Exploiting Gambling...

[Chiba City Blues]

One of the things that's really broken (and great fun to mess with) is the fact that using skills does not cause time to pass, thus allowing you to gamble at the Desert Nomads without being harassed by random encounters.

When I replay the PC version, I always give everyone gambling make 10K+ plus and then use Macros to get everyone to Gambling 8 at Desert Nomads. Then I use the glitch that allows you to GAIN skill points by leveling up skills in the library once everyone gets to 8.

Once I'm able to get people to like Gambling 15 by playing through the game and getting to the 15th rank, I go to Fat Freddy's to make an unlimited amount of money and experience.

Good times. I wonder if there will be funny bugs like that in Wasteland 2?

[Hell Razor]

There were three skills I was able to do this with - gambling, brawling and pugilism. Have a chacter with ridiculous STR and like level 120 in brawling and pugilism was a sight to see.

[Drool]

Could never get the skill bug to work for me. But I think my copy's a little screwy anyway. My brawling still hasn't gone above 4. Fool thing.

[Hell Razor]

Get your pugilist some good armor and get him close to some nasty robots, like the Scorpitron or other random Vegas bots. It will go up.

[Drool]

I have a character that's beaten the Night Terror to death two or three dozen times with a Proton Ax. Got a 7 in Rifle and Energy Weapons, but nobody's Brawling goes above 4. It's not capping by Pugilism, is it?

[PsychicMonk]

I have a character that's beaten the Night Terror to death two or three dozen times with a Proton Ax. Got a 7 in Rifle and Energy Weapons, but nobody's Brawling goes above 4. It's not capping by Pugilism, is it?

My melee chars always have Pugilism so I tried to level one of my other chars without Pugilism.
I stopped at Brawling 5 and don't think it's capped by Pugilism.

some tips how I level melee skills on most playthroughs:
- max skill level == char level (rank)
- it seems to be a lot easier to level melee skills fighting the Scorpitron or Brother Goliath
- You can level Knife Fight, Pugilism and Brawling pretty easy up to 6 fighting the Scorpitron:
- You don't want to kill him fast so keep in mind to do as little damage as possible using low damage weapons and the best armor available. (Kevlar Suits for all are nice to have and club=Brawling,knife = Knife Fight,fists=Pugilism)
- starting with Brawling grants you extra attacks==more chances to level
- After some skill level gains or when your party took too much damage flee the combat and return fully healed.
- After the Scorpitron do the same with Brother Goliath for skill level 7
(warning:pretty painful without at least Pseudo-chitin armor)

[Drool]

Yeah, this is a very much veteran party. My point character's a Fireteam Major with 180 or so maxcon. Like I said, that character has somewhere around two dozen battles with the Night Terror using a proton ax (as well as several solo runs through the Mushroom Cloud entrance's Temple Guardians). Suppose I could give everyone hand mirrors and just spend an hour tapping Brother Goliath, but Brawling should be above four. My current assumption is that something's glitched out, possibly from all the copying back and forth for multiple runs through the game. I might just get an editor and put them at 7 where they should be. Or push them up to 5 and see if that knocks something loose; I've had a couple mid-combat crashes that might have fouled something up.

[Hell Razor]

In my most powered playthroughs, I would start character at 4 brawling and by the end of the game, in Cochise, he'd hit 8. There are a few spots in Cochise IIRC where you skip some serious battles by doing a skill check against brawling, and if you succeed, you'll gain skill, even from 7 to 8.

Every 2 levels of brawling is an extra melee attack per round. A 100+ brawling skill makes combat kinda funny.

At high ranks, you can also chain the 8+ skill library trick.

It's easy to get gambling to 8. And as long at you are, say, level 136, then you can raise gambling to 136, resulting in 128 extra skill points to use. 128 skill points is enough to raise a low-INT skill from 7 to 8. At which point you can repeat the process.

Also, on the roof of Ugly's hideout, simply walking back and forth next to the skylight results in xp gains for the whole party. Macro it, and level away.

