Grimrock

Is there any benefit to incremental skill bumps, or is the only benefit when you meet the thresholds described in the text? Somes of the texts seem to imply there's is an incremental value, and some not.

Additionally, are the benefits described in text always active, or are they only conditionally active? (For example, if 3 in a weapon skill is Str +1, do I get that all the time, or only when using a certain weapon class?).

Testing this a bit, but not really indepth... It seems like,
1) There is value from incrementally bumping a skill. I.e. +1 skill equals +1 attack when I am using that weapon. That makese sense.
2) It looks like the special skill features you get occasionally are mixed between things that are always active (i.e. +1 STR for a weapon skill appears to always be active, regardless of your weapon choice), and things that are conditionally active (Backstabbing, or special attacks).

If 2) is true, it would be nice to have this called out really clearly (which are which). It seems a bit conceptually muddy.

Are you sure about 2 - as it directly contradicts the description texts for the weapon skill stat increases, which clearly state they are only active when you are using that weapon.

Zad.

I'm not certain about 2), but I believe it to be the case. Try this: start a new party, add skill points to a skill that has a stat boost. Watch the stat increase (even though the character is unarmed). I haven't double checked in game yet, and I agree that this contradicts the tooltip.

I can confirm 2, via the method Sage 2 described. You get the stat bumps regardless of your equipped gear.

Developer request -- can you document (post response to this for FAQ or something) the following:

1) What are the implicit benefits of each skill (for example, it's not clear in the tool tip that 1 point of Axe adds +1 to Axe attack). There are quite a few cases of this -- Staff Defense, for example.
2) Which explicit benefits are always on, or are conditional. The explicit benefits that are listed for when you acheive certain skill values appear to be a mix of these two.

Thank you!

These values are not certain, but just what I noticed from experimenting a bit. I can't promise you they hold water at higher levels.

Each point in a weapon skill grants 1 Accuracy. 3 Attack Power is granted for every 4 points, such that the second, third, and fourth point in each set of 4 grant +1 Attack Power each. For example, if you have 16 Swords you gain +16 Accuracy and +12 Attack Power. The 1st, 5th, 9th, and 13th point grant no Attack Power.