Build Challenge: No Skill Levelups

Basically what the topic says. The challenge here is that, while you can level, you never get to spend your skill points. Yes, you can do this: just click the X - close window button on the skill select window.

 

Hmm, quite an interesting challenge.

The way I see it, it would most probably have to be a dual-wielding something with Fungal Arts and an assortment of minor skill trees that provide decent bonuses with their starting skills (meaning we'll have a pseudo-gish that rolls through it on mushroom buffs and wands).

 

You get some basic stat increases just from leveling, I thought, and each level gave you an additional fringe bonus.

Even so: just don't get hit!

 

It is possible. The only problem is, your character would really need his resources, and you'll need to get proficient at choosing the correct skill trees.

And obviously, that means playing with mods would make the whole thing less challenging, because there are some with interesting tier 1 abilities.

 

I've read on this forum from people "in-the-know" that this is false and that you gain 0 benefit from a Level-up until/unless you invest your Skill Point. There used to be builds back in the day (before every Skill Tree had 5+ skills in it) that would "cap out" in the late teens/early twenties, at which point you started ignoring the dungeon and trying to bee-line straight for Dredmor, since experience points no longer mattered and relying on random floor drops for gear upgrades is always iffy at best.

'Course, this might have changed at some point, but what you're suggesting is trying to beat the game with (Starting Stats) + (Stats from Gear), which I doubt is going to work in any build/capacity. Any monster on the Diggle Gods Floors (and even before) would be able to one-shot you since you're going to have your starting Health pool of 25-40 + whatever you can manage to scrape together, which isn't going to be much in most cases.

However, if they've "fixed" leveling to give you stats without the Skill Point (which I doubt - how would the game know which Archetype to use as the template for your Stat gains?), then this would be an interesting way to make DoD even harder - although personally I find GRPD with NTTG disabled to be tough enough that it doesn't need buffing. But that's just me. =p

 

You don't get skill points if you don't have any more skills to buy (or if you have enough skill points to buy out every skill) because you only get level-up stats if you gain a skill point. That being said, you now can gain stat points by simply going into the skill menu and choosing not to spend your skilll points, for as long as you haven't levelled up enough times not to be able to gain a skill point.

 

What happens, as I've watched my level ups over time, seems to be that the game gives you +1 to every stat when you level, then +1 to all the relevant stats from your archetype after you spend your skill point. Thus, you'd loose 1/3rd of your stats and all bonus abilities if you played this way.

 

Yes, you would. Isn't that splendid?

 

Splendid? No. Challenging as all get out, and thus as enticing as hell? Yes.

 

Well, if that's true, then I guess you could try this since you would make some minor and and various other damage-boosting Primary Stat gains.

I still say you'd never make it past *insert Floor/Monster Type here* because your half-as-much-as-normal would eventually catch up with you, as it were.

 

Let's see: dual wield, fungal arts, alchemy, viking magic, demonology(for the aoe push effect moving items/opening secret passages), rogue scientist, tinkering.

Rogue scientist gives you free versatile reagents, alchemy gives you access to healing and other nice stuff(and necessary to use the reagents from rogue scientist), tinkering gives you bombs and bolts(especially combo'd with alchemy and rogue scientist). Viking magic's first lvl is a very nice buff with built in proc for extra damage that can stun...

Of course this requires DLC2 beta. And I think you need an alchemy buff from somewhere to use those rogue scientist reagents. (Crafter's almanac, rama's banana, etc, not sure if the rama's bananas are faxpax or DLC).

 

I don't even see how anyone could attempt this without mods.

With mods: Runecaster, Fungal Arts, Dual Wield, Blood Mage, Druid, Curse of the Werediggle, and Alchemy.

I think. But I'm not gonna try it.

 

[quote="FaxCelestis, post: 35002, member: 1536"Even so: just don't get hit! [/quote]

I'd have to abuse the hell out of that "DoT=Frozen in place" thing (bug?), not that I don't do that in almost every build anyway...

Edit: Although, come to think of it, are there any first level skills with good DoT effects?

 

It's all there, black and white, clear as crystal! You get nothing! You lose! Good day, sir!

 

Well played, Glazed. Well played indeed.

 

See? See? I told you! =p

This makes such a run even more impossible unless there's some mod-heavy build that allows you to survive with 20-45 Health and tier-1 abilities on DL 15. Seems unlikely.

 

I just realized that with that character I do zero damage in melee because I have no weapons and no melee power. That'd be a real treat to play.

 

Yeah, I've had Glass Cannon builds like that. Start with no weapon? Check. No Warrior levels? Check. No bonus melee damage? Check.

Kicking a diggle for 0 damage and then taking 7 from his rubbery nasal appliance? Check.

Normandy Achievement, here I come! =p