Template Construction: Skill Complexes

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SighelmofWyrmgard
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Template Construction: Skill Complexes

Post by SighelmofWyrmgard »

A difficulty any player may encounter, while designing a template, is the tendency to try to include too many skills: the Skillcap rears its ugly head, and the player is left with the unhappy decision of which skill(s) to abandon; sometimes, it can prove terribly confusing to determine which skills can be combined in the same template.

In this post, I propose that any player consider the puzzle of template design in the context of Skill "Complexes": while a few skills operate entirely independently, there are skills that must be combined with one or more other skill(s) --in a complex -- in order to be optimally effective.

Base Considerations:

Skillcap: for any who might be unaware, there is Skillcap of 700.0 skill points; no player can develop any more than 700.0 skill points, divided among all developed skills.

Skill v. Ability: Skill points represent "learned" expertise in any discipline; with certain skills, this base facility can be enhanced by the influence of stats to produce total "Ability"; it is not uncommon for a character, limited to 700.0 Skill points, to actually possess more than 1000.0 points of Ability; "Show Real" isolates learned Skill only, and will help anyone track the character's relation to his/her Skillcap; stat-influences decline, proportionate with increased development in the skill, until there is 0 stat-influence at 100.0.

Certain skills enjoy a great magnitude of stat-influenced Ability.

An annotated list of common skill complexes, and their skill-point "cost":

Animal Taming I (300)
100 Animal Lore
100 Animal Taming
100 Veterinary

The complete Tamer.

Animal Taming II (200)
100 Animal Lore
100 Animal Taming

Practical, if combined with a (high-level) Magery complex to provide for Healing; extremely pragmatic, otherwise.

Animal Taming III (110)

Animal Lore 50
Animal Taming 60

This is a "novelty" complex, allowing one to build an army of Giant Scorpions and Spiders, and virtually nothing else ...

Bard I (400)
100 Musicianship
100 Provocation
100 Peacemaking
100 Enticement

For the Bard fanatic, only: Enticement is largely useless, and Peacemaking has only a few specialized applications; see Note, below.

Bard II (300)
100 Musicianship
100 Provocation
100 Peacemaking

This represents the truly-dedicated Bard; see Note, below.

Bard III (200)
100 Musicianship
100 Provocation

The Provoker is likely the most pragmatic and, hence, popular Bard skill complex.

Note: Regarding Bard skills, particularly Enticement & Peacemaking: 100 Musicianship by itself will actually impart a 50% success chance, even if developed levels of these skills are 0; 50 points in either of these skills will raise success to 75%, and so on, so any Bard always possesses some (small) facility with these skills, even if the skills themselves are never developed. EDIT: this information was based on an old formula that was found to be NEA, and changed; Bard Skills are now evaluated as WhateverSkill*Musicianship.

Healing I (200)
100 Healing
100 Anatomy

Maximum success, maximum effect: desirable for PvP duelling; unnecessary, PvM.

Healing II (160)
080 Healing
080 Anatomy

High success probabilities, strong bandages, and Resurrection is still possible; Healing Ability will actually be a little more than 80; required for PvM only if Resurrection is desired.

Healing III (120)
060 Healing
060 Anatomy

"First Aid": moderate success, and Curing Poison is possible; minimalist Healing, acceptable only for Team PvM, or someone who already has an extremely tight template (maybe a Bard-Tamer; you'd be better off with an economical Magery complex, though).

Note: for a PvM warrior, 100 Anatomy & 75 Healing is likely the most-effective, most-economical combination; the bandages are weaker, and there is a small chance of failure, but these are not critical considerations, PvM; the full damage provided by GM Anatomy will always be useful.

Lockpicking I (300)
100 Lockpicking
100 Detect Hidden
100 Remove Trap

This is for Magic-free chest-cracking; it's only truly useful application would be combined with Stealth, for a deep-dungeon template.

Lockpicking II (190)
095 Lockpicking
060 Detect Hidden
035 Magery

This complex represents the most-common compromise, as it can be extremely arduous to GM Lockpicking; once Lockpicking has reached a full 100.0, Detect Hidden can be dropped (Lockpicking III).

Lockpicking III (135)
100 Lockpicking
035 Magery

Can crack anything (with less than 60 Detect Hidden, though, multiple attempts will be required for Lvl5 chests).

