Gothic 3 Pseudo-guide to the skill tree

Zaleukos

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I think a thread on the various skills and attributes could be useful, so I take the liberty of putting an incomplete and subjective comment for each skill and attribute here.

Attributes
Strength: Essential for a melee fighter. Increases melee damage and gives access to heavier weapons. Target levels 170 (self forged bastard sword), 150 (two handed weapons I for halberd), 250 (to be able to lift all those stupid millstones for extra strength), 300 (regeneration).
Hunting skill: Is to archers what strength is to melee fighters. Non-archery specialists might note that the best bow that can be bought requires 230 hunting (good against trolls and the like). Target levels: 130 (trophy skills), 220 (nimrod bow), 230 (silent death bow)
Ancient knowledge: Primary skill of spellcasters, increases damage and gives access to good skills and spells. You can gain quite a bit from stone tablets and bookshelves. Target levels: 250 (mana regeneration), 100 (fast learning). Not worth increasing unless you are a serious spellcaster.

Smithing: Allows access to smithing skills. Not necessary and not very useful to anyone due to the lack of blueprints. Effectively capped at 50. You can gain a few (10-15 or so) points through quests. Target levels: 25 (ore weapons and an extensive quest), 50 (pure ore weapons)
Thieving: Gives access to thieving skills. Raise to 30 for pick difficult locks and then forget about it unless roleplaying a thief. You can gain some thieving points through quests, but they mostly come late and you will want to pick difficult locks around the time you leave Cape Dun.
Alchemy: Gives access to alchemy skills. NEVER spend points on alchemy as you will gain more than enough through quests and reading from bookshelves.

Life Energy: The more the better. If you are a melee fighter you'll need more. 10 extra points per level corresponds to the previous Gothics?
Endurance: Allows you to run for longer and block enemy attacks. I usually only bother to increase it with armourweed plants. You need 200 for one quest that helps your reputation in Nordmar.
Mana: Used for spellcasting. As I havent played a pure mage I dont know of any reasonable target levels. I assume there is a point where you dont need more since you will learn mana regeneration at some point as a mage.
 
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Fighting skills
Swordfighter: Allows wielding certain swords. Enough unless you are a 1h sword specialist as it allows use of the bastard sword which is among the better swords in the game.
Strong swordfighter: unlocks more swords. Increases the chance of critical hits? Increases damage? Unlocks new combos.
Master swordsman: more of the same. It also lets you knock down enemies while fighting, which I find so impractical and annoying that I normally dont bother with this skill even when playing a 1h specialist.

Fight with two blades: Unlocks this fast fighting style. I havent used it. Requires some hunting.
Master of two blades: Only available in Ishtar (so you need to be a friend of the Hashishin). I havent used it.
Orc slayer: Increased melee damage vs orcs. Useful to all non-mages.

Large weapons: Unlocks the halberd which is an excellent but boring weapon against animals and the like due to its range. Only 2h specialists need these skills.
Large weapons II: same as strong swordfighter
Large weapons III: same as master swordsman, including the annoying knockdown.

Heavy crossbow: Unlocks crossbows which rely on strength rather than hunting, but are slow. I havent used it.
Crossbowman: Unlocks better crossbows.
"Master archer": Missnamed skill that unlocks yet better crossbows.

Shield parry: Unlocks shields, which is useful to 1h fighters as a shield helps your armour protection even if you dont block actively.
Strong shield parry: Blocking costs less stamina, I havent used it.
Paladin: Increased damange against creatures of Beliar (undead and deamons?). Comes late in the game and seems rather useless.
Regeneration: Learned late in the game and very useful when liberating towns. Standing in a corner for a few seconds will let you recover all your health...

Hunting skills
Bow: Default skill, allows use of bows.
Archer: Access to better bows, increased chance of critical hits? Sufficient for the best bows you can buy.
Master Archer: Increased critical hits (?), better bows. Not necessary unless you are an archery specialist.

Game Hunter: Double arrow damage to game animals. Useful if boars cause you a problem and as a stepping stone towards orc hunter. Also useful to bring down those annoying deers.
Big game hunter: Double arrow damage against some more animals. Useful but not necessary in itself.
Orc hunter: Double arrow damage vs Orcs. Very helpful in Vengard and some other places, but most of the time the orcs will rush you and force you to melee.

Silent hunter: Allows you to sneak past sleeping animals at night. Useful while you are too weak to fight shadowbeasts and the like, but not essential.
Take animal skins: money maker skill, also needed for some quests. Always learn this skill.
Take reptile hides: same as above, but useful for slightly fewer quests.
Take teeth, claws, and horns: Same as reptile hides.
 
