Talk:YGGDRASIL/@comment-77.98.238.169-20180817205554/@comment-45.56.46.26-20180817233835

Since Yggdrasil seems to be heavily D&D influenced, skill points are for improving specific skills. In D&D, you have general stats like Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. These stats give you bonuses to various actions, for instance high Strength allows you to do more damage in melee, Dexterity allows you to dodge attacks, Constitution increases your HP, Intelligence improves your arcane casting ability, Wisdom improves divine casting, and Charisma improves inborn casting ability. But you also get bonuses to more specific things, for instance Dexterity improves your ability to pick a lock or a pocket and to hide or sneak, Wisdom makes you better at healing with non-magical means and spotting enemies, Charisma makes you better at bluffing or diplomacy, etc.

A lot of these checks involve a skill check, and in addition to the bonus you get from your stat you can also invest skill points to improve your skill.

Skills might be things like avoiding/parrying/resisting enemy attacks, identifying and countering enemy spells, finding traps or treasure, or lots of other things. So having higher skills generally means you do more. But there can also be skill penalties based on race and equipment and such. For instance, armor commonly imposes a significant penalty to hiding and sneaking. The same would be true of being a large race compared to a small one.