Skill Required

Skill Required is the universal item-property gate that declares which combat or magic skill a character must have to wield, equip, or actively use an item — almost always a weapon, sometimes an instrument, occasionally a piece of equipment. Every weapon in Britannia has a Skill Required value baked into its definition (a Broadsword requires Swordsmanship, a Bow requires Archery, a Lute requires Musicianship) — the property is rarely surfaced as something the player thinks about explicitly, but it is the load-bearing rule that determines whether a character's swing lands at all.

The Skill Required reading is found in the item's tooltip. A character with insufficient skill in the required type will have most or all of their swings whiff — the engine treats below-skill swings as automatic misses regardless of the target's defensive value. The mechanic is paired with Strength Requirement (a separate property that gates equip via stat) and is partially mitigated by Lower Requirements (which reduces the Strength Requirement, but does not affect Skill Required).

How Skill Required gates use

The exact threshold is the value listed in the item's tooltip — typically 0.0 for plain weapons (no skill gate), 30.0 for upgraded artifact weapons, and up to 70.0 – 80.0 for the heaviest specialty weapons. There is no partial gating — at one tenth of a skill point below the threshold, every swing whiffs; at the threshold, every swing is normal.

Skill Required by weapon class

The default Skill Required matches the weapon's wielding skill:

Most baseline crafted weapons sit at the lower end of the Skill Required range. Higher-tier requirements appear on:

The Skill Required → Hit Chance interaction

For a Swordsman with 100 Swordsmanship swinging a Broadsword (Required: 0.0): - Skill Required is satisfied — every swing rolls normally. - Hit chance computed from (Attacker_Skill + 25) / (Defender_Skill + 25 + 50) × 100.

For a Swordsman with 100 Swordsmanship swinging a Soul Glaive (Required: 50.0 Throwing): - Skill Required for Throwing is 50.0 — the Swordsman has 0 Throwing — every swing is an automatic miss.

This is why build planning is dominated by deciding the primary weapon skill first: a 100-Throwing Gargoyle dedicates the slot to Throwing weapons; a 100-Swordsmanship Human can never use Soul Glaives. Cross-class build attempts fail at the Skill Required gate.

Skill Required is NOT reducible

Crucially, Lower Requirements and similar properties do not reduce the Skill Required threshold. Lower Requirements affects only the Strength Requirement (the stat-gated equip lock). Skill Required is a hard gate that no item property bypasses.

The exception is items that are explicitly cross-skill:

These are explicit substitution properties baked into the item — there is no general "lower Skill Required" item property.

Special moves and Skill Required

Special Moves (Whirlwind Attack, Concussion Blow, Disarm, etc.) inherit the weapon's Skill Required check plus their own per-special skill threshold:

A character must satisfy both the weapon Skill Required and the special-move's skill threshold for the special to fire. Failing the special's secondary skill check does NOT cause the swing to whiff — it just prevents the special from triggering.

Skill Required in PvP

In PvP duels and small-group brawls, knowing the opponent's build lets a fighter pick weapons whose Skill Required they meet but whose damage/defense profile counters the opponent. The "weapon swap" tactic — pulling out a different-skilled weapon mid-fight — is the canonical reason a serious PvP build runs two or three weapon skills at high level (e.g., 100 Swordsmanship + 100 Mace Fighting + 100 Wrestling).

Skill Required and rare unique-class artifacts

Several rare artifact weapons have Skill Required values above 50.0 that effectively gate them to characters with end-game scrolls:

For these, only a Power Scrolled character (above 100.0 in the relevant skill) reliably wields them at full effect. Pre-scroll characters can pass the threshold but should expect lower-DPS swings until they hit the scroll-rated 110/115/120 tier.

How Skill Required differs from Strength Requirement

A character with 30 STR and 80 Swordsmanship can wear but not wield well a Broadsword (STR Req. 30, Skill Req. 0). A character with 100 STR and 0 Swordsmanship can equip a Broadsword but every swing whiffs.

See also

• Lower Requirements — the property that reduces Strength Requirement (does NOT reduce Skill Required)
• Mage Weapon — the property that substitutes Magery for the weapon's required combat skill
• Tactics — the universal melee skill that gates most special moves
• Bushido — gating skill for Mortal Strike, Lightning Strike, Momentum Strike
• Special Moves — special-move skill threshold layer above Skill Required
• Whirlwind Attack — the canonical melee special with Tactics requirement