Skill Prerequisites

[Zeita]

I was taking a look through the skill prereqs today and was rather struck by some of them.

The performing strings skill requires a 55 in strength, exactly the same amount as needed to, for example, wield an axe or a sword- and far more than a dagger that needs dex or a polearm that needs intelligence or a mace that needs nothing at all. I'm guessing that my point is that a lot of the prerequisites don't make sense, especially when compared with the requirements others. As far as I know, stats come into most calculations of how effective you are at using a given skill (especially in combat), so I'd personally like to do away with all prereqs for skills.

[Voxumo]

I've noticed this as well, particularly when it comes to some of the weapons. Like sword, to me it would make more sense for sword to require a prerequisite of Dex versus strength since Swordsmanship is typically more... fancy than a wielding a weapon such as an axe. Though strings requiring strength is weird...

[Taunya]

I'd like to second removing pre-reqs. Requiring 55 int for herbalism impacts my idea of rolling a somewhat... simple farm girl.

[Geras]

I'll be the dissenting voice here for tradeskills at least - I'd rather be prevented from taking a trade skill than unknowingly gimped in my craft permanently.

Now, that doesn't mean there aren't tonnes of skills that should have their pre-reqs changed. (Like strings)

[Zeita]

I was informed that some of these outliers are to ensure a balance so that it is difficult for individuals to learn all of the skills in game.

I've since done some research and data gathering on the 72 skills (and thank you to Leofrick for helping check magic skills for me) that TI has and it has confirmed my assumptions that the bias of 'most used' stat would be dexterity. Performing universally has prereqs on all skills, trade and covert almost universally, combat is a little over half, communication and survival have one each and magic has zero.

There are also a few outliers that have two or more prereqs, (Tracking, Steal and Mercantalism) although since most of these were done away with, I wonder if they were missed during the last review that mostly knocked reqs down to one stat per skil?

By and large, skills tend to fall into common sense requirements, except for the performing skils (4 use con, 1 uses dex, 1 uses charisma and 1 uses strength). I would suggest removing these instances of con and strength, as I wouldn't think that any of these abilities logically need these requirements and they're not particularly bardic in nature.

Alternately, if balance is the goal (clearly this is not my favoured approach) perhaps apply varying requirements to all of the lonely magic (Arien, Earth: Strength, Fire, Circadnanoth: Con) combat, language (intelligence or charisma for non native/non Lith) and survival skills.

If anyone has any interest in my excel list of skills with their corresponding requirements, category, subcategory and guild requirements, I'm happy to share it, or I could post it up here as a 'code' post.

[Voxumo]

Regarding Magic requiring a stat requisite, it is already fairly balanced on the simple fact that to even level up your native magic, you are required to gather nodes in the astral, only of your element, which in turn requires the meditation skill to be at a certain level to even enter astral. Then if you wish to pool it by use you have to learn spells, which require rituals, which guess what, also have to be acquired at random in the astral, or taught... finding randomly in the astral is often more likely to happen than being taught.

Godforbid you want to learn an element that isn't your native element, you have to find someone willing to teach it, much like a guildskill, however you can only pool it further yourself by using spells related to that element, and you only gain a spell after reaching a certain rank requirement on both element and moon. Furthermore before you even have that spell, you have to be taught the spell by a mage, which to teach a full spell takes 6 hours, last I knew unless that was changed. 6 hours of teaching.

I don't think learning magic needs a balance to it, as it's already several times more difficult to learn than any other skill, and has the bonus benefit of potentially getting your character killed just by potentially pooling it.

Though maybe magecrafting could do with one, perhaps an intelligence requirement. Not sure if it has one or not. Been since it originally came out that I've dabbled in it.

[Geras]

I'd rather not see stat checks added for magic, as mages' ability to change their own stats already really favour the "soft" stats pretty damned hard.