Starting Skills & STats

Every Survivor is talented at something, and those talents are part of why you are still alive. Skills are abilities you gain in play that augment the natural abilities that you, as a person, have so that you are able to enhance your character’s abilities above and beyond your real-world capabilities. You can even unlock more powerful versions of the starting skills as you continue to play the game and progress your character.

Each Character has a few STATS that are based on your starting Strain and Lineage.

  • Body - This is a measure of your toughness, and how much damage you can take in combat. This is similar to Hit Points in D&D, or Health or Stamina in a lot of video games. You can regain lost Body by using healing items or having another character use a healing Skill on you.

    • Characters start with at least 10 Body but are still pretty fragile. Since most weapons deal 2 damage on a swing, you can take about five hits in melee before you start to die.

  • Mind - This is how you fuel using your Skills in game and is similar to Mana or Energy in video games. You refresh these Mind Points at the “Twelves”, at 12:00 Midnight and Noon during an event, or by using a restorative brew or meal.

    • You should try to buy Mind points in intervals of “5”. If you start with an odd number of Mind, plan to spend your starting points on raising your Mind. Most skills in the game need 5, 10, or 15 Mind points to use, so if you have an odd number of Mind points you might not be able to use them effectively.

  • Resolve - This is a measure of your will to survive and how you power very powerful Skills and equipment. You can’t normally regain Resolve during an event, so spend it wisely!

    • New Players won’t have a lot of use for this Stat, but it is used in a number of mechanics in the game. You can start with additional Resolve to start, but we recommend saving this for later in your character’s story.

  • Infection - This is the number of times you can return from death, in most cases. You aren’t guaranteed to come back, and if you don’t have a good reason to come back, you’ll find yourself trapped by the Grave Mind. This is a permanent Stat and can’t be raised without help.

    • You can re-buy lost Infection, but it costs Experience Points. Once you run out, you’ll need to make a new character!

  • Experience Points (XP) - You can earn XP by attending Dystopia Rising events to improve your character and learn new Skills, gain additional Body or Mind, or even earn cool Achievements. For your first ten events you attend, you’ll earn a lot of additional XP to get started.

you enter the game with sixteen (16) Experience Points to start.

You gain this XP as soon as the game begins, so you can use it right away! In DR:TX, you can spend these XP before the event if you like, but half the FUN of learning a Skill is getting an in-character lesson from another player in game.

  • You can read more about Skills in the Rulebook starting on p.27, and find a complete list of the Skills on p. 100.

  • You can read more about Experience Points, Body, Mind, Resolve, and Character Growth starting on p. 91

Let’s cover on some of the core concepts you’ll need to know to be successful as a Survivor.

spending XP

You can choose to improve your character by spending Experience Points in game. There’s several things you can spend XP on, but here’s how it generally works. You can find the complete rules for spending XP on page 94 in the Rulebook.

  • There are several skills in four Skill Categories that you can learn in Dystopia Rising: Combat, Civilized, Wasteland, and Anomaly.

  • The first skill you purchase in a Skill Category costs 2 XP, the second skill costs 4 XP, and the third skill costs 6 XP, and so forth. This means you can only start with at most three total skills in the same category (as the next skill would cost 8 XP, and you’ll only have 6 remaining), so you are probably better off picking one or two choices from multiple Skill groups.

  • Your first 10 or so Body and Mind only cost 1 XP each. Once you get above 20 Body or Mind it’ll start to cost more, but you’ll probably have a few points left over to spend after you select your skills.

    • Mind Points let you DO stuff. You can never go wrong with spending XP on Mind points, as it lets you do your neat Skill even more times each Twelves.

  • You can buy a point of Resolve for 10 XP. This is a LOT of your starting XP, so we recommend saving this purchase for later.

  • Remember, you get 16 XP to begin, so you’ll want to learn a few different skills when you first start out, or you can always spend points on Mind and Body.

Skill Types

As we said above, there are four types of Skills you can learn in Dystopia Rising. Each Skill has three tiers, Basic, Proficient, and Master, and you can also gain a special title in each skill called a Profession Focus Achievement, or PFA. You won’t be able to purchase Proficient Skills until a bit later in your career when you first start out. You’ll have time to learn about all of these later, but let’s focus on the Basic Skills you can learn at character creation.