Magery I (300)
100 Evaluate Intelligence
100 Magery
100 Meditation

Full, effective, use of offensive spells; Meditation can be "shorted" to 75.0 (see "Shorting Skills" below); PvM, Evaluate Intelligence can be "shorted" to 60.0-75.0.

Magery II (200)
100 Magery
100 Meditation

"Support" Magery, providing strong buffs/debuffs & Heals; damage-dealing will be accomplished through Summoning; Meditation can be shorted to 50.0-75.0.

Magery III (125)
075 Magery
050 Meditation

"Utility" Magery: scrolls still allow use of all existing spells (although Circle 8 will be unreliable for in-combat Summoning; casting failures do not destroy scrolls); reliable casting to Circle 5, but active Meditation is not reliable.

Magery IV (35)
035 Magery

Rudimentary Ability only: allows Circle 4 & 5 only through scroll-use

Stealth I (200)
100 Hiding
100 Stealth

Optimum Ability: desirable for any criminal.

Stealth II (160)
080 Hiding
080 Stealth

This is adequate for anyone who only wants to be able to function as a "Scout".

Thievery (200)
100 Snooping
100 Stealing

This is pretty much essential for any thief with ambitions.

Weapon I (300)
100 Weapon
100 Tactics
100 Anatomy

Weapon "mastery"; Anatomy melds nicely with the Healing complexes.

Weapon II (200)
100 Weapon
100 Tactics

This should be considered bare minimum for anyone to even contemplate developing Weapon skill(s).

Some complexes will be built upon other complexes:

Assassin (300-400)
Weapon I or II (Bladed)
100 Poisoning

Treasure Hunting (235-400)
Lockpicking I, II, or III
100 Cartography

MiB Fisherman (235-400)
Lockpicking I, II, or III
100 Fishing

Other considerations:

Shorting Skills: There are skills that do provide performance that is proportional to their level of development; generally, the skill does need to be developed above 50 to provide any appreciable usage.

Anatomy: lower damage from weapons, and lower Healing value on bandages.
Healing: lesser success with Healing, and significantly lower value on bandages than Anatomy.
Meditation: lower success with active Meditation, and slower mana regeneration rates; still, a little goes a long way; 75+ Skill in light armor gives extremely quick regeneration.
Poisoning: lower success and increased chance of Poisoning self; however, 80 is sufficiently high to avoid self-poisoning altogether.

Skills that give significant return at low level:

Hiding: anyone can hide beside/in any house, with a good chance of success; thus, 15-25 is adequate to provide for bio-breaks; there is no purpose for highly-developed Hiding in the absence of Stealth (except maybe for a Treasure Hunter/MiB Fisherman).

Tracking: a little goes an incredibly long way, particularly considering robust stat-influence; more than 50 can actually be a liability, as the skill can take in too many results to process, and "overloads and shorts out".

Survival Skills: Resistance & Wrestling

Consider what is more important: Resisting Explosion + Flame Strike from GM Magery + GM Evaluation, or maybe evading the follow-up Halberd swing.

For any character that either possesses no weapon skill, or wishes to rely on spell-casting during melee, Wrestling is essential; 100 should be considered non-negotiable for PvP, but 50-75 is "good enough" for any PvM character.

Regarding Resistance, 75-100 is minimum for Magic-PvP; 65-75 is minimum for PvM, but most characters will find 75 entirely sufficient.

Hopefully, this information will help some players streamline their template-design efforts.

SS
Last edited by SighelmofWyrmgard on Sun Nov 15, 2015 1:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
SighelmofWyrmgard wrote:
uosa44 wrote:For sale, by original owner:
1 Human Brain, never been used, only slightly damaged, still in original packaging.
$1, obo
FTFY.

SS
uosa44 wrote:The inability for this person to respond in such a crazy manner proves my point.

Pirul
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Re: Template Construction: Skill Complexes

Post by Pirul »

I would just like to point out, that as a survival skill, you seem to under estiamte wrestling. Getting a recall out with a pk on you, wrestling is very important, more so than resist.
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SighelmofWyrmgard
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Re: Template Construction: Skill Complexes

Post by SighelmofWyrmgard »

I like Wrestling, but "preventing being disrupted by a PKer's weapon hit in order to Recall" is a lousy reason to invest 100 skill-points: 1on1, you should already be targetting your rune by the time your attacker reaches melee range; in a PK gank, the entire proposition is moot if you haven't Resisted at least part of the barrage of Explosions, Ebolts, & Flame Strikes (+ lesser spam that might interrupt you itself) that are dropping on your head before/while you attempt to cast.

