Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011
You guys are really making me work :banghead:
The short answer to this general debate is, Yes, the way the rules are, any skill up to and including level 24 skills is potentially a prerequisite for a future Power Skill, and therefore, a player in act 2, 3, 4 or 5 could assign a single point to any of those skills, and those same skills could then be used throughout Normal difficulty.
I hope that's clear enough. As for whether this makes it possible to "screw" a character... get real. Let's look at an example:
A Barbarian has the following Core Skills: Iron Skin, Natural Resistance, Battle Orders, Howl. They can also place a single point into each weapon mastery, and double throw. That's a total of 11 skills. A point must also be put into Shout, to get to Battle Orders, and Double Swing, to get to Double Throw... that makes 13 skills.
Now, that same barb also gets three Power skills. That makes 16 skills used completely legitimately. There are also going to be legitimate prerequisites for those Power skills... let's say the act 3 player decides to give the barb Concentrate as a Power Skill (a perfectly viable option, though maybe not the most exciting). That skill has two prerequisites.
Now we've used 18 out of the possible 30 skills, completely legitimately, with no foul play whatsoever. Now the act 4 player gets the barb, and decides to add Battle Cry as a Power skill... also a perfectly fine choice. This also has a prerequisite... now we're up to 19 skills used with no problems.
Finally, the act 5 player selects Whirlwind. Two more prerequisites, bringing us to 21 skills selected with no wrongdoing. That leaves 9 skill points that could potentially be "wasted" by someone as prerequisites for possible Power skills that are never actually chosen... except some of those 9 skills are level 30, and cannot be prerequisites at all... 3, in fact.
So for this example barbarian, there is the potential for a total of 6 skill points to be misused by people determined to make the characted unplayable. And honestly, given that those skills include several useful Warcries that would make normal difficulty much easier, it's debatable whether more than 2 or 3 would actually be "wasted" at all. But even if six were used in completely useless ways, that alone wouldn't kill the character.
I'm fairly certain the same would hold true for most classes. Maybe sorceresses would potentially have it a little tougher, since half of their Power Skills involve no prerequisites, and so there are more "open" skills to be abused.
But even with that possibility in mind, that simply brings us back to the rules of the tournament... I think I've been more than clear on this. While the spirit of former SUTC tournaments has often been a bit more ambiguous, and intentionally crippling characters was part of the fun, the goal in this round is to get as many long-life characters as possible. I've told the entrants to feel free to send me any character for review, if they think it was intentionally sabotaged. I think that's enough of a deterrant for any potential mischief-maker, but if it's not, then the character-mangler will suffer the consequences. Period. If I examine a character that has been forwarded to me, and I think it has been made intentionally unplayable, then I will deal with it appropriately.
And now, I have a request. If someone poses a question about the rules, I'd like everyone else to just let me answer it personally... even if responding would mean something as simple as just quoting the rules post. Let me handle it. Sifting through page after page of speculation, trying to make sure I address everything, is getting really tiresome... I can answer much more quickly if I just have the initial question to deal with.
GAME ON!
