Nimble Fingers

[Delicious Vlish]

I have been thinking. Nimble Fingers may be better for a singleton than previously thought.

 

Even though Elite Warrior, Pure Spirit, and Natural Mage all provide very good skill bonuses... Nimble fingers would provide free levels of tool use. Combined with 6 in mage spells, and you would have some chance as a singleton to unlock some doors that have valuable stuff behind them.

 

In time, you would even get 15 in tool use, which is a whole bunch of skill points saved. Meaning you could effectively pump mage skills, priest skills, or even a little bit of arcane lore so you could get some spiffy spells.

 

And, for what it is worth, you would would free points in first aid. Which is really rather nice when you think about it.

 

Thoughts?

 

Edit.

 

Divine Blood is of course a given.

[Slawbug]

No, not at all.

 

1) The only thing you actually *need* Tool Use for is getting past the "alarm" traps that make towns hostile. All other traps can be ignored, and any door Tool Use will help open can be opened without it.

 

2) You won't get to 15. The most you can get out of the trait is 12 points, at level 60. Even a singleton is not likely to get more than 9 points out of it (levels 42-47) and for most of the game, you'll have significantly less. To be fair, you can buy two levels in Almaria if you really want to wait that long, and there is also the +3 from equipment which is timely enough. But even with those bonuses, you'll have to invest skill points to get up to 15 or 16.

 

3) Even if you want to put points in Tool Use manually, do the math -- it's NOT a savings compared with the other traits. It costs 42 skill points to buy 12 points of Tool Use (40 if you wait till after Almaria). The trait will give you 9 levels (if you don't mind waiting till the end of the game to have use of all of them), so that's a savings of 38-40 skill points.

 

That's the equivalent of about 7 levels of Priest Spells, or 6 of Mage Spells. Pure Spirit and Natural Mage increase those stats at the same rate as Nimble Fingers increases Tool Use. However, if you plan on using much magic, you are obviously going to want to buy more than 6 or 7 levels. Since trait skill bonuses don't increase the cost to buy skill levels, the skill points you save should essentially be calculated starting with the first level you don't buy. i.e., if I buy 6 levels of Priest Spells and get a bonus 4 levels, the bonus 4 levels are not worth (4 + 4 + 5 + 5 = 18) but (7 + 7 + 8 + 8 = 30).

 

So basically, at ANY point in the game, unless you forego magic entirely, you are ALWAYS better off buying Tool Use manually and selecting a different trait. In the mid and late game, the magic traits outshine Nimble Fingers by truly ridiculous proportions.

 

(Admittedly, I'd rather have the First Aid bonus than the Magical Efficiency, but even if you value M.E. at zero (which is unfair) First Aid is a cheap skill and the bonus to it is small (1 + 1 every 10 levels).

 

Elite Warrior is also a better deal. Parry costs 3 to start with, I don't remember what Blademaster is -- I think 4, but it's effectively a lot higher since you have to waste a bunch of points in the hand-to-hand weapon skill you're not using in order to access it.

[Mivayan]

Quote:

Even though Elite Warrior, Pure Spirit, and Natural Mage all provide very good skill bonuses... Nimble fingers would provide free levels of tool use. Combined with 6 in mage spells, and you would have some chance as a singleton to unlock some doors that have valuable stuff behind them.

Getting 3 such abilities is not possible, I take it?

Once again, sanity gets in the way of creativity.

[Lilith]

Yep. For game balance reasons, you're limited to 2 traits. In the Exile series, this wasn't the case, and everyone tended to load their party up with all of the useful advantages and tolerable disadvantages.

[Istara]

Oh I love having a character with Nimble Fingers and high Tool Use.

 

I get them up to 10 asap at the start of the game. Then keep adding. There are quite a few Level 16 doors in the early stages. Then the next useful threshold is Level 20. By then, you hopefully have the +1 Tool Use chain.

 

Now I need Level 25, even 28, for the more recent doors. I also have the Tinker's Gloves, so that helps get another +2. I love the click of unlocking a door. I could hear that sound all day.

[Lilith]

You know, there comes a point where it's more efficient to just give your thief some Mage Spells skill so he can cast Unlock Doors.

[Slawbug]

To be fair, it does cost you 12 MP per door to cast Unlock Doors. So there is a *teeny tiny* advantage to just using Tool Use on doors. How teeny tiny, you ask? Very teeny tiny.

[Dikiyoba]

So the caster doesn't have to strip to cast it every time they find a door if they aren't a "Natural Mage" or whatever the ability is called now.

 

Dikiyoba.

[Contra]

You know, I spent like 20-25 skillpoints (or something like that) to get my theif Mage Spells up to 5, which I combined with an incantors ring. He had Unlock Doors and 22 levels of Tool Use, and I discovered that my Mage with Mage Spells 17, Spellcraft 7 and Magery 13 could open the same doors as he could (Diff 28 doors), so it all seemed quite a waste.

I wouldn't do it again.

[Lilith]

Well, you still have to give someone Tool Use if you want to be able to disarm traps, since Unlock Doors doesn't work on those. If you also make the person you're giving Tool Use to into a full-time mage, he can unlock doors without needing a ridiculously high investment in Tool Use. And mage spells are handy for other things as well.

[Synergy]

Tool Use of 11 is an adequate amount to get by the important traps, and you can eventually get +3 Tool Use from items to add to that. 8-10 might even be enough, really. I stopped at 11 with a singleton and played the rest of the game and was able to get into everthing and disarm all traps (with an item or two to help sometimes).

