Traits As Skills — Develop Your Traits Through Survival

Traits As Skills makes character traits part of ongoing progression. Your survivor can work through weaknesses and gain advantages by earning experience during play.

A new Traits tab in the Character Info window displays progression tracks, levels and XP bars. Hover over entries to inspect their descriptions, requirements and milestones.

Experience shapes your character

Survival activities contribute to different progression tracks. Killing zombies, for example, awards 5 Courage XP, while staying alive also contributes to development.

As you advance, your character can overcome traits such as Cowardly and Agoraphobia, or unlock new benefits.

The system generally favors improvement through survival, but some tracks allow XP loss. Severe neglect can still lead to negative traits.

How trait changes work

Trait changes normally happen when the relevant track levels up. Starting above a required stage does not immediately grant its positive trait or remove an existing negative one. Continue progressing that track to trigger the change. A sandbox option also controls the starting-stage unlock behavior.

Earning a trait during a playthrough does not award skill points reserved for selecting it during character creation. For example, a trait that provides a starting +1 skill bonus will not grant that point when unlocked later.

Add-ons and customization

The mod includes an extensible framework for additional progression tracks and traits.

• Traits As Skills – More Traits integrates traits from More Traits (ToadTraits) into the progression system.
• Silent Weapons Compat adjusts Hearing progression for quieter weapons, including bows and suppressed firearms. Its noise threshold is configurable in sandbox settings.

Framework documentation is available in English and Spanish.

Development and multiplayer

The core trait, level and XP systems are playable in single-player and multiplayer. The project remains a work in progress, with further settings, balancing and interface improvements planned.