Starting Skills & STats
Every Survivor is talented at something, and those talents are part of why you are still alive in a cruel and dangerous post-apocalypse. 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. Stats are the core abilities of how tough your character is, what kind of mental fortitude they possess, or even how many times they can die before coming back as a zombie. You can even unlock more powerful versions of the starting skills called Professions 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. Each Lineage has 20 points divided between Body and Mind.
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 like a brew or injectable, or by having another character use a healing Skill on you.
Your starting Body is determined by your choice of Lineage.
Every characters start with at least 5 Body. Since most weapons deal 2 damage on a swing, that means you can take about two to five hits in melee before you start to die or only a few shots from a firearm.
Mind - This is how you fuel using your Skills in game and is similar to Mana or Energy in video games. You can restore these Mind points by using a restorative brew or meal, having certain Skills used on you, or by helping during a crafting project with an ability called “Skilled Assistant”.
Your starting Mind is determined by your choice of Lineage.
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 1, 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.
Every character starts with at least 5 Mind. If you don’t take one of the Development Skills, you likely won’t use your Mind at all during a game. We recommend most characters take at least one Basic Development Skill for this reason.
Resolve - This is a measure of your will to survive and how you power very powerful Skills and equipment. Resolve is used by certain pieces of powerful equipment or during Grave Mind scenes. You can’t easily regain Resolve during an event, so spend it wisely!
Each character starts with three (3) Resolve.
New Players won’t have a lot of use for this Stat, but it is used in a number of mechanics in the game, including your Lineage Advantage. 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 before becoming a zombie, in most cases. You aren’t guaranteed to come back when you die, and if you don’t have a good reason to go on, you’ll find yourself trapped by the Grave Mind.
Each character starts with three (3) Infection.
When you lose your last Infection, your character is permanently dead! Once you run out, you’ll need to make a new character!
You can regain lost Infection, but it requires powerful Skills or dangerous Necrology procedures to restore. Regaining lost Infection doesn’t cost experience points, but it can only be attempted four times in a year.
Experience Points (XP) - You can earn XP by attending Dystopia Rising Live 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 10 XP per game to get started, so you’ll quickly be able to purchase even advanced Professions and Profession Skills. You can even purchase up to three (3) additional XP at each event for an additional cost.
you enter the game with fifty (50) Experience Points to start.
You gain this XP as soon as the game begins, so you can use it right away! In Dystopia Rising Live, 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 experience points, character growth, and XP costs starting on p. 14 in the player’s guide.
You can read more about Body, Mind, and other stats starting on p. 15 in the player’s Guide
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 are 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 14 in the Player’s Guide.
There are several types of skills that you can learn in Dystopia Rising Live: Default, Impact, Development, and Profession.
Every character begins will all of the available Default Skills. These are common skills like the ability to use weapons, shields, and basic wasteland lore.
You can purchase uses of Impact Skills, powerful active abilities useful in combat that can reset every 20 minutes you are outside of a fight. These are valuable skills for a starting survivor as they will be useable again and again over the course of the game.
You can purchase ranks in Development Skills, in Basic, Proficient, and Master levels. These are useful abilities that use your Mind point pool and includes all of the crafting skills in Dystopia Rising Live. Remember, every character starts with at least 5 Mind points, so purchasing one Development Skill at creation is a good plan.
You can eventually unlock Profession Skills, but these won’t be available right away for a starting character. These powerful roles can be unlocked by purchasing the right combination of Impact or Development skills and can unlock powerful new abilities for your character.
It requires a minimum of 65 experience points to unlock a Profession, so you don’t need to worry about this when you first start.
The first use you purchase in Impact Skill costs 5 XP, the second skill costs 10 XP, and the third skill costs 15 XP, and so forth. This means you can only start with at most four total Impact skills in the same category (as the next skill would cost 25 XP, and you’ll only 0 points remaining), so you are probably better off picking one or two uses of multiple Impact Skills.
The first Basic tier of a Development Skill costs 5 XP, the Proficient tier costs 10 XP, and the Master tier costs 15 XP. While it is possible to start with a Master Development Skill right away (as this costs 30 XP total), you’ll need to also invest XP into Mind points to use these skills effectively. We recommend sticking with Basic skills to begin, as your Mind pool will be limited.
Your first 10 Body and Mind only cost 1 XP each, making it one of the most efficient ways to spend XP when you first start out. 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.
Most attacks hit in variants of 5, 10, 15, or 20 damage. Having 1 more Body than a common attack means you can survive one powerful unblocked attack from a threat. We recommend at least 11, 16, or 21 Body for these reasons.
Mind Points let you use Development Skills. You can never go wrong with spending XP on Mind points, but if you don’t take a Development Skill you shouldn’t spend XP on this Stat.
You can buy a point of Resolve or Infection for 20 XP. This is a LOT of your starting XP, so we recommend saving this purchase for later.
Remember, you get 50 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 later.
