Rewriting Dwindle pt 4 Skills for reals

 Skills to pay the bills. I find skills to be the core of any game. Sure, some game don't have "Skills". Instead they have "Aspects", "Traits", "Professions", or "Abilities". But I think skills are simply the basic quantifiers for what your character is good at doing. I don't care if it gives a flat bonus, an extra die, or a reroll, having a skill, or investments in your skill, makes doing some activities easier than others.

I also like to play with how skills are named. Infiltrating, Infiltration, and Infiltrator all have a different feeling to me.

Infiltrating is like the most basic skill name, and would simply be used when trying to enter a secure location.

Infiltration sounds more like an umbrella skill, and could include bypassing security, wearing uniforms to blend in, or slinking in the shadows.

Infiltrator means you are someone practice in the arts of Infiltration. You know other infiltrators, and you can turn anything thin and flexible enough into a lock pick. It is your profession, and your identity.

So yeah, I like the nouns.

Skills

There are 10 skills in Dwindle:

1. Driver: Riding animals, piloting ships, controlling airships, riding bicycles
2. Entertainer: Consorting, tempting, gaining trust or friends, acting
3. Grifter: Lying, sensing deception, false identities, confidence schemes
4. Healer: Medicine, healing, herbalism, anatomy
5. Prowler: moving, sneaking, hiding, shadowing
6. Tinkerer: making, repairing, inventing, forgery
7. Investigator: noticing, interviewing, interrogating, researching
8. Thief: bypassing security, gaining entry, slight of hand
9. Skirmisher: attacking, defending, gaining advantage
10. Survivalist: finding basic necessities, tracking, wildlife knowledge

On your character sheet, rank these skills from best to worst. This will effect how many ranks you may have in that skill.

• Your single best skill can have a rank of up to 5 (d12). 
• Your next 2 best skills can have ranks of up to 4 (d10).
• Your next 3 best skills can have ranks of up to 3 (d8).
• Your last 4 skills can have ranks of up to 2 (d6).

After ranking your skills, you have 15 points to invest in them. The first point invested in a skill (rank 1) grants it a d4 skill die to add to rolls related to that skill. Additional points (additional ranks) increase the die's size by 1 step each.

As you gain XP, you may increase your skills up to their individual maximum ranks. 1XP is a single skill rank.

New Lexicon

• Skill Die: A die added to a roll based on your rank in a skill. At rank 1 you gain a d4. For rank 2 you add a d6. At rank 3 your skill die is a d8. If your skill is rank 4, you'll have a d10 skill die. And finally, a d12 is granted for your Rank 5 skill.