Skills

Every Skill has a default Attribute/Element. A player can challenge that default with a Descriptor.

Skills Default to an Element

Every Skill is pre-assigned a default Attribute/Element - see the Default Element column in The Skill List below, or set one when a custom Skill is created. Rolling a Skill normally uses its default: no argument needed, that’s just how the character does that thing.

A player can challenge the default and pair the Skill with a different Attribute instead, provided they can argue the pairing to the GM’s satisfaction. The GM has final say on whether a proposed pairing fits the situation. That argument is grounded in one of the character’s own Sub-Stat Descriptors - a specific chosen adjective the character already has - rather than an improvised justification from scratch. No Descriptor that fits, no challenge - the roll uses the default.

Challenges are re-argued every time, not banked as precedent - a challenge that worked once may not hold up in a different situation, since the justification is about the specific circumstance, not a permanent reclassification of the Skill. The default itself never changes; only the single roll in front of you does.

Training Tiers

A Skill’s training tier changes how the core roll is built:

Tier	Name	Roll
0	Untrained	Difficulty only (no Attribute - see Untrained Rolls)
1	Trained	Attribute + Difficulty
2	Adept	Attribute + Difficulty, with Advantage
3	Expert	Attribute + Difficulty, with Advantage, and critical success widens to a roll of 2 or 3
4	Master	Same as Expert, plus: on a catastrophic failure, roll again - if the second roll succeeds, it’s treated as a normal failure, not a catastrophic failure

Each tier is strictly better than the last. Master’s reroll only ever removes the “critical” severity from a failure (downgrading it to an ordinary failure on a second success) - it never turns a catastrophic failure into any kind of success, and if the reroll also fails, the catastrophic failure stands.

Advantage/Disadvantage are the standalone core mechanic: roll 3d10, keep the lowest two (Advantage) or highest two (Disadvantage).

Advancement: a character climbs the ladder one tier at a time via direct XP expenditure - no classes/levels, no fixed track. See the Advancement chapter for the exact XP cost per tier.

Weapon Skills Are Not Attack Skills

No Skill swings a weapon. A to-hit roll is your Attribute against the target’s Defense, and nothing else goes into it. Which Element carries it is the approach you describe rather than the thing in your hand, so the same sword swings on Earth, Air, Fire or Water depending on how you say you are swinging it. An untrained character attacks on exactly the same roll as a veteran.

A weapon Skill is never rolled for an attack. It is a list of what you are trained to pick up. Its tier says which Category from weapons.md you can use in a fight, and a weapon outside your tier is one you have no business holding - what that costs is the GM’s call, the same as anything else no roll covers.

Each tier adds to the ones below it.

Tier	Melee Weapons	Firearms	Archery	Thrown Weapons
1 Trained	Improvised, Knife, One-handed blunt, Large blade	Handgun, Shotgun	Hand crossbow, Crossbow	Balanced blade, Thrown axe
2 Adept	One-handed blade	Submachine gun	Recurve bow	Shafted
3 Expert	Polearm / two-handed, Two-handed, Two-handed blunt	Rifle	Compound bow	Returning
4 Master	Exotic (melee)	Heavy	Warbow	Sling

Unarmed is not on the list. Fists and feet need no permission from anyone, and there is nothing there to be trained on. Fighting that way is Onslaught, which is a Gift rather than a Skill.

Special Weapons is not a Skill. It is one named weapon system rather than a Category you train through, so it is a Boon - and that is where the exotic ranged weapons live too: blowgun, net launcher, flare gun.

These are the one place a tier buys access rather than a better roll, which is why a katana sits at Adept and a whip at Master. The cost is real, and it is the point: what a character can pick up says as much about them as what they can do with it.

Everyman Skills

A short list of ordinary, baseline skills that every character starts with at no cost, reflecting the basic competence any functional adult in the setting would have. 20 Below doesn’t fix this list in the core rules - the GM decides the Everyman Skills list for their own campaign/setting, since “what any ordinary person can do” depends heavily on genre and setting. Every Everyman Skill is granted at Tier 1 (Trained) - full Attribute + Difficulty, no flat bonus or Advantage, reflecting genuine baseline competence.

Everything else about Skills (whether there’s a fixed list beyond Everyman Skills, breadth) is still open. XP costs per tier are tracked in the Advancement chapter, not here.

The Skill List

A starting Skill list scoped to a modern-world base campaign. This list is not exhaustive - players and GMs should freely add, split, merge, or rename entries to fit a specific character or campaign. It exists to save table time at character creation, not to fence in what a character can plausibly do.

