A few random questions

[Cephlen]

1. What is the advantage of raising a skill to "real value" over the default displayed value? An example would be my magery says 80, but if I click on real value it is 70-something.

2. What is a good balance of int vs dex for a mostly melee character? My skills are tactics, fence, anat, healing, magery, and resist so far.

3. What are the bonus' of raising str and or dex over 100 vs just having them at 100? Is it like a curve where every point over gives that much more effect?

4. What armor should I be using? I notice on the wiki that certain types of armor provide more protection but come with a penalty to dex. At what point is the penalty not worth the added protection?

5. If you die, do runebooks stay with you after you res?

 

[Dellan]

1. No real advantage, since if you want something GM you still need to train it up to GM, since stat bonus (that's where these free points come from) lowers and lowers as you near the max limit of skill. Only somewhat usable for uoforever characters.

2. It's good to have 35 int for dexer, since mind blasts are too dangerous if you have low int. Take them points from which stat you wish.

3. Raising str and dex is very viable for melee char, since more str - more dmg on hit, more dex - faster weapon swings (have in mind you have to have full stamina for this to take effect too).

4. Depends. Going full plate is useful against melee char only, but rarely people wear this bulky thing.

5. Yes. Spell books too.

 

[Marac]

5. Only if you put runebooks and spellbook in your main backpack, don't put them in another bag in your backpack, it will not stay with you if you die.

 

[Arch Enemy]

1. What is the advantage of raising a skill to "real value" over the default displayed value? An example would be my magery says 80, but if I click on real value it is 70-something.

2. What is a good balance of int vs dex for a mostly melee character? My skills are tactics, fence, anat, healing, magery, and resist so far.

3. What are the bonus' of raising str and or dex over 100 vs just having them at 100? Is it like a curve where every point over gives that much more effect?

4. What armor should I be using? I notice on the wiki that certain types of armor provide more protection but come with a penalty to dex. At what point is the penalty not worth the added protection?

5. If you die, do runebooks stay with you after you res?

1. only look at your real value. your non-real value means nothing. your points that show in your "real value" are the points that are being used toward the 700 point skillcap.

2. if you use magery a lot you should consider getting meditation for faster mana regen and/or upping your int to 40 or so. With 40 int you can cast 7th circle spells. Very useful for casting gate travel at times and with meditation ur mana will be back in no time. If you plan on using magery rarely, I would say 25-30 is fine, but as someone else said you'll be more succeptible to Mind Blast as the spell does more damage if the difference between your highest stat and lowest stat is large.

3. you can't raise any stats over 100 unless you use spells or potions which only raise them over 100 temporarily. Bonuses are simply more strength (ability to hold more weight in your pack), more hit points, more dex, and more int.

4. personal preference. if you're going to have meditation, you won't want to wear anything other than leather armor as you can't meditate in any other armor type (well, you can, but not with a full suit of any other armor type) If no med, good chain and platemail armor is fairly cheap. Runic bone armor gives no dex loss and provides pretty good AR but can be kind of expensive so it sucks if you lose it.

5. yes as long as you keep them in your main backpack.

 

[Cephlen]

Thank you everyone for your replies!