Heir Skills, Leveling, and Experience

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They don't give you medicine or scouting.
If you want them to learn medicine it is going to be a whole lot cheaper to give them an army they can loose.

Unless they already start out with some, nothing is going to teach anyone scouting...except time..loooong looong...the game is over...time.
 
They don't give you medicine or scouting.
If you want them to learn medicine it is going to be a whole lot cheaper to give them an army they can loose.

Unless they already start out with some, nothing is going to teach anyone scouting...except time..loooong looong...the game is over...time.
Agreed, Only little sister/brother comes out of the box (possibly) able to learn enough medicine, setting her as party leader is much better and in one game she got to 100 medicine on her own just running wild, however it's even better to front load her by making her your surgeon and bulldozing hundreds (transfer from clan parties) junk troops into a siege, or taking smaller batches to be shot to death by forest bandits, likewise with scouting finding hide out to get to 25+ is good (so she will see tracks), or just have her lead a party, however since she will virtually spend the entire game in an army or in my party she doesn't need scouting. Sending her on a caravan is probably the slowest possible choice, not to mention she could be killed.
 
they did reduce the xp from smithing a ton in 1.7 so it is not as easy. I still think the easiest way to level characters will be steward since its passive and at later tiers it doesnt take long.
I hate the XP grind more than anyone, but I'll admit that Smithing XP isn't totally broken in 1.7.

The trick is you have to use the new Orders system. That's the only way to get Smithing into higher levels. Have one character max out Smithing focus and do the majority of the smithing + high-level refining. Have at least two others on low-level refining like charcoal-creation. Always smelt - never sell - enemy gear.

Er... it also helps if you use Kaoses Tweaks to turn Out-of-Settlement Stamina Regen from 0% to 50% or you're gonna spend a lot of time watching paint dry.

OHHHHHH! The other thing is you need to turn on the tweak for "unlock all weapon parts on smelt". It just occurred to me how retardedly-difficult the Smithing orders system would be if I had to grind all the unlocks for common weapons.

The fact that this isn't in the vanilla game - despite it being a variable in the code - is completely ridiculous. Grind for grind's sake.
This is after about two months after turning 18. My main character did die and this is now my main character.

Your mileage may vary, but I believe it's a waste to give your MC INT skills. Just set a companion with decent focus points to caravan and then take them into your party a year later when they've sufficiently leveled. The best Quartermaster perks only come with high Trade as well as Stewardship. Engineering is only good for siegemasters and governors, which are also a Companion thing (does the MC even get to use governor perks?). And medicine and scouting? They're the most clear-cut "get-a-companion" skills.

Maybe I'm too MinMax, but it really doesn't make sense for your MC to be anything but max-ability and max-focus into Social skills. They along with Tactics and Roguery are the only non-combat skills you can't outsource. And, unfortunately, Tactics and Roguery are completely discardable.

If anything, further patches should make Roguery a Scout skill. And why on earth did BL break with the M&B tradition of making Tactics a party skill?
 
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Your mileage may vary, but I believe it's a waste to give your MC INT skills. Just set a companion with decent focus points to caravan and then take them into your party a year later when they've sufficiently leveled. The best Quartermaster perks only come with high Trade as well as Stewardship. Engineering is only good for siegemasters and governors, which are also a Companion thing (does the MC even get to use governor perks?). And medicine and scouting? They're the most clear-cut "get-a-companion" skills.
I agree for the initial character it's easier to use clan mates for INT skills and that that Leadership and charm is very useful, however a few things to consider.
SCOUTING: Has some very powerful perks that are for party leader only, getting Keen sight + mounted patrols (riding) on you main character lets you hold enemy lords FOREVER. You can defeat anyone, even as a solo clan with no executions this way. It's the best advantage you can have from perks. Also uncanny insight to top of a max speed HA party is really good! Good luck getting to that army or that fief before I get you! Yes even with 100 lord prisoners.
LEADERSHIP: Although very powerful, if for some reason you're not going to lead armies (and thus not raise it) it can be completely ignored, why how who? I ignore it completely in many game where I either play a solo clan only collecting rebel towns or in a murder game where I execute everyone in the world with just my 1 party.
Int skill multi roles: Only the player can be multiple roles (in your party)and really benefit from high INT, though I would rather use clan mates in the initial game, in an extra late game like @DrDragonlance is in, where clan mates may continue to die off soon, it may be very appealing to make the new clan leader cover multiple skills rather then another rotating door of wanderers or other kids.
 
