Character Skill

There is 55 Skills in Ultima Online, all Characters have them in different amount!

In regards to skill gain on Demise it should be noted that it can be very different than skill gain on OSI.

A few of the differences on Demise are:
- No Guaranteed Gain System (GGA) though gaining skill on Demise will slow down as your total skill points increase past 350.
- Scrolls of Alacrity (SOA) are not available on Demise.
- On Demise you do not need to succeed when performing a skill or crafting an item to gain in that skill. On Demise as soon as there is a 0.2% chance to attempt something you should try it right away.
- When crafting always check your Crafting Menu Gump and for other skills searching Stratics or UOGuide might be the best way to find out your chances.

Skill Cap

The Total Amount for a Skill, "Skill Cap", for a brand new character is 100. This Skill Cap amount can be raised with the right specific Skill Power Scroll. Maximum Total Skill is 120. However, not every Skill can the Cap unlock with a Power Scroll!

Total Skills Cap

The Total Skills Cap is 700 for a brand new character! This amount can be raise by 5 each 90 Days 4 times! So at 90, 180, 270 and 360 to reach 720 Total Skills Cap!

Skill Locks

In the Character Skills, you gonna find Arrows or Locks Buttons, located at the right side of each skill. This button tell you if your Skill gonna raise, drop or stay the same. To raise a Skill, you have to make sure the arrow button is in UP Direction.

If you have reach your Total Skills Cap, you have to lower a Skill in order to raise an other.

Skill Gaining

There are 3 things that are checked to determine if you gain in a skill or don't gain when you preform a task.
The chance to gain are as follows 50% 25% 25%. Finding the best way to utilize the 3 ways will make your training go by quickly.


50% Chance - Successful Check

When you do an action to gain in a skill there are 3 skill levels that go along with the action
They are:
Your skill
The minimum skill required to gain from that action/object.
The maximum skill that will allow you to gain from that action/object.

For example
Casting spells to gain in Magery.
The min.skill to cast a 4th circle spell is 24.1.
The max.skill to never fail casting a 4th circle spell is 64.

If your skill is 24 or lower you don't gain because it is to low to preform.
If your skill is 64 or higher you don't gain because your skill is at or above the 100% chance to always succeed.
Your skill needs to be between 24.1 and 64 to have a chance to get a gain.
So the closer you are to the min.skill needed the higher the chance you have to gain.
As you gain skill and get closer to the max.skill point the chance for you to gain becomes less and less and when you are close to zero chance to gain it could take a long time to gain.


25% Chance - Total Skills Check

The next thing that is checked is Total Skills

(total skill cap - total skills) / total skill cap

Trying to gain skill if your skill cap is 700 and your total skills are 690 your chance to gain is very low just 1.4%.
But if your total skills are at 300 you have a 57% to gain.
The lower your total skills the higher your chance to gain.


25% Chance - Base Skill Check

(the skill you are training - base skill) / skill cap

Again your chance to gain gets closer to zero as your base skill reaches its cap. If your skill is 99.9 and your cap is 100 you will not even get this chance to get a gain.
To avoid losing this 25% chance to gain, whenever you can increase your skill cap by using a power scroll even if you only want your skill to just go to 100.

Quick Tips To Begin Skill Gaining On Demise

Soul Stones are your best tools because you can use them to remove skills from your character and store those skills for use later but not everyone has access to them so...

Lock all your skills except for the one you wish to train.
Train the skills that are difficult/tedious and skills that require you to spend gold on resources to train the skills first.
Use a Power Scroll if possible, even if you're only going to 100.
Always try to train well below the max skill needed to succeed.
As soon as you can always go up to the next item or level for skill training.

There is no limit to the amount you can gain in one or multiple Skills in a day!

In order to raise a Skill, you have to use the Skill. Though there are some skills that will only gain by using the skill there are skills that can be raised passively.
Some Skills can only be raised 1 way while others have more than 1 way to gain and those are the ones we say they will gain passively.


