Skill distribution: did you go +3/+4?

[CA_Obsidian]

Hello,

 

during the weekend, I re-started and re-leveled my party of 3 through B, 1, 2 and the 1st part of 3, because I was not really convinced of my skill-power-card feat choices. I am happy with my powers & card feats now, but am still not sure on where to put the 4th skill point.

 

In the first playthrough to midpoint of RotR (end of A3), I distributed my skill points as follows:

 

Merisiel: DEX +4

Kyra: WIS +4

Seoni: CHA +4

 

I was not too happy with that, feeling that the +4 was overkill on all of them and +3 would have been enough. +3 in my experience was/is the sweet spot for riskless "auto-closing" a lot of lower level locations. But how often will I have to close lower level locations from A4 to the end of the game? Requirements for closing locations go up to +12 later in the game afaik...

 

What do you think?

 

BTW, total number of skill points you can gain until the end of RotR will be +6, and a lot of builds here still go for a +4 in the main skill...

 

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2r81m?Rise-of-the-Runelords-We-Need-A-Snapshot-of

[Longshot11]

- Merisiel lacks a combat sub-skill bonus (melee or ranged) , so yeah - it's Dex all the way for her. The last points I drop into Wisdom (which seems to come up quite often), or Charisma, for easier ally acquisition.

- Kyra: it all depends how you play her. I hate being dependent on having a spell for combat, so I usually go Strength first, and bash things with my hands if I have to. Her Wisdom/Divine is awesome even without the upgrades. Alternatively, I'd dip 2 points into Wis to secure better spell recharges, then go 2 Strength, then go bck to Wis for another 2 points

- Seoni... well, yeah. Considering the small number of spells she gets, and that you'll probably often have to rely on her Arcane Blast - Charisma all the way. It also gurantees you free explores when you encounter Diplomacy allies (she's naturally good at this, but I seem to get disproportionally high amounts of 1 and 2 on her d12). Then maybe some Dex to boost her naturally good die.

 

On the whole, RotR is pretty combat-heavy, so you can't really afford to let your characters fall behind in terms of damage output. Again thoiugh, it all comes down to play style - you may love to discard cards for Meri's Backstab, so you fare fine with her combat, and then heal her back with Kyra. I personally dislike healing, and with 6-man party I can rarely afford to spend the time/allocation to do it.

[Rhygar]

Merisiel + 4 all the way, haven't thought about the next stat to add but maybe charisma for ally acquisition. It's + 4 because it's a dice game and every solid point in the main stat for her preferred combat style helps to stave off the bad rolls. Also preserve the blessings for other uses. Some of her weakness include a patent weakness in picking items (int d6, had an episode in quest mode she in a single turn lost me 4-5 deck blessings due to a wildcard power) which ironically are her favored cards btw, but at least in both specialized roles there's powers to mitigate it, so maybe int add too.

 

Kyra - somewhat a hybrid setup for me.3 wis, 1 str so far. Because of divine spell simply lacking in numbers she doesn't draw up enough of them for every non undead she will encounter.so it's back to melee skills for as bread and butter. Likely just 4/2 distribution at the end.

 

Seoni - 4 charisma definitely so far. As Longshot mentioned she stars in location heavy on allies and every bit counts toward making allies acquisition risk free especially at higher difficulty mode. Just as well it's her core combat skills statistic. Last 2 points haven't considered honestly.likely dependent on the locations she will handle mainly and the types of cards that poses her more difficulty which I haven't had a grasp of at this point

[Narkon27]

In my first playthrough (Merisiel, Kyra, Valeros) none made to the +4.

 

Merisiel: +3 dex, +1 cha

I regretted not going +4. I thought the bonus to charisma would make her better with ally checks, but it was not useful most of the time.

 

Kyra: +1 str, +3 wis

I regretted not going +2/+2. I thought I would depend on spells for combat, but Kyra's problem is she starts with way too few spells.

Even with 5 spells, she doesn't have much room for offensive spells because she also has to heal and provide support,

so I found she depends heavily on her weapon to be useful in combat. In my next playthrough I will replace her with Lini.

 

Valeros: +2 str, +2 cha

His base melee is amazing so he would probably be okay with just +1 in strength and give the extra +1 to dex. Haven't given it much thought,

but I will most likely stich with the +2/+2. He still only has 5 weapons in his deck, but he never had trouble finding weapons to recharge, so he rolls many dice anyway.

 

For the next playthrough which I will start today of tomorrow, I am thinking a team of 4: Valeros, Merisiel, Lini, Ezren/Lem

Edited May 30, 2016 by Narkon27

[Rhygar]

In my first playthrough (Merisiel, Kyra, Valeros) none made to the +4.

 

Merisiel: +3 dex, +1 cha

I regretted not going +4. I thought the bonus to charisma would make her better with ally checks, but it was not useful most of the time.

 

Kyra: +1 str, +3 wis

I regretted not going +2/+2. I thought I would depend on spells for combat, but Kyra's problem is she starts with way too few spells.

Even with 5 spells, she doesn't have much room for offensive spells because she also has to heal and provide support,

so I found she depends heavily on her weapon to be useful in combat. In my next playthrough I will replace her with Lini.

