[DF] Maximum Skill Levels?

[Bruno]

I think it's -3 (not -2) in the "dim area" of a light source - but heck, your lightsource could have been extinguished and then you're stuck with ambient light levels, which can go as low as -9.

See also this post by me from (egads!) 2008 for a great worst-case-scenario analysis.

[Kuroshima]

The main reason I put caps on skills (at DX+10) is because I prefer to keep skills (and specialy parries) in the party within an order of magnitude, and because I like it that it leads to bonus hunting, as players strive to find places to give them bonuses via talents [talents increase your effective stat, from my PoV], items, etc etc.

Also, when you've got the caster with staff-16 and parry 14, and a swashbuckler with Rapier-26 and parry 19 (true story), you find that the monsters need to impose large penalties to defense or the swashbuckler is untouchable (and you can's simply rain attacks, because thanks to Weapon Master and using a fencing weapon, he only gets -1 on successfull parries, and since he carries two of them, you need to rain 9 attacks before the swashbuckler has to parry at less than 16), and anything that can hit the swashbuckler will hit the caster for sure. This only gets worse with time.

[trooper6]

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

The main reason I put caps on skills (at DX+10) is because I prefer to keep skills (and specialy parries) in the party within an order of magnitude, and because I like it that it leads to bonus hunting, as players strive to find places to give them bonuses via talents [talents increase your effective stat, from my PoV], items, etc etc.

Also, when you've got the caster with staff-16 and parry 14, and a swashbuckler with Rapier-26 and parry 19 (true story), you find that the monsters need to impose large penalties to defense or the swashbuckler is untouchable (and you can's simply rain attacks, because thanks to Weapon Master and using a fencing weapon, he only gets -1 on successfull parries, and since he carries two of them, you need to rain 9 attacks before the swashbuckler has to parry at less than 16), and anything that can hit the swashbuckler will hit the caster for sure. This only gets worse with time.

I played a Swashbuckler with Rapier-20-something in an arena game...and let me tell you it wasn't all that impressive. All you have to do is have some enemies with heavier weapons, things that the Swashbuckler is not going to want to parry or else risk breaking his rapiers...let me recommend shield bashes. You can also have larger numbers of regular foes surround the Swashbuckler...he can't defend against attacks from the rear and the foes aren't going to be so overpowering vs. your mage. Foes who aren't stupid, will start noticing the great defenses of the Swashbuckler and might start making deceptive attacks against him.

As for all of the Swashbuckler's attacks...if your Swashbuckler was anything like mine...I didn't have the best ST...so all it took was an Ogre with natural DR and some armor and I couldn't do any damage at all. Also things that are mainly damaged by crushing damage will allow your Mage to shine while disadvantaging your Swashbuckler seriously.

But in the end, I feel like, the Swashbuckler paid lots of points to be really good in combat. Let the Swashbuckler be really good at combat at times. The mage may only have Staff-16, Parry 14 (which is good)...but I assume the Mage has other things in her back pocket...like blocking spells and magic.

[Kuroshima]

Originally Posted by trooper6

I played a Swashbuckler with Rapier-20-something in an arena game...and let me tell you it wasn't all that impressive. All you have to do is have some enemies with heavier weapons, things that the Swashbuckler is not going to want to parry or else risk breaking his rapiers...let me recommend shield bashes. You can also have larger numbers of regular foes surround the Swashbuckler...he can't defend against attacks from the rear and the foes aren't going to be so overpowering vs. your mage. Foes who aren't stupid, will start noticing the great defenses of the Swashbuckler and might start making deceptive attacks against him.

As for all of the Swashbuckler's attacks...if your Swashbuckler was anything like mine...I didn't have the best ST...so all it took was an Ogre with natural DR and some armor and I couldn't do any damage at all. Also things that are mainly damaged by crushing damage will allow your Mage to shine while disadvantaging your Swashbuckler seriously.

But in the end, I feel like, the Swashbuckler paid lots of points to be really good in combat. Let the Swashbuckler be really good at combat at times. The mage may only have Staff-16, Parry 14 (which is good)...but I assume the Mage has other things in her back pocket...like blocking spells and magic.

The swashbuckler is brutal, with two extra attacks, effective striking ST 19, and can turn foes to minced meat, even with the skill cap in place. Feint-30 makes sure that the target gets no defense, and afterwards comes a flurry of rapid strikes if stationary, or dual weapon attacks if she moves (she has the powerup to be able to ignore the Move and Attack skill cap).

As for breaking the weapons, they're edged rapiers, that are slightly heavier than normal rapiers, and enchanted with shatterproof.

[Bruno]

Rapiers? Flails. :)

[trooper6]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Rapiers? Flails. :)

Bruno is right. Fencing weapons can't parry flails at all...so that equalizes things really rapidly.

As for this...

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

The swashbuckler is brutal, with two extra attacks, effective striking ST 19, and can turn foes to minced meat, even with the skill cap in place. Feint-30 makes sure that the target gets no defense, and afterwards comes a flurry of rapid strikes if stationary, or dual weapon attacks if she moves (she has the powerup to be able to ignore the Move and Attack skill cap).

As for breaking the weapons, they're edged rapiers, that are slightly heavier than normal rapiers, and enchanted with shatterproof.

