I could use some secret skills for my custom reactions, like the Biologist or Thaumaturg or Inventor or Toolmaker.
The game has many unused, hidden skills. They would have no profession, like Tanner or Butcher, and therefore no custom graphics, but you could see the "Legendary Somthing" or "Dabbling Something" in the skills. They would also have no labor that you can toggle, like Mason or Detail-Stone, so people would have to use workshop profiles to allow and disallow dwarves from certain reactions.
Example: The merchant stalls currently use diplomacy/ambassador, because it was to closest skill I could find. But a already existing social skill, the Negotiator, fits way, way better. I changed it in my raws, and my dwarven negotiators now haggle with the merchant stalls. I cant set this labor, so its active in all dwarves, all the time (like pulling a lever, any nearby dwarf will do it), but I did restrict merchant stalls to only one designated dwarf.
SOCIAL SKILLS I CAN USE (OR EVEN RENAME):
PERSUASION Persuader Persuasion
NEGOTIATION Negotiator Negotiation
JUDGING_INTENT Judge of intent Judging Intent
APPRAISAL Appraiser Appraisal
ORGANIZATION Organizer Organization
RECORD_KEEPING Record keeper Record Keeping
LYING Liar Lying
INTIMIDATION Intimidator Intimidation
COMEDY Comedian Comedy
FLATTERY Flatterer Flattery
CONSOLE Consoler Consoling
PACIFY Pacifier Pacification
LEADERSHIP Leader Leadership
TEACHING Teacher Teaching
SITUATIONAL_AWARENESS Observer Observation
KNOWLEDGE_ACQUISITION Student Studying
Now most people know these.... but there is more. Completely unused skills, like MAGIC_NATURE, which is listed as "Druid" in a dwarf. I did change this to "Magic Weapon User", which is used for magic staves/wands and orcish magic weaponry. There is a whole list of these.
SURPRISE:
CONCENTRATION Concentration Concentration
DISCIPLINE Discipline Discipline
WRITING Wordsmith Writing
PROSE Writer Prose
POETRY Poet Poetry
READING Reader Reading
SPEAKING Speaker Speaking
CONVERSATION Conversationalist Conversation
COORDINATION Coordination Coordination
BALANCE Balance Balance
There is also knapping and tracking, which I believe is adv mode related, but could be used as well.
KNAPPING Knapper Knapping
TRACKING Tracker Tracking
I can make any reaction use any of these skills. And I can rename them like I want. Just look at it: There is a SPEAKING and a WRITING skill already, which I can use for the Speakers Podium and the Scriptorium. But what to do with PROSE and POETRY, which are more or less the same... lets just rename them to Machinist and Artificer.
And my Poison&Wax Worker, Researcher&Inventor combos? I can split them.
Poison&Wax Worker => Wax Worker
Researcher&Inventor => Researcher
Concentration => Inventor
Disciplin => Poisoner
I have 10 completely free skills that I can rename like I want, 2 adv-mode skills that I could use, and 16 social skills that I could partly rename.
PROS:
- Less exploits and skill-farming.
- Allows more and more skills.... Thaumaturg, Biologist, Apothecary, Mad-Warpstone Scientist...
- Harder for dwarves to learn everything, because they need to level in more skills.
- More atmosphere since you have writers and speakers, inventors and what-ever I want running around the fort.
CONS:
- These skills cant be chosen at embark.
- You cant toggle labor on/off, not even with the Therapist. Only way is using workshop profiles. (or having any dwarf do the reaction)
- You wont get custom graphics for them. (legendary writer still looks like peasant)
- You wont get professions for them. (If a dwarf is a legendary writer and a adequate tanner, he will be counted as tanner)
Feedback more then welcome.
More info to be found
here, all skills or
here, wordsmith example