Healing,UMD, Open Lock, and Lore.... how much is too much?

[Kyodai]

Howdy. I, after debating the whole thing for days and days, ahve finally settled on a character build I can live with, but a few things I still am unsure with respect to NS's particular quirks.

Basically im wondering when I will stop getting benefit from increasing the following skills:

Healing (will this continue to make my amt healed go up all the way to 40?)

Use Magic Device (how much is needed to cast level 9 spells, what about wands and such.. are there even any class specific items in the game?)

Open lock (I hear some chests are locked.... how much skill do you need?)

Lore (how much will I need to identify max level items?)

[Lework]

Howdy. I, after debating the whole thing for days and days, ahve finally settled on a character build I can live with, but a few things I still am unsure with respect to NS's particular quirks.

Basically im wondering when I will stop getting benefit from increasing the following skills:

Healing (will this continue to make my amt healed go up all the way to 40?)

Use Magic Device (how much is needed to cast level 9 spells, what about wands and such.. are there even any class specific items in the game?)

Open lock (I hear some chests are locked.... how much skill do you need?)

Lore (how much will I need to identify max level items?)

I dont use healing myself, i use heal potions instead...some people insist on healling kits b/c they dont take up a turn and they dont invoke an attack of opportunity..i however dont care, its not worth putting 20 pts into.

open lock i wouldnt bother, there are chests but none of them have anything worth putting the points into.

I dont put much into lore either, there's always a mage in avendell willing to identity for a rez scroll or some gold..etc...

id save pts for skills you'll need, Discipline, Tumble, spellcraft, perform, spot

[deathdearler1]

on average locked chests only need about 20-30 so u don't need too many points in this. however to my knowledge no one has picked the dc100 door in the accountants room at RK headquarters.

[nargileh]

ask yourself wether you really need this information upfront? What i do in respect to skills is simply put some points in a skill, if the skill doesn't work well enough to my liking i improve it at next levelup or look for an item which boosts this skill. Sometimes i use statboosts (potions or spells) on the apropriate stat asociated with a skill to check if an improvement of skill ranks at next levelup is justified. The statbonus adds a bonus to your skill check so you can test if an increase of that skill-rank is worth spending the skill points.

I woudn't push lore up to a point where you can ID everything, u can id 90% of most stuff with quite a low lore (+-10), and honestly u can get anything id-ed with money, so boosting lore is only going to save you money, but after a point money becomes trivial anyway and only usefull for buying healing potions... making the skill useless in the end
The way i handle lore is i put it high enough to id all potions and crappy equipment, that way if i can't id something it means it's actually worth to pick it up If i can ID it and it ain't a potion it's not worth taking along.

Healing kits are the alternative to potions. I think using potions is more expensive than kits, and this makes it again one of those skills that saves you money, but since money isn't the problem in the end...
Although i always put a few points in heal because a kit can remove diseases and poisons, while a heal potion can't. And since restore potions are somewhat of a rarity... i think it's usefull
I havent used UMD on NS4, but u can always apply the rules i described above: Put some points in it, if it works how u like, keep the ranks, if it doesn't work well enough, boost the skill rank at levelup.

One thing to remember: don't be afraid to experiment with your character, because it will get DELETED eventually when NS4 oficially opens. If u made a choice u don't like, there's the option of delevelling thru exp-loss, and no-one prevents you from making a new one either.

[Brennan068]

I put points into healing for the following reasons:

1. Healing kits do not provoke attacks of opportunity (potions do as does running out of combat to drink a potion)

2. You cannot use a potion on your party-mates. When your buddy gets dropped to -2, it is nice to be able to pick him up quick in the midst of battle and have that other blade continue to chop away at the mobs.

With a reasonable wis, and the animal line of strength gloves (boar hide, leopard hide etc.) and a good set of +12 healing kits, your survivability goes way up I've found. By lvl 10, most of my characters have a minimum of 5 ranks in heal and the best booster skill items I can use.

My axe is usually my lock pick, so I cannot comment on how much to put into that skill.

[AndrewCarr]

on average locked chests only need about 20-30 so u don't need too many points in this. however to my knowledge no one has picked the dc100 door in the accountants room at RK headquarters.

The chests are empty :*(


[Edit:] Oh, and umd-wise i get along fine with about 30 or so, even when using higher lvl scrolls. Adding +5 umd rings helps.