TORN skills

Overview
There would be twenty skills divided into four skill categories: Combat, Magic, Rogue, and Other. These skills would allow the game to determine a character's chance of success, or the extent of their ability in various actions such as attacking, picking a lock, and so on.

When a character was created, its statistics would define the initial values in each skill. In addition, the player would be able to Tag a skill category that the character would be especially proficient in. From that point, each time the character passed a level it would gain Skill Points (SP) in each of the four categories (i.e. four separate sets of SP). These SP would be spent to raise the skills within the relevant category. The number of SP gained each level would depend upon a different set of related statistics for each skill category.

Combat skills
The Combat skills included Unarmed Combat, Slashing Weapons, Crushing Weapons, Piercing Weapons, Projectile Weapons, and Fortitude. The first five would be used during combat to determine how skilled a character was with a given weapon or style of combat. As the skill increased the character would hit more often and for more damage, and would learn (or become eligible to learn) various special attacks and abilities. Fortitude would increase a character's Hit Points, enabling him or her to take more damage before dying.

Magic skills
The Magic skills included Order, Chaos, Alchemy, Summoning, and Mana Focus. The first four would represent a character's knowledge of and skill with the art of one of the four realms of magic. The higher a character's skill was, the more complex the spells he or she would be able to cast and the more potent those spells would be. Mana Focus would increase a character's Mana Points, allowing him or her to expend more magical power - casting spells, summoning creatures, activating enchanted items and so on - before having to rest.

Rogue skills
The Rogue skills were the hallmark of the scout or sneaky, "skulduggery"-type character, and included Stealth, Locks & Traps, and Thievery.

Other skills
Lastly, the Other skills fit no trade in particular but were handy to adventurers of all sorts. They would include Artisan, Diplomacy, Haggle, Healing, Lore, and Outdoorsman.