Which skills are worh raising really high?

[khorboth]

Yes, everything that's a contest can be valuable at high levels. This is adjacent to the combat skills. In a high point-value game, we can assume that opponents are also good, so rolling holdout vs search where both are in the mid-20s wouldn't be unreasonable.

Another broad category I missed was touched on with inventions. TL penalties. If there are TL disparities going on, then it can certainly be worth having high skill to overcome that. Computer Operations/TL7 at 25 would let you muddle through at TL10 with the -15 penalty.

What about taking less time? Lockpicking usually takes 1 minute. I don't remember where rules for taking less time are off the top of my head, but it seems like this is the sort of thing where deliberate penalties would come in to play. Same with computer hacking while the bad guys are approaching or tactics or... whatnot.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by khorboth

I don't remember where rules for taking less time are off the top of my head . . .

"Time Spent", p. B346. -9 for skipping 90% of the time.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by khorboth

What about taking less time? Lockpicking usually takes 1 minute. I don't remember where rules for taking less time are off the top of my head, but it seems like this is the sort of thing where deliberate penalties would come in to play. Same with computer hacking while the bad guys are approaching or tactics or... whatnot.

Lockpicking is odd - it has its own time reduction rules - for every point of success it takes 5s off the base one minute time. As the general rule is -1 per 10% time reduction, Lockpicking gives slightly less effect but without the need to gamble your success chance.

[edk926]

If you are using the low-tech crafting perks, Armoury and Smith would be well worth boosting really high.