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Magic skills

Staff fighting: Allows the use of staves, which add to armour protection. Havent used it.
Staff fighting II: As above
Staff fighting III: As above
Magic staves: Havent used it, info needed.
Improve robes (called light armour in the dialog): Supposed to double protection of robes. Bugged?
Learn quickly: Gives one extra LP per level gained. Learn this as soon as you have 100 AK. It is however usually NOT worth it for non-magic users to spend LP on AK just for this skill.
Druid: the duration of transformations is doubled. Learned from druids (!). More info needed.
Fire mage: Unspecified bonus on innos magic. More info needed.
Water mage: Unspecified bonus on adanos magic. More info needed.
Dark mage: Unspecified bonus on summoning magic. More info needed.
Mana regeneration: Essential if you are a mage. Can be learned in Vengard and Bakaresh. Probably makes further increase in max mana unnecessary.

Smith skills
Smith: Default and enough for most characters. Allows you to make non-ore weapons including the self forged bastard sword...
Forge ore weapons: Self explanatory. The only ore weapon recipe I've found is the ore two hander which can be bought in Nordmar. Allows you to start a late quest that helps your reputation in Nordmar, so its good for roleplaying and if you want nordmarian armour.
Forge pure ore weapons: Again there is a severe rarity of recipes. I have found ONE in chests, and there is supposedly one or two more to be found if you open enough special chests. Only worth it if you are roleplaying a "Nordmarian" IMHO.
Prospector: Worth it for all the quests that use gold/ore and for the money making bastard sword.
Sharpen weapon: Adds damage to your melee weapons. Worth it for everyone that uses a sharp melee weapon (anything except staves and hammers).
Heavy armour: Supposed to add to armour. Not available in the unmodified game but easily found in the fan-patched game. Bugged?
 
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Thief skills
Pick simple lock: Default level.
Pick difficult lock: Helps you open all the "metal chests" in the game, and there is a lot of them. More than there are open lock scrolls. Useful for anyone. Mages can learn the open lock spell, but so late in the game that it cant be considered a replacement for this skill.
Pick impossible locks: Only worth it if you for some reason have such a high thief skill anyway. There are enough scrolls to open the impossible chests.
Simple pickpocketing: Allows pickpocketing. Havent used it. More info needed.
Difficult pickpocketing: as above.
Impossible pickpocketing: as above.
Bargaining: Better prices when trading. Not worth it.
Make excuses: Supposedly lets you get away with crimes. Seems bugged. Not worth it.
Knock down: Not used and need more info, but seems pointless.
Murder: Not used and more info needed.
Master thief: Pickpocketing sleeping people? More info needed.

Alchemy skills
Brew healing potions: Default skill. Useful, but make sure you buy all the vials you can.
Brew mana potions: Probably useful for a mage without mana regen. I have never used it.
Permanent effect potions: Extremely useful. Just making five such potions make this skill pay off (as long as you didnt waste any points on increasing alchemy). I recommend focusing on hunting, strength, or mana potions.
Make poison: Bugged? Not really worth it even if it works, as poison weapons is a useless skill and I dont know any other use for poisons.
Brew transformation potions: Seemingly useless except as a moneymaker. There are lots of transformation potions in chests, and you will have druid stones which give access to more powerful beasts than most of the ones you can brew potions for. Not worth it.
Poison blade: The poison only works if you exercise some special move (like stabbing an enemy that already is lying down) and is so slow compared to your mechanical damage that this skill is useless. Not worth it.
Make poison arros: Havent used it, more info needed.
Make fire arrows: Neat arrows that require sulphur. Fine for novelty if you are an archer, otherwise useless.
Make exploding arrows: As fire arrows. I havent used it nor exploding arrows myself.

Other skills
Acrobatics: Less damage from falling, and you can never die from falling. Useful if you need to escape something in Nordmar or get knocked off a cliff by a troll or ogre, but most of the time not necessary.
Endurance of the wolf: Longer sprints. Nice but not necessary.
Resistance to cold: Supposed to protect against cold. Useful if it works, but I dont know if it does!
Resistance to heat: Same as cold.
Resistance to disease: Prevents your endurance bar from going gray (and depleting faster). Useful if you need your endurance (for running and parrying), but not necessary. I tend to always learn it though.
Poison resistance: Makes you immune to the poison from those annoying bloodflies and temple guards. IMHO essential as poison will kill you if you dont have a cure available.
 
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