Skills - What do they actually use?

[kestrel]

What is focus and ignore? Totally new commands for my oldie ears.

There's another thread on the forum where krelm goes into great detail about this.

[kestrel]

...I am growing more and more curious what the wield-style skills do, since I can apparently kill a boar sow (not the toughest thing ever, admittedly) by myself without much difficulty and without either skill being high enough to show on my sheet. Do they only come into play vs other people with weapons or something?

I have no idea that the weapon styles do, specifically, but I know that when fighting other PCs or NPCs:

-If your x-wield is a lot higher than their x-wield and you're using x hands, you have an advantage.
-If your x-wield is similar to their x-wield but your y-wield is much higher and you're using y hands, you also have an advantage.

[krelm]

They also unlock the use of the commands 'feint,' 'ward,' and 'bash.'

Also boar sows are super weak.

[MrDvAnt]

They also unlock the use of the commands 'feintm,' 'ward,' and 'bash.'

Also boar sows are super weak.

What do those do?

[krelm]

If you have a shield and use bash, it bashes your shield upside your opponent's head.

Ward knocks your opponent off-balance and adds a delay to their attack, if fighting one dude. If fighting more than one dude, it knocks all the other dudes but the one you're focusing on off.

No idea what feint does.

[Real]

If I remember correctly Feint lets you give up one of your attack rolls when you're dual-wielding to improve the result of the other, which is a questionable choice considering that you spend your balance between feinting and possibly hitting their leg, or aiming with strike. If you have two bludgeons (or mace/knife) and high strength it could be viable for the bad hit locations but I swear by strike.

[RiderOnTheStorm]

Strike with high agility is hilarious, since you can 'strike head' almost every attack (when sole-wielding anyways).

[Matt]

Feint is terrible if it even does anything.

[tehkory]

Strike with high agility is hilarious, since you can 'strike head' almost every attack (when sole-wielding anyways).

With agi, your balance comes back quicker, -and- you can attack quicker. You can do that with average agi, when solewielding, so I'm pretty sure it just scales that you can always aim your strikes.

[Letters]

Feint is terrible if it even does anything.

I think it might have a use against people who have fallen over?

[Matt]

Feint is terrible if it even does anything.

I think it might have a use against people who have fallen over?

That's not a bad idea if you can time it right.

[jdidds]

Eavesdrop:

What is the point with this skill? Is it just an increased ability to hear conversations or are there other uses for it?

[krelm]

Eavesdrop:

What is the point with this skill? Is it just an increased ability to hear conversations or are there other uses for it?

It's used for overhearing conversations held via the 'talk' command, whispers, and whenever someone puts words in an emote and you're watching the exit.

[jdidds]

So everyone doesn't have the listen skill from chargen then?

[RiderOnTheStorm]

Can you pop eavesdrop over time?

[krelm]

There's a listen skill in chargen?

And, presumably, but I've had some fairly long-lived characters on this codebase and none of them ever popped eavesdrop. You may have to ask someone who's had even longer-lived characters.

[Throttle]

I think it's just bugged and hasn't got any criteria for skillgains, so it never goes up. It's also a pretty worthless skill as there's very few situations where it might be of serious use because it applies only in cases where nobody would really be saying anything really worth overhearing. It lacks the ability to listen through doors, and it doesn't have any influence (that I know of) on detecting sneak.

The latter two are features of the listen skill on Armageddon and make it an actually attractive skill because it can be used to glean important information in various ways. Overhearing bar chatter and public whispers isn't enough to warrant a skillpick for anyone with the slightest concern for efficiency.

[jdidds]

There's a listen skill in chargen?

And, presumably, but I've had some fairly long-lived characters on this codebase and none of them ever popped eavesdrop. You may have to ask someone who's had even longer-lived characters.

No, there is no listen in chargen. I meant that in the old SoI it was a free skill.

If there is no real benefit to having eavesdrop, then wouldn't it be best just to have the listen skill like before? I doubt a character is totally deaf to other's conversations just because he didn't pick the eavesdrop skill at birth :/

[RiderOnTheStorm]

Can you learn sole/dual by hitting wildlife or is it somehow not a factor there?

[Real]

Through exclusively fighting wildlife I've trained Dual & Sole-Wield from Novice to Amateur. It takes a while longer than weapon skills.

[RiderOnTheStorm]

Through exclusively fighting wildlife I've trained Dual & Sole-Wield from Novice to Amateur. It takes a while longer than weapon skills.

Thank you, that helps to know, I was starting to worry!

[Malik]

I rolled a character (first time playing a huma) and went out hunting, one wolf attacked then another came in and then another, all three ganked me. My sole was at amateur and went to familiar right after I slayed all three of them with my sword. Learning skills is going to take longer if you're just sparring someone, if you put yourself in REAL life threatening situations against someone or an NPC, that's going to considerably speed up the learning process if you live it through.. Fighting while seriously wounded (three starts here atleast) you're REALLY going to see that skill go up. Ofcourse you have to be willing or knowledgeable enough about the game to live it through (set style comes into play here) goodluck getting those skill gains!

On a sidenote, these are what the different style abilities do:

Feint: You fake a hit to get your opponent to throw up their guard, and when they do, you really give them a taste of steel. You lose one attack but if the real one lands, its for more critical damage because of the power behind it. DEX affects this I'm pretty sure.

Ward: Basically gets every other person/mob off you and throws them off balance (I think the one you're engaging is throw off balance too) and allows you to single out your enemies easier and live at the end of the day using FLEE without trouble. AGI/DEX, could be AGI since polearm uses that stat.

Bash: Charge your enemy with a shield and if it hits they go sprawling. (I'm sure it can backfire too if you're not fast enough or skilled enough or that person is better than you at Dual-wielding and thus can read you easier) otherwise it allows you to basically get in free hits without the sacrifice of defence.

[Real]

How is prowess determined? What does it do besides being the lowest skill level that wielding a weapon uses.

Is it the average of how good you are in polearm/bludgeon/longblade/smallblade/deflect?

If I pick up a new weapon skill and train it to Familiar, would this influence my prowess?

And lastly, does prowess affect brawling or just wielding stuff?

[Hazgarn]

My understanding was that Prowess was something like the average of all your combat-related skills, which then effects the use of any combat skill you don't have (because someone who is Talented with an axe wouldn't be as useless with a sword as someone who had never picked up any other weapon). But that could be way off base.

[Throttle]

In old SOI, prowess (then called offense) was simply half of your highest weapon skill. I don't know how it's calculated now, it doesn't seem to be that simple and probably has some convoluted formula behind it. It's not the average of your combat skills and it's not half of your highest weapon skill.

It doesn't do anything except what's common knowledge: if you're using a weapon for which you don't have the skill, or the skill is lower than your prowess, it uses your prowess skill instead.

That's assuming Nimrod didn't change anything, of course.