Broad by design, not narrow: entries here stay wide on purpose - a single point spent training Mechanics should feel like it was worth the character point and the XP that pushed it up a tier, not like it only covers one narrow task. Where a real distinction exists within a broad Skill (a specific science, a specific trade, a specific vehicle class, a specific instrument), that’s flavor a player describes, not a reason to split the Skill itself.

Every Skill below has a Default Element - the Attribute a roll uses unless the player challenges it with a Descriptor. The default reflects the most natural, common way that Skill gets used; it isn’t a hard rule about what the Skill is, just the assumption a roll starts from.

Skill	Default Element	Definition
Academics	Air	General scholarship, history, and literature.
Acrobatics	Air	Balance, tumbling, and controlled falls.
Animal Handling	Water	Training, calming, and directing animals.
Appraisal	Moira	Judging the value and authenticity of goods.
Archery	Earth	Which bows you are trained on, by Category: hand crossbow, then crossbow, recurve, compound, and the warbow at Master. Never rolled for an attack - see Weapon Skills Are Not Attack Skills.
Athletics	Earth	Running, jumping, climbing, and lifting under exertion.
Barter	Fire	Striking favorable trades and deals.
Bribery	Fire	Knowing how much, how, and who to pay to get what you want.
Bureaucracy	Water	Navigating institutions, paperwork, permits, and red tape to get things done.
Charm	Fire	Ingratiation and drawing people in.
Combat Driving/Piloting	Air	Operating a vehicle under fire or in a chase. This is a separate Skill from ordinary Driving or Piloting; competence in traffic says nothing about competence under fire.
Composition	Fire	Writing music, poetry, or stories with real craft.
Computer Use	Air	General computing, software, and programming. This Skill is distinct from Hacking - the same machine, but one of you is asking it politely.
Concealment	Moira	Hiding objects, caches, or hideouts from a determined search.
Contortion	Earth	Fitting through tight spaces and slipping restraints through flexibility.
Cooking	Earth	Preparing food, from the everyday to the exceptional.
Covert Signals	Air	Prearranged signals that carry meaning without words - hand signs, chalk marks, whistles, and brevity over the air.
Crafting	Earth	Building and repairing goods in a chosen trade. One Skill covers any material or trade - woodworking, metalworking, whatever you practice - because the habits of hand and eye carry across all of them.
Cryptography	Air	Creating and breaking codes, ciphers, and encryption.
Deception	Fire	Lying, bluffing, and fast talk.
Demolitions	Earth	Safely handling, placing, and detonating explosives.
Disguise	Water	Altering appearance and behaviors to convincingly pass as someone else.
Divination	Moira	Reading omens, portents, and the shape of what’s coming.
Driving	Earth	Operating ground vehicles in ordinary traffic and terrain.
Electronics	Earth	Building, repairing, and modifying electronic devices and circuitry.
Engineering	Air	Theoretical and design knowledge of structures and systems.
Escapology	Water	Breaking free of restraints and confined spaces under pressure.
Etiquette	Fire	Navigating social and professional protocol correctly.
Farming	Earth	Cultivating crops and managing livestock.
Finance	Air	Economics, markets, and accounting.
Firearms	Air	Which firearms you are trained on, by Category: handgun, then shotgun, submachine gun, rifle, and the heavy weapons at Master. Never rolled for an attack - see Weapon Skills Are Not Attack Skills.
First Aid	Water	Immediate, field-level treatment - stabilizing, bandaging, CPR.
Fishing	Moira	Catching fish by line, net, or spear.
Forgery	Earth	Producing convincing fake documents, signatures, IDs, and digital records.
Gaming	Moira	Skill at games of strategy, chance, and wagering - tabletop, esports, or otherwise.
Hacking	Air	Bypassing digital security - accounts, networks, cameras, and devices.
Holistic Medicine	Water	Herbal remedies, folk medicine, and non-clinical healing traditions.
Hunting	Moira	Tracking, catching, and field-dressing game.
Insight	Moira	Reading people, sensing motive and deception - a read that goes past ordinary attention.
Interrogation	Fire	Extracting information from an unwilling subject.
Intimidation	Fire	Coercing others through implied or explicit threat.
Intrigue	Moira	Scheming, maneuvering, and reading the undercurrents of institutional or political conflict.
Invention	Air	Designing and building original devices, not just following existing plans.
Investigation	Moira	Following clues at a scene and drawing sound conclusions.
Law	Air	Legal codes, procedure, and precedent.
Leadership	Fire	Commanding respect and rallying others to act.
Linguistics	Water	Learning, translating, and analyzing languages.
Mechanics	Earth	Repair and maintenance of vehicles and machinery.
Medicine	Water	Surgery, diagnosis, and long-term clinical treatment.
Melee Weapons	Earth	Which melee weapons you are trained on, by Category: improvised and knives, then one-handed blunt and large blades, one-handed blades, polearms and two-handers, and the exotic ones at Master. Never rolled for an attack - see Weapon Skills Are Not Attack Skills.
Navigation	Moira	Plotting a course and avoiding getting lost, on foot, by vehicle, or otherwise.
Networking	Fire	Building and leveraging connections in professional, corporate, or elite circles.
Occult	Moira	Esoteric lore, ritual, and the world’s hidden supernatural undercurrent.
Perception	Water	Noticing details and spotting hidden things.
Performance	Fire	Acting, music, dance, or oratory before an audience, under one Skill whatever the medium.
Persuasion	Fire	Honest argument and diplomacy.
Piloting	Air	Operating aircraft or watercraft, under one Skill whatever the vehicle.
Politics	Fire	The workings of governments, agencies, and factions.
Psychology	Water	Understanding minds, motivations and behavior, including therapy and the long-term treatment of mental trauma.
Public Speaking	Fire	Commanding a room and structuring a spoken argument. This is a separate Skill from Performance - one is argument, the other is spectacle, and being good at one promises nothing about the other.
Religion	Moira	Theology, doctrine, and religious practice.
Research	Water	Finding information through records, libraries, databases, and open sources. This is a separate Skill from Investigation: Investigation reads a scene, Research reads the record.
Ridicule	Fire	Mockery, insult, and the cutting remark. Roasting, trash talk, and the dozens. Distinct from Intimidation, which threatens, and from Performance, which plays to a room rather than at somebody standing in it.
Science	Air	Broad scientific knowledge. One Skill covers every discipline - chemistry, biology, astrophysics - because a point spent here should buy you a scientist, not a specialist in one footnote.
Security	Earth	Bypassing physical locks, safes, and alarm systems.
Seduction	Fire	Winning someone over through romantic or physical appeal.
Shadowing	Moira	Following someone without being noticed.
Sleight of Hand	Air	Pickpocketing, palming, and planting objects unnoticed.
Smuggling	Water	Concealing and moving contraband past scrutiny, including modern screening and customs.
Stealth	Water	Moving unseen and unheard.
Streetwise	Moira	Navigating criminal culture, gangs, and underworld contacts.
Surveillance	Water	Observing a target or location without being detected, and spotting when somebody is doing it to you - physical stakeouts and technical monitoring both.
Survival	Earth	Foraging, shelter, water, and enduring somewhere that offers no help.
Swimming	Earth	Moving efficiently and enduring in open water. Can’t be used untrained: without it you can’t swim - see Swimming.
Systems Operation	Water	Operating and interpreting complex consoles, sensors, and industrial or vehicle control systems.
Thrown Weapons	Earth	Which thrown weapons you are trained on, by Category: balanced blade, then thrown axe, shafted, returning, and the sling at Master. Never rolled for an attack - see Weapon Skills Are Not Attack Skills.
Tracking	Moira	Following physical trails.

