UO Second Age

I quickly searched the forums but couldn't find anything on this, though the answer may be out there...

Are there any skills for which being a GM gives you an *additional* bonus, not simply an incremental improvement? In other words, are there skills for which it's very important to have 100.0 skill vs. 99.9 skill?

If so, is there a compiled list somewhere of what these skills are, and what exactly the bonus is?

For example, after doing some reading it looks like there's no "GM bonus" for anatomy. It's just a straight 1% damage increase per 5% of anatomy points. Thus, 90 anatomy vs 100 anatomy is just a difference of 2% damage.

So by this, anatomy would NOT be a skill with a GM bonus, etc.

But what about other skills? Weapon skills, magery, "mule" skills, etc. Broadly speaking, this is a question about how important it is to GM your skills.

Thanks for the replies!

Cartography - at 100.0, you can decode a level 5 map. Likewise, Lockpicking 100.0 allows you to pick level 5 chests with 0 Detect Hidden skill. I can't think of any other skills (note that a "GM" weapon is simply an exceptional weapon with a maker's mark... same stats as an unmarked exceptional weapon).

I know there's quite a noticeable difference between playing my GM resist char and 90 resist char. Though I can't imagine 0.1 points makes a lickin bit of difference.

Healing you get a bonus @ 95 that you never fail regular healing anymore.

Camping @ 100 you get big red letters pop up in the middle of the screen saying "YOU'VE WON UO", then a chocolate bar comes out of your DVD drive

lol

Stealth might be another, although I have never personally tested it, I know that at GM you get 10 steps, and am almost positive that at 99.9 you get only 9.

Not sure about mining also, but I think it's only GM for Valorite.

nightshark wrote:Camping @ 100 you get big red letters pop up in the middle of the screen saying "YOU'VE WON UO", then a chocolate bar comes out of your DVD drive

SPOILER ALERT!!!

Valorite ore is 95.0 or 99.9 I believe.

nightshark wrote:Camping @ 100 you get big red letters pop up in the middle of the screen saying "YOU'VE WON UO", then a chocolate bar comes out of your DVD drive

Thanks for ruining the ending, dude. Also, is Derrick going to reimburse me for the replacement cost of my DVD drive? It only seems fair, since that chocolate bar must surely be melted by now...

On the other hand, my computer has never before been this gooey and delicious...

Returning briefly to the subject at hand: with the exception of the skills mentioned above then, is there any reason why I shouldn't drop all a character's skills to 90 so that I can bring an eighth skill up to 70? (assuming it's not a PvP character... or even if it is?)

It just seems like there must surely be a reason everybody goes for 7x GM, rather than 7 skills at 90 and another at 70??

I never thought this deeply about the system when I played 10 years ago, but now it has me curious.

Cause with 7 skills at 90 and 1 at 70 you are below par (shouldn't that be "above par"?) at 7 skills, and crap in another.

You're basically getting hit more, missing more, fizzling more, taking more damage from spells, failing healing 10% of the time... etc

nightshark wrote:Cause with 7 skills at 90 and 1 at 70 you are below par (shouldn't that be "above par"?) at 7 skills, and crap in another.

You're basically getting hit more, missing more, fizzling more, taking more damage from spells, failing healing 10% of the time... etc

yup, makes sense.

nightshark wrote:Healing you get a bonus @ 95 that you never fail regular healing anymore

Really? This would imply to me that you also can no longer gain skill from healing damage either, since as a general rule, if you have a 100% chance of succeeding at something, you have a 0% chance of gaining skill from it.

Btw, about the "7 skills at 90, one at 70" idea... this can work, in some ways. There are some old threads on the subject. But don't be convinced into thinking you need to GM everything.

20 Tracking should allow you to track hidden players on your screen, for example, and 90 Magery is enough to cast up through 6th level spells with 100% success rate. So something like:

90 Magery
100 Swords
100 Archery
100 Tactics
90 Anatomy
100 Magic Resist
100 Healing
20 Tracking

Would be a pretty effective template. The loss of 10 points in Magery is no big deal on a warrior since you'll never have 40 or 50 mana to cast a level 7 or 8 spell anyways. And the loss of 10 Anatomy means approximately 2% less damage and maybe 2% lower heals with bandages. And in return, if you're fighting someone and they run and hide from you, you can track them to the tile on your screen very easily.

Just an example.

What I want to know is if the game rounds off the skills for when it calculates stuff.

For example, according to the archived stratics page on Combat, the bonus to damage from Tactics is determined by the formula (Bonus = Tactics +50). The bonus to damage from Anatomy is determined by the formula (Bonus = Anatomy / 5).

Now, does this mean that if you have 97.7 Tactics, the modifier is 147.7%, or is it rounded.? If you have 99 Anatomy, is the modifier 119.8%, or is it rounded?

Two people who have exact same skill in their weaponskills have exactly a 50% chance to hit each other. But if one person has 95.0 and the other has 95.1, do they both still have exactly 50% chance to hit each other?

Chance to parry, bonus to damage as caused by Strength, and weapon speed all have formulas like the above.

Mikel123 wrote:Btw, about the "7 skills at 90, one at 70" idea... this can work, in some ways. There are some old threads on the subject. But don't be convinced into thinking you need to GM everything.

you don't need to gm everything, but honestly if you want to run 7 skills at 90 1 at 70, i will destroy your character template for you any time you please.

nightshark wrote:

Mikel123 wrote:Btw, about the "7 skills at 90, one at 70" idea... this can work, in some ways. There are some old threads on the subject. But don't be convinced into thinking you need to GM everything.

you don't need to gm everything, but honestly if you want to run 7 skills at 90 1 at 70, i will destroy your character template for you any time you please.

Love the "I'm here for pvp so I just assume everyone else is" mindset.

If you see my 90/90/90/90/90/90/90/70 character, I guarantee you won't. He'll be inside my castle making potion kegs or something. Trash talking in the new players forum though... good times.

Errikos, I believe it uses exact numbers. At some point, damage must be rounded, but I would assume it's the very last and final step before being taken away from a life total.

It's not trash talking, you're the only one starting flame wars in every other thread. If the OP isn't here for PvP he can disregard my comments. Thanks for clearing that up for everyone!