Does the usefulness of a skill (chance to succeed, etc.) increase linearly as you improve in that skill?
Sharon Shellman 9/22/2000
Skills advance in a linear fashion. Although the starting point is adjusted depending upon the skill. (e.g. not all skills start at 0)
For instance, if you have no points in Backstabbing, you will never get a backstabbing bonus when trying to use that skill. On the other hand, with no points in melee, you still have a chance of hitting your opponent with a melee weapon, although it is not a very good one.
When I said that not all skills start at zero, I was speaking about the underlying system. What you will see is a zero for all skills when you start (unless they were modified by race or background).
Everything used to be zero when it said zero a few months ago. But that meant with a zero in melee you had absolutely NO chance to hit another creature, even with your bare hands. This felt really dumb. So we adjusted the underlying starting point for Melee. So now, even though your character sheet says you have a zero in Melee, you still have a chance to hit.
All skills start at zero when you begin a game. The only way to adjust these prior to spending points is through your race or background modifiers.