Skills - What do they actually use?

[TheEbonPlague]

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.

Eavesdrop is also used to hear what others are saying in nearby rooms using the either the eavesdrop or listen (can't remember which one) and a direction

[Raukran]

Eavesdrop is also used to hear what others are saying in nearby rooms using the either the eavesdrop or listen (can't remember which one) and a direction

Stand <direction>
Eavesdrop <direction>

Watching helps also, and may be necessary altogether. I forget.

[krelm]

Prowess, as far as I'm aware, is the average of your highest weapon, highest defense, and highest style skill.

In old SoI, it was used as a default when you were using a weapon you were unskilled in.

In the current RPI+ engine, since you can open weapon skills by using weapons unskilled, I have no idea what it does.

[MarcusSaint]

In the current RPI+ engine, since you can open weapon skills by using weapons unskilled, I have no idea what it does.

Wait... what?

So if I want to use a bludgeoning object and don't have the skill, I can use it and eventually branch it?

[tehkory]

In the current RPI+ engine, since you can open weapon skills by using weapons unskilled, I have no idea what it does.

Wait... what?

So if I want to use a bludgeoning object and don't have the skill, I can use it and eventually branch it?

Yes.

[BoogtehWoog]

That's so cool.

[jdidds]

Really struggling to decide what to select on a combat build. I'm thinking bludgeon would be my skill of choice and, according to what's posted above, that would require agi and str. But, now we have the problem that almost every stat is important for combat. I'm really stuck as to what levels to set the various stats. Any help?

[tehkory]

Really struggling to decide what to select on a combat build. I'm thinking bludgeon would be my skill of choice and, according to what's posted above, that would require agi and str. But, now we have the problem that almost every stat is important for combat. I'm really stuck as to what levels to set the various stats. Any help?

What are you trying to -do-? Strength and agi are the best for DPS, as one increases your burst(damage-per-hit), and the other increases your rate-of-attacks. Both increase your DPS, but peak agi+peak str will be gloriously beautiful for full damage builds. But then there's 'tanking,' which requires con/wil/agi(and maybe some strength, for wearing armor).

You can, in this codebase/with these skills, put dex/presence at 1. And I'd fully recommend it.

[Matt]

Bludgeon is mostly str if you're worried about skill caps.

[Raukran]

Really struggling to decide what to select on a combat build. I'm thinking bludgeon would be my skill of choice and, according to what's posted above, that would require agi and str. But, now we have the problem that almost every stat is important for combat. I'm really stuck as to what levels to set the various stats. Any help?

What are you trying to -do-? Strength and agi are the best for DPS, as one increases your burst(damage-per-hit), and the other increases your rate-of-attacks. Both increase your DPS, but peak agi+peak str will be gloriously beautiful for full damage builds. But then there's 'tanking,' which requires con/wil/agi(and maybe some strength, for wearing armor).

You can, in this codebase/with these skills, put dex/presence at 1. And I'd fully recommend it.

Toss intelligence in there too as a dump stat. Play the game hardmode with patience. Okay, I don't know if that really is the best course of action. But, your leftover stats are pretty impressive at least, and I'm experimenting with something similar currently.

[tehkory]

Really struggling to decide what to select on a combat build. I'm thinking bludgeon would be my skill of choice and, according to what's posted above, that would require agi and str. But, now we have the problem that almost every stat is important for combat. I'm really stuck as to what levels to set the various stats. Any help?

What are you trying to -do-? Strength and agi are the best for DPS, as one increases your burst(damage-per-hit), and the other increases your rate-of-attacks. Both increase your DPS, but peak agi+peak str will be gloriously beautiful for full damage builds. But then there's 'tanking,' which requires con/wil/agi(and maybe some strength, for wearing armor).

You can, in this codebase/with these skills, put dex/presence at 1. And I'd fully recommend it.

Toss intelligence in there too as a dump stat. Play the game hardmode with patience. Okay, I don't know if that really is the best course of action. But, your leftover stats are pretty impressive at least, and I'm experimenting with something similar currently.

