Skills

In Deus Ex, skills define the player character's proficiency in weapons and other gameplay functions. There are 11 skills in total. Skills can be leveled up by spending skill points.

Overview
Skill points can be allocated in the character configuration interface when starting a new game, as well as anytime during the game (via the "skills" interface). All skills begin at the "untrained" level, with the exception of the pistol skill. The pistol skill defaults to "trained" in the character configuration interface (if downgraded to "untrained," it will automatically be set to "trained" once the game begins at the cost of no skill points).

Skills can be leveled up by spending skill points, which can be earned during the game's missions. It is not possible to fully upgrade every skill to master level, since only about 34k skill points are available throughout the entire game but upgrading all skills to master would require about 87k skill points.

Compared to augmentations
Skills generally provide passive bonuses, which the exception of the hacking ability provide by the computer skill. In contrast, augmentations are generally active abilities that require bioenergy. Nonetheless, the functions of certain skills overlap with those of augmentations.