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[freeaxle]

Sorry if this one's been suggested already, I've done some searches but with the sheer number of topics its impossible to check them all. I was thinking that some skills have definite companions, woodchopping and axedwarfship come to mind. Seems ridiculous that a legendary woodcutter is as much a novice when it comes to using the axe as a weapon as novice. Perhaps some sort of 2:1 ratio or something similar would be appropriate? Ie for every two levels of a particular skill you get one level in its complement. Other ones I can think of off the top of my head are blacksmithing and metalsmithing and wood carving and bone carving.

[Starver]

Sorry if this one's been suggested already, I've done some searches but with the sheer number of topics its impossible to check them all. I was thinking that some skills have definite companions, woodchopping and axedwarfship come to mind. Seems ridiculous that a legendary woodcutter is as much a novice when it comes to using the axe as a weapon as novice. Perhaps some sort of 2:1 ratio or something similar would be appropriate? Ie for every two levels of a particular skill you get one level in its complement. Other ones I can think of off the top of my head are blacksmithing and metalsmithing and wood carving and bone carving.

Not sure about this idea in particular, but I know I've talked of (a side-suggestion, at best) a "skill tree" method that might have some tasks use a composite number of mini-skills.  (e.g. crafting of wooden bracelets having "material knowledge/wood", and "small items/jewellery", compared with making wooden beds "material knowledge/wood", again, but associated with "large items/furniture", at its simplest, with a possibility to be far more complicated and sub-divided...)  I could see this applying to an axe skill (generally being used to the heft of one) and partnering that with either some knowledge of lumberjacking or combat, according to situation.

The argument from some would be that attacking a rather passive tree (slumbering Ents, notwithstanding) with a view to felling it is sufficiently different from using the same axe against a being who is quite probably trying to kill you (and, if not, will actively attempt to avoid your attacks) and may very well possess a weapon, shield and/or armour of their own.  Your woodcutter would be unable to make their axe hit anywhere vital if their combat experience was vastly less than their opponent, while the fully armoured axedwarf could be quite inefficient in the opposing role and as likely to jam the axe in the tree (or being felled upon).


I think it's all a matter of balance, and consideration, but probably needs a vast overhaul if practical steps were to be made in that direction, as opposed to sticking with the current style of separation that we're rather used to and works Ok.

[Silverionmox]

The idea of composite skills has come up a few times. For example, making a stone table would use the skills stoneworking, chisel use, and furniture making. If the same dwarf made a stone cabinet afterwards, he would benefit from the same three skills. If he would make a wooden cabinet, he'd enjoy the benefits of his furniture making skill, but he would use wood and a saw/hammer and those are other skills.

[freeaxle]

 

The idea of composite skills has come up a few times. For example, making a stone table would use the skills stoneworking, chisel use, and furniture making. If the same dwarf made a stone cabinet afterwards, he would benefit from the same three skills. If he would make a wooden cabinet, he'd enjoy the benefits of his furniture making skill, but he would use wood and a saw/hammer and those are other skills.

I was thinking more simply about the exercise of one skill performing a task improving a skill unrelated to that task. So every tree cut down providing an exp. bonus to axedwarvenship as well. I vaguely remember from a psychology course I took in high school that one of the types of learning (and here I apologise to anyone who knows anything about psychology for an inaccurate/out of date theory) is having a skill set gained from one set of actions you can apply to another. Cooking in DF is a good example. Learning to cook a roast chicken you learn the skills necessary to roast beef (or elf if your tastes run that way) without having to do it, though there may be small things (like how long you have to roast it for) you have to learn from direct experience.
To your point Starver, that woodcutting and axedwarvenship are two different skills. That is certainly true, but using an axe is a skill in itself (believe me!) and knowing how to handle it would be learned from woodcutting and would be useful for fighting as well (hence axedwarfship). Its true it wouldn’t be very helpful for blocking etc. But it would give you an advantage over someone who had never seen an axe. That said, an interesting point might be that whilst the woodcutter has an early advantage in axe fighting over a peasant, his/her learning hits a ceiling earlier as all the bad habits from woodcutting end up being a problem. As for implementation, I don’t know much about the coding so I can’t really say what the best option for implementation would be. As a stop-gap measure, perhaps specifying that for every # of experience for skill A, you get fraction/# experience for skill B would be possible? The best solution I can think of, implementation difficulties aside, would be similar to the skill tree idea. I’d set it up with some generic base skills like axe use, carving, metal work etc., and then these base skills would be improved by specific skills and would in turn, at higher levels speed up learning of specific skills.

[Starver]

To your point Starver, that woodcutting and axedwarvenship are two different skills.

Not really my point (I quite like the idea of shared experience, the fact that knowing the heft of an axe must contribute something to the equation, in both skills), but more a mention of the counterpoint argument.

I think it's rather a case of...

Dwarf\Adversary	Poor	Decent	Trained
N00b with axe	Pansy fight!	Too awkward, loses	Dwarf squashed like fly
Some axe use	Axe distinct advantage	Maybe lucky, maybe not	Puts up a good fight, but outclassed
Axe fighting skills	Swish-Chop-Argh!	Makes short work	Depends a lot on opponent's armour/etc

...when simplifying things (ignoring strength, kinaesthetic sense, etc), but obviously with a fully-fledged composite of separate skill-tree branches it would mean a number of decisions based upon the RMS of the required skills (or perhaps an average of the log values, if that doesn't weight too heavily against near-zero values) to make any real sense.  If a 'real sense' is what you're after.