Character Versatility Through Skill Relevance

[drunk_harlot]

I'm one of those P&P evolved, Black Isle / Bioware game loving types, that loves the stories and the mechanics equally. There's aspects of MMORPG's I loath, and I find completely empty of soul and depth, but the overall scope and vibrance of DDO wins my heart. For all the bad there's a lot of good.

Now, since playing MMORPG's (which I've only done for like three or four years) - I've always trod a difficult line between character concept and "performance", otherwise known as min maxing (or as I like to say, conformity lol). There's no point in making a character that is so RPG motivated that they carry every weakness in a game, and are thus shunned and hated, and a pain to play solo. Equally I have never been able to take a single character design choice that falls completely outside a concept, either in name or function, just for the sake of the maths, and making the rest of the parties I join happy.

There's dump stats in this game, like all games, sure. But they do all have potential function, I wanted my rogue to be Charismatic and manipulative, I took Force of Personality and aimed to invest high in Bluff, Diplomacy and Haggle, just so I could legitimise having a CHA of 16. At this point people may ask, why not UMD? It's more useful! Refer to the above paragraph, a knack with magical items wasn't part of Trixibelle's concept

Anyway, I digress...

It occurred to me that of all the tabs on the character sheet, and all the functionality and balance issues with attributes, feats or enhancements - the biggest hole is with skills. There are some seriously *DUMP* skills, or skills that you only *NEED* such a specific investment in anything else will be queried. And ironically they are probably the easiest way of injecting some more RPG and character diversity into this game, with very little effort in terms of quest implementation, and in a way that won't overly irritate those who live for the DPS. I remember back when I was playing Icewind Dale II and such, and getting Bluff / Diplomacy / Intimidate options throughout a dialogue thread, where the tongue really was mightier than the sword - or at least could lead to a secret reward rather than simply missing out on a fight and some more XP. So, I'm gonna share my thoughts on each of the skills...


Balance - Probably not the biggest contender for attention, it has very legitimate passive function throughout the game so no problems there.

Bluff - Didn't used to be a big fan of this, but I've enjoyed using it from time to time on my latest incarnation of my rogue. Clearly there could be a lot more use of this in dialogue, with some more valuable results. It would also be cute if there was some card games in the taverns, I realise this would have to be balanced in terms of payback, but people make hagglebots to make crazy profits on item sales so I don't see the harm in letting people have another thematically relevant thing to do in taverns for game colour.

Concentration - Again, this one's passive use is relevant enough it's not really a point of concern.

Diplomacy - Love the active function, use it all the time - but dialogue, dialogue, dialogue.

Disable Device - Clearly no problems here.

Haggle - A sound and useful implementation, but it might be cool if it could be used for bargaining the nature of rewards in certain quests to, negotiating a fee as it were.

Heal - Always been a bit of a problem one (I know about the ally healing boost when shrining), clearly the reviving unconscious aspect is so negligible it's pointless. It might be crazy, but I'd really like to see an active button with a few heal uses of some balanced magnitude per rest. Sure, it wouldn't have a tremendous point in the game - but maybe non UMD invested characters without access to healing spells could have an alternate avenue in getting a few heals (modified by the quality of the kits). I know I'd make use of it on my rogue. I suppose a more (and please don't throw stones lol) severe change would be severely limiting regeneration at shrines *UNLESS* a character with a heal skill is present, but I appreciate this would fall into the area of making a skill somewhat required, rather than more useful.

Hide - This (along with Move Silently) are fine, people use them tactically, and for assassin stuff. I do like the few instances where there's stealth related quest objectives, or the potential for optional gain, more of these would be nice.

Intimidate - Tanks, sorted. But loads more dialogue implementation could be really cool.

Jump - The only problem with this is the ceiling (40 right?). I understand why this is there, but Acrobat builds can end up accidentally exceeding this in no time. I suppose it would be cute if there were specific points in quests where the flow of a quest could change depending on a super high jump, or maybe secret areas could be reached, even if this was just driven through dialogue and teleporting.

Listen - One of the most sad dump skills, and one I admit I have a number of points in - just because I find it ridiculous that my rogue would have such sharp vision but be comparatively deaf as a post. The coolest thing that could be done with this is some sort of "radar". Graded warning icons similar to detecting traps, that could let a group prepare for the two dozen enemies through the next door.

Move Silently - Covered above.

Open Lock - Statistically speaking there's not that many locked doors and chests of any game changing relevance, along with that there's the knock spell and the bell of opening. I think there just needs to be more quest effecting points that require this skill.

Perform - Clearly has a well instated game function for bards, I guess it would be cute if there were some light hearted quest moments where it was tested through dialogue - in regards to soothing an angry heart or savage beast now and again.

Repair - Sits in the same boat as heal. From a character design point of view, I'd LOVE if this could be used to either self repair weapons and armour, or at least lessen the breakage rate. The idea of mechanic that can actually fix stuff. Aside from that there could be a ton of quest implementations where some mechanical device needs to be fixed in order to progress somewhere.

Search - Probably all fine with the traps and secret doors.

Spot - Ditto.

Swim - Clearly obliterated by warforged, a million items, and a complete lack of requirement to swim fast in quests. I think the only way of reviving this one is if swimming dramatically affects the action speed in the new underwater quests (of which I'm yet to experience), then if there's more underwater quests to come, at least the skill becomes valuable some of the time.

Tumble - I hate hearing "you only need 1 point in it", and the reduced fall damage being negated by everyone using feather fall, but it does some cool stuff when you get it into the high 30's clearly, and if used effectively it can be cool for manoeuvring. I have lots of fun with it regardless of how technically useful it is. I did consider it might be nice if you could use it to get some extra boost going through traps if you actively tumbled in terms of the save roll.

Use Magical Device - Aside from the fact I've never really been comfortable with the link of this high Charisma skill meaning a human can wear a halfling's armour and suddenly know how to use a healing wand with no cleric levels, it clearly *DOES* have a useful implementation, even if it is a bit of a strange one. I guess like the idea of repairing broken things, if there were UMD points in quests where people needed to operate magical devices. Come to think of it that would make more sense than the runes with attribute tests maybe.