Honestly, having peak str/high con+wil+agi and decent skills?, it's probably the equal of a master-level poorly-built combatant. Or even heroic, depending upon how shittily you build. It's hard to really equate, as skill represents your ability to deliver/avoid damage, but your attributes represent your ability to sustain damage, resist the effects, and how fast you attempt damage/how much you deal once you do.

[MrT2G]

I imagine some people are reading these recent posts and chuckling to themselves.

[krelm]

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.

Celise, a 28 year old Survivor Female:


You have been playing for 24 days and 15 hours.

Eavesdrop: Beginner

I know for a fact I didn't pick eavesdrop in chargen on that character, so I guess that answers that question that someone asked like a week ago.

[toofast]

I love the fact that everyone is able to talk about the code behind stats/skills, etc. so openly on the forums while helping new players and sharing ideas. On Arm, you'd get cracked down on hard.

[jdidds]

I love the fact that everyone is able to talk about the code behind stats/skills, etc. so openly on the forums while helping new players and sharing ideas. On Arm, you'd get cracked down on hard.

Yeah, you'd be slaugtered on the old SoI forums too I still feel a little pang of naughtiness and betrayal to the old SOI when I ask about code now.

[jdidds]

So, I'm getting the feel that you should max out some stats and keep others at 1 or 0? I'm thinking DPS.

[WorkerDrone]

Agility caps out speed for rate of attacks on certain weapons pretty low. After a point having high agility stops being useful, though that's just for smaller weapons. Larger weapons actually seem to benefit from having high agility, but you suffer by dint of having only a set amount of points to spread out in your pool.

There's a number of builds, but only some stats have any great effect on items and their use. For weapons it'd be strength and agility. So one might think having high strength would be good for larger weapons, like greatswords, but it's actually high agility that's useful, since peak strength will only give you +1 to damage (ignoring the benefit to carrying capacity) but high agility might let you get in an extra attack every round, with the maximum and minimum damage value of two-handed weapons already rated fairly high on their own.

[Matt]

Agility caps out speed for rate of attacks on certain weapons pretty low. After a point having high agility stops being useful, though that's just for smaller weapons. Larger weapons actually seem to benefit from having high agility, but you suffer by dint of having only a set amount of points to spread out in your pool.

There's a number of builds, but only some stats have any great effect on items and their use. For weapons it'd be strength and agility. So one might think having high strength would be good for larger weapons, like greatswords, but it's actually high agility that's useful, since peak strength will only give you +1 to damage (ignoring the benefit to carrying capacity) but high agility might let you get in an extra attack every round, with the maximum and minimum damage value of two-handed weapons already rated fairly high on their own.

I rolled epic agility on an orc and would usually hit about 6 times a round with knives. Would also never be down after falling for more then like .1 second.

[Throttle]

I haven't ever noticed any significant difference in attack speed with agility and regular weapons. I never fought much with knives, but with real weapons you still pretty much trade blows on a 1:1 ratio whether you have average or great agility.

High agi might occasionally let you stagger the rhythm ever so slightly in your favor, causing you to squeeze in a second attack before your opponent's next, but there's certainly no such thing as getting "multiple attacks" in any real sense of the word with any amount of agility that's normally possible for a human character (i.e. not a bugged epic agi PC).

My current PC has great agi and consistently goes through an entire fight with a boar or similar animal without ever breaking the 1:1 rhythm. It was the same with the previous one at good agi, and has been more or less the same across all of my PCs on this codebase.

[toofast]

Epic agi and small-blade. It's scary.

[Real]

Can you learn dual-wield ingame from beginner without learning sole-wield first or do you need to get sw up to a decent level beforehand like with first aid and medicine or hide and sneak?

[Matt]

No you can branch d-wield without sole-wield.

[Foxtrot]

Does Dalish count towards skill cap total?

[Throttle]

It shouldn't. Neither does small-blade, incidentally.

[tehkory]

It shouldn't. Neither does small-blade, incidentally.

Small-blade "shouldn't," but in my experience does count towards your cap(or at least did as of end-of-Atonement). I had Staff coming around every week to 'fix' my skillcap, and by the end I had 0 Small-Blade.

Maybe they fixed it, though.