[Alorael at Large]

There are doors that require enormous amounts of Tool Use or bonus on Unlock Doors, but most traps stay with reasonably low requirements. A mage/thief only needs enough Tool Use to bypass traps. A quarter of those Tool Use points will be added to the power of Unlock Doors, and the rest of the skill points that would have been put into Tool Use can go into Spellcraft, Magery, or whatever other skills make your mage better at being a mage.

 

Giving a thief the bare minimum in Mage Spells required to cast Unlock Doors is counterproductive. The bonus to the spell from Tool Use is less than the effect of Tool Use when picking locks, so the stacking is only useful on a character whose magical abilities, not thief abilities, are high.

 

—Alorael, who has decided that any party that needs to get past many doors and traps is also a party that wants to get past barriers, which means a mage/thief will meet all your disarming, Unlock Doors, and Dispel Barrier needs.

[Slawbug]

I believe the bonus works the other way around, Aloreal.

 

When picking a lock, you can open a lock of strength:

 

= Tool Use

 

When casting Unlock Doors, you can open a lock of strength:

 

= Tool Use + ( (Mage Spells + Spellcraft + Magery + Unlock Doors level) * 0.75)

[Lattan]

Quote:

The A4 manualEffect: Improves the caster’s Tool Use skill by about .75 plus .75 per point of spell strength.

So if I'm reading it properly the equation should be
= Tool Use + ( (Mage Spells + Spellcraft + Magery + Unlock Doors level +1) * 0.75)
Okay, so the +1 is probably not a big deal. But I originally thought the formula was a little different and went to the bother of opening the manual and all, so I figured we could get it right.

[Slawbug]

I'm not so sure. I think the base .75 might just be referring to the .75 you get for the first point of Unlock Doors, which you must have if you're casting the spell.

 

If you look at Synergy's excellent data here (you may want to ignore his slightly less excellent conclusions ) we see that a level 35 door was opened by

 

Edit: See below. Synergy's conclusions turned out to be excellent as well.

[Slawbug]

Aaahh! Synergy, I should never have doubted you. Something foul is at play here. The manual is wrong.

 

I added a line in the door script on my testing copy of A4 to tell me what my Unlock strength is. The result goes up 1 for every point of Tool Use, and goes up 2 for every 3 points of spellcraft/etc! Synergy was correct.

 

It also gets a bonus of 1... or a bonus of 2, with 2 points in Unlock Doors. I don't know if this is really a +1 bonus, or just a +.66 bonus -- it was enough of a chore walking through walls to Formello to buy the first two levels (hey, it's a testing copy). However, it is definitely an UD level bonus and not a flat +0.75 like the manual says.

[Synergy]

Hmm, well, I guess that derails the charmingly self-deprecating apology I was about to type up for my not-botched-after-all conclusions.

 

The minimum stats I used in testing were because I was using a saved endgame with a mage with those minimal stats to begin with, so I couldn't test lower conveniently. The results were very consistent, which is why I felt confident to make the extrapolations I did.

 

EDIT: My not-so-nimble fingers making typos.

 

ADD: One could have less than 15 Tool Use and boost other stats appropriately (to 48 total with the math I was using) to open all doors up to the level 35 door in Patrick's Tower. I noticed some level 60 or so doors Jeff had modified for the V1.0 release, but these are doors which quests or rewards eventually open. I haven't actually verified the highest level trap in the game, but it is no more than 15, and possibly less than 15. With the +3 Tool Use items, one could make do with 12 at the most, and possibly even a point or two less. The rest could be made up with more magic points as far as opening doors is concerned.

 

P.P.S. Pardon my penchant for stating the obvious...er, um, if it seems obvious, that is.

[Lattan]

Quote:

Originally written by Slartucker:
I added a line in the door script on my testing copy of A4 to tell me what my Unlock strength is. The result goes up 1 for every point of Tool Use, and goes up 2 for every 3 points of spellcraft/etc! Synergy was correct.

Wait, I'm confused. That's not how I'm reading what Synergy said.

Quote:

Originally written by Synergy:
Tool Use Jump from 0-1 counts as 2 towards total (extrapolation)
Tool Use Jump from 1-2 counts as 1 towards total (extrapolation)
Tool Use Jump from 2-3 counts as 2 towards total (extrapolation)
Tool Use Jump from 3-4 counts as 1 towards total (extrapolation)
Tool Use Jump from 4-5 counts as 2 towards total (extrapolation)
Tool Use Jump from 5-6 counts as 1 towards total (extrapolation)
...
Tool Use = 1.5 x Tool Use points, and the total adjusted points for opening a Difficulty 35 door = 48 points.

Oh, and what's a "UD level bonus?" I clearly don't know my way around as well as I thought.

[Synergy]

Originally written by SNM:

Quote:

Originally written by Slartucker:

Quote:

The result goes up 1 for every point of Tool Use, and goes up 2 for every 3 points of spellcraft/etc! Synergy was correct.

Wait, I'm confused. That's not how I'm reading what Synergy said.

Spellcraft or Magery or Mage Spells = 2/3 strength of Tool Use

Tool Use = 3/2 strength of Spellcraft or Magery or Mage Spells

Tool Use = 1.5 strength of Spellcraft or Magery or Mage Spells

 

Quote:

Oh, and what's a "UD level bonus?" I clearly don't know my way around as well as I thought.

Eh, don’t feel bad. I’m scratching my head too...I was guessing “UnDetermined”? The only thing UD means to me is "United Dairies", a surrealistic record label from the UK.

[Lilith]

"Unlock Doors level bonus", I believe.

[Slawbug]

Yeah. Come on guys