There are specific facts you should know about skills. To begin with, there are six skill areas. Three are offensive (attack, initiative, decisiveness) and three are defensive (parry, riposte, defense); they define, together with your stats, the abilities of your warrior in these areas. You should already know the implications that skills have upon your warrior's roll-up, but now I want to talk about how learning additional skills relates to your warrior's potential.
Each warrior has a favorite skill learn, that is to say, a warrior will learn a particular skill more often than any others. Generally speaking, the skills a warrior learns most often are heavily influenced by his fighting style, which is called Priority. I will talk about priority a little later, but in general, it is the likelihood that a style is to learn a skill category. For example, Total Parries learn parry and defense more often than they learn decise or initiative.
Your warrior's favorite learn affects the priority of his skill learning. A favorite learn is only limited by the six possible learns allowable, so you may have a Total Parry with a favorite learn of initiative or a Slasher with a favorite learn of defense. In any event, by your twentieth learn you should have an idea as to what his favorite learn is, because of the disproportionate amount of skills learned within one category. Also, when your fighter is invited to join the ADM arenas, you will be told what skill learn your warrior favors.
A new area that I have been examining in the context of skill learning is the impact an opponent's style has on the type of skills learned. Your warrior's fighting style, along with the fighting style of his opponent, has a direct effect on the type of skills learned, but does not control the number of skills learned. When he fights a Total Parry, for instance, he is more likely to learn a defensive skill than when he fights a Slasher.
PRIORITY
Chart developed by Ben Hitz -- "PUG"
Revised by -- DMobster and Pagan
The probability of learning a skill is modified by the style. Each style has a learning scope that differs from each other style. There are Priority skill areas for each style that differ amongst each style. Each skill is given a corresponding number from 1 to 6 depending upon its priority.
PRIORITY SKILLS BY STYLE AB -- ATT, RIP, DEF, PAR, DEC, INI BA -- ATT, INI, DEC, PAR, RIP, DEF LU -- INI, DEF, RIP, ATT, DEC, PAR PL -- INI, PAR, ATT, DEF, DEC, RIP PS -- PAR, DEC, INI, ATT, DEF, RIP PR -- RIP, PAR, ATT, DEF, INI, DEC ST -- DEC, ATT, INI, RIP, PAR, DEF SL -- INI, ATT, RIP, DEC, PAR, DEF WS -- ATT, INI, PAR, DEF, DEC, RIP TP -- PAR, DEF, RIP, ATT, DEC, INIAimed Blows learn attack the most and initiative the least out of any of the skills. By adding your warrior's Priority skills along with that of your opponent's Priority skills, you can come to see the probability your warrior has to learn a particular skill.
The above list for Priority may not be free from error; however, I believe it to be an accurate reflection of what the actual priority skills are across the styles. Some of the skill areas were so close in number that estimations had to be made about which skill was higher in priority to another.
TRAINING SKILLS AND STATS
What happens in a fight with priority skills? Take a look at a Parry Lunge who fights a Slasher.
Skills Slasher Parry Lunge Total Number of trials INI 6 6 12 RIP 4 1 5 ATT 5 4 9 PAR 2 5 7 DEF 1 3 4 DEC 3 2 5 Total 21 21 42Now, here we have the total pool of skills in fights between a Slasher and a Parry Lunge. In this fight (Parry Lunge vs Slasher), it is more likely for a warrior to learn, in this order: INI, ATT, PAR, RIP & DEC, DEF. By calculating the variables we can see the likelihood for either warrior to learn each corresponding skill. To learn initiative, there are 12 possible skills in a pool of 42. So 12 divided by 42 = 28.57% chance to learn an initiative skill. There are only 4 defensive skills in the pool, so 4/42 = 9.52% chance to learn a defensive skill. By looking at the numbers you can see that, in this fight, both warriors are more likely to learn initiative skills than defensive skills. Also, by calculating all of the skills your opponents learn, you will learn the most common skill your warrior teaches. This is the same process as finding your favorite learn.
The likelihood your warrior has to learn a skill is a factor of Wit. Where Priority shows you the pool of skills, your Wit determines whether your warrior learns the skills or not. For an example of how this may work--and understand this is only theory--the computer seems to keep pulling out skills out of a pool of the two combatants' Priority skills. It then checks your warrior's Wit against a variable to see if this skill can be learned or not. If it cannot be learned, the computer throws away the skill and pulls out another. (Remember that the total pool size then decreases, from 42 to 41, so you must then divide accordingly). The computer rolls a random number, affected by a warrior's Wit, to determine the number of skills that will be learned up to a maximum of six, and a minimum of zero. (There will be no taking away of a warrior's skills!) The computer then continues to pull out skills out of the priority pool until:
- You fail to learn a skill
- You reach your maximum allowable number of skills (0 to 6)
- The pool of skills is exhausted.
How then is Priority affected by a warrior's favorite learn? You need to add 6 points of Priority to your warrior's favorite skill learn. This favorite affects only your warrior's pooled Priority skills, and does not affect your opponent's pooled Priority skills. Vice versa, your warrior's pooled Priority skills are not affected by your opponent's favorite learn. You can use Priority to find your warrior's favorite skill learn, once your warrior has learned 20-30 total skills. Without calculating a favorite, your warrior should learn his base percentage chances with Priority:
Priority Number Percent Chance for Priority 6 28.57% 5 23.81% 4 19.10% 3 14.29% 2 9.52% 1 4.76%You are adding 6 points of Priority to your favorite skill learn, so after you warrior has approximately 20 to 30 total skills, divide the number 6 (the favorite Priority) by 27 (the Priority pool +21 & the favorite +6) and this equals = 22.22%. So any skill area that is approximately 22.22% higher in skill learning than it should be (as listed in the chart above) is your warrior's favorite learn.
-- Pagan