Combat

Combat Skills represent your character’s ability to survive a fight and kill the zombie about to eat your friends. Every character starts with a basic understanding of how to use most Weapons. In fact, you start with 8 weapon skills for FREE! These Skills also include a number of “combat tricks” that you can do in combat by spending Mind points. The only weapon type you can’t use at creation is dual wielding weapons, or Florentine, but you can learn this right away if that’s your favorite type of combat.

You don’t have to be good at boffer combat to pick up some Combat Skills and Avoid is the most common Combat Skill taken by players at Dystopia Rising.

  • Some good starting Combat Skills are Avoid, Balance, Blinding, Break, Combat Tactics, Take Down, or Florentine.

  • Remember, as a starting character, you won’t be able to use these Combat Skills more than once or twice during a 12-hour period without help.

  • We recommend that you save skills like Interfere, Piercing Strike, or Choking Blow for later, as these are more useful with more XP for Body and Mind, or equipment.

  • Avoid is a VERY good first skill, as it lets you avoid the negative effects of most single melee or ranged attacks in game.

Civilized

Civilized Skills represent your learning and education, social and cultural skills, and your mastery of practiced skills that need production and refining to be successful. All of the major Crafting skills are found in this category, as well as healing skills, and skills that rely on social connections to in game factions.

  • Some good starting Civilized skills are Artisan, Agricultural, Education, Culinary, or Medical.

  • Basic Medical is particularly useful for a new character, as one use of it requires 0 Mind to use! However, actually healing more than 1 Body to another ally requires in-game equipment or specific zones in the game, so your ability to be a full “doctor” with just your Skills alone at the start is very limited.

  • Artisan is used to repair and craft equipment like weapons, armors, and gizmos. Culinary is used to craft consumable items like meals and brews, and Education is used to craft Blueprints. Agricultural is an always useful skill, and one of the ways to make Herbs and Produce, two items that are used in most Culinary recipes.

  • Criminal Influence and Larceny are two CvC related skills, or Character-vs-Character. This can be a fun way to play the game but are most useful against other players. Talk to our New Player Guides if you’d like to learn more about the shady side of criminal behavior!

  • We recommend that you save skills like Financial Influence, Social Influence, Trade Connections for later, as these are more useful with more access to in-game Currency and XP.

Wasteland

Wasteland Skills are ones honed in the outskirts and the less civilized areas of the world. They sometimes require a bit of resourcefulness and brutality and represent many ways you can travel through the wastelands. Many of the Skills that make various Scrap items are in this category, and these can be useful skills for folks that want to participate in the vibrant economy of DR.

  • Some good starting Wasteland skills are Awareness, Enhanced Movement, Foraging, Sailing, Salvaging, or Stealth. Stealth and Awareness are useful skills for surviving at night, as they let you hide in the dark from enemies or detect a hidden enemy before they ambush you!

  • Trailblazing allows you to use vehicles, very expensive items that take multiple games to craft, and this is the only way to produce Metals, a very valuable and rare type of resource. However, you can only use this skill ONCE per event, so it’s not as useful to start.

  • We recommend that you save skills like Hunting, Malicious, Sailing, and Trailblazing for later, as these are more useful with access to equipment, in-game Currency, and XP.

Anomaly

Anomaly Skills represent your characters unique connection to the “magic” of Dystopia Rising, through powers called Psionics, and through your connection to in-game Faiths. These skills are very powerful but take a lot of Mind points to use effectively or require specific roleplay to join one of the many in-game Faiths.

  • NOTE: Taking even ONE Anomaly Skill gives you the Keyword “Aberrant”. This means that certain zombies, monsters, and items are especially deadly to you, so keep this in mind before you choose one of these skills. This is not a choice you can take back easily, so be careful!

  • Some good starting psionic Anomaly skills are Necrokinetics, Biogenetics, Telekinetics, and Pyrokinetics. Some good starting faith-based Anomaly skills are Faithful Spirit, Faithful Vessel, and Faithful Will.

  • Biogenetics is the only Basic tier skill that can immediately heal a wounded ally for 5 Body. All other forms of healing need more time to heal or are very limited without specific equipment. Many players chose this skill simply because of how useful it is.

  • We recommend that you save skills like Telepathy, Faithful Miracles, and Faithful Patterns for later, as these are more useful with access to equipment, in-game Currency, and XP.