Skill point economy

[cptcuddlepants]

Time to poke the topic that no one wants to poke.

Okay, first off, I think that adding all the perks to non-combat skills (Bluff, Spot, Search, Lore, etc) is great. They're ingenius ways to make not-so-useful skills into skills go from handy to downright essential.

The issue is, most characters simply will not have enough skill points to play with any of the features. There's the so-called "essential" skill dumps, Discipline, Tumble, UMD, Spellcraft, and most builds will only have enough skill points to max those four - maybe one other skill if they're a human - and... that's it. Sure, they can make sacrifices here and there, but there's only so far you can make 120 skill points stretch.

In the base game, there isn't any need for a character to spread out skill points, as there's a party system - you can have a character who specializes in locks and traps, you can have a character who specializes in identifying items, you can have a character who's built to be the "party face" with Bluff and Persuade and Intimidate.

Arelith's skill perks revolve around solo play (except for search and extra loot, but that's just one case). It's next to impossible to play with any of the skills unless you're a wizard or a rogue. The "make a group to cover what you're deficient in" idea simply doesn't work, as you can't bring a rogue with 50 bluff into your party and have them disguise everyone. You can't have the bard with 50-lore share the automatic passive translate over the entire group, unless you're all huddled in a bunch and whispering conspicuously.

Basically, in terms of skill points, the game engine expects group play, but it expects group play in a server that's balanced around being able to do as much as possible on your own.

What could solve this?

I've seen a few suggestions addressing the "essential skill dumps" - making them less mandatory. Nudging up some classes to get more than 2 skill points a level would definitely help, but that's probably not possible without haks. Maybe easing up on the requirement for purchased skill ranks, and allowing skill ranks from gear?

[Kirito]

Rangers have already had their skill points upped (you just get them on the following level)

[Commie]

I just make all characters human and/or high int for this reason, so I can have skills other then only combat skills.

If you start with 16 int (most builds can swing this with the gift system giving everyone basically free +4 stats) and go human you'll have plenty of skill points to get some fun skills alongside the mandatory ones. If you don't want to do that, well, enjoy only having tumble, discipline, and UMD.

NWN and D&D building is a game of tradeoffs. If you want skills you have to give up some con, str, or dex for it.

Of course that's not a trade off many people want to make, as 'bluff' isn't worth 30 HP and 1 fort save at max level. But that's the trade off.

[cptcuddlepants]

Rangers have already had their skill points upped (you just get them on the following level)

Well, that's neat!

How many skill points per level do you think non-int based classes would need to have enough flexibility to invest in at least one "fun" skill?

If you start with 16 int (most builds can swing this with the gift system giving everyone basically free +4 stats) and go human you'll have plenty of skill points to get some fun skills alongside the mandatory ones. If you don't want to do that, well, enjoy only having tumble, discipline, and UMD.

NWN and D&D building is a game of tradeoffs. If you want skills you have to give up some con, str, or dex for it.

I'm not exactly sure "tradeoff" works like that.

"Play this race, with these stats, or else you don't get any skills."

That isn't a tradeoff.

A tradeoff is sacrificing some skill points here and there to place in other skills you want. For example, shedding some points in Tumble so that you have just enough points in Lore to identify knick-knacks you find in loot. What about someone who wants to play, for example, a dwarven warrior? Asking them to sacrifice their entire character concept just so they can have skills is asking a little much.

The perks of making your character human (extra feat and skill points) should be exactly that - perks. Not a mandatory baseline that gets you punished if you don't meet it.

[Lorkas]

Come on cptcuddlepants, Commie didn't remotely say "Play this race, with these stats, or you don't get any skills". Any race apart from half-orcs and their subraces can get to 16 starting INT without too much of a sacrifice, apart from, as mentioned, the 30 HP and 1 fort save they would have gotten from taking the CON gift.

The "obligatory" skills you listed are also far from that. There's a vast difference between viable and optimal in this game. I played a halfling meleer with -2 discipline at level 30 who fought with multiple WM powerbuilds over his career without suffering for it. I've played 6 characters to epics now (3 of them to 28+) with no UMD, and no regrets there either. I've had far more characters without spellcraft than with it. These are skills that give a nice perk to characters who take them, but aren't outright mandatory in order to enjoy the PvM aspect of this game, much less the RP aspect.

If I wanted my dwarven warrior to be able to bluff or understand languages, he'd be able to.

I'm not saying nothing is wrong with the skill point system, but overstating the problem and misrepresenting what dissenters say about it aren't helpful.