I hate the XP grind more than anyone, but I'll admit that Smithing XP isn't totally broken in 1.7.

The trick is you have to use the new Orders system. That's the only way to get Smithing into higher levels. Have one character max out Smithing focus and do the majority of the smithing + high-level refining. Have at least two others on low-level refining like charcoal-creation. Always smelt - never sell - enemy gear.

Er... it also helps if you use Kaoses Tweaks to turn Out-of-Settlement Stamina Regen from 0% to 50% or you're gonna spend a lot of time watching paint dry.

OHHHHHH! The other thing is you need to turn on the tweak for "unlock all weapon parts on smelt". It just occurred to me how retardedly-difficult the Smithing orders system would be if I had to grind all the unlocks for common weapons.

The fact that this isn't in the vanilla game - despite it being a variable in the code - is completely ridiculous. Grind for grind's sake.

Your mileage may vary, but I believe it's a waste to give your MC INT skills. Just set a companion with decent focus points to caravan and then take them into your party a year later when they've sufficiently leveled. The best Quartermaster perks only come with high Trade as well as Stewardship. Engineering is only good for siegemasters and governors, which are also a Companion thing (does the MC even get to use governor perks?). And medicine and scouting? They're the most clear-cut "get-a-companion" skills.

Maybe I'm too MinMax, but it really doesn't make sense for your MC to be anything but max-ability and max-focus into Social skills. They along with Tactics and Roguery are the only non-combat skills you can't outsource. And, unfortunately, Tactics and Roguery are completely discardable.

If anything, further patches should make Roguery a Scout skill. And why on earth did BL break with the M&B tradition of making Tactics a party skill?
I think I have seen it mentioned that there are mods that increase xp gain. If you need mods to make smithing work then you could in principle just take such a mod to make other skills work instead.

Other than that I basically agree.
 
What to take on main character? Let's see:

Vigor and Control skills: All combat skills do nothing for late game, they can be 100% ignored without any significant loss in power. Bow or Crossbow skill somewhat useful to make few kills on sieges, but this is it.

Athletics skills: Riding good to have at 225. more not needed. Athletics and Smithing not needed at all on main character.

Cunning skills: Scouting good to have at 225, getting more is waste of time, attribute and focus points. Tactics is actually useful for late game, there you grind army after army and siege after siege. Saves a lot of time. Getting to 275+ is too slow to really aim for it. Roguery is a waste of time, some perks are nice, but leveling it up is such pain in the butt - not worth it.

Social skills: Charm is must have for late game character, 275 perk is insanely good and for a change it is not hard to get. Leadership is great for late game king/vassal, useful perks and main skill effect.Trade, hmmm, Trade is a waste of time, doing absolutely nothing to gameplay and leveling it is chore of nightmares.

Intellectual skills. Steward, Surgeon and Engineer useful for late game. Sure, they can be outsourced. but why? Why risk loosing your 330 skill quartermaster or high level surgeon? To free some focus points and put them into useless combat skills you'll never use past very early game?

This is all lead to boring, but effective 2 Vigor, 2 Control, 3 Athletics, 3 Cunning, 7 Social, 7 Intelllect builds. Very suitable for miind numbling late game experience .
 
