Special Skills worth unlocking in Avernum 6

[Sade]

Like the title says, which Special Skills do you think are worth unlocking? Using Skill Points, not trainers etc. Any character in your party does.

[Drayk Armitage]

I didn't notice this particular bug in UBB.threads polls until now. Percentages (and hence, display widths) for questions where you can choose any number of answers, are given out of the total number of answers given, not the total number of respondents, which makes the display widths lame and the percentages mostly useless. Sigh. Not the worst of the UBB.threads poll problems, though.

[Øther]

Quick strike-You raise it enough, you get two attacks per turn. I don't think I need to say any more,

 

Magical efficiancy- It is good for your spellcasters to be able to cast several good spells without them completely draining their energy.

[Soul of Wit]

Parry is not getting enough love. I also voted for Resistance so that your true spell casters have something to do after getting efficiency up to double digits.

[Dantius]

Parry is GREAT for singletons, as it helps avoid the constant stunning that, frankly, is a real pain (or lethal). Magical Efficiency is really good now, and my singleton mage finds it very useful.

[The Mystic]

Magical Efficiency is good for my spell-heavy playing style, since I need all the spell energy I can get.

 

Quick Action is wonderful when combined with Dual Wielding; with the extra attack, he who strikes first ends the combat after a second.

[waterplant]

Lethal Blow has got me over the line in some tough combats. I try to get everyone a point in this to give the chance of landing a devastating attack occasionally. QS, ME and BM are still priority.

[Sade]

Why is the Pathfinder skill so disliked?

 

I mean, it has pretty low requirements; everyone using magic and/or going for Anatomy should buy 2 Intelligence anyway, and 6 Nature Lore costs no more than 12 SP either.

 

Initial cost of training Pathfinder is mere 1 SP, so buying the first couple of points of it is nearly free.

 

In addition, "Poisoned" is arguably the most frequent negative Magical Effect in the game (after "Stunned", perharps). The damage done by poison is usually far from insignificant, too.

 

What changes would the skill need to make it worthwhile?

[Drayk Armitage]

It isn't horrible, but its effects are pretty negligible comapared to other special skills -- and, importantly, compared to Hardiness and Luck. Since it has become standard in A6 (particularly on Torment) to put a good chunk of points into those skills, Poison and Acid resistances get up to a reasonable level on their own. Bonuses from Pathfinder aren't useless, to be sure, but they just aren't critical.

[waterplant]

Are there actual 'pathfinding' benefits. I imagine Pathfinder would prevent that annoying occurrence where instead of moving the required 1 square to hit, the character runs around the target, sometimes using all AP in the process.

[Drayk Armitage]

Nope, it doesn't. And that annoying occurance isn't intentional. Apparently pathfinding is harder to implement than it seems like it would be.

[Randomizer]

Jeff's pathfinding algorithm is strange. It doesn't do what he wants it to and after several tries during beta testing to fix the problems it still isn't working right.

 

My worst experience was in GF4 in the Expert Area where I tried to move my creations back to the essence pool to recharge and watched my creations split up into two groups and take completely different paths resulting in half my creations dying.

[Drayk Armitage]

The issues moving multiple characters long distances I can understand. What's harder to understand are the problems moving a single PC 3 spaces away during combat. When the algorithm chooses a route that results in incomplete travel due to being "slowed down" by an enemy, rather than an equally accessible route that does not border any enemies and would result in complete travel, I can only assume it is because the algorithm either does not check for adjacent enemies, does not check correctly, or has some problem seeing the alternate but equally simple route. Right?

[Jerakeen]

Originally Posted By: waterplant

Are there actual 'pathfinding' benefits. I imagine Pathfinder would prevent that annoying occurrence where instead of moving the required 1 square to hit, the character runs around the target, sometimes using all AP in the process.

Bet it wouldn't.