A Modern Campaign’s Everyman Skills

Per the Everyman Skills rule above, the GM sets this list per campaign - the system doesn’t fix it. This is a suggested starting list for a modern-world base campaign: baseline competence a functional adult in the present day would plausibly have just from living in it, granted free at Tier 1 (Trained). Meant to be trimmed or extended per campaign, not adopted wholesale without a look. Perception is the exception: it is always on the list, in every campaign.

Skill	Why it’s baseline in a modern setting
Athletics	Baseline physical capability - walking, running, carrying, climbing a fence.
Bureaucracy	Everyone in the modern world has filled out a form, called customer service, or dealt with an institution.
Computer Use	Basic literacy with phones, computers, and everyday software is close to universal.
Cooking	Basic ability to feed oneself beyond a microwave.
Driving	Most adults in a modern setting can operate a car.
Etiquette	Enough grasp of ordinary social norms to function in public and at work.
First Aid	Widely taught (school, work, licensing) - bandaging a cut, basic CPR awareness.
Perception	Noticing what is in front of you - always on the list, whatever the setting.
Persuasion	Everyday give-and-take - asking for a favor, making a case, haggling a little.
Streetwise	A working sense of one’s own neighborhood/city - what’s safe, who’s who, where not to go.

Deliberately not included by default: Firearms, Medicine, Hacking, and other Skills that represent real specialized training most people don’t get just by living in modern society - those stay Skills characters actually invest in, not baseline gives.