Larian Studios Forums Divine Divinity (English) Suggestions Fixing broken skills -- what would you like evened

I'm just curious which skills people would like to play with, but, due to something broken, can't use. Lemme get the ball rolling with a few of mine:

Deathblow/Death Strike/Hammer Mastery: I'm not sure if these abilities stack; it'd be nice if, when wielding a Deathblow (5) maul, you could have up to a 15% chance of instantly killing something. However, thanks to insanely high spiritual resistances, these abilities are more or less pointless. I understand noncorporeal critters like spectres resisting this, but why do rats, bees and snakes have some super invulnerability to getting their heads thumped?

Spear Mastery/Boomerang/Spiritual Warrior: Spear Mastery is nearly reasonable as far as cost/damage goes, Boomerang and Spiritual Warrior are rediculously expensive. Could these abilities work with the enchantments on the weapon? If you had a Mana Drain (5) weapon, that would alleviate the costs tremendously (and you could hurl spiritual and fire damage weapons around).

Summon Vermin/Summon Skeleton: I'm not sure what the point of these skills are. Neither summon has any staying power, and why would I want to summon just one skeleton when I could summon 5? And why would I summon rats at all? If the rats had something that made them worth keeping around, I'd love to see it. Perhaps they could release a cloud of poison when killed (plague rats)? Suggestions?

Pickpocket: Beyond its arguable use in one quest, you never get away with this, nor do you get anything good that you couldn't just trade for. The risks of using it are also too steep. Could there be some way to give NPCs an inventory of things they won't trade, but could be lifted off of them? Guards would be less willing to give up their weapon, but if it could be nicked while it was in their scabbard...

Other thoughts?

Well I have heard of broken skills, True Shot being one of them. Ranger Sight is just useless since Elven Sight give you a better sight bonus. I know there are others, and there was a few rather large threads on this topic back on the old board, so I'm sure this'll get a lot of posts.

I am not sure what skills are broken, exactly. It would be nice, however, if they made one like the Survivor's Instinct only for mana. Just my opinion. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I second that, Luna <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />. BTW, you changed your nick, right?
It's on the tip of my tongue... Please,reveal it to me
Kiya

AaahhhhhhhHHaaaa! Finally somebody agrees with what i should have said months ago.... good point! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/up.gif" alt="" />

then y didnt u say it?


is there a bug with rangers sight and elven sight where u get to sdee the whole map.

One survivor skill only for mana,thats the idea.

shudnt it be a mage skill? cause normally mages r the only ones to use a lot of mana. cause day weak

nope one [color:"blue"] MANA [/color] spell for all...
don't you use restoration, or lockpick or pickpocket,
or any others...
no matter what race you may be?
it's a good idea! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />

ahhh right i understand.

hmm. rigth. I'm getting the idea

<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/question.gif" alt="" /> Don't know how quickly mana is used up in <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" /> yet. Maybe I'll wish for that skill when I start playing the wizard <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mage.gif" alt="" />. Until then, the skills I have as a warrior suffice. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

Recharging mana would be nice.
Also, there *are insanely high resistances in creatures that make the fear skill and the curse skill near useless at one or two skill points...
Very expensive to spend 5 skill points on either of them just to reasonably curse a basic enemy lowly enough to use polymorph or charm.

Necroshift dissapointedd me as well.. at level 24 and beyond (it seems, ,If i'm wrong someone please tell me)
it allows you to inhabit a dead creature but the creature you inhabit can't attack most other creatures...unless the 'other creatures' are that creature's natural enemies. With necroshift i'd like to be able to attack anyone I want...I thought that skill would increase my power greatly but its only a cute looking invisibility spell, really.

Survivor's Curse is cumulative; even at level 1, you can cast it repeatedly to drop the targets resistances.

Hi Raze. You helped me with a performance issue a while back. I just ended up playing in on another computer; the game is awesome.

Yeah, you can cumulate curse which I think is its saving grace..
At level one or two I think it consumes too much mana and although it freezes the enemy in place for a moment, its too slow to be of good use in a heated battle with other baddies closing in..although I suppose with certain elemental spells using curse can be quite helpful in the same situation.. I decided to play using only path of lore skills.
with little elemental ability its been hard to find a good use for curse, a skill which decreases the enemy's elemental resistances.
At level 30 my charachter is still breathing which says that its possible to get by with little to no attack-based skills.

Quite welcome, as I was burning to play as a charachter with only very high level odd 'edge' skills. I have collected some magic skills in my quests which really help my charachter in battle.
I've found that using level 5 blind with level one summon skeleton wall does great with bosses.

I would like a pure summoner to be a viable build. The first change would be full experience when your minions kill enemies.

Also, I would like aura of command to work properly. Sometimes your minions won't follow you when you cast it, sometimes they turn against you, sometimes you can just keep casting it and have 15 minions (although I can't really complain about that little glitch).

Death scorpions should be weakened, or should not be able to have aura of command cast on them (or both).

The dreadknight needs to keep his red lightning attack when aura of command is cast on him. He's just too weakened without it.

I'd like the skill "Transfer Powers" to have a noticeable effect on my minions. As of now, I have no idea what it actually does.

One thing I definitely like about being a summoner in Divinity: You can cast beneficial spells, (Aura of Guarding, Spellshield, Restoration, etc.), on your minions.

Oops! I think Larian stuffed up and you automatically assume the allignment of the corpse. I think the game needs to include disguises. While disguised (and undiscovered) you can pass creatures without being attacked, but your alignment doesn't change. Then you can attack any enemy by clicking on them.

One little mousey at level one summon vermin would definately be a more helpful ally if it exploded into a poison cloud. Although you'd have to be careful because you could be poisoned too.
Now if the summon vermin spell summoned a rediculous amount of mice...say 10 per level...that would be nice. They wouldn't even have to be poisonous, cause the sheer number of them would overwealm the enemy.
With summon skeleton, I think that you can summon up to 5 according to how many points you have invested in the skill.
The topic of the benefits and weaknesses of pickpoceting is interesting, in my mind the reputation system is related to it.
If you've invested precious points into pickpocketing it aught to definately net you some valuable stuff. Like, the helmet off of the guy's head, or the ..ah, the charmed personal items of npcs.
Perhaps random people carry gigantic 10000 + sums of money, or npcs randomly (and rarely) have some uber-rare item. Good gifts would encourage the use the skill. Especially since if your charachter gets caught and goes to jail, or if someone simply sees you you loose so much reputation!
Someone mentioned a more dynamic reputation system with specific actual reputations like 'street rat' or 'sewer dweller' or 'meteor man' ..
based on player patters, behavior, and what the npcs see of it.
Its fun to build a specific identiy in a game, i'd say thats the funnest part of D&D styled rpgs..
Another topic for another thread i guesss but i'd be interested to hear other's ideas for what specific reputations there could be, instead of the 'thermometer' system in divinity right now.

That could be interesting. What if your reputation could reflect your combat style. You can be known as the worlds greatest swords-(wo)man, or the master of fire. When you reach the later bosses, they know your reputation and take precautionary measures against your favoured attacks. How do you prepare against the prepared? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/evilgrin1.gif" alt="" />

if u happen to kill 75% of the game's pests such as spiders, bugs, rats, ...., u'll have a reputation of PEST CONTROLLER. imagine when u finally meet demon of lies;

demon of lies: hey, i recognise u! i saw u on CBN(crystal ball news)! u won the award for being pest controller of the year! dude, how did u handle all that gore & disgust? not that i haven't seen all those but for a human, MAN! u're awesome. u know, .... my dungeon has a little rat problem & i'd appreciate it if ...