Re: DM: Skills vs. Stats

From: leeme@cnsvax.uwec.edu

Date: Thu, 27 May 1993 23:27:03 +0000

In article <1993May27.055201.8431@rdii.com>, jas@rdii.com (Jim Smith) writes:
>
> Skills are used as bonuses when fighting in the arena.  The six skill
> types are attack, defense, parry, riposte, initiative and decisiveness.
> Each single skill represents an additional 5% bonus to that particular
> skill type.  Your warrior starts with a certain number of skills, based
> on attributes and fighting type.  For instance, slashers start with high
> attack, initiative and decisiveness, while TP's start with high defense,
> parry and sometimes riposte.  When you get a total of 16 skills (or a
> 80% bonus) you get an "EXPERT" rating in that skill.  You can also get
> "ADVANCED EXPERT" at 20 skills, "MASTER" at 26 skills, "ADVANCED MASTER"
> at 34 skills and "GRAND MASTER" at some point after that. (Probably at
> 44 skills but I don't know for sure.)  Some warriors can start with

All correct, plus one more level that Donny II got when I left.

For the new DM player:
Expert            80%
Advanced Expert  100%  +4 skills
Master           130%  +6 skills
Advanced Master  170%  +8 skills
Grandmaster      220%  +10 skills
Archmaster       280%  +12 skills

> experts in certain skills.  I have a slasher that started with experts
> in init and riposte.  You gain skills one of two ways, either by training
> skills during arena fights, or by training certain stats above certain
> levels.  There are all sorts of charts that have devised to show which
> stats affect which skills at which levels.
>
> Now, you have to be cautious here, because timing is everything.  If you
> wait too long to train stats, you might get transfered to ADM sooner and
> miss out on training your stats.  The reason THAT is bad, is that when you
> go to ADM, the stat raise percentage chance is RESET so that you are back
> to having a WL * 5 / 1 percent chance of raising a stat on your first turn
> of ADM.  (Isn't this a lovely system!)  This makes it very feasible to raise
> high WL characters 6 or 8 times without huge effort.  By the way, there is
> a limit of 21 on stats in regular DM, but there is NO limit in ADM.

I think I see why you have a misconception on raising stats past 5 times.
ADM stat raises go first 3 are all regular chance, then from there it goes
back to regular attempts of half chance, then quarter chance, then those
really low percentages for raising a stat.  Even with my characters that
had 25 WL in ADM, that 6th raise was tough, and the 7th on were pretty much
impossible.

There is NO limit in ADM??!!! We are not playing the same game.  The limit
on stats in ADM is 25.  Which brings back the old story of character designs.
If you don't plan on being around til Primus, you might as well start with
a 21 in a stat.  If you do plan on staying around, it's sometimes better
to start with a 17 in a stat (then after 8 raises you'll have that 25! and
the extra 4 points on initial design can go elsewhere).

> You tend to get the skills you use the most, i.e. attack, init and dec for
> slashers, so it is fairly easy to get 2 or 3 skill areas maxed out before
> you need to start training stats.  It's a very "touchy feely" sort of thing,
> and every manager has his own system for predicting when to train what.
> My understanding is that once you raise the most important skills for a
> given warrior by 20 (like attack, init, and decise for my slasher), you
> should then start raising the stats that would further enhance those skills.
> A warrior with a WT of 17 will generally average about 2 skills/fight.  A
> 13 WT averages around 1. (Your mileage may vary, tax and dealer prep extra ;-)

It's tough to judge when to raise stats.  Usually, WT, WL, and DF shouldn't
be touched until you have 120 skills.  If you had 20 PAR and 20 ATT skills,
then it's an easy choice of raising STrength to anything you want.  A side
note: example of a lunger who has maxed in every skill area except PAR.  He
has 15 PAR skills and has waited 4 months to get those last 5 PAR skills.
He has a 17 WT, 21 WL and has raised CN 5 times, ST to 14 and really wants
to do GOOD damage one of these days (he's size 4, of course ;) ).  Should
you give up on those last 5 PAR skills and start cranking all your stats?
In this case, I would.  A lunger that has to parry shouldn't be in the game.
Crank the WL to 25, WT to 22, ST to 17, etc! The 25% loss in PAR for a lunger
isn't worth waiting another year for.  If it was your last 5 DEC skills,
though....

Mike Lee

> OK everyone, how accurate is this?
>
> Jim
> --
> jas@rdii.com                | aka Mundamugu, witchdoctor, headshrinker and team
> James A. Smith, Sr. Engineer| manager of Zulus from Hell in Delarq Tor (DM 58).
> Racal-Dana Instruments Inc. | Currently: 12-20-3 (8 DA). Founding Member of the
> #include <std.disclaimer>   | Brotherhood of Nasty Killers (BONK) Local 58.

References

DM: Skills vs. Stats
jas@rdii.com (Jim Smith)
Thu, 27 May 1993 05:52:01 +0000

Referenced By

DM: Skills vs. Stats
jas@rdii.com (Jim Smith)
Thu, 27 May 1993 05:52:01 +0000