Skills in Permafrost grow on their own. There are no classes to pick from mid-game and no points to spend on the Skills screen. Each skill climbs by doing its matching activity, and a LEVEL UP! banner with the skill’s name flashes every time one ticks over. Because the game is in early access, the list and the numbers below can shift with updates.
Quick answer: Open the menu with TAB, go to the SKILLS tab, and level any skill by repeating its action — chop for Axes, mine for Pickaxes, shoot for Bows, and so on. Each level-up also feeds the Blueprints screen.
How skills level up in Permafrost
Every skill is tied to one activity, and only doing that activity raises it. You do not choose where progress goes. Chop wood and Axes rises. Mine boulders and Pickaxes rises. The Skills tab lists each one with its current level, a progress bar toward the next level, a short description, and a single stat line that grows as the level climbs.
To open it, press TAB for the menu and move to the SKILLS tab along the top row, which also holds INVENTORY, BLUEPRINTS, JOURNAL, MAP, SETTINGS and GAME. Any skill you have not used yet sits at level 1.
Requirements rise as you go. Early levels take a handful of actions, while later ones can need a couple of hundred points of progress. There is no level cap shown.
Every skill and the action that levels it
Sixteen skills appear on the Skills screen. Here is each one and the activity that raises it.
| Skill | How it levels |
|---|---|
| Axes | Chopping stacks of planks, trees and trunks |
| Pickaxes | Mining boulders |
| Bows | Landing arrow hits on animals |
| Accuracy | Landing arrow hits (rises alongside Bows) |
| Skinning | Skinning each carcass |
| Crafting | Create items either from your inventory or at a bench. |
| Cooking | Cooking each dish |
| Building | Placing building pieces |
| Renovating | Repairing ruined structures with the Building Tool |
| Jumping | Jumping up ledges and over fences |
| Running | Sprinting |
| Toughness | Taking hits and surviving fights |
| Knives | Using knives |
| Firearms | Using firearms |
| Sneaking | Moving while crouched |
| Lockpicking | Picking locks |
Axes climbs fastest in the opening hours because wood is the first thing you gather in bulk. A level-up pops up on screen the moment a chop pushes the bar over.
Pickaxes is the only skill that displays numerical stats. Its description notes that it boosts damage dealt to ores and lowers durability loss for the tool. The stat labeled, “Additional damage (ores)”, shows 14.00 at level 8 and rises to 16.00 at level 9. Break each boulder you encounter, including plain rock, to make later copper trips quicker and put less strain on your pickaxe.
Toughness is described as a skill that sets how much damage you can endure. You raise it by taking hits and living through tough battles, and its stat line is “Damage Reduction”. Renovating is the one players tend to miss. It climbs when you repair ruined structures, which show up as blue ghost pieces, using the Building Tool.
Knives, Firearms, Sneaking and Lockpicking all appear on the list, but they stay near their starting level through the first hours unless you make a point of using them.
How far you get in a few hours
In one careful Survival run, after about an hour and a half of play, the spread looked like this: Pickaxes 8, Axes 7, Crafting 5, then Bows, Building, Running, Accuracy and Jumping at 4, Sneaking and Lockpicking at 2, and everything else still at 1. The gap between Pickaxes and the rest shows how much faster the skills tied to constant chores climb.
Head starts from character creation
The specialization you pick on the character screen gives a few skills a +1 head start. It does not lock you into anything; every skill still levels through its own activity afterwards.
| Specialization | Starting bonus |
|---|---|
| Engineer | +1 Running, +1 Axes, +1 Toughness |
| Tracker | +1 Skinning, +1 Bows, +1 Knives |
| Scavenger | +1 Lockpicking, +1 Sneaking, +1 Running |
How skills unlock Blueprint points
Skill levels also advance Blueprints, which you can open with U. Its progress bar is separate, and it shows an “Available points” total. Hold the allocate key on a recipe node to spend points; the early nodes each take 1 or 2 points.
Strong early buys include Rope (1), Stone Furnace (2, which the “New Home” quest needs), Candle (1), Bandage (1), Repair Bench (1) and Standing Torch (1).
Some quests also hand over flat experience. The reward crate for “Return to Hunter’s Glade” gives +400 XP, for example.
Fastest ways to raise your skills
- Do chores yourself instead of buying the result. A hundred wood chopped is worth several Axes levels.
- Break every boulder you walk past, including plain rock, to push Pickaxes up for later copper runs.
- Hunt with the bow early so Bows and Accuracy climb together on the same shots.
- Repair blue ghost structures with the Building Tool to catch Renovating experience you would otherwise miss.
Common questions about Permafrost skills
Is there a level cap? None is shown on the Skills screen.
Can skills be reset? No reset option is confirmed.
Do skills carry between worlds? The character is created per world, so your skills belong to that save.
Because Permafrost is in early access, the skill list and the values attached to each one can change as updates land. Treat the numbers above as how things stand right now rather than as fixed rules, and expect the Skills and Blueprints screens to keep evolving.
