Skills
Master your abilities through practice — every swing, strike, and craft makes you stronger.
Overview
Skills in Vorlia represent your character's proficiency in various disciplines. Unlike traditional systems where you allocate points into skills at level-up, Vorlia uses a skill-on-use system: skills improve through active practice. Swing a sword enough times and your Swords skill will rise. Mine enough ore and your Mining skill will climb. This means your character naturally becomes better at the activities you actually perform.
Each character can track up to 30 skills, though the number of skills available to you and the maximum level you can reach in each one depends on your race. Skills range from level 0 up to a maximum of level 100, with each level requiring progressively more experience to attain.
Skill Categories
All skills are organized into four categories. The skill window groups skills by category, and you can expand or collapse each group to keep things organized.
| Category | Description | Raised By |
|---|---|---|
| Combat | Offensive weapon proficiencies that increase your damage output and hit chance with specific weapon types. | Dealing damage to monsters and players with the corresponding weapon type |
| Defending | Defensive abilities that improve your survivability, blocking, and damage mitigation. | Taking damage and successfully defending against attacks |
| Trade | Crafting and gathering professions including mining, smelting, forging, and equipment repair. | Performing the corresponding trade activity (mining ore, smithing items, etc.) |
| Knowledge | Passive knowledge skills that provide identification abilities and deeper combat understanding. | Using identification or other knowledge-related actions |
Complete Skill List
The following table lists all currently available skills in Vorlia, along with their category and how they are raised through gameplay.
| # | Skill Name | Category | How to Raise |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | Unarmed | Combat | Attack monsters or players without a weapon equipped |
| 1 | Swords | Combat | Attack monsters or players with a sword-type weapon |
| 2 | Axes | Combat | Attack monsters or players with an axe-type weapon |
| 3 | Blunts | Combat | Attack monsters or players with a blunt-type weapon |
| 4 | Polearms | Combat | Attack monsters or players with a polearm-type weapon |
| 5 | Bows | Combat | Attack monsters or players with a bow-type weapon |
| 6 | Identifying | Knowledge | Use the identify action on items and objects |
| 7 | Combat Knowledge | Knowledge | Gained passively through combat encounters |
| 15 | Mining | Trade | Mine ore deposits using a mining pick at resource nodes |
| 16 | Blacksmithing | Trade | Smelt ingots and forge equipment at an anvil |
Skill Progression
Skills in Vorlia use a skill-on-use progression system. Each time you perform an action associated with a skill, you gain skill experience. When your accumulated experience reaches the threshold for the next level, your skill automatically levels up.
How Skill Experience Is Earned
- Combat skills gain experience equal to the combat experience earned from each successful hit. The skill that gains the experience matches your equipped weapon type (e.g., Swords skill if wielding a sword, Unarmed if no weapon is equipped).
- Trade skills gain experience each time you successfully perform the corresponding trade action — mining a vein, smelting ore into ingots, or forging an item at an anvil.
- Knowledge skills gain experience through specific knowledge-related actions such as identifying items.
Damage Scaling
Your weapon skill level directly impacts your damage output. Damage is scaled by the
formula: damage * (1 + skillLevel/100 + STR/400). This means a higher
weapon skill significantly increases the damage you deal, making skill training essential
for effective combat.
Skill Level Cap
The absolute maximum skill level is 100, requiring 80,000,000 total experience to reach. Beyond level 100, the experience table has no further entries, effectively capping progression. However, your race may impose a lower cap on specific skills through skill limits.
