After a while of playing this game I had several misconceptions on how the mutations work. After a lot of help from other players I decided to put out a guide of what I understand of the mutation mechanic to help others pick it up quicker.

This is my first steam guide, please let me know if anything needs corrected.

In Din's Legacy you have three pages of skills. You can look at these on the skills screen (Pressing 'S' by default).

1. Basics: They give your character basic abilities like what type of equipment they can use or how much of a boost you get from your character's stats. You can gain these through mutations and can only be increased 5 levels. Most of these skills have no limit on how many you can have, so your mage can have 10 Increase Max Mana from intelligence skills.
   
2. Mutations: These are random skills that you gain as your mutation level goes up. You don't get to pick them, but you can remove them by spending skill points on them. You get those skill points back by spending mutation points. Mutations can be abilities that affect your character, or they can improve specific skills like adding a lightning damage to fire damage skill or making a spell cheaper. Mutations can be specific mutation skills or they can be normal skills you get from other characters.
   
3. Skills: These are the abilities your character can use, like a special arrow attack or a fire bolt. Normally they need activated and often cost mana to use, but some have passive effects or support effects. Passive skills have a blue border and support skills have a brown border. At least it seems brown to me...

In this game your character has mutation XP in addition to regular XP for leveling. As your character gains a mutation level you have a chance of getting one of the three skill types mentioned above, or having an existing skill level increased.

You can also gain mutations in specific situations. For example, killing a lot of skeletons in a short amount of time will get you a mutation that gives you bonus damage against that monster. Dying in a dungeon a lot will get you the Claustrophobic mutation that gives you more penalties in the dark. Dying a to a specific monster type, like orcs, will get you the fear of orcs mutation that gives you a damage penalty against them.

When you gain a mutation levels you get mutation points. These are shown in the character screen (default keyboard shortcut is 'c'). These can be used to manually mutate to try to get specific skills. For example I can have my melee fighter character get the 'Greater Heal' skill from the healer class and be able to heal myself rather than relying on potions and healthstones.

Manually mutating also removes skills that have no skill points. Be careful mutating in the start of the game. You may loose critical skills you plan to use later on. I don't mutate until I have enough skill points to have one level in everything I want to keep. Skills increased from gaining mutation levels also do not get removed. If you don't want those skills you have to spend skill points to remove the bonus skill level so it has a chance to change when mutating.

When skills are removed from manually mutating you get your skill points back that you spent to remove it. So bad mutations like Fear of Orcs may cost 5 skill points to remove, but you will get those points back next time you manually mutate. Some mutations disappear if you loose the skill they are attached to, but some will not and need to be removed with skill points separately.

There is a hard cap of 80 total skills in the game. This includes the "Attack" and "Ranged Attack" basic skills that don't really do anything. From this point on you can only refine your skills, removing ones that aren't as good as you thought and trying to get better ones.

Once you hit the skill cap mutations have a chance to replace unused skills. If you are still looking to gain mutations for your existing skills, keep a few skills with no points in them to give the game some free skills to work with.

Manually mutating won't do anything if you have points in all 80 of your skills. If you are still trying to manually get a skill at this point, make sure you've got a few skills with no points in them so you have a chance to have them change into something new. It seems the more unused skills you have, the higher the chance to get what you are looking for.

• The more unused skills you have the higher chance you will have to get the ones you want when manually mutating. I seem to use up all my mutation points too quickly if I'm trying to mutate with only one unused skill.
  
  
• Try to pick the most efficient skills you are looking for, as the number of slots are limited. For example, do I get more defense from the archer's Dodge skill, or another "Defense from dexterity" skill?
  
  
• Focus on the skills you use most often. It may be cool for a sorcerer to gain the healer's Pray skill to help regenerate mana faster, but do you remember to actually use it?
  
  
• Try to specialize your stats. It may be cool to gain the plate mail skill for my mage, but then I would have to spend stats in strength to be able to equip it. It may be better to focus my stats on intelligence and dexterity then use the Druid's Strength of Stone or the Dark Templar's Unholy Vitality skills to supplement that extra strength to use better armor.
  
  
• Try to keep as few skills as you can. It gets you more free levels in that skill when you increase your mutation level.