Attribute Levels

yrthwyndandfyre · Post by **yrthwyndandfyre** » Sat May 27, 2006 3:33 am

I've read in a number of places of people asking about boosting attributes past 100, and how it may be done. I've read the answers, too. Ability bonuses, potions, spells, and so forth.
However, I have this habit of occasionally stripping my PC down to her skivvies to check for magical damage or curses that various enchantments may be concealing. Things like disease damage to health, cursed luck or strength, and so forth. It's a good habit to get into, especially after a brutal dungeon crawl.
Well, I just did the check again. In her undies, my PC has security 115 and stealth 110. The security I can forgive. Between the Dark Mother blessing and the Skeleton Key, I have an accumulated ability bonus of 42 on that ability just for standing there. For sneak, though, I only have the Dark Mother blessing for 2 points, which means that my PC, subtracting ability bonuses, has 108 sneak in her bare skin. No armor, no weapons, no magical artifice, no potions, no spells, no blessings.
I'm not sure how this can be, but I have a theory. I wonder, if an ability is cursed below it's natural level and you continue to improve that ability to 100, then discover the curse and lift it, does the curse removal allow your ability to go above 100 permanently? I'm thinking maybe my sneak got cursed by 10 points, but I got it up to 98 before I discovered the curse and lifted it.
Has anybody else experienced this, or does anybody have an explanation for how this happened? Either way, I'm intrigued. There are distinct possibilities here, and they may lead to answers to a lot of unanswered questions.
Oh, and BTW, I'm still vanilla. That is to say mod-less.

Abuse · Post by **Abuse** » Sat May 27, 2006 6:56 am

This would fit with the rather annoying case that the rate skills increase (through use) is linked to their artificially boosted level, not the underlying base skill level.

So artificially lowering your skill level should increase the rate at which you level up.
So yes, I guess if you trained upto 100 while having a -X bonus applied to the skill - then removing the -X bonus - may result in the skill going above its maximum value.

Basically, I don't think Beth. put much time or effort into sorting out the bugs in the skill & attribute leveling systems.
Shame on them.

yrthwyndandfyre · Post by **yrthwyndandfyre** » Sat May 27, 2006 9:35 am

Spoiler

[QUOTE=Abuse]This would fit with the rather annoying case that the rate skills increase (through use) is linked to their artificially boosted level, not the underlying base skill level.

So artificially lowering your skill level should increase the rate at which you level up.
So yes, I guess if you trained upto 100 while having a -X bonus applied to the skill - then removing the -X bonus - may result in the skill going above its maximum value.

Basically, I don't think Beth. put much time or effort into sorting out the bugs in the skill & attribute leveling systems.
Shame on them.[/QUOTE]
So the upshot here is that you can curse your own attributes, and use that to boost them above their natural level? Now that's a theory I've got to test.

bushwhacker2k · Post by **bushwhacker2k** » Sat May 27, 2006 11:16 am

:d

This is something I exploited like crazy in Morrowind, I drained my skill to level 0, and then trained it for one gold.

The end result, the spell wore off and for one gold I gained another level

Very effective, but cheap