[cptcuddlepants]

That's ...exactly what he said, though. He plays human with 16+ int because he wants to have skills other than tumble, UMD, and Discipline. He has to play a certain race, with certain stats, or else he doesn't get any skills.

Peculiarities of language aside, there are more and more skills being expanded, and if there's changes planned for more skills there's eventually going to be a point where most characters simply won't have the skill points to use them. If you have to be a certain race, then there's a problem.

What do you think is wrong with the skill point system?

[Seven Sons of Sin]

I actually think it's fantastic previous irrelevant skills are now being made relevant. People are going to have to choose if they want to max out all the "necessary" skills, or choose skills that add different mechanics to how they play.

You don't need 30+ ranks in Discipline, Spellcraft, Taunt, UMD, Tumble, etc. You don't need any of that at all, it's just some underlying assumptions in character creation if you want to be optimal at fighting stuff, and engaging in PvP.

But there's so much more to Arelith than that.

So I say good on the Devs for adding more skills with cool new ways to play, that constantly challenge and tempt the mechanically viable skills. I bet if every skill on our skill list had deep mechanics, you'd see people forego being mechanically supreme, to being more creative with their skill distribution - and ultimately, roleplay.

It's very cathartic to make a character that defies conventional building. I encourage everyone do it once in awhile.

[Commie]

You don't need 30+ ranks in Discipline, Spellcraft, Taunt, UMD, Tumble, etc. You don't need any of that all, it's just some underlying assumptions in character creation if you want to be optimal at fighting stuff, and engaging in PvP.

The perks of making your character human (extra feat and skill points) should be exactly that - perks. Not a mandatory baseline that gets you punished if you don't meet it.

Exactly. Those skill points are something I want. I don't need anything. If there's one thing you should know, about me, it's that I don't need anything. I want. And I want those skill points.

[flower]

You need these skills or mobs keep you KD or wiped out by spells.

[Nitro]

You need these skills or mobs keep you KD or wiped out by spells.

Hardly. Almost any build can make it through all of Arelith's PvE content without getting wiped by a lack of disc/tumble/UMD, not as easily, but definitely not a necessity either.

It's a tradeoff, you can either be a god of combat, or just good at combat, but with utility skills as well. Working as intended to me.

[BrilliantInsanity]

The overlying issue is and always will be: the lack of half ranks and the ability to hoard skill points to spend later. If you had to spend all your points at level up, like you should, people would, even with dumps, fall into a broader set of skill ranges. Another post recommended limiting skill dumping with a script, while their reasoning seems sound up front, its not supported with the rules set, as written, in PNP.

Max ranks in a class skill is "character level +3" meaning, if you wait until your last three levels to take rogue your max ranks would still be 33 (for Arelith). So you'd still be able to dump at least once skill into higher ranks than you would be able to if it were just a cross class skill.

There is no happy, easy, non sloppy solution to this situation
You're basically left with 2 options:
A) heavy handed rules lawyering and build lawyering to the point it will become ridiculous. An old server I played on yeeeeeeeeears ago was very heavy handed in this regard and it SUCKED for it. Their anti power build rules got to the point if you wanted to take certain prestige classes you were forced to take upwards of 10 levels which would screw you over in both PVP and PVE with their horrible balancing.

B) making skill pt progression so evenly spread among many classes that certain classes that are meant to be skill monkeys suddenly becoming subpar. Rogues specifically as the prime example are meant to be Skillmonkeys with lots of Skill pts and lots of class skills to choose from. Wizards are also sort of like this, though with a lot less class skills they still enjoy the boon of stupidly high int feeding their skill progression where they can dabble into many fields. Narrowing the gap for other classes takes away from this, and in a way, I feel, that is not good. Both of these classes are severely situational in most PVP encounters, and rely heavily on group play for harder PVE content.

If you narrow that gap, specifically in the cases for rogues, you don't deter people from dipping into rogue, quite the opposite in my opinion. You will deter people from doing anything BUT dipping, as they are already sub-par in stand up fights vs High BAB classes if they emphasize greatly on rogue levels... if you take their superior skill pt progression away as well, whats the point of ever doing anything but dipping the minimum number of levels and moving on?

There is a reason that in the 15 years this game has been out, and the 10?+ years Arelith has been out, little has changed on this front. As the only system I, and many others, could advocate as being acceptably balanced, is the implementation of half ranks, and the removal of skill hoarding between levels... and I don't even know if either of these is possible within the confines of the NWN engine.

[Commie]

Honestly just making the big combat-focused skills class-skills for all classes would help enormously; giving everyone access to at least full tumble and disc would be a big step in the right direction.

