Skills Essays

The system of skill caps on Valhalla is a little bit complicated, and this page is meant to help you understand what is going on.  If you have further questions about skill caps after reading this, post on the forum and someone will gladly help you.

Overview

A skill cap is the maximum amount of points you can earn in any particular skill.  On the OSI shards, the skill cap was 100 for every skill.  With the class system at Valhalla, that is no longer the case.

You will be able to gain at least 60 skill points in every skill, regardless of your class.  In addition to that, every class has primary skills and secondary skills.   You will always be able to gain at least 95 skill points in each of your primaries, and at least 75 skill points in each of your secondary skills.  

In addition to that, you will be able to specialize in 3 of your primary skills, allowing you to gain up to 100 skill points in those three skills.  Each class also has a 'special skill' that, when specialized in, you will be able to gain up to 110 skill points for.  The special skills for each class are:

You will also choose 3 secondary skills to specialize in, allowing you to gain up to 80 skill points in those 3 skills.   You will get automatic gains in specialized skills for a while, but for some reason alchemy doesn't get these gains if you put it in your first primary slot.  If you put it in the second or third primary slot, it will still get the gains.

Lastly you will also be able to choose a craft skill to gain up to 100 skill points in.  For those of you who want to have more than one craft skill gm'd, it is possible to have up to 4.  However, in order to do so you must place trade skills in your primary skill slots.**

Typing .spec after you have chosen your race and class brings up your specialization book where you set your specs.

Notes:

•  *   Placing trade skills in a primary slot will cause vendors to give you jobs in the primary slot trade skill instead of the skill in your trade slot.


• **  Placing secondary skills in primary skill slots will NOT allow you to gain 100 points in them.  This only works for primary skills and trade skills.

Example - The Making of a Saint

Each class has a unique set of primary and secondary skills. To help explain the skill caps, we will use the cleric class as a model. We're going to make a cleric named Benedict modeled after a monk, so we'll set him up with two trade skills (inscription and lumberjacking / gardening). To start off, here is a list of the cleric's primary and secondary skills:

So, upon choosing cleric as his class Benedict will be able to gain:

• Up to 95 skill in Macefighting/Fencing/Swordsmanship, Wrestling, Anatomy, Healing, Magic Resistance, Magery, Meditation and Tactics
• Up to 75 skill in Parrying, Necromancy, Leadership, Alchemy and Poisoning
• Up to 60 skill in everything else

Next we need to set his specialization skills.  For the primaries, I am going to pick healing, meditation and lumberjacking/farming.  For the secondary specializations, I'm going to choose leadership, alchemy and cooking (so he can do more with the food he gets from his garden).  As his primary trade skill, Benedict is going to use inscription.  Benedict's .spec menu now looks like this:

After clicking the 'save changes' button, Benedict's skill caps will look like the following:

• Up to 110 skill in Healing
• Up to 100 skill in Meditation, Lumberjacking/Farming and Inscription
• Up to 95 skill in Macefighting/Fencing/Swordsmanship, Wrestling, Anatomy, Magic Resistance, Magery and Tactics
• Up to 80 skill in Alchemy, Leadership and Cooking
• Up to 75 skill in Parrying, Necromancy and Poisoning
• Up to 60 skill in all other skills

Now Benedict is all set and ready for the world.  If you have any more questions about skill caps, feel free to use the forum.