Yes, you are too Min/Max. The best part about a re-playable RPG like M&B is variety in character builds. Every playthrough is something new.
You are both right and wrong. Yeah, one of the best parts of RPGs is different builds.

In warband you had the potential to create at least a couple of different overarching builds. E.g. a warrior build for killing stuff, a general Int build for stronger bonuses or even a persuasion build so you could run 16 companions.

But different stiles need to both add something and be achievable with reasonable efficiency.

Steward and engineer just doesnt really add anything.

A healer build or a scouting build would add something for sure. But you cannot really make a healer build with any kind of efficiency; you need to go out of your way to make it happen. This fundamentally also applies to scouting, perhaps to a less extreme degree.
 
Yes, you are too Min/Max. The best part about a re-playable RPG like M&B is variety in character builds. Every playthrough is something new.
Except that BL isn't nearly as versatile for play as WB or VC. For instance, the fact that "party skills" are no longer a thing means that it really only makes sense from a gameplay perspective.

From a "fun" perspective? I dig what you're saying. But the game just isn't fun enough yet for me on that account and there simply isn't enough game design support for alternative playstyles in this release. I worry that won't change by the end of EA.
I think I have seen it mentioned that there are mods that increase xp gain. If you need mods to make smithing work then you could in principle just take such a mod to make other skills work instead.

Other than that I basically agree.
After testing on 1.7.0 to figure out what's most "fun", I decided to use Kaoses Tweaks to double XP gain for everything and triple XP gain for Medicine/Engineering/Leadership/Tactics/Roguery. This seems to be the correct balance between slow-and-steady leveling and pointless MMO grind.

But I didn't really need the XP mod for Smithing. The one thing that made Smithing work was the "learn parts by smelting" option, which made it possible to regularly fill crafting orders and get hella Smithing XP. I can't imagine the pain of Smithing without that option on.
Keen sight + mounted patrols
I'm not 100% sure this combo still exists in 1.7.0 but meh? That's one combo that required you to drop 5 points into Endurance and 8 points into Cunning.

You had no points in 1H/2H/Charm/Trade... and you didn't have anything in INT skills either...

Yah that's a meme build, girl. A murderhobo, I guess? A build designed exclusively to imprison all of the lords of Calradia. That's cool? But not exactly practical or applicable to regular play.

I can't even imagine the grinding it took for you to max out Tactics that high, but I'm genuinely curious as to whether that was worth it. Did you do a lot of autobattling? Did you have the Improved Autobattle mod on?
Social skills: Charm is must have for late game character, 275 perk is insanely good and for a change it is not hard to get. Leadership is great for late game king/vassal, useful perks and main skill effect.
Correct.
Tactics is actually useful for late game, there you grind army after army and siege after siege. Saves a lot of time. Getting to 275+ is too slow to really aim for it.
Ouch. Again, I really can't imagine grinding Tactics that high. What... do you just start a siege, tell your guys to hold position and then go make a sandwich? The only things I've seen level Tactics are autobattles and long played battles, both of which are an un-fun chore.
Trade, hmmm, Trade is a waste of time, doing absolutely nothing to gameplay and leveling it is chore of nightmares.
Half-correct. Leveling it is indeed a chore of nightmares, but the capstone ability allowing you to buy and sell fiefs was BOSS... right up until they changed it from 225 to 300. I don't even want to think what kind of grind it would take to level it up to 300 and it angers me that - on the latest patch - I have to.

