What new uses would you like to add for existing skills?

[SinsI]

Quite a lot of skills are too limited and can surely use improvement or additional functions - i.e. Law, Metallurgy, Woodcraft...

Some of my ideas:
- use Woodcraft to create and place doors, or to dismantle existing locked ones without triggering traps
- add "herb pot" item. It would allow to passively use Gardening to generate some herbs, akin to the way SI replicates itself.
- use Metallurgy to increase durability for metal items.
- use Metallurgy + Fletchery + Smithing to create higher metal ammo.
- use Law as additional defense against Corruption, similar to Appearance use boost from awhile ago.

What do you think of them? What ideas do you have?

[Hexedian]

I love the idea of the Law skill protecting against corruption (Perhaps only for lawful characters?)

Maybe concentration should give a chance to not spot an enemy until they move closer, when doing an intense activity such as reading spellbooks?

[JellySlayer]

Some random ideas:
-Law: Increases alignment gains from performing lawful actions (maybe also increases alignment losses from chaotic ones). This isn't necessarily desirable, I guess, but good for lawful ultras if nothing else. Small combat bonuses for lawful characters vs. chaotics might also be appropriate.
-Listening: Chance of revealing invisible opponents or opponents in darkness for a few turns. Maybe reveal their location until they move, and then you have to pass a listening check to see if you can see them again.
-Metallurgy: Some bonuses to smithing (more ingot generation from ores?) would make sense. Maybe has a chance to get stethoscope information vs. constructs (since you can see what they're made of and how they work)?
-Survival: Small reduction in inventory damage, at least to some sources (because you have a better idea of how to stow your gear to keep it dry/protected from heat or cold, etc.)

[sylph]

Disarm traps:
Small (5-10%) chance of producing:
- potion of water (water trap)
- crystal of light (light trap)
- huge rock (stone block trap)
- musical instrument (alarm trap)
- crystal of fire (fire trap)
- stack of arrows (arrow trap)
- viper pet (viper trap)
- spear (spear trap)

The chance doesn't have to be high - just enough to bother using the skill (which I currently only find a use for in the gremlin cave)

[boat]

I dont want to unbalance things, but

swimming should train your dex/strength even if its slightly.
bridgebuilding should be made more effective. Perhaps reducing log sizes/ increasing hatchet spawn/ have logs form into "bridge sections" that you can carry to your destination and (u)se
haggling - make it automatic? and change how how success/fail work. Perhaps change it to a % reduction based on your skill. Not sure how this would affect the "Roll". Maybe do a roll for each item that you buy sell and reduce its price accordingly

[SinsI]

bridgebuilding should be made more effective. Perhaps reducing log sizes/ increasing hatchet spawn/ have logs form into "bridge sections" that you can carry to your destination and (u)se
Maybe you could build bridges out of clay + stones, with some wooden sticks added? Those things are far easier to find in the dungeon...

[boat]

Disarm traps:
Small (5-10%) chance of producing:
- potion of water (water trap)
- crystal of light (light trap)
- huge rock (stone block trap)
- musical instrument (alarm trap)
- crystal of fire (fire trap)
- stack of arrows (arrow trap)
- viper pet (viper trap)
- spear (spear trap)

The chance doesn't have to be high - just enough to bother using the skill (which I currently only find a use for in the gremlin cave)

I think this was discussed before, but a pit trap could have a chance of recovering a blanket, and furthermore the blankets have a small chance to be water/fire proof.
I like the arrow idea because you get a similar stack
The spear idea needs tuning because its easier just to milk the trap to get as many spears as possible.
The other trap ideas are solid.

[boat]

Maybe you could build bridges out of clay + stones, with some wooden sticks added? Those things are far easier to find in the dungeon...

I like this idea.

I think we have to defend against the biggest arguement with this is that in the wilderness you are quite literally crossing big rivers and deep water. Also, the bridge in general has to support (unlimited)? weight. I dont think a few sticks from a door will would be enough. Although, you can get into a debate about realism really quick with the game relating to monster,dungeon, and door sizes.

[SinsI]

I dont think a few sticks from a door will would be enough.

A log weights 800 st = 40 kg.
Normal wooden door weights 35-45 kg. If you can create a bridge section from a log, you can certainly create one from a door.

[FnrrfYgmSchnish]

Maybe not especially useful for those who've memorized the alignments of all the monsters, but it'd be kinda neat if the "Law" skill would have a chance of telling you a monster's alignment when you look at it (like how the "it is ____-aligned" message gets added to the "this is a ____, it is slightly injured, etc." line after you cast Know Alignment on something.)

