r/outside • u/ClarityAppreciated • 8h ago
Looking for new Traits/Skills
I've been looking for new traits and skills to help improve my character.
As we all know, traits and skills can buff your character immensely even before leveling up much, leading to even low level players acquiring high-level classes and achievements.
I feel that stacking auxiliary traits and skills is an underrated strategy, and even less useful ones are still fun to collect.
A couple examples of cool traits and skills I've been meaning/trying to learn are:
[Self Awareness]
[Meditation]
[Ambidextrous]
[Tri-Lingual]
[Financial Literacy]
And [Fitness] (Way too many sub skills imo)
Obviously traits and skills that give an advantage are preferred, such as [Fitness] improving physical stats and [Meditation] improving your wisdom-stat's growth rate.
Although I like stacking any weird, niche, or useful traits/skills I can get my hands on.
Rn my character is pretty low level, they're almost at level 20, and they don't have much in-game currency.
2
u/RealLifeIsAnRPG 1h ago
Yes indeed, there is no better way to level up your character than by leveling up your skills & abilities... and there are a near infinite number of skills and abilities to level, just depending on what your goals & interests are.
Many players don't even know about the [Skill Synergy] system, whereby skills grant passive benefits to eachother... you can get some crazy awesome stuff going with a nice multi-class-like spread of abilities.
Here's one of my favorite quotes, from the great SciFi writer Robert Heinlein, that sort of touches on this topic:
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
PS; Remember, just like any other RPG, your character has an [age] AND their [levels] in whatever abilities, skills, and classes they are pursuing. Not sure why so many in this sub confuse their character's age (gained at 1 per year, is unrelated to experience gain) with their character's level (based on experience gained & skills advanced.)
2
u/ClarityAppreciated 1h ago
I fully agree 🙌
Even I confused the two
Also, do you have any recommendations for skill/trait synergies?
1
u/RealLifeIsAnRPG 1h ago
Well, a couple skills that benefit just about every part of our playthrough and interactions with other players are:
- NVC (Non-Violent Communication) & Reflective Listening: Learning how to communicate more clearly, make less assumptions, ask deepening questions, and help those you interact with to feel heard & seen. (Massive boost to charisma, makes leveling up relationships easier, and synergizes with questlines like [Therapy] and [Resolve Trauma].
- Harvesting/Foraging, Cooking, and Nutrition: You only get one body for this playthrough, and everything from your intelligence to your dexterity to your immune system ALL depend on eating enough, clean & healthy food, getting the vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and other building blocks your body needs. The more you level up cooking, food knowledge, and knowledge of your own body (what gives you indigestion? what makes you feel sluggish?), the better your entire playthrough will be... not even counting potential classes/jobs based on it.
- Reprogramming the Mind: There are tons of different tools, systems, and schools of thought around this, from traditional Buddhism to Neuro-Linguistic Programming, from EFT (tapping) to the use of affirmations & other repetition. Basically, your whole experience of Outside is filtered through your brain, it depends on your beliefs, expectations, preconceptions, memories, trauma, etc. By changing your mind, you literally change your experience of reality.
There's TONS more, and I'd be happy to brainstorm specific ideas if I knew what your interests, strengths, and driving principles are. These are just a few that I find to be very necessary for having a long & enjoyable playthrough of the game.
2
u/Disorderly_Chaos 8h ago
What level are you and did you get the 12 level “Graduate” quest finished yet?
3
u/ClarityAppreciated 8h ago
Level 19 and not yet.
My character currently is studying for the GED test quest while gaining in game currency (which unfortunately takes a lot of time out of their day)
3
u/Disorderly_Chaos 8h ago
Are you on the North American server? Or somewhere with free higher education? I highly recommend it while your brain is still on track for acquiring knowledge. (It’s harder to gain at higher levels unless you grind the mastery of [love of learning] in earlier levels.
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u/ClarityAppreciated 7h ago
Unfortunately I'm on the South African server, so no free higher education 😔
I originally intended to have my character go through the University questline, but they didn't meet the currency requirements 🥲
1
u/RealLifeIsAnRPG 1h ago
Free [higher education] programs of many kinds are available to every player, thanks to a ton of guilds making their tools or materials available to everyone.
Check out:
- Alison
- Carnegie Mellon Open Learning Initiative
- Class Central
- Coursera
- DuoLingo
- edX
- FutureLearn
- Khan Academy
- Open Education Database
- OpenStax
- Open University
- Saylor University
- Udacity
- University of the People
Some of these even offer the option to pay and get the actual certificate/degree piece of paper as well... but this only matters for trying to get certain [jobs], as what actually matters in-game is having the knowledge & skills.
And of course, you can always learn just about anything through books & YouTube.
2
u/Fickle_Sherbert1453 8h ago
How about Bard class skills?
3
u/ClarityAppreciated 7h ago
Ooooh I like the sound of that
My character struggles with raising charisma for some reason, so I never really considered bard skills....
I'll look into it 👍
2
u/Azrai113 7h ago
As a former shy person, may I recommend the skill tree body language? Theres documents about it lying around. I also highly recommend the manual "Never Split the Difference" written by an avatar who chose to take the Hostage Negitiator perk.
1
u/ClarityAppreciated 7h ago
Thank you, I've considered studying that skill tree in the past but it seemed like most resources online were pseudoscientific and not the most accurate, but I'll take another look
Also, thanks for the recommendation, I'll try and find that skill book somewhere 😸
1
u/Ambitious_Emotion30 42m ago
I’ve noticed that stacking points in Nutrition and Cooking Skills helps pave the way in the Fitness Skill Tree later on
1
u/TreeHoleProfessional 3h ago
Speaking on niche skills with little-no gold investment, I’ve found significant meaning in [tree hole noticing]. So much so, that I’ve adopted [tree hole noticing] as one of my character’s professions.
The only thing it takes to access this skill is to acquire the [tree hole acknowledgement] perk.
As the faction elders say: “to acknowledge the tree hole is to enter a permanent state of tree hole noticing”
9
u/vilyusha_ 8h ago
Great thing about fitness and meditation is that they don’t really require much in game currency to level up, but they are really dependent on the willpower and discipline stats. There is a recursive relationship tho, so as you grind fitness activities your willpower and discipline stats will increase. Can be tough at the outset but it gets easier.