That's why Appraisal skill exists, and what Talents are for.
It is entirely deliberate that at some point, if your characters aren't keeping up with their studies about the world, they will end up having to rely on the locals to identify their acquisitions.
If that's the case, it seems somewhat pointless to even have another system for identifying items other than merchants. It's an obviously flawed design to tie identifying items to points in attributes and an ability which becomes less and less useful over time and eventually becomes worthless. Just only allow identifying items to be done at merchants or through specific items.
The
Knowledge ability is similarly flawed because (A) points put into that one are points not going into combat abilities. (B) You'll run out of useful information for Knowledge to reveal well before you max out the skill.
The proper balance for this scenario is for non-combatants to have a way to make combat easier.
Buy more grenades/better gear, get the XP from talky quests earlier, etc.
You seem to have missed what I was trying to say. What is a "non-combatant" doing as a party member in a Divinity game? The party size is too small and the amount of combat is too great for a non-combatant to be a good fit in this type of game.
That's the point.
If you put a point everywhere, you shouldn't just be able to use the best of everything.
You want that source skill that turns a poisoned person into a poison puddle? Stack Cruelty instead of spreading thin.
I don't think I understand how your system is supposed to work. Have you taken a look at all the skills in the alpha and classified them, putting them into the appropriate ability categories? Then, have you determined how many points into the abilities you'll need to unlock those skills?
Assassination Skills:
Charisma Skills:
Cruelty Skills:
Elementalism Skills:
Marksmanship Skills:
Martial Skills:
Rejuvenation Skills:
Tactics Skills:
Vampirism Skills:
I can't make any informed opinion unless I see what you have in mind - both where the alpha skills fit and the number of points in the ability needed to use them.
