I conquer armslore once more.. and when I am through running armslore through the paces I shall once again take on item id! Fear my training!

Does anyone else out there train odd skills just to simply have them whether or not they really have a use anymore? And for those that read this, how many are taking advantage of the fact that some of the old target based skills are so much easier to train now? I know I am about a half a year behind the times right now, but I am finding this change I just realized as novel as can be. I am strongly considering placing herding on my tamer again.. that skill is amazingly unappreciated.

There is no doubt we have a lot of skills which are under utilized. Surely these were originally meant to enrich the game, not just sit idly on the skills list. Some were made obsolete by menu changes, I guess, like the counter that now tells us the weapon/armor is weakening, instead of it disappearing because we didn't have the skill or check it with Arms Lore to see how it was holding up.

My original plan for my Mage was that she be a Tamer as well, but since those two skills have so many support skills needed, it left no room wiggle. Now she is 110 Mage, 80 Tamer... not a satisfying combination, but it's as close as I could get and 'round out' her character the way I wanted.

I was using Taste ID with my Alchemist and Cook, but you can get any information you need with it just at 20, same as just checking your pet for hunger with Animal Lore. Since we have only 700 points to work with, it is really hard to get the neat combinations that make our styles work unless the low end skills work without going to GM or near it.

I even stopped working Magic Resist because it never seemed to be useful. Now I understand it will be needed again, so I suppose I shall go to work on that.

I love having the small skills to enrich the character. So many skills actually work inter-relationary (if that's a word.. not gonna look it up). Honing the character and making each one unique instead of a (no offense to Queen Mum cookies) 'cookie cutter' sort of person. I suppose what I am getting at is that it's really difficult to spare space for some of the peripheral, but fun skills.

BTW I am with you on getting new signs for the houses. I would LOVE a library sign for mine!!!

Taste ID here... I always loved that skill for entertainment purposes alone.. and for RP reasons whenever I train a Poisoner. I'm always losing track of which stack of loafs of bread I've already poisoned and which I haven't.

Forensics is fun once GM'd... always fun to see who really killed who after a fight when all the bravado gets going on the board with the chest thumping and screen shots.

So that's what Forensics was for. I wondered. Tracking seems to be another one underused and of which I am unsure.

As to the problem with which loaf is poisoned, I love the new ability to write on the containers. Just label one poison LOL... Or.. dye it poison color green. I certainly would never put the poisoned ones in with the normal ones.

I have been wondering about making a poisoner, but it doesn't seem to fit my ladies. They are all pretty much 'goodie two shoes' types and I find it difficult personally to do the things which would get me the evil ranking.

I was working a necromancer on my second account, but she only got to like 40, and the account is in 'storage' now for a while. Since I do most of my training and playing alone, I have stayed with the ones I was fairly sure I could do, just seemed like a fun idea to make poisoned weapons.

I managed to get arms lore up to the 80s and item id to the 60s before Sonoma died.. erm, went down. I used to have the skills like item id, taste id, arms lore, herding, and others many, many years ago but "adapting" characters long before soulstones caused them to be forced down into nothing again. Its a shame to see so many skills become more of a novelty than useful, I hope in the future they give them a perk or three. At least now with soulstones if I have to squeeze a character's template this time I will not need to lose the skill forever. Sadly, I would bet that many of these dwindling skills go the way of enticement.. traded out for something newer and "better" and lost forever.. not even there for novelty.

(and yes, I am leaving my avatar as is until I finally get my library sign.. my homes are libraries, not healer shops! *grins*)

PS I use tracking a lot idocing.. a good way to size up trammel idoc competition and when in fel and coupled with detect... reveal competition to the rest of the world. *grins*

Really... Tracking can do that? Wow... am really learning some things today! Yes, Soulstones are WONDERFUL! I have had some skills up and down soooo many times in my adjusting and tweaking... it really gets old throwing out a skill on one only to need it on another char!

My house is library too, just can't tell it. All the books are in bookcases locked down. I suppose most people never even look, but I carefully made all the lock down bookcases, the containers inside AND the books enabled for anyone to see. If anyone ever thought to try to look. I used to love visiting houses and reading their books and runebooks, but so many don't leave them locked and enabled anymore that it's not as much fun as it used to be.

Heh, the expansion I have been doing to my rune library has made it a library with both books and runebooks. Originally it was just runebooks, but I figured out a way to use locked down containers to give more space to add in books about the runebooks. How to do the quests per quest, descriptions of the cities next to the city books, how to train books near the training runebooks, for a few examples. If I have room I am wanting to add the regular npc books as well for some easy reading. Its a long, ongoing project.. but once its done its definitely going to be one of my crowning jewel achievements in game in my mind.

Back on topic, I've even used the tracking (lets you know where to reveal) and detect hidden skills (lets you reveal) to actually kill folks in Feluccan rulesets that are in heavy champion spawn. Just reveal someone who just hid due to being overcome by monsters or other palyers and watch them panic when they suddenly appear again. Its actually rather humorous and can get you some loot as well as add to the chaos of champion spawns as they try and find whoever is revealing. Herding, get a lot of misc animal spawn and raid any popular fel moongate with your herd. That, right there, is just too funny and actually can trap folk that get too deep in animals.

Wow! Threnody, that would be cool to watch. Maybe as a ghost so I wouldn't be bothered with dieing again. To think, we had trouble makers in our midst!