Skills

Skills represent various abilities used in Stoneshard. Currently only players and enemies are able to use skills. Some enemies (mainly humanoids) can use the same skills as the player, but most of them have their own specific skill set, which isn't available to the player.

Skills can be active or passive.
Active skills need to be used before their main effect happens. Most active skills cost Energy to use and have a Cooldown before they can be used again.
Passive skills always apply their bonuses.

Some skills have instant effect (like Detect Traps). Some skills require a target to be used on, usually attack skills. Some skills can be used on an empty tile (like Fire Barrage). Some skills affect multiple tiles, these are called Area of Effect (AoE) skills. Some skills affect only the user (like Taking Aim), and some skills affect only the enemies of the user (like Rune of Enfeeblement). Some skills cost Energy every turn until they are deactivated (Runic Boulder). Finally, certain skills have requirements before they can be used, for example, skills from any Weapon tree require that you are wielding that Weapon type before you can use these skills (Swords, Bows, ..).

Player skills

Player skills are abilities that your character has learned. When you level up, you gain Skill Points which represent the time your character spent in order to learn a certain skill. Skill points can be spent in order to learn the skills you choose. Before you can learn a skill, the skill needs to be unlocked first, this represents the need to find out about a certain skill or move first. Locked skills are faded out and show a small lock icon over the skill icon. Your character will start with some skills already unlocked, but most skills will be locked. You need to find and read Treatises to unlock new skills.

image of skill points, image of skill tree list

Skills are divided into different skill trees. A skill tree consists of different amount of skills, which are connected by lines. When you have unlocked skills in a skill tree, you can only spend Skill points into the skills at the very top (sometimes called Tier 1). Lower placed skills will be faded out, and you won't be able to put skill points into them. When you spend Skill points into a Skill at the very top, any other skills that are connected by lines to this skill will light up. In order to spend Skill points into the lowest placed skills, you might have to spend several skill points into different skills first.

image of any skill tree with no skill points, then image with the same tree with skill point spent, showing how the skill lights up

Each skill point spent into a skill tree also provides a small passive bonus, either for your character as a whole (Crit Chance), or for this particular skill tree (Cooldown reduction).

Active player skills must be placed into your Skill bar to be used.

The skill trees are divided into three categories:

Weapons
Swords	Axes	Maces	Daggers	Greatswords	Greataxes Not yet in game.	Greatmauls Not yet in game.	Polearms Not yet in game.	Ranged Weapons	Shields	Staffs	Wands Not yet in game.

Utility
Basic Skills	Armor Not yet in game.	Dual Wielding Not yet in game.	Medicine Not yet in game.	Alchemy Not yet in game.	Sabotage Not yet in game.	Survival Not yet in game.	Magic Mastery Not yet in game.	Combat Mastery	Athletics

Sorcery
Pyromancy	Electromancy Not yet in game.	Venomancy Not yet in game.	Cryomancy Not yet in game.	Geomancy	Astromancy Not yet in game.	Chronomancy Not yet in game.	Psymancy Not yet in game.	Wands Not yet in game.	Arcanistics Not yet in game.

Enemy skills

Enemies always come with a fixed set of skills. The skillset changes based on which enemy type you're facing. Certain low level enemies (like Goons) have no skills at all, and certain high level enemies (like the Prologue boss) can have many different skills. You can always check the skills of an enemy by right clicking them and selecting the Inspect option.

Enemy Skills
Wild animal skills	Bandit skills	Vampire skills	Archon skills	Undead skills
Rend Flesh	Bandits use several player skills	Baleful Scream Blood Craze Curse of Weakness Driven by Pain Chain Strike Immolation Lacerate Lash Blessing Mark of the Feast Sacrificial Blood Summon Blood Golem Vampiric Blood Vampiric Rune Willing Sacrifice	Bestial Charge Blood Clot Blood Puddle Corpse Devourment Jump Away Phantom Bats Summon Zombie Swipe Unholy Ritual	Bolt of Darkness Curse Curse of Weakness Flurry of Blows Necrophage Rend Flesh Ressurection Sigil of Darkness Unholy Blessing + several player skills