Skills are one of the most important mechanics in Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era. It is they who turn an ordinary hero into an army-destroying machine or an economic monster. Every skill has three levels: Basic, Advanced, and Expert. The higher the level — the stronger the effect.Every hero starts the game with a faction-specific skill (unique to their faction, for example 
Basic Necromancy for Necropolis or 
Basic Righteousness for Temple). In addition, they receive one extra regular skill. Some heroes get their faction skill at Advanced level right away instead of a second regular skill — this is their “signature trait”. You can check starting skills for all heroes here by selecting the desired hero.A hero can have a maximum of 8 skills (including the faction one). Each level-up gives you a choice of three offered skills — you pick one.
How does the game decide which three skills to offer?
The system is not completely random — there is clear logic to prevent the hero from getting stuck without progression.
- Bottom slot — always an upgrade for an existing skill. If you have at least one skill below Expert, it will appear here. If several qualify, the game picks one randomly.
- Top slot — new skills. As long as the hero has free slots (fewer than 8), new skills available to their class will be offered here.
- Middle slot — “joker”. It can offer either an upgrade to an existing skill or a completely new one (roughly 50/50, exact numbers not disclosed).
Which new skills can be offered depends on the hero’s class. For example, the heroine Enatee:
belongs to the Overlord class. Each class has its own percentage chances for every skill — you can check them here by selecting the desired hero or here by selecting the desired class.
Important: classes are divided into Warriors and Mages. Warriors will never be offered 
Basic Thaumaturgy (this is a purely magical skill), and Mages will never be offered 
Basic Recruitment (a purely warrior skill).
Sub-skills — additional bonuses
At Basic you get just the base skill effect. When upgrading to Advanced — a choice of 3 sub-skills appears. To Expert — a choice of 2 sub-skills.
Sub-skills are additional improvements to the main skill. They are always the same set for a given skill (not random). Example: the skill 
Expert Offense can offer the sub-skill 
Shadow Blades:Shadow BladesFriendly creatures deal +1 Damage. — +1 damage to all creatures.
Synergy — skill combos
Synergy activates automatically if the hero has learned the required additional skill. Example:
- You have Expert Offense + sub-skill Shadow Blades:Shadow BladesFriendly creatures deal +1 Damage. → +1 damage to all units.
- You add
Basic Nightshade Magic → synergy triggers → bonus becomes +2 damage!
All possible synergies for each skill are shown separately in the right-side menu.
Relics — artifacts that grant all sub-skills at once
There are special artifacts — Relics. They instantly activate all available sub-skills for 4 fixed skills (normally you can only pick 2 sub-skills throughout the entire game). This is a huge boost if your progression is built around a specific relic.
Example: Holy Sigil of Roph 
If such an artifact is on the map — it makes sense to build your progression specifically around it.
Other ways to gain or upgrade skills
— free upgrade of one existing skill to the next level (once per game; if nothing to upgrade — nothing happens)- WISE_OWL — grants a fixed skill to every hero who visits it
— offers 4 random skills, each can be learned for 2500 gold- INFERNAL_CIRQUE — up to 4 random Expert-level skills for 5000 gold each
Reset all skills and levels
If you leveled up the wrong way — you can completely reset all hero skills and levels. To do this, visit 
. Or build the special building in the 
Hive castle.