There are some really cool perks in Trade, which you might as well invest in if you're already investing in Charm and Leadership with high SOC. Though I will admit that if your goal is "make money" then there are much better ways to do it than trading. Trading is just a thing you do to get the perks which gives you a pitiful amount of money as a side effect.
Athletics and Smithing not needed at all on main character.
Sort of correct. The "Having Going" athletics perk seems to vastly increase persuasion chances, so 2 focus points are worth that alone. Also it's a lot easier to get level-ups for your MC than companions, so I found it worth it to max out Smithing on my main simply for convenience's sake. It seems very few companions have decent END also. Like I said before, it's a very easy skill to power-level on 1.7.0 if you've got the smelting unlock option checked. All that smithing XP means I level up faster too.
This is all lead to boring, but effective 2 Vigor, 2 Control, 3 Athletics, 3 Cunning, 7 Social, 7 Intelllect builds. Very suitable for miind numbling late game experience .
Unfortunately, this is extremely correct. After the first few rounds of EA releases, I settled on 10 SOC + maxed SOC skills + 3 attribute points in everything else... 3 points in 1H + Riding + Athletics, 1 point each in 2H/Polearm, 5 points in Bow and Smithing... then whatever points are left over in things like Tactics. Yeah it's not optimized, but I like to win Tournaments and this game already bored me enough without shopping around for a non-main with non-crap END to do my smithing for me (which, again, would rob me of level-up XP).
Yeah, one of the best parts of RPGs is different builds.

In warband you had the potential to create at least a couple of different overarching builds. E.g. a warrior build for killing stuff, a general Int build for stronger bonuses or even a persuasion build so you could run 16 companions.
Unfortunately, this game is NOT an update of warband. It's some weird hybrid thing, with significantly dumbed-down mechanics that lost a lot of the nuance of the real McCoy.
 
Trade is not a useless skill. It does affect the price you (MC) can sell loot for.

Companion parties, however, do not benefit from it.
 
I'm not 100% sure this combo still exists in 1.7.0 but meh?
I'm 100% sure it does, it only takes 3 end and 3 cunning, but I got cunning to get keen sight fast.

You had no points in 1H/2H/Charm/Trade... and you didn't have anything in INT skills either...

Yah that's a meme build, girl. A murderhobo, I guess? A build designed exclusively to imprison all of the lords of Calradia. That's cool? But not exactly practical or applicable to regular play.
That's just the build I used in that game. I wasn't a murder game, I rolled over the map as a solo clan using permanant imprisonment + solo clan peace negotiating to no-kill solo clan dominate :smile:
Here's my 2 different character in two different games started in 1.7 in more traditional game play rout of becoming vassal at rank 2 (to lead armies for leadership) and claiming territory, to then break of later. This is to make the game last longer, if I go for own faction asap the game ends too soon.

^My Int build ,Int is still too slow but it's a nice idea. It's lame egetting medicine to 120+, nuch better to just hire a 120 skill medic and play normally.
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^My Soc build, it's better then the INT build although, I don;t even know what to put the rets of FP in, it's so good already.

My builds are the best, my strategy is the best. No no, there are special speed run strats from others, but for actually playing the game in a natural fun way, I got it all.

And here's the character I used to take the map with a wanderer clan rush in 1.6.4-5, baby barely grew up in time before it was GG

Notice they all have High cunning and the perks in question?
You had no points in 1H/2H/Charm/Trade
I can beat anyone, anywhere, any weapon, with zero skills, melee skills are a joke versus single player AI. CHaracter can use every weapon perfectly with zero skill.
Charm is only good now because it got more goodies, before it was just a "might as well" skill, you could easily just catch and release a couple more parties to make up for skipping it.
Trade? I'll trade the loot of entire armies to empty a towns bank and have some left over. Trade is :poop:
Int skills? either you build MAX INT or you delegate to clan members, there's no in-between, you think you know min/max, but you don't know how min the max really is!
I can't even imagine the grinding it took for you to max out Tactics that high, but I'm genuinely curious as to whether that was worth it. Did you do a lot of autobattling? Did you have the Improved Autobattle mod on?
Hah hah, you don't even know how tactics levels? You just have to have troops under your control KILL ENEMIES (wait for it )*IN LIVE BATTLE*, gee I wonder how hard it is to have hundreds of khan's guards do that while I defeated the entire map.... almost like it just leveled it's self with no extra effort needed.
 
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