Skill Types
As we said above, there are four types of Skills you can learn in Dystopia Rising. The three starting categories of Default, Impact, and Development are available at creation. You won’t be able to purchase Profession Skills until a bit later in your career when you first start out. There’s also a special class of skills known as Aberrant Skills that include some additional disadvantages. You’ll have time to learn about all of these later, but let’s focus on the best Skills you can learn at character creation.
default skills
These don’t need much of a mention, as every character starts with these for free. You have a basic ability to use every weapon type in the game, including Brawling, Melee Small, Melee Standard, Melee Two-Handed, Bolt Action, Bows, Throwing, Dual Weapons (Florentine), Shields, and additionally you know Basic Wasteland Lore.
impact skills
Impact Skills influence your character’s ability to survive a fight and kill the zombie about to eat your friends. These Skills also include a number of “combat tricks” that you can do in combat by spending a use of the skill. Each time you purchase an Impact Skill you get an additional use. Impact Skill uses reset after 20 minutes outside of combat while not using weapons or other Impact Skills.
You don’t have to be good at boffer combat to pick up some Impact Skills and Avoid is the most common Impact Skill taken by players.
Some good starting combat-oriented Impact Skills are Blinding, Break, Takedown, or Piercing Strike. These work against most enemies in the game, but certain types of enemies may be immune to skills like Blinding and Break.
There are three primary defensive skills in Avoid, Balance, and Mental Endurance. These are all defenses against most enemies in the game, but Avoid is a VERY good first skill, as it lets you avoid the negative effects of most single melee or ranged attacks in game. This will help you survive until the end of the event!
Some additional less combat-focused Impact Skills that are useful are Double Tap, First Aid, Trap Dis/Arming, and Salvaging. These are great choices if you don’t want to engage in much boffer fighting but still want to feel useful.
First Aid is a great skill for a combat medic type role. This skill will help you save your allies in a fight, or simply patch people up after the skirmish is over. You can even use this skill without spending a use to Stabilize someone for free, so this is a handy skill to have.
Stealth is an amazing skill for survival. Most enemies can’t detect you while you are using this skill, so this can be an excellent way for a new player to survive a tough fight at night or simply get back to your bunk safely.
Remember, as a starting character you can use these skills basically every 20 minutes. You’ll have something you can do in virtually every fight over the weekend, so these definitely feel more rewarding than Development Skills.
development skills
Development 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.
Some good starting Civilized skills are Artisan, Agricultural, Education, Culinary, or Medical.
Basic Medical is particularly useful for a new character, as it only requires 1 Mind to use! Since you can heal 10 Body per 1 Mind spent, this is the most efficient healing in the game. You can even help others and regain some of your spent Mind!
Artisan is used to repair and craft equipment like weapons, armors, and gizmos, and can allow you to repair armor for only 1 Mind point. Culinary is used to craft consumable items like meals and brews, and Education is used to craft Blueprints.
Foraging can allow you to collect Foraging cards you find across the game site and can be turned in for useful scrap and resources. However, since it costs at least 5 Mind to turn in a Foraging card for scrap, you’ll only be able to do this a few times without help.
Agricultural is an always useful skill, as one of the few ways to make Herbs, while Travel allows you to purchase Produce. These two items are used in most Culinary recipes. Even if you can only do this a few times, these items are always in high demand.
Criminal Influence is a CvC related skill, or Character-vs-Character. This can be a fun way to play the game but may involve into conflict with your fellow survivors. This can get you access to the Black Market, or the secretive assassin’s guild, Murder Inc. 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 and Travel for later, as these are more useful with more access to in-game Currency and XP. If you are an Elitariat, taking Financial Influence can allow you to use your Lineage Advantage. Travel is the cheapest Mind cost of the two to use at first but requires at least 5 local currency to use.
Aberrant impact & Development skills
Aberrant Skills represent your characters unique connection to the “magic” of Dystopia Rising, through powers called Psionics, and through your connection to in-game Faiths. There are both Aberrant Impact Skills and Development Skills, and the faith-related skills can allow you to join one of the many in-game Faiths.
NOTE: Taking even ONE Aberrant 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. However, these skills can be incredibly powerful and useful, so many feel it is worth the risk. This is not a choice you can take back easily, so be careful!
Some good starting combat-related Impact Skills are Biogenetics, Psychic Propulsion, Telekinetics, and Pyrokinetics. The Development Skill Necrokinetics can be a quick way to get involved in learning more about the mysterious Grave Mind.
Biogenetics is the only healing skill that can immediately heal a wounded ally for 2 Body. All other forms of healing need more time to heal or are very limited without specific equipment. Many players chose to be an Aberrant and take this skill simply because of how useful it is.
The two faithful Aberrant Development Skills, Faithful Miracles and Faithful Will allow you to provide powerful buffs for people that share your same faith. These are great choices if you want to pursue a role as a priest or faith leader in game, but you can participate in a faith or use most Benedictions even if you aren’t psionic.