[kevintrimble]

I think a nice improvement to bridge building would be if you could make temporary bridges from rocks. Same restrictions as ice bridges but easier to make then log bridges. Also if you could deconstruct dungeon tiles adjacent to water tiles and gain rocks. So you turn the area around rivers into water but you gain half the rocks necessary to one water tile to earth.

[sylph]

I like a lot of these bridge-building ideas. Building a rock bridge in a dungeon could simple use the current pickaxe method of turning walls into rocks, and could just require something like 20 rocks and 2 clay per bridge section.

Dungeon door bridges are a similarly interesting prospect.

I also really like'd Kevintrimble's idea about having these 'improvised' bridge sections be load-limited, like ice bridges.


My take on bridge building is this:
Applying bridge building next to a water tile gives the player a choice:
uild a bridge section or [i]mprovise a bridge

'build a bridge' requires a log. It takes 1 ingame turn, and [B]does not waste the log if it fails.

'improvise a bridge' creates a weak (2000s limit?) bridge out of either rocks+clay, or wooden sticks. It creates a weak bridge that can collapse under too much weight.

[boat]

I totally vote for the improvised bridge building. That's a really fair boost to the skill.

[BenMathiesen]

Woodcraft: less likely to encounter hostile trees in animated forest (or a chance of hostiles spontaneously turning neutral each turn); acts like (stacks with?) Find Weakness against plant creatures; increased chance for animated trees to drop logs and kicked doors to drop sticks; reduce weight of logs (probably requires adding new items, but it would be neat if each 20 pts in Woodcraft reduced weight of logs that you cut by 60s, without changing functionality), stack with or increase the chance of success for bridge building skill.

Metallurgy: I think this should work like gemology--without the skill you maybe have a 10% chance per dig of finding ore, with the skill it can go up to 75%. Increase the chance that successful smithing will add a bonus to an item, and/or increase the ceiling for such bonuses. Acts like Find Weakness (stacks with?) against metal creatures.

First Aid: I think every class should be able to use this on other creatures, for regular damage and to stop bleeding.

Healing: I think the Healer should be able to use this on other creatures from L1, to try to fix any condition (e.g. poisoned pets).

Ventriloquism: The Ice Queen loves fools. Use it on her to make her fall in love with your character.

[YourMum]

Some random ideas:
-Listening: Chance of revealing invisible opponents or opponents in darkness for a few turns. Maybe reveal their location until they move, and then you have to pass a listening check to see if you can see them again.

That would be awesome. Maybe combined with a perception check if you're going to get a visual clue. If not as described then at least an ocassional message like "you hear footsteps close by" to indicate there is an invisible creature within a certain range. As invisible as it may be I can't see an Ogre Magus being particularly stealthy.

[kevintrimble]

Listening could increase the chances of monsters offering peace. Appraising could give a small increase to critical hits. Courage could train appearance and will power. Survival could increase the chances that you keep 1 hp instead of dying. Woodcraft could decrease the chances of paper and wooden items being destroyed. metaluragy could decrease the chances of metal item destruction.

[YourMum]

Survival is a big bag'o'shite indeed. I think it would be nice if you could get more out of it during normal play, far away from the wilderness. Can you use it to get fish out of rivers? Would be nice. What about the rooms that are "teeming with life"? Could a character with survival not pick out some edible fungus or grubs or something?

[boat]

These are some good ideas going up, sinsi - can you edit your original post and put everything up in a table of sorts. I think a few of the ideas could use tweaking but it would help to organize everything before we start an RFE

[SinsI]

Survival is a big bag'o'shite indeed. Can you use it to get fish out of rivers? Would be nice.
Hint: try it.


These are some good ideas going up, sinsi - can you edit your original post and put everything up in a table of sorts. I think a few of the ideas could use tweaking but it would help to organize everything before we start an RFE

Not yet. Since almost every post is plain addition of new uses - instead of discussion - it would be a needlessly long duplicate of all the posts.
Maybe later, if we have 5+ pages.

[sylph]

How about:
Survival - gives a chance to continue playing when on negative hitpoints. survival 100 could have something like a 50% chance. Checked every turn until the roll fails and the player dies.

To be honest though, I quite like survival as it is. I think I just like taming racoons with fish!

[Joe]

- use Metallurgy + Fletchery + Smithing to create higher metal ammo.