[Drool]

Ugly's was slow. I preferred the climb trick under Spade's Casino.

[Hell Razor]

Hmm, I'll have to check that out.

By the way, your skill gain is pretty tightly tied to the governing attribute. If you aren't gaining above 4s in brawling/pugilism, it's probably because your STR is, I'd guess 14? Bump your STR up a good bit.

Skill gain is often determined by just how successful you are. Gambling skill gains are highly depending on exactly how many dollars you win, for example, and either brawling, or pugilism, or both, are dependent upon the AC of the enemy and how much damage you do. And the money you win or damage you do are determined by luck and strength, respectively.

[Drool]

Heh. No, this is a very advanced character. Str: 50, IQ: 42, LK: 30, SP: 25, AGL: 31, DEX: 25, CHA: 16

Oh, and... huh. How about that. Brawling's 5 and Pugilism is 7. That's a start, I guess. Maybe I've just had some really rotten luck. Time to spend more time using the power of the written word.

[PsychicMonk]

Heh. No, this is a very advanced character. Str: 50, IQ: 42, LK: 30, SP: 25, AGL: 31, DEX: 25, CHA: 16

Oh, and... huh. How about that. Brawling's 5 and Pugilism is 7. That's a start, I guess. Maybe I've just had some really rotten luck. Time to spend more time using the power of the written word.

On my playthroughs it seemed to work the other way:
The lower the governing attribute the easier to get skill levels.
So perhaps your attributes are just too high.

And as I said before it also seems to be a lot easier to get skill Levels when fighting
the Scorpitron or Brother Goliath than doing lots of random fights. On my last playthrough Brawling skill progression was pretty much like:
1. Start with Brawling 1,
2.Level 2: as fast as possible fighting some random Robots in the Temple of Blood near the entrance
3. Level 3-6: Scorpitron with Clubs
4. Level 7: Brother Goliath with Clubs
5. Level 8 via Base Cochise Brawling skill checks

I tried to get the melee skills up to 6 as fast as possible. So my party was pretty low Level
when I started fighting the Scorpitron. This resulted in getting something like 2 Level of Knife Fighting in
just one combat turn and several increases before I needed to flee to heal up. And Clubs worked best for me to level Brawling. I can't remember I ever got a level with improvised Weapons like Books or Hand Mirrors as some say.

[Hell Razor]

Eh... you can prove it with gambling. Try to take a character with low luck to Gambling 8, and then try it with a character with high luck. My character with 14 luck couldn't get past Gambling of 4. I brought him to 17 luck and was immediately able to get him to Gambling 8.

And the 5 and 7 don't surprise me - brawling is actually also tied to luck. Raise luck more and brawling will have more chances to increase. I actually think brawling gains are determined by hitting enemies that are difficult to hit AND avoiding melee attacks, whereas Pugilism gains are determined by doing high damage with fists against heavily armored enemies. So I'm not sure whether or not the hand mirror would work for gaining brawling. I think fighting non-ranged enemies has a big effect on brawling. But getting to 8s may very well require you to have 50+ in both Luck and Strength. Also, like I said, there are instant brawling checks in Cochise, which is where I first went from 7 to 8. Finally, using a combination of the skill gain trick as well as adding a lot to IQ, can give you enough skill points to buy your way from 5 to 7, or 7 to 8.

In the end, it's more of a novelty. A character with ridiculously high brawling and pugilism is a bizarre killing machine, that gets dozens of attacks per round, and can flatten any enemy in the game with one or two hits.

Also, I may be mistaken, but it's possible that fists attacks don't count towards brawling, but rather it has to be one of a specific set of weapons (club, ax, sledgehammer, proton ax). I recall that the first time I raised a mega-pugilist, I first got him to high brawling with the sledgehammer and proton ax, and then switched to fists for even more damage. But I also thought that I had done playthroughs using nothing but fists the whole game. Not sure.