 

Valeros: +2 str, +2 cha

His base melee is amazing so he would probably be okay with just +1 in strength and give the extra +1 to dex. Haven't given it much thought,

but I will most likely stich with the +2/+2. He still only has 5 weapons in his deck, but he never had trouble finding weapons to recharge, so he rolls many dice anyway.

 

For the next playthrough which I will start today of tomorrow, I am thinking a team of 4: Valeros, Merisiel, Lini, Ezren/Lem

About valeros yea probably good idea to make him that bit more rounded and compensate his low blessing and ally count. He's always struck me as somewhat cookie cutter . You know, good at combat but little else. Would think it's probably not great to recharge all his newfound weapons though so as not to create a bloated deck filled with weapons.i get the distinct impression he's a great team player and as such maybe more suited to smaller parties ?

[Borissimo]

For my playstyle, there are only two characters in the game with any real decisions for their first four skill feats: Kyra and Lem. Everybody else maxes combat stat first. The reasons for this:

 

Runelords is very combat-heavy. Even Valeros will miss some checks after his strength is maxed. And if you don't max his strength, then every time you miss a combat check by 1 or 2 you'll wish you had. This is clear if you look at the numbers:

 

Assume a big weapon, like Bastard Sword + 1. Recharging that, a +4 strength Valeros rolls 3d10 + 8. There are monsters (not henchmen or villains, just monsters) in deck 3 with checks of 15. 15 - 8 = 7. Have you ever failed to roll 7 on 3d10? I sure have! If you leave strength at +1 or +2, now you need to get 9 or 10 on 3d10. Sure, you'll make that most of the time. But you'll make it even more of the time with a maxed out strength, and I just don't see +2 in charisma ever beeing worth as much as fewer missed combat checks.

 

Making your checks is imperative in a large party. Even my max-strength Amiri accepts sniper support from Harsk a good deal of the time. Yes, she was probably going to make those checks anyway. But "probably" isn't good enough when the price of failure is a wasted turn in a game that gives you too few turns to begin with.

 

Kyra and Lem are special because they have to choose whether to be blasters or weapon masters. This is one of the most strategically complex and difficult choices of the entire game, and I won't go into it fully here. In broad strokes, though: either you go with a weapon and accept putting points in an inferior stat to allow yourself to carry support/utility spells, or you go the blaster route and accept inconsistency and a lack of utility slots in exchange for a better stat boost and higher combat checks.

[Blave]

BTW, total number of skill points you can gain until the end of RotR will be +6, and a lot of builds here still go for a +4 in the main skill...

 

Don't you get +7 to your skills? We've got +4 so far (up to end of A3) and the game lists an additional skill feat 3 more times: A4.S1, A4.S4 and A6.S3.

 

Maybe Perils of the lost coast is not included in the card game or something?

[chainsawash]

 

BTW, total number of skill points you can gain until the end of RotR will be +6, and a lot of builds here still go for a +4 in the main skill...

 

Don't you get +7 to your skills? We've got +4 so far (up to end of A3) and the game lists an additional skill feat 3 more times: A4.S1, A4.S4 and A6.S3.

 

Maybe Perils of the lost coast is not included in the card game or something?

 

 

There should only be one skill feat reward in AD4, so one of those two should be a power feat. Unless it's changed for the digital version.

[LAntorcha]

Take the characters that have D12 as primal Skill. Then go max +4 on it. Then i pick their worst skill (D4) and maximize it. So you end with the best possible bonuses in the character with the less painfull skill bonus i their low-end characteristic, in case they are caught by a surprise roll.

 

Watch spellcasters recharge in auto... have fun!

[Kgk4569]

Kyra sux balls at fighting. At d6 str she is underpowered and doesn't have enough spells to back her up. I go STR first, so she can kill crap.

[jtrowell]

With melee at STR+2 she is surprisingly effective, even more so when against undead.

 

Once you give her weapon prof. and a pair of decent melee weapon, she start to do nicely against most opponent.

 

Granted, it might take a while to get her to an acceptable level, especially if you first want to level up her wisdom so her spell recharge is good enough, but i managed by pairing her with lem, as his bardic ability give her the small push that she might miss.

 

Those two combined have also enough heal ability that I usually use them as blessing and support spell machine, they don't care if they must discard a card, it is usually healed soon enough. With lem being able to echange any spell for one in his discard, I don't care too much if he fail to recharge his only cure (sometimes I even hope for it so he can cast it again the next turn), and Kyra has her healing ability has a fall back in case her only cure fail not recharge or is simply not available when I really need one.

[jtrowell]

One thing to note is that a lot of character that might seem to be not worth much with a weapon can greatly benefit from having the ranger in the party, his ability to recharge a card to give 1D4+X to any combat chek on another location can make any character with a decent weapon able to handle weak to average monsters without needing a blessing, and make handling strong monsters or even villains possibles with some sacrifices.

[da_mayor]

My problem is, I got her a good shield, so I have been avoiding two-handed weapons with her.  This is kind of a poor choice, overall...

[jtrowell]

That's one reason why I usually prefer armors to shields.

 

However, note that most of the time with a shield or armor you will want its protection against pre-check damage, like the scout ranged damage or the like, and in this case as those damage are not part of the check itself, you can still use your shield, it's only if you failed a combat roll with a two handed weapon that you won't be able to use the shield for the damage of the very same combat roll.