Proficiency

Proficiency is a measure of specific skills that a creature has.

Overview
Proficiency will affect many actions that a creature may attempt, either easing any checks that the action prompts or removing the need for a check entirely, although this will largely affect shifting and attack checks. A level of proficiency indicates that a creature has invested many weeks of effort into practicing and learning how to do something, and is in a state where it could perform that action more often than not with some confidence. The time to become proficient in something scales with the difficulty of the action, so a highly difficult task will require many more weeks of practice in order to offset a greater difficulty.

Proficiency is transferable, meaning that if the time spent training in one action could apply to another action, the creature will gain the same, or at least some, benefits from that proficiency. An example of this would be proficiency in forming spines of rock from the ground, as it could be applied to shaping a metal bar into a spear, or a pool of water into a whip, however material proficiency would likely come into play in both of those situations. Due to this, proficiency should be marked as specifically as possible, and then applied to other actions as the GM sees fit.

Stacking
Proficiency may be stacked, indicating an exponential amount of time being invested into practicing an action. For example, if learning how to make your hand become a sword with one tier of proficiency took 5 weeks, it would take a further 10 weeks (15 total) to become doubly proficient in the action, and then a further 20 weeks (35 total) to reach tier 3 proficiency, indicating further time spent on that action. Stacked proficiency should be marked with a +X after the proficiency is noted, similar to traits.

Material
Material proficiency indicates that a creature is comfortable in how a material feels, and is confident in working with it, Any action on a material that a creature is proficient with will have some degree of proficiency, regardless of how practiced that creature is in the action, as it would at least understand how the material will react to what the creature is attempting to perform to some degree, if not how to actually perform it. Material proficiency is non-specific, meaning that a creature that is proficient in shifting wood would also be proficient in attempting to carve it etc. however the creature would not have proficiency in woodworking by default.

Like regular proficiency, material proficiency is highly specific but applicable to similar material, meaning that a creature that is proficient in earth would have some difficulty with rock or mud, but would still gain some advantages on trying to work with either.

Material proficiency may not be stacked beyond 1x proficiency, as it indicates a fundamental understanding more than a practiced action. This also applies to deferred proficiency, where a creature with proficiency in both earth and mud would not have 1.5x proficiency in both, but one with proficiency in earth and water would have deferred proficiency in mud,

Material proficiencies should also be marked separately from other proficiencies as to avoid confusion.