Sometimes your character gains training in a specific skill or task. For example, your focus might mean that you’re trained in sneaking, in climbing and jumping, or in social interactions. Other times, your character can choose a skill to become trained in, and you can pick a skill that relates to any task you think you might face. In most campaigns, fluency in a language is considered a skill. So if you want to speak French, that’s the same as being trained in biology or swimming.

You could choose a skill that incorporates more than one of these areas (interacting might include deceiving, intimidation, and persuasion) or that is a more specific version of one (hiding might be sneaking when you’re not moving). You could also make up more general professional skills, such as baker, sailor, or lumberjack. If you want to choose a skill that’s not on this list, it’s probably best to run it past the GM first, but in general, the most important thing is to choose skills that are appropriate to your character.

Remember that if you gain a skill that you’re already trained in, you become specialized in that skill. Because skill descriptions can be nebulous, determining whether you’re trained or specialized might take some thinking. For example, if you’re trained in lying and later gain an ability that grants you skill with all social interactions, you become specialized in lying and trained in all other types of interactions. Being trained three times in a skill is no better than being trained twice (in other words, specialized is as good as it gets).