Maximizing Skill points

[Skrat]

I am sure I am not the first and only one to do this, but I discovered a way to maximize the allocation of skill points. Whenever I move up a level, I go to one of my safe areas and dump everything that I am wearing and carrying. This way I appear to be "bare" and the cost for each of the skills drops a little. For example, by dropping the Girdle of Strength, my Strength points drop down, which makes buying more Strength points cheaper. Like I said, it is probably nothing new to everyone else, but I thought it was a good way to spend my hard-earned points!

[Lilith]

Quote:

Originally written by Skrat:
For example, by dropping the Girdle of Strength, my Strength points drop down, which makes buying more Strength points cheaper.

Uh, no it doesn't. The points you get from items aren't factored into the skill cost in the first place.

[Skrat]

I guess I stand corrected. I thought that the skills cost more as you go up in each category. I was delusional! I could have sworn that when I had fewer points in some of the categories, I could dump some items and bring the cost down.

[Lilith]

Skills do cost more as you increase them, but increases from items don't count.

 

(Increases from scripted events, like the two Spellcraft boosts and one Dexterity boost you can get, do count toward cost, so if you're a compulsive optimiser it makes sense to hold off on getting them until late in the game. I'm pretty sure increases from canisters count as well, but most of the stat-increasing canisters are found late in the game anyway.)

[Skrat]

So do you hang onto your points and accumulate them, or spend them right away?

[Punctuation rains from the heavens]

I know scripted events and canisters counted towards cost in G1 and (I think) G2, but I thought that was no longer the case. Actually, canisters I'm not sure about since there are so few stat-boosting ones in G4, but I seem to recall the Dillame Luck boost not moving the skill cost at all.

 

Trainers, though -- the people you can buy up to skill 2 in a skill from with money -- do increase the cost.

[Dikiyoba]

Originally by Slartucker:

 

Quote:

I know scripted events and canisters counted towards cost in G1 and (I think) G2...

Except that G1 doesn't have cost increases. Dikiyoba can confirm the increase in cost for scripted events in G2, though.

[Lilith]

Quote:

Originally written by @:
I seem to recall the Dillame Luck boost not moving the skill cost at all.

It's only a +1 boost, so it may well have not done so immediately, since skill cost only increases every second time you raise it. I'm pretty sure it does count, though.

[Punctuation rains from the heavens]

Whoops, I was thinking about spellbooks and canisters counting towards trainer limits in G1 and G2. I'm pretty sure trainer limits are based off the same hidden variable as skill cost, though.

 

I may be remembering the result wrong, but I know I tested putting points into Luck to see if it affected the cost at all.