Skill Experience Table
The following table shows the cumulative experience required to reach each skill level. Early levels are fast, but the experience requirements grow substantially at higher tiers.
| Level | Experience Required | Level | Experience Required |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 150 | 26 | 250,000 |
| 2 | 300 | 27 | 300,000 |
| 3 | 600 | 28 | 350,000 |
| 4 | 1,000 | 29 | 400,000 |
| 5 | 1,500 | 30 | 450,000 |
| 6 | 2,500 | 40 | 975,000 |
| 7 | 4,000 | 50 | 1,900,000 |
| 8 | 6,000 | 60 | 2,900,000 |
| 9 | 8,000 | 70 | 5,250,000 |
| 10 | 10,000 | 80 | 10,000,000 |
| 15 | 40,000 | 90 | 20,000,000 |
| 20 | 90,000 | 95 | 30,000,000 |
| 25 | 200,000 | 100 | 80,000,000 |
Skill Requirements
Some items and equipment in Vorlia have skill requirements that must be met before they can be used. These requirements are defined per item and check against a specific skill level. The requirement types are:
| Requirement Type | Code | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Strength | STR | Minimum Strength stat required |
| Dexterity | DEX | Minimum Dexterity stat required |
| Constitution | CON | Minimum Constitution stat required |
| Intelligence | INT | Minimum Intelligence stat required |
| Character Level | LVL | Minimum character level required |
| Skill Level | SKL | Minimum level in a specific skill |
| Reputation | REP | Minimum or maximum reputation value |
Weapons, armor, useable items, and collectables can all specify a required skill and amount. For example, a high-tier sword may require Swords skill level 50 to equip, while an advanced mining pick may require Mining skill level 30 to use.
Race-Specific Skill Limits
Each of the four playable races in Vorlia has a unique set of skill limits — maximum levels that constrain how high you can train each of the 30 skill slots. These limits are defined per race and loaded from the race data files at startup.
A skill limit of 0 means that race cannot learn the skill at all. A positive limit (e.g., 80) means the character can train that skill up to level 80, even if the global cap is 100. This mechanic encourages racial diversity and specialization: some races may excel at combat skills but have limited trade proficiency, and vice versa.
Skill Hotbar & Pinned Skills
Vorlia allows you to pin up to 5 skills to a floating hotbar on your screen. Pinned skill bars show the skill name, current level, and a real-time experience progress bar, letting you monitor your training progress at a glance without opening the full skill window.
Pinning a Skill
- Open the Skill Window.
- Expand the category containing the skill you want to pin.
- Click the small pin button on the right side of the skill row.
- The pinned skill bar appears on the left side of the screen.
Unpinning a Skill
- Open the Skill Window.
- Find the pinned skill (indicated by a highlighted gold pin button).
- Click the pin button again to remove it from the hotbar.
Repositioning Pinned Bars
Pinned skill bars can be dragged to any position on the screen. Click and hold a pinned bar, then move it to your preferred location. The bars will stay within the screen boundaries (800x600).
Quick Slots (Item Hotbar)
In addition to pinned skill bars, Vorlia features a 5-slot quick bar for items. Press keys 1–5 while hovering over an item in your backpack to assign it to a quick slot. Once assigned, pressing the corresponding number key will use that item instantly. Useable items (mining picks, forging hammers) and consumable collectables (food, potions) can be placed in quick slots.
| Feature | Pinned Skill Bars | Quick Slots |
|---|---|---|
| Slots Available | 5 | 5 |
| What Can Be Placed | Any learned skill | Useable items and consumables |
| Keyboard Shortcut | None (click to pin) | Keys 1–5 |
| Draggable | Yes | No (fixed position) |
| Shows Progress | Yes (experience bar) | No (shows item icon and quantity) |
The Skill Window
The skill window is your central hub for viewing all learned skills. It displays skills organized by category with expandable sections.
Window Layout
- Category Headers — Click to expand or collapse each skill category (Combat, Defending, Trade, Knowledge). A count of your skills in each category is shown on the right.
- Skill Rows — Each skill shows its name, current level, an inline experience progress bar, and a pin button.
- Detail Panel — Click on any skill to select it. The bottom of the window shows detailed information for the selected skill: name, level, a larger experience bar, and the exact experience values (current / required for next level).
Reading the Experience Bar
The experience bar shows your progress toward the next skill level as a percentage. For example, if your Swords skill is level 10 and you have 12,000 out of 14,000 experience needed for level 11, the bar will show approximately 57%. The exact current and target experience values are displayed in the detail panel at the bottom of the skill window.