What's athletics useful for?

[obsidian_razor]

Does anybody use it?

It already seems people don't use that many fighters (everybody prefering rogues), but I see little love for athletics!

Not saying I don't see why... with so few skills points it's not really worth it to deviate much from a skill, so it makes me wonder why is the skill even a possibility in the game...

Ideas?

[Darklord]

Does anybody use it?

Yes my Minotaur fighter loved it, gave him health and reduced his food requirements.

so it makes me wonder why is the skill even a possibility in the game...

Not everyone feels the need to max one skill out to 50, I was able to complete the game quite nicely with a balance of skills.

Daniel.

[BlueLegion]

Same as daniel. My first run had a balance of several skills. Also, having the "porter" perk is useful for pack rats.

[HoustonDragon]

Same as daniel. My first run had a balance of several skills. Also, having the "porter" perk is useful for pack rats.

Ahh, the Porter skill. My poor Minotaur was lugging around 4 crates and a slew of junk that I just COULDN'T stand the thought of dropping.

SpoilerShow

I even had him lugging around all those giant gears and parts from the Cemetary that were actually useless. Whoops

[obsidian_razor]

Interesting!

Would it be a useful alternative to armors? Maybe wearing all that heavy armor without taking away the evasion penalties but having tons of hit points to balace it out?

[Darklord]

I took enough to wear heavy armour, eat less, gain a few extra hp's then put the rest into axe, seemed to work pretty well.

Daniel

[Ixnatifual]

They're used to stay in shape, dude!

[Merethif]

In this thread: viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2260 RedOwl is suggesting a four Minotaurs Fighters who rely mostly on athletics (especially back row marksmen).

[Empyrean]

Athletics trades skill points for stat boosts. As a general rule, this is not a good trade. While you can beat the game with all sorts of builds (including really bad ones), Athletics is a poor choice. There is plenty of food to go around and a couple places where you can get more any time you want, and carry weight isn't a huge problem unless you can't bear to throw away your old garbage gear that you'll never use again. Points in your offensive or defensive skills bring much greater returns than points in Athletics.

In this thread: viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2260 RedOwl is suggesting a four Minotaurs Fighters who rely mostly on athletics (especially back row marksmen).

Note the near-universal consensus that doing that is an awful idea. Athletics on a back row ranged attacker is probably the dumbest suggestion I've seen here to date.

[Darklord]

There is plenty of food to go around and a couple places where you can get more any time you want

This depends on play style many of us have ran out of food around level 4, some people had to restart the game because of it. I myself ran out as I had 2 Minotaurs in the party and took my time generally. While there are places to get unlimited food they aren't till half way through the game or later.

Basically Athletics is a useful skill, especially for new players, playing on normal or easy.

Daniel.