Skill Advancement

[Emerikol]

Originally Posted by Kallatari

For those who don't want such high skills to be as useful - and thus not as worth investing points in - you need to cap to some of the effects of a combat skill: Active Defense and Deceptive Attacks. Pick a value you think is a "realistic maximum".. let's say 20 for example. Have Active Defenses cap out at that level, so any skill above 20 doesn't add to active defenses. Likewise, Deceptive Attack can't reduce skill below 10 (I always thought it was 12.. huh), so with the 20 cap then you can't do a Deceptive Attack greater than -10 to skill for -5 to defenses, regardless of how high your skill gets. At that point, getting skill levels above 20 are only there to counter other penalties, so it's still useful, but not as much. So people won't be as interested in increasing the combat skills higher (e.g., they may stop at Broadsword 30 instead of Broadsword 40).

(Personally, I think a simple cap to skill is even easier, but the above is sort of a middle ground approach)

I think you give some good advice here. The main use of a high weapon skill would of course be those things you mention. The difference would be enemies who might have similarly high attack / defense skills which would be very possible if you are running a high fantasy game. The question you have to answer is what is the difference between the skill of a beginning character with the job of fighting and an end game character with the same role. If monsters never get above 16 attack skill that would influence greatly how far you'd push your weapon skill.