useful skills?

Krysalyn · Post by **Krysalyn** » Tue Jan 07, 2003 10:00 am

and useless skills?

advice from experienced players?

animal empathy seems useless...

hide/move silently? useful for rogues? for rogue1/fighterx?

disable traps?

is wilderness lore useful? it appears to be useful if only for the fell wood...

is concentration useful? I would guess that con is not a stat that many pump for spellcasters...

I would guess that all of the cha skills are usefull for dialong puposes - diplomacy, intimidate, bluff

knowledge arcana and alchemy seem to be very useful for the spellcaster to identify items and potions that you come across, as well as useful when you need to make your own stuff, and perhaps in some dialog situations...

is search needed? do you find hidden doors and/or traps that dont show up when using the alt key?

is spellcraft useful at all? do you need to know what your opponents are casting?

is use magic device useful? is it helpful for a non-caster to get this skill so that they could use a wand?

what have most of you found the most useful, useless?

Yshania · Post by **Yshania** » Tue Jan 07, 2003 10:52 am

I am in Chapter 5 and so far:

animal empathy - I haven't found a need for this

hide/move silently - this has been useful to scout areas prior to moving the party in

disable traps - I haven't come across many traps at all

wilderness lore - useful for Fell Wood

concentration - vital if you do not want your spells disrupted when your spellcasters are hit, all of my spellcasters have high concentration

charisma - high cha is vital for bards and sorcerers ability to memorise spells as well as the usual dialogue/bartering puposes

knowledge arcana and alchemy - very useful for the spellcaster to identify and create items

search - I don't recall the alt key showing up any traps so I would say search is useful...

spellcraft - I don't use it, there is little time to react anyway once a spell is cast against you, whether you know what it is or not.

magic device - never used it

Another useful feat off the top of my head is Armoured Arcana - useful for spellcasters since it reduces the spellcasting failure penalty by 5% (upto 15%) when wearing armour.

Krysalyn · Post by **Krysalyn** » Tue Jan 07, 2003 11:52 am

Re: Re: useful skills?

Originally posted by Yshania
charisma - high cha is vital for bards and sorcerers ability to memorise spells as well as the usual dialogue/bartering puposes

thanks for the response.

a side question re: cha - if I choose to create a party without a bard or a sorc, which character would be the easiest/most helpful to assign a high cha score to for dialog purposes?

I would guess possibly one of the fighters, since they have a lot of pts that could be assigned to the diplomatic areas...

or perhaps a rogue?

Originally posted by Yshania

Another useful feat off the top of my head is Armoured Arcana - useful for spellcasters since it reduces the spellcasting failure penalty by 5% (upto 15%) when wearing armour.

is it better to wear armor and invest in this feat?

or is it better to try to equip all of your casters with robes so that there is no armor penalty?

also, for clerics and druids who could possibly be backup melee fighters/tanks, is armored arcana a good investment here, since they will likely be wearing decent armor due to them occasionally wading into the fray?

Yshania · Post by **Yshania** » Tue Jan 07, 2003 12:35 pm

Re: Re: Re: useful skills?

Originally posted by Krysalyn

thanks for the response.

a side question re: cha - if I choose to create a party without a bard or a sorc, which character would be the easiest/most helpful to assign a high cha score to for dialog purposes?

I would guess possibly one of the fighters, since they have a lot of pts that could be assigned to the diplomatic areas...

or perhaps a rogue?

You're welcome

Well if you choose an ECL class as per our other discussion, watch for those with a charisma boost to build on - such as drow

Otherwise I would agree to go with a class that has more points to distribute - a rogue perhaps. I have only one straight fighter in my party and for some reason when he levels up, the only option I have to raise is intimidation. I am not sure why this is. My rogue on the other hand has plenty of points to spend and more options available to him (such as bluff, diplomacy etc)

is it better to wear armor and invest in this feat?

or is it better to try to equip all of your casters with robes so that there is no armor penalty?

also, for clerics and druids who could possibly be backup melee fighters/tanks, is armored arcana a good investment here, since they will likely be wearing decent armor due to them occasionally wading into the fray?

I would say this comes down to personal opinion...ie do you want to spend points here? Personally I prefer 3 points in Armoured Arcana. My wizard, for instance, is wearing studded leather armour +2 (with 0% spell disruption because of 3 points in AA) coupled with a ring of protection +2 she has an AC of 23, pretty good for a mage (considering my highest character AC is 27)

So far in the game, I have not found any decent robes, though there are some ok bracers. The best bracers give my monk/sorcereress an AC of 23 (along with a cloak that offers +1 and a ring +2), but the bracers are few and far between.

Re clerics and druid, they do not get the AA option since it is relative to Arcane spellcasters and not divine spellcasters. Clerics and druids can wear armour with no spellcasting penalty. As far as I know they can wear any armour they have proficiency in (ie clerics can wear heavy armour from the start, but druids can only wear medium)

koz-ivan · Post by **koz-ivan** » Tue Jan 07, 2003 3:14 pm

usefull skills -

the three conversational skills - not really needed but they will help from time to time.

diplomacy
bluff
intimidate

(in that order)

critical path skills

wilderness lore (fell wood) + it's helpfull quick scouting info
alchemy - few times this is a needed skill plus it id's potions iirc

for spell casters -

concentration - very important, also 4 ranks are prereq for maxamized attacks for ftrs...
spellcraft 10 (for elemental feats, and spell book additions for wizards, non wizards can stop at 10) i do like the id'ing of spells cast, it's handy to know what they are up to. the diference between an unholy blight and a cure wounds is striking...
knowledge - i get tired of having to memorize id, or having to select it as a sorc spell seems like a waste.

for rogues -

move silently / hide - i like to have one scout per party (see below)
more essential is:
search, disable device, open lock.

all locks that can be picked can also be bashed, and invisability spells can take the place of the stealth skills, detect trap can boost "search" so disable device comes out the big winner.
pick pocket is not really needed and is often frustratingly hard.

--

animal empathy seems the most useless, but i've never tried it much, it may rock.

koz-ivan · Post by **koz-ivan** » Tue Jan 07, 2003 3:19 pm

doh!

i missed the feat discussion.

imo armoured arcana is useless, and those feats could be better spent in combat casting or spell focus, or even an elemental feat.

however, it's handy to have 5% and to use a shield (small) for ftr mages.

for mages / sorc's i prefer to protect them w/ a shield spell and some of the armour spells.