It doesn't seem to me that that problem is really high skill. It is that this character has got 2 extra-attacks, striking ST 19, shatterproof weapons, etc. This character has spent lots and lots and lots of points becoming an untouchable slicing/dicing machine. What have the other PCs spent their points on? They presumably spent their points on something cool. Let the swashbuckler be cool (though she still is going to have problems with being surrounded by lots of mobs...let me recommend zombies who grapple...remember, no defenses when attacked from behind)...then make sure the others get to be cool in their own way as well.

[PseudoFenton]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Rapiers? Flails. :)

Flails and Fireballs.

I love how whenever skill levels in weapons come up everyone always assumes you're going up against another weapon. This is DF!

You can be fighting claws and tentacles, you could be fighting oozing honey elementals (sticky and sweet, bad for parrying but yummy to eat afterwards), you could be up against animated wardrobes, giant spitting snakes, cockatrice and fear demons, and given enough CP - even Gods!

A parry of 30 is fun and all, but if you cant dodge a death ray, or block a glob of contact poison/acid, or pull your weapon free from a lodestone construct (natural magnetism is fun), or avert your gaze from a petrifying beast (whilst still fighting and avoiding its other attacks), or stand your ground whilst soiling yourself, or have the strength of will to simply not listen to that divine being telling you to drop your weapon.... well you'll find that your parry isn't of much use any more, what with you being dead.

Personally I place no upper limit on skills, although I do impose greater learning time and costs once you start exceeding the Stat+6 or Stat+10 mark (depending on skill type). Mostly because it makes sense that when trying to squeeze those last few points out of a skill beyond simply being quick/smart etc you tend to need a lot of work and focus and linear training costs just cant model that.

[Kuroshima]

Originally Posted by trooper6

Bruno is right. Fencing weapons can't parry flails at all...so that equalizes things really rapidly.

Yeah, I know, I have used it in the past, as chain weapons are something I've always liked the aesthetics of, but I don't want to be repetitive ;)

As for this...

It doesn't seem to me that that problem is really high skill. It is that this character has got 2 extra-attacks, striking ST 19, shatterproof weapons, etc. This character has spent lots and lots and lots of points becoming an untouchable slicing/dicing machine. What have the other PCs spent their points on? They presumably spent their points on something cool. Let the swashbuckler be cool (though she still is going to have problems with being surrounded by lots of mobs...let me recommend zombies who grapple...remember, no defenses when attacked from behind)...then make sure the others get to be cool in their own way as well.

There is no problem. We've been playing for a long while, and characters are nearing or over 500 points at the moment. I decided to cap skills in this game, and I stand by my decision. It has lead to characters developping a little more breadth on their skillsets.

As for the other characters, well, They are all effective in their specializations. However, I try to make it so it doesn't turn into fantasy RPSLS, where monster type 1 is killed by delvers A and B, monster type 2 is killed by delvers C and D, and so on

BTW, the last combat was against 12 evil eyes, 4 bronze spiders and an electrical jelly, and it was close, but no character even ended up unconscious.

Originally Posted by PseudoFenton

Flails and Fireballs.

I love how whenever skill levels in weapons come up everyone always assumes you're going up against another weapon. This is DF!

You can be fighting claws and tentacles, you could be fighting oozing honey elementals (sticky and sweet, bad for parrying but yummy to eat afterwards), you could be up against animated wardrobes, giant spitting snakes, cockatrice and fear demons, and given enough CP - even Gods!

A parry of 30 is fun and all, but if you cant dodge a death ray, or block a glob of contact poison/acid, or pull your weapon free from a lodestone construct (natural magnetism is fun), or avert your gaze from a petrifying beast (whilst still fighting and avoiding its other attacks), or stand your ground whilst soiling yourself, or have the strength of will to simply not listen to that divine being telling you to drop your weapon.... well you'll find that your parry isn't of much use any more, what with you being dead.

Personally I place no upper limit on skills, although I do impose greater learning time and costs once you start exceeding the Stat+6 or Stat+10 mark (depending on skill type). Mostly because it makes sense that when trying to squeeze those last few points out of a skill beyond simply being quick/smart etc you tend to need a lot of work and focus and linear training costs just cant model that.

I think that I might eventually allow skills over stat+10, multiplying training cost by 10 for stat+11, 15 for stat +12, etc etc (following the speed/range table, and I mean $ training cost, not CPs. I follow the rules for training costs in DF3)

[Jürgen Hubert]

I don't see a problem with very high weapon skills. Yes, having a skill of 35 in his favorite weapon means that he is likely to instant-kill most opponents foolish enough to get into melee with him.

But that just means that the enemy sorcerers or archers can distract him with hordes of disposable mooks while they get their ranged attacks online. Sometimes other advantages are useful as well to actually reach the high-priority targets.

That doesn't mean that a weapon skill at 35 is useless. To the contrary, it will be very useful indeed in most combats. But it's not a universal problem solver, and most parties will have a mix of skills if they want to win their fights.

[PseudoFenton]

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

I think that I might eventually allow skills over stat+10, multiplying training cost by 10 for stat+11, 15 for stat +12, etc etc (following the speed/range table, and I mean $ training cost, not CPs. I follow the rules for training costs in DF3)

Just to clarify, I too meant $ cost not cp cost, as I too follow the DF training costs - although a little more loosely allowing self training to still be viable, but its cheaper and/or quicker if you have a tutor, but some tutors are quest objectives in and of themselves!

I quite like the idea of using the speed/range table to calculate costs however, its not something I had considered before - I may have to look into that and see If I can find something workable. Thanks for the idea!