Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Why Skill Books?

One alternative could be allocating skill points spent on skills, on skill trees, giving access to the skills/spells you want. This way Larian could put in some passive abilities as well, to even further give customization options.

...I don't see the logic or point of making people buy skill books. To me it's a distraction and an annoyance and gets in the way...

That this sort of comment that lead Bioware where it was/is, and more generally where PC AAA RPG are.

Here some more example:
- Why have the complex points per level, this level up 1 to attribute, this other level up 1 to talents, this level up 1 to skills, this other level up 2 to skills? It's pointless and just get in the way.
- Why have the weapon/item damage and repair system? It's pointless and just get in the way.
- Why have to search skill books and buy them? It's pointless and just get in the way.
- And so on.

I'd highlight that a lot of caution need be applied about that sort of remarks. The point is in an RPG there's many gameplay elements that aren't relative to the core gameplay. If you look at them independently they won't survive the examination and the logic would be to remove them. and you get simplified RPG.

All those elements, level up complexity, damages and repair mechanism (streamlined a lot during Early Access), complexity about books to find and buy, identification system, some more, are building a RPG layout giving more substance to the RPG and make it less dumbed down. Each seems more or less pointless but the whole is meaning something.

i would suggest a few behaviours that could slightly alleviate some of the complaint:

1) whenever you see a book seller mark it on the map writing what type of book it sell, so you at least have not to run between many location trying to remember where it was the one you search
2) when you see a book of a skill you definitely would use buy it immediately then put it in a bag, when you levelup and free some more skill slot open the bag and see what you have at disposal without need of going back to town.
3) put one of the pyramid near the seller you use the most so that you could instantly teleport to him wherever you are


I understand the complain about the skillbooks, they are not a perfect solution for everything but they are not so bad.

i will try to respond to some complaints:

unrealistic: you should simply think of the skillbooks as of magic books that when read bestow some skill that the writer impressed in it and then the magic charge disappear and became a useless (or blank) book, it's a think that existed in D&D 30+ year ago but it was much more rare, in divinity everyone with craft high could do it, so it's reasonable that there are more books available and seller specialized in it.
the characters are busy people, they need shortcuts in the learning process that usually take many many years
for a warrior maybe it's realistic to learn new trick fighting, but for the same warrior it would be rather unrealistic to level up, put one skill point in water magic, and out of the blue learn to cast three spells.


limit to freedom: the randomness of what is available could be upsetting for someone used for example to diablo3 where you could continually respeck and try new combination, or simply had a specific idea of what is character must evolve into, especially for someone that want to make a pure melee fighter or pure thief assassin;
for other people (myself included) it could instead be a stimulus to try some skill that you would instead skip and find new synergies from the group abilities, it's rather a boon to people that would instead stick to a specific build and never experiment the variety of the game


break of immersion: levelling up and feeling forced to interrupt the current quest and go back to town to acquire skillbooks is a totally subjective complaint, even stopping the advancement in the quest to think what skill you will improve is a break of immersion in the story.
you could simply wait that you end the quest for a resting period in the town where you relax a bit and improve yourselves, even in the pen and paper d&d you doesn't make the levelup during a fight or a playing session, you wait for a break in the story.
also with all the teleport options (the pyramids expecially) you could avoid all the walking and be back to questing in no time.