[PsychicMonk]

Okay, I just started a new game and did a speed run to test leveling skills.
Char stats:
Str: 15, IQ: 11, LK: 15, SP: 14, AGL: 16 , DEX: 14, CHA: 16
Leveled quick at Uglys rooftop to:
Str: 15, IQ: 29, LK: 15, SP: 14, AGL: 16 , DEX: 14, CHA: 16

Brawling went from 1 to 7 in 2 or 3 minutes attacking Brother Goliath from 20 feet with spears so he
couldn't fight back. My char did zero damage but got pretty much every combat turn 1 level until Level 6 as long as he hit. Going from 6 to 7 took some turns.

You're right with gambling. I burnt over 18000$ at Acapulco Club and got gambling 5.
One thing I noticed some time ago in playthroughs was that it took ages to Level acrobatics to 3 by climbing the hill in Needles with an advanced char (all attributes between 20 and 30) whiles it usually gets up pretty fast with a fresh char. The same happened to me with Perception and Picklock so I assumed It had something to do with too high stats->less challenge.

[Drool]

If it is tied to how hard a foe is to hit, that might explain things, since I usually just blow Goliath away as I use the Citadel for quick XP and the helicopter while my Brawling grinding has generally been the Night Terror. The Terror's really easy to hit; he's only tough because he has a jillion hit points. I think I'll try milking Goliath for levels again. I had used him for Pugalism, but my Rangers are too strong, so they can actually punch him to death. Hopefully improvised weapons will cripple their damage codes.

[Hell Razor]

Man what I wouldn't give for a peek at the source code to figure out exactly how skill gains are calculated for each skill.

There are two things I know for certain:

1) You can get Doctor from 1 to 5 in no time. Take Mayor bitch-ass Pedros out into the desert without a canteen. Let him get SER or CRT, and then chill for a couple hours to get him COM. Doctor him to CRT, then chill for 1.5 hours to COM again. Anyway, point is, healing someone who is COM is practically a guaranteed skill gain. So I think skill gains are about the level of difficulty/success.

2) A low-luck char (or even a 14 in luck) will have a hell of a time getting gambling up past 4 or 5. A high-luck char can get gambling to 9 win no time. Again, I think your level of success determines your chance at skill gain. Betting $10, a low-luck char with gambling 1 will win $2, whereas a high-luck char with gambling 1 might win $12 and get a skill gain.

I used to underestimate attributes in most of my WL playthroughs. I gave everyone a ton of IQ/SKPTS at promotion, because the other stats seemed pointless. But I think success is determined largely by the governing attribute, and the skill level only contributes in some limited, specific fashion.

I'm also starting to suspect that your level my play a limiting role. Like, your chance at skill gain is reduced by your rank level.

[Drool]

Oh, I never thought attributes were pointless, but I pumped IQ because I generally needed more skill points, and because the higher ranked skills like Doctor and Energy Weapon required a bit of IQ grinding. Once I'd bought all the skills I was going to use, then I started dragging up my stats. Or dumping into MAXCON.

[Hell Razor]

I usually pick one character, usually Covenant, to just pump maxcon. That way I have a better chance of running away when things are too tough.

[Mathsorcerer]

I have used the Gambling exploit only once or twice. I must admit that buying kevlar suits in Darwin for everyone at a very early point made the rest of the game extremely easy, but it took something away from the "*whew* I can't believe I made it through that" factor I enjoy.

In my treks through Wasteland now, I always use Brother Goliath as a "trainer", getting people's gun skills up to 7 (there is no reason to have Clip Pistol 7 other than "character concept", but that is how I play). Once I get hold of pseudo-chitin armor, then I can raise Brawling, Pugilism, and Knife Fight accordingly.

Based on what I have seen, the number of melee attacks you get is (int(brawling/2) + 1), so I always start people who will use that skill with 2 levels in it.

[Hell Razor]

INT times brawling/2 + 1 ?

That would be crazy.

I thought it was just brawling/2 + 1