Because, lets face it, the big reason this is even a thing is because nearly every build takes a skill dump for at least disc/tumble.

[BrilliantInsanity]

Honestly just making the big combat-focused skills class-skills for all classes would help enormously; giving everyone access to at least full tumble and disc would be a big step in the right direction.

Is this even possible within the technical limitations of the game engine? I'm okay with this as frankly I feel Pathfinder did the right thing for skill progression (yay 3.75 can we upgrade?) All skills cost 1 pt to increase 1 rank. Max ranks in a skill was Character level. If the skill was a class skill (for any of your classes) and you had 1 rank in it, you got 3 bonus pts applied making max ranks for class skills CL+3 (same as it is now, but progression was cheaper). No skills were locked by class.

[Ambigue]

Is this even possible within the technical limitations of the game engine?

It is, but I'm about 95% sure it requires the use of hak packs.

[flower]

The thing you must sacifice for skills is a good one.

You need to lower str, constitution or other in order to increase INT.


But more skill points offer bigger variety. I would prefer if all classes were given +1 skill point similar like rangers.

You could argue that it would be used for better micro-macro managment of abilities, yes true, but also many other characters would gain more variety because of it.

[Dreams]

Make friends with a wide range of abilities. DnD has always been about getting a party together with differing ability so the characters take turns to do stuff. Rogues do rogue stuff, mages do mage stuff.

[TimeAdept]

Even in PnP that isn't true. Mage,s clerics, and druids do fighter and rogue stuff better than their respective classes while also being the only way to do theirs.

I sometimes wonder what NWN would look like if every skill was a class skil for every class.

[Commie]

Is this even possible within the technical limitations of the game engine?

It is, but I'm about 95% sure it requires the use of hak packs.

I think it only needs a hak for level 1. After that it can be global.

[yellowcateyes]

Time to poke the topic that no one wants to poke.

This topic has actually been poked before. While the 'human advantage' was raised long before the recent plethora of race-locked crafting content, skill points do remain an issue.

[Astral]

You could argue that it would be used for better micro-macro managment of abilities, yes true, but also many other characters would gain more variety because of it.

Which is exactly what's going to happen so why suggest that all classes get +1 sp per lvl when all that's gonna happen is that there will be a new standard to what is a "must-take" in addition to what's already there. If for example, all characters had less skillpoints than now you'd simply see a slightly shorter list of 'what is essential to every character'.

And this whole topic is basically a rogue/ranger nerf. The classes who need the least nerfs.

[Dunshine]

I really like the idea people have choices to make when building their characters. If you really want to pick a certain skill, then you have to give up on something else.
It allows for diversity. Just adding more skillpoints across the board will only increase similar builds, where people can take that extra skill for free, instead of giving up something else for it.

If anything, we'll be trying to make as many skills as possible interesting to be used. So people have a lot of options to spent their skillpoints on, instead of going for the same ones over and over.

[cptcuddlepants]

I'm not saying that everyone should have enough skill points to never have to make choices. My main concern is that the need for skill points is going to go higher and higher and higher as more skills are considered "must have" or, at the very least, interesting enough to want to use.

... Kind of like how on WoW, you have health pools easily in the millions now - imagine if your priest's healing spells were still as powerful as they were several expansions ago, when 70,000 health was "a lot".

Like I said earlier, the base game operates off the assumption that your fighter will have other party members to make up for lack of skills - whereas on Arelith, you have to cover as many bases as you can on your own. Making a party can't help because, again, the benefits from the modified skills only affect a single person.

I agree that it is a difficult thing to solve. Raising the amount of skill points might fix it, or it might just move the goalposts. It would help a lot with how restrictive it feels right now, though.

Maybe having skills overlap their effects (like either Bluff or Perform being used for the Disguise feature) could help? Such as Lore and/or Spellcraft replicating UMD, or Persuade and Intimidate also influencing Disguise, to toss a couple possibilities out there. Something to lessen the overwhelming "AHHHHHH I NEED THIS SKILL OR I'M GOING TO DIE IN EVERY ENCOUNTER" feeling going on.

[Dreams]

You need discipline or you're going to die. For literally everything else, there are other options. You don't have to buy in to what some players say about 'You must have these skills!' because it really isn't true. There's a preference to those skills. It isn't the same as necessity.

[Ambigue]

You need discipline or you're going to die.

Discipline's only a must-have because knockdown spam's a thing.

[-XXX-]

Even without spamming it, if a WM knocks down another character during a PvP encounter, they're not standing up.