Introduction
Character skills are very important in Mortal Online, as it is your skills and not any "character level" that define what you can and cannot do in the game. The skill system itself is very dynamic, meaning attributes and skills are dependent on each other, and that training one of them also improves the other. It also gives you the opportunity to fully customize your character. Unfortunately, this system may seem a bit confusing at first, especially when reading about it, but let’s look at each piece of the system one at a time:



Attributes
Your character will have different types of attributes. Here are the three most important ones:

Basic Attributes contains your Name, the Name of your Deva, Race, Sex, etc. Most of these attributes are permanent or at least won’t change very often.



Primary Attributes are attributes such as Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, etc. These are the attributes that define the core of your character and gives you the possibility to train certain skills, and limits to what extent you can train others. You start the game with a certain amount of points that you distribute on the different attributes, and when playing the game you will slowly improve the attributes by using skills. Also, improving an attribute will give every skill based on that attribute a small boost. However, the Primary Attributes have a "cap", meaning once you have reached a certain number of points in all your attributes, you cannot increase them anymore, at least not in the usual way. To increase your Strength for example, you’ll have to obtain those points by decreasing another attribute of your choice. This means that you can never max out on all Primary Attributes, rather you’ll have to choose what will be the strengths and weaknesses of your character.

To sum it up:
1. A Primary Attribute increase when using a Skill connected to the particular attribute
2. Primary Attributes have a common cap




Secondary Attributes are attributes that are calculated from other attributes, like Health, Mana, Stamina, Movement, etc. Skills may also affect these attributes.




Skills
There are two main types of skills in Mortal Online: Primary and Secondary Skills.




Primary Skills
The Primary Skills are the most basic skills in the game and also the foundation for the rest of the skill tree. All characters have these skills from start, but it’s up to you which of them to train. The different Primary Skills “unlock” different Secondary Skills in the skill tree; for instance you will need to train the Primary Skill “Acrobatics” to a certain value to be able to learn the Secondary Skill “Climbing”. Like the Primary Attributes the Primary Skills have a common cap, meaning you can never fully train each and every Primary Skill. It’s up to you to find the perfect balance for your character, as you can train and untrain these skills how many times you like.


Secondary Skills
The Secondary Skills are the bulk of the skill tree. They are of a vast number of skills that are connected to each other in a very complex network. Secondary Skills have to be discovered and learned in the game by books, tutoring and/or to a lesser extent by other means like magic or achievements. The prerequisite of a Secondary Skill may be another Secondary Skill, a Primary Skill, any Attribute or any combination thereof. For example, learning the Secondary Skill “Advanced Poison Making” may require you to have the Secondary Skills “Beast Lore” which in turn is based on “Zoology”, as well as “Poison Making” that is based on “Basic Herbalism” that is based on “Botany” and so on.

The major difference from the Primary Skills is that Secondary skills don’t have a common cap. You can learn any number of Secondary Skills you like, but the skills you can learn are restricted by your Attributes and Primary Skills. The restrictions also mean that if you “untrain” a Primary Skill or Attribute that is a prerequisite for one of your Secondary Skills, you won’t be able to use that Secondary Skill any more. However, should the prerequisites once again be met it can be used as before (so you don’t have to train it over again). In short, you can explore any area of the skill tree without the fear of getting stuck, as you can always “leave” and “come back to” your Secondary Skills that are already trained with the help of a little time.







Skill Categories
Every skill in Mortal Online is either an Action Skill or a Learning Skill. Some of the Secondary Skills are also tagged as Deva Skills (or “Account/World Skills”).




Action Skills
An Action Skill is trained by using it in the game. By using your Arming Sword you train the skill “Arming Sword” (and also, to a lesser extent, the skills and attributes that have a connection to it like “1H Swords”, “Light Weapons”, “Strength” and “Dexterity”).




Learning Skills
A Learning Skill is passively trained by “reading a book” or “studying it mentally”. This takes time, and the more difficult the skill, the more time it takes. You can only train one Learning Skill at a time, but during that time you can of course train any number of Action Skills as their training is dependent on your actions in the game. Although most Learning Skills are passively trained, some of them will also benefit from certain “actions” in the game, i.e. the Learning Skill “Zoology” might increase each time you discover a new creature. (In this case, the skill don’t have to be the one “currently studied” to increase.)




Deva Skills
Some of the Secondary Skills are tagged as Deva Skills. (The Deva is your “shared soul” that connects all your characters on your account.) When a Deva Skill is trained, all your characters will benefit from that training. As all Secondary Skills have prerequisites it does not necessarily mean they can use the skill, but it means it will be there, trained to the same level as for the other characters, and once the prerequisites are met the skill will be active and ready to use (see Secondary Skills).





Classes and Class-Restrictions
Classes in Mortal Online will work rather different than in most other MMORPG’s. You don’t begin the game as a specific Class, although you may choose from different presets to get some help along the way to become one. Classes are managed by special Guilds in the game (meaning “traditional” labor- or profession-guilds like merchant-guilds, blacksmith-guilds, thief-guilds and so on) where you have to apply and get accepted to get the specific Class-title. (You may choose whether to show the title publically or not).



Classes will have prerequisites in the form of skills, attributes or sometimes even things like reputation, social status or wealth. In essence, you will have to give up certain attributes and/or skills in favor for others, meaning your choice of skills will be restricted. In turn, you will benefit from certain Class-bonuses as long as you stay true to your Class by meeting the prerequisites. Whether it’s worth to make that sacrifice or not is of course up to you.