New Player No Soul Stone Example:
Tamer/Mage
When creating this character it is best to start with
50 Animal Training (tedious)
50 Magery (resources needed)

You still have 20 skill points to use and 2 skills to pick and choose. So decide what other skills you want and how many points you want to allot to those 2 skills. Always remember that Humans have the Jack Of All Trades (JOAT) Racial Bonus. This means that they have 20 in each skill though those skills are not shown on your Skill Menu Gump or used against your skill cap.

These 2 skills are either tedious or require gold to buy resources.
Lock all skills except for Animal Taming so you only gain in Animal Taming to keep your skill total as low as possible.

As mentioned previously there are some skills that raise passively. When you train Animal Taming you will gain in Animal Lore without actually using the skill (passively). You really do not want to gain Animal Lore because it will raise your skill total and as stated earlier you need to keep this as low as possible for faster gains in the other skills. This is why we lock all skills.

If possible try to find guides that provide a % chance to gain on Statics or UOGuide to see what you can try to tame. When you find that 2% chance try it as soon as possible.

At 50 Animal Taming UOGuide says to go tame hinds and timber wolves because you can and will fail but you have a better chance to gain and on OSI you have a chance to gain in Animal Taming only if you succeed.
Their guide which is correct for OSI states to not attempt walrus and polar bears until your skill is between 60 and 75.

At 50 Animal Taming on Demise we start taming walrus and polar bears and when we are at 71.1 (0.2% chance) skill we start to tame bulls. Because on Demise you will gain on failed attempts.

Animal Taming Tip
You will never gain in Animal Taming by taming something that you successfully tamed once already.
Every time an animal/pet is tamed and released (a maximum of 4 times) it's taming difficulty goes up by 6.0 points (24.0 max). This means that if you tame a bull and release it the next person who tries to tame that same bull must have a minimum of 77.1 Animal Taming to try to tame it. Use this to your advantage.

On Demise many players go to Delucia to tame bulls. If many players are there it can be an ordeal to get a bull to tame. So if your skill is at or higher than 77.1 tame the bulls the others have released. If your skill is lower than 77.1 remember that items such as rings and braclets which have Animal Taming Skill on it can be used to raise your skill.

Magery
Lock all skills but Magery as this skill has 2 other skills that you will gain passively while you are training Magery. They are Evaluate Intelligence and Meditation.

At 50 Magery.
To keep our resource costs low and to gain as quickly as possible change your difficult level as soon as possible.
5th circle spells until you reach 52.1
6th circle spells until you reach 66.1
7th circle spells until you reach 80.1
8th circle spells until 100 or higher

Magery Training Tip
If you happen to have a Mage weapon with a negative skill on it (such as -24) and spell channeling equip it right away. This will lower your Magery skill in this case by 24 in Magery and make gaining in Magery faster and a lesser impact on resources. The weapon allows you to gain in Magery casting lower circle spells which have a faster recovery time and needing less mana and fewer resources.
The satyr trick is also a way to train.

Miscellaneous:

Arms Lore	Begging	Camping	Cartography	Forensic Evaluation	Item Identification
Taste Identification

Combat:

Anatomy	Archery	Fencing	Focus	Healing	Mace Fighting
Parrying	Swordsmanship	Tactics	Wrestling

Trade Skills:

Alchemy	Blacksmithy	Bowcraft/Fletching	Carpentry	Cooking	Inscription
Lumberjacking	Mining	Tailoring	Tinkering

Magic:

Bushido	Chivalry	Evaluating Intelligence	Magery	Meditation	Necromancy
Ninjitsu	Resisting Spells	Spellweaving	Spirit Speak

Wilderness:

Animal Lore

Animal Taming

Fishing

Herding

Tracking

Veterinary

Thieving:

Detecting Hidden	Hiding	Lockpicking	Poisoning	Remove Trap	Snooping
Stealing	Stealth

Bard:

Discordance

Musicianship

Peacemaking

Provocation

Scroll of Transcendence

The Scroll of Transcendence allow to any Character to raise the specified Skill by an amount between 0.1 to 1.0!

They are obtained when fighting monsters at Champion Spawn! In Trammel or Malas Facet it can only be 0.1 to 0.5, while in Felucca it can be 0.5 to 1.0!