User:Hordes

Specialization is a choice to invest XP in a few specific skills, rather than attempting to learn many skills at once. It is often essential, at least in one form or another.

Useful Info

More skill level means that skill is more powerful. Weapons will hit harder, attack faster, and are more accurate. Spells are stronger, less likely to fail, and higher level. Defensive skills will give more defense.

Strategy

In Crawl, the goal of the skill system is "to get the most out of your XP as possible". Sounds simple, and it really is.

1. Specializing in a skill often leads to less "wasted" XP.

Usually, but not always, "wasting the least XP" is an efficient method of skill training.

Let's say you could either have {6 Polearms, 6 Conjurations, 6 Ranged Weapons} or {10 <one skill>}. The former may sound more appealing, as you can take advantage of 3 skills at once. However...

• A. This can lead to skill waste. If you blast things with Conjurations before enemies get into melee range, then Polearms and Ranged Weapons skill aren't doing anything. If you are wearing heavy armour, to make your melee more effective, then Conjurations skill is wasted (it is very difficult to cast in plate armour!).
• B. There are more than just these three skills in Crawl. For example, a Polearms user could go {8 Polearms, 5 Armour, 5 Shields}, and a caster could go {8 Conjurations, 6 Dodging, 2 Spellcasting}. Both will be more effective than the original 6/6/6 distribution, which invests no XP into defenses.

This is not to dissuade "hybrid" builds entirely, but to put them into perspective. This is also because of the following point.

2. There exists skill thresholds, and specializing allows you to reach these thresholds faster.

In Crawl, there exists quite a few skill thresholds.

• For weapons and destructive spells, this is when you can "comfortably kill things at a <certain level>".
• For casting in general, this is when a spell goes from "unreliably castable" to "castable".
• For defensive skills, this is when you receive the next point of AC / EV / SH.

Training skills too liberally will delay the threshold. E.g., the original {6 Polearms, 6 Conjurations, 6 Ranged Weapons} distribution can prevent you from 'comfortably' killing things by any method.

In other words, having one reliable way of killing things is better than 3 unreliable ways of killing things. Even if you want to go for a "hybrid" build, it is best to train one skill to a competent level, and then the next.

Of course, when things are 'competent' or 'comfortable' is very arbitrary - it depends on both the character and the player.

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User:Hordes/Guide

• User:Hordes/Guide Appendix

User:Hordes/Basics Guide