Also, how often does a reasonably-careful character get PK-attacked; how often is the GM Wrestling actually used?

SS
SighelmofWyrmgard wrote:
uosa44 wrote:For sale, by original owner:
1 Human Brain, never been used, only slightly damaged, still in original packaging.
$1, obo
FTFY.

SS
uosa44 wrote:The inability for this person to respond in such a crazy manner proves my point.

Mikel123
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Re: Template Construction: Skill Complexes

Post by Mikel123 »

A lot.

It takes 1.25 seconds to cast Recall. Human reaction time... for humans who are REALLY quick to react and are focused solely on reacting to something (like, olympic sprinters waiting for the starting gun to go off) you're looking at a little less than .25 seconds. Now, you're not nearly as hyper-vigilant as them, and you may well be doing something else when the red name appears on your screen... you might be looting gems, you might be mid-energy-bolt trying to finish off a monster. You might be running away from a dragon to heal up, while a red is running towards you. In all of these cases, you're going to get hit 100% of the time without wrestling, and you're going to get hit faster than you can finish a Recall cast.

100 wrestling is of course quite useful against monsters too, as getting pinned in certain dungeons is much more likely these days with increased spawn. With it, you might be able to Teleport out of there (if you're out of red potions). Without it, you can easily die to a few persistent giant rats while you're trapped in a corner.

Anyways, as someone who has a fencer PK gathering dust, I'm not going to try too hard to convince you that Wrestling is a useful skill. But Pirul is correct in underscoring it's importance. I only have one spellcasting character without wrestling, and she dies all the damn time. More than the rest of my characters combined. And none of these deaths are due to PKs, but the majority of them are due to the fact that whenever I get next to a monster (or multiples), they're all hitting me every single time.

SighelmofWyrmgard
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Re: Template Construction: Skill Complexes

Post by SighelmofWyrmgard »

Mikel123 wrote:Many things that justify the usefulness of Wrestling


In order to reply to a reply to a reply to an original post, one might find it helpful to refer to that original post, in which it is recommended that Wrestling be GMed for those who expect to spellcast during PvP, and that even PvM-only spellcasters should develop 50-75 points in the skill.

SS
SighelmofWyrmgard wrote:
uosa44 wrote:For sale, by original owner:
1 Human Brain, never been used, only slightly damaged, still in original packaging.
$1, obo
FTFY.

SS
uosa44 wrote:The inability for this person to respond in such a crazy manner proves my point.

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archaicsubrosa77
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Re: Template Construction: Skill Complexes

Post by archaicsubrosa77 »

Entice more or less is used for these things...stealing pets, luring non-hostiles into areas of exploit, or assembly line provocation without drawing aggro on to yourself. You could provoke one Balron unto yourself while it is engaged with another to lure them to kill inside the terra courtyard or you can provoke them unto each other and entice them into it to handle everything....for example.

Balrons are greater then EV and less draining. Keep the beasts healed and take the whole caverns. Direct the spawn to where you want them to be and the good minstrel should forever seek the sheet music for its reward. Supreme orchestration can earn you great wealth. Center your efforts in luring groups of others in concert.

You dont really want to singe your clothing with being flamestriked which could happen if you lead the beasts by provocation alone. If you have entice grab provoke as well..unless its for your automated buyer.

Against mages with low dex one vs one 60 wrestling suffices...if you have higher dex and another weapon skill.

Never think a skill entirely useless. Herding alongside stealth allows you to retrieve spawn to be tamed in an area away from other spawn...say if you want to coat a dungeon area in slime having in mind to polymorph into slime naming them all the name of your character and release them providing the ample cover of confusion.

Being so weak most would be destroyed before you would be able to gate them otherwise or the whole ordeal would be time consuming.
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Dylan
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Re: Template Construction: Skill Complexes

Post by Dylan »

Animal Taming I (300) + Bard III (200) + 100 Herding = AniMaL BlaSter I

Joking. Im using Herding sometimes for faster solution in some situations. before I will drop it :| Herding useless....but sometime I miss it, when u dont have magery or reagents and u pretend to tame comfortably, avoid an annoying monster etc...why not Herding to start? :D

Ok excuse me - Pointless POST :mrgreen:

However, I love you Topic Sighelm, they are what I'm looking for to understand what character I want in this Shard Era. And stop with ty now :mrgreen:

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