting talents: Weaponcraft and Guard.
• Exploring talents: Shadow, Wayfarer, and Delver.
• Mind talents: Scholar and Spellcraft.

Talents by system

Each talent touches some parts of the game: fighting, stealth, magic, light, hunger, and so on. A single kind of room, chest, or creature belongs to its part, not a part of its own. The table lists every part with the talents, the gifts of the stars, and the class abilities that touch it, so you can find everything that helps with, say, stealth.

Abilities that cost a resource have no waiting time on top: the resource coming back with time is the limit.

See also: Experience and levelling up, Skills, and Weapon skills.