Let me add to that: use Metallurgy + Fletchery + Smithing + Alchemy + Necromancy to create a unique Golem slave. Creating them would automatically alter and fix your name into 'Frankenstein' and add a special message in the log at the end of the game. Doing so on the Metaplane and having him kill AnDoR dRaKoN would make him rebel against you, resulting in a unique death message ('Frankenstein was killed by his own godly creation')

Oh well, maybe I shouldn't spam this thread :p

[grobblewobble]

Awesome, Joe. Although I'm not sure how fletchery is involved? Is it a golem that can shoot missiles?

[Blasphemous]

Some of this has already been suggested in one way or another but I'd like to list my proposed improvements anyway:

Alchemy: Knowing the recipes should automatically identify necessary ingredients when they are found, including herbs.
It should also give the option to apply a potion to a monster instead of throwing the potion at it, like the case with quickling blood potions thrown at slow but powerful necromancer slaves or bard pets or all types of potions of healing used to heal pets or monsters you don't want to die (like bleeding, critically wounded cats). Applying the potion instead of throwing would produce a stronger effect to compensate for the extra actions and risk of going into melee range if the creature is hostile.

Healing: With this skill at 100, there should be a significant reduction of scars appearing due to healing tissue corruption. Gives CKs a bit more incentive to max out the skill asap and benefit from the corruption too instead of losing all of their Dx in a matter of 5k turns when fighting hard-hitting monster.

Listening: At 90-100, this skill should allow to determine which specific *THUMB* monster is on the same level and how many of them if there's more than 1.
I know you can already tell which monster you're dealing with by the frequency of thumbs but like mentioned above, if there's more than one, you're at a loss.

Tactics: This skill at 90-100 should allow the player to tell the chance to hit of a monster and how much damage it deals just by looking at it, since your tactical sense allows you to identify careful or sudden and violent movements just by looking at a creature.

Woodcraft: This skill always struck me as the most useless in the game and could be greatly improved if it allowed to repair weapons with wooden parts, if the character has a hatchet and wooden sticks/logs in inventory.
All spears, axes, maces etc. could be repaired using it. No more paying astronomic sums to the dwarven smith for repairing your broken pickaxe.
This assumes of course that when a pickaxe breaks, it means the wooden part of it is actually broken due to the strain that hitting rock with it puts on the haft.
I don't see how a pickaxe's metal head can break by hitting a rock, much less digging up a grave.
Also, you should be able to create wooden shields with this skill, assuming you have a hatchet and maybe some other items as of yet undetermined.

[sylph]

It should also give the option to apply a potion to a monster instead of throwing ... ... Applying the potion instead of throwing would produce a stronger effect to compensate for the extra actions and risk of going into melee range if the creature is hostile.
Are you sure? I'd say skipping the turn it usually takes to replace my missile weapon with a potion would already be too strong, even without a stronger effect.
Can't wait to start applying the phial of caladriel to humanoid opponents! ;)


Tactics: This skill at 90-100 should allow the player to tell the chance to hit of a monster and how much damage it deals just by looking at it, since your tactical sense allows you to identify careful or sudden and violent movements just by looking at a creature.
Love it!


Woodcraft: This skill always struck me as the most useless in the game and could be greatly improved if it allowed to repair weapons with wooden parts, if the character has a hatchet and wooden sticks/logs in inventory.
All spears, axes, maces etc. could be repaired using it. No more paying astronomic sums to the dwarven smith for repairing your broken pickaxe.
I quite like this as well. I'd say it sounds a bit powerful, but in all fairness when we had the 'indestructible pickaxe' bug a few months ago, it never actually offered that much more game success chance, it just made digging feel a little less of a gold drain!

[_Ln_]

It should also give the option to apply a potion to a monster instead of throwing the potion at it, like the case with quickling blood potions thrown at slow but powerful necromancer slaves or bard pets or all types of potions of healing used to heal pets or monsters you don't want to die (like bleeding, critically wounded cats). Applying the potion instead of throwing would produce a stronger effect to compensate for the extra actions and risk of going into melee range if the creature is hostile.


Now, Wyrmy, be a good chaos dragon and open your mouth! Look how papa Blasphemous flies this plane filled with incredibly juicy cure corruption jam. Vrooom! Excellent, Wyrmy!

[boat]

To add to the listening idea: higher levels should give you the ability to detect monsters in a room like the stethoscope by (a)applying to the door.

[SinsI]

Knowledge of metals (metallurgy) should help you find weak points on metal monsters (i.e. steel zombies).