What skills shouldn't you invest pts in? - Spoilers

[Psycho]

I'm going through the game for the fourth time (and final one for now). This time I want to get the maximum out of my chars.
I know there are skills you can train so u don't have to waste level-up pts in them. I got a couple of them... I want to know if there are more.
I think I'm doing OK so far with my party. (Samurai-Monk-Lord-Bishop-Gadgy-Bard).
I finished the monastery (lower & upper) on expert and level1. I used Gregor to train ranged combat. I made sure everybody had ranged weapons, showed myself to Gregor and positioned myself so that I could see him through the two walls. He wants to go straight to you, so he's stuck and just defends -> ranged combat and bow/throwing to 15-25 pts for all chars. I had enough XP to go to level 5 with all chars. Then I switched all chars (except monk) to rogues and spend some time playing with the green slimes -> all chars now have 100 stealth and gadgeteer and bard an additional 50+ shield.
I will train Lock&Trap when I reach Arnika.
I know I can train Psionics, Alchemy, Earth and Mental for my Bishop.

Does anyone have other tricks to raise certain skills? All help is welcome.

I'm about to go to 3rd level and change all chars back to their original class. I think it's time to leave the monastery (Already 13 days gone).

Signed,
One sick Psycho

[ 04-16-2002, 03:06 PM: Message edited by: Psycho ]

[Oruboris]

Revealing my ignorance here, but how do you train stealth? Sounds really handy.

Oru

[Annheiser]

Should rethink your strategy.

I never bother to put any points into Communicatons, Mythology or Artifacts as they are pretty useless in general and go up pretty fast on their own.

However, you want to get all of your primary skills up to 75 cap ASAP. The faster you can reach that cap, the more time it has being exposed to consistent real life usage.

[otter]

i second Oruboris' question. I searched th word 'stealth' and didn't find any hints about that. Do you just get it in combat, along with your wpn & cbt skills? How many game-days of fighting does it take for them to get 100? I know my ninja gets stealth from combat, but not real fast--does the rogue just get it that much more often?

[Annheiser]

Stealth goes up as you are attacked by melee in combat. Sort of like Iron Skin. It goes up periodically and it's completely random. If you're impatient, you could devote 3 points into it after every level up. Sooner or later there isn't a whole lot of options to spend your points as you hit higher levels so putting them in Expert Skills is a choice.

[ 04-17-2002, 02:23 AM: Message edited by: Annheiser ]

[nameless crazy]

spoiler:
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For those who want to train stealth, just trap a weak enemy in a room(eg,the prison in lower monestery), place the char to be trained at the front position and choose defend and go with continous mode. You may then go and do other things like eating or have a sleep. The skill will rise automatically when the char is attacked and the enemy miss.

[Psycho]

Stealth:
I want the extra AC for all chars, thats why I changed them all to rogue. You put 2 left - 2 center - 2 right... and look for harmless monsters. The reason I do this first is because the green slimes in the monastery are perfect for stealth training... they miss all the time and unless you are at higher level, you find them all over the place. I put all chars on defend, make sure that there are only monsters in front, so I can retreat chars to the back row if their hp get below 7 (I never saw a green slime do more than 6 damage at a time), and hit continuous combat. (U wanna make sure you put difficulty on Novice to speed up skill-raising and reduce the risk of being hit). Then just relax, and check every 10 minutes at start (up to about 40stealth), then every half hour. Move injured chars to the back or just kill the slimes, rest and walk 10ft to find the next batch. Make sure you have more than one slime fighting you... if there`s only one, he can fall unconsious long enough to stop combat... it will start again immediately, but the chars are back in original formation.

If you`re happy with 50-60 Stealth it only takes 2-3 hrs to raise... I want it perfect, so I let it run over night and to my suprise in the morning 5 out of 6 had 100 stealth, 1 was killed. I ressurected her, finished the slimes and she had 96 stealth. Just put her in front on her own and it went up to 100 in 40 min.

The more chars you want to train, the longer it takes (duh), but it is by far less demanding than raising other skills... just keep half an eye on it.

Signed,
One sick Psycho

[swavek]

you can use the same tactic that psycho described to raise a fighter's shield skill. obviously, your fighter(s) has(/have) to be equipped with one for this to work.