Hmm; never agreed to kill Saul so I didn't know that was a way to get the chalice. By that time, there are better swords then Lord Arben's and you can't sell it so it seems a good trade to me (ie, I totally agree).
I forgot about the lock picked skill book. In addition, although I never did it, I assume when you pay the 5000g to unlearn all of your skills that you can use them any way you wish meaning one can have lock pick early then delete it later. The skill book makes me feel better about another thing too - I kept thinking that it would be easy to make lock pick more meaningful by sometimes having keys inside locked chests rather then lying around. The game already does this sort of thing with requiring mind read to get many items. For example reading the larian's, er, librarian's (ghost) mind to be able to read a book that increases something (skills, I think).
