Effective Skills

The four core adventuring skills are all associated with elements. Spells, Knacks, and Talents are associated with the character's magical elements, and Combat is associated with the character's combat elements. Each skill, combined with its associated elements, results in one or more effective skills. This is how it works:

Magical Skills
There are three choices for selecting magical elements.
 * 1) One strong element and one weak element.
 * 2) Two average elements.
 * 3) One core element.

Combat
For combat, the character has two choices: The one core element option is not allowed for combat elements.
 * 1) One strong and one weak element.
 * 2) Two average elements.

Defining Effective Skills
By combining any base adventuring skill with its associated elements, the character has effective skills that they actually use. For example if a character has the skill Spells and has Air and Fire as magical elements, then the character has the effective skills Air Spells and Fire Spells. The element types (core, strong, average, and weak) affect the rank and cost of the skills, as follows:
 * A strong element gives an effective skill that is the same rank as the base skill.
 * An average element gives an effective skill that is one rank lower than the base skill. This means that the base skill must be rank 2 before the effective skill is usable.
 * A weak element gives an effective skill that is two ranks lower than the base skill. This means that the base skills must be at least rank 3 before the effective skill can be used.
 * A core element gives an effective skill at the same rank as the base skill. In addition, the first rank of the base skill is gained for free, and each additional rank costs as if it were one rank lower.
 * For combat, the two non-selected elements are still gained as effective skills, but at five ranks less than the rank of the Combat skills.

Example
The character Fred has Sun and Water as strong and weak magical elements, and Water and Fire as strong and weak combat elements. Fred has Combat at Rank 6, Spells at Rank 2, and Talents at Rank 4. Fred has the following effective skills:
 * Water Combat Rank 6
 * Fire Combat Rank 4
 * Air Combat Rank 1
 * Earth Combat Rank 1
 * Sun Spells at Rank 2
 * Water Spells at Rank 0 (not usable)
 * Sun Talents at Rank 4
 * Water Talents at Rank 2