Game Mechanic Types of Skills

#systemRPG #gameMechanics #skills

Skills

All Skills are composed of Game Mechanic Types. Each Type describes the kind of Effect the skill applies to an Action, Action Type, Target, or Environment.
A Skill may have multiple Types; the total count is capped by the Skill’s Rarity Rank plus a Base Value of one. Evolved Skills raise the Base Value of a Skill's Game Mechanic Types by one per evolution. The Base Value of a Skill's Game Mechanic Type has a Qualitative improvement on the Effects it uses.

Game Mechanic Types

  • Direct Effect — Immediate, one-resolution impact on an Action, Action Type, Environment, or Target (whether creature or object) with no persistence or special targeting/area rules (e.g., deal damage, heal, push/pull, move, create/destroy a simple object now).

  • Sense Effect — Reveals, filters, or masks information (identify, inspect, detect, highlight, track, ping, mark for UI). Produces knowledge, not alteration.

  • Alter Effect — Changes properties or resolution rules of actors or actions (convert damage/type, modify costs, tags, accuracy, resistances, immunities, caps, or calculations).

  • Proc Effect — Defines conditional or scheduled firing logic for other effects (on-hit, on-crit, on-move, after X actions, random roll, sequence/chain).

  • Extended Effect — Persists across Temporal Units; applies over time or while maintained (DoT/HoT, aura/channel, maintenance, lingering field).

  • Area Effect — Specifies spatial coverage independent of payload (cone, line, burst, zone, hazard template, terrain overlay).

  • State Effect — Applies, transforms, or clears statuses/flags on entities or systems (buff/debuff, cleanse/purge, silence/root, shield/ward, lock/unlock interactions, toggle dungeon/system flags).