Blackened said:
The reason I put this for First Aid, not Doctor, is because First Aid is about using medicines in combat, or something.
Actually, I mainly wanted this for First Aid, because there weren't any other possible think to think of, except maybe healing HP using action points depending on how much First Aid you have, and this adds just a single way to use First Aid, anyway I like my other idea more.
I started thinking of this when I realized that having a 300% skill cap is pointless if there are (almost) no effects from the skill after a certain level - like Doctor needs to be 75% (in vanilla) for all the quests associated with it. Having less number of useful skills reduces the replayability. Anyway, I thought that the game should be modded to balance these skills, so I thought of a solution for every single skill. If you wish, you could use my list just for its balance elements, to make skills balanced up to a skill level, like 150%, or so. All I thought of is assumed modding of the vanilla game (with the latest unofficial patch).
Combat Skills - First balance them by balancing the damage of their associated weapons. Then add bonuses for raising them pointlessly - ranged combat skills can be raised to about 225% until you got all 95% shots, but it's not worth raising them above 175%, even above 150%. For melee combat skills, you need about 125%-150% to get all 95% hits. There should not be any bonuses for raising a combat skill up to normal levels. After it gets too high and not worth spending points on it just for the extra hit chance, the player should start receiving other benefits from developing the skill. Those benefits should be mainly/only weapons stronger than the strongest for his skill, gained by means of something that requires a skill check, like dialogue - maybe order your weapon from an NPC - your character will know what weapon would be effective when he's skilled enough with his skill.
Also, combat skills should provide more different weapons, strategy-wise:
Small Guns - everything possible you could need - having slow-firing weapons, fast-firing weapons with less damage than the slow-firing ones, snipers, burst weapons, AoE weapons (like Rocket Launcher, even if making them AoE means all they will fire rockets), wide variety of weapons for every damage type (most damage types other than Normal should be in forms of unique weapons) and all you can think of.
Big Guns - concept nearly unchanged from the present ones - burst fire weapons, ones with high damage and a little amount of burst bullets, others with low damage bursting huge amount of bullets (countered easily by damage threshold), lots of burst weapons between them; Rocket Launchers, Flamethrowers, other big guns, that work like (or almost like) the existing Big Guns - rocket launcher-fashoined, minigun-fashioned or flamethrower-fashioned, and maybe create a new kind of big guns. Though they are not as applicable as small guns, they do more damage than their "small gun equivalents".
Energy Weapons - their usual single-shot with high damage weapons, with pistol equivalent, with -1 AP cost and less damage, doing either laser, plasma, or electric damage, possibly add one with EMP damage. Good for fights in which you can't get to the enemy. Possibly do something about the Gatling Laser, because it looks really nice in the inventory (I love it!), though it isn't really fitting the other energy weapons.
Melee Weapons - a big variety of weapons - up to 3 hexes range, different AP cost, even different damage types (again, most of the unusual damage types as unique weapons), even possibly something with 1 AP cost, 1-1 base damage, enchanted knockback.
Unarmed - every weapon is like Brass Knuckles or Power Fist, just with different damage, and possibly using different ammo type, if using any. More damage than the Melee Weapons.
Throwing - They should be much more common for this to become a primary (only) combat skill. Or offer other benefits to make it worth as a secondary combat skill. It should be specific by its AoE.
Now the other skills:
Sneak: - (note: I thought a lot about this skill and never came with a especially nice solution, though it's one of the skills that needs remake the most. I still managed to think out something, though I don't know how possible is it to implement.) according to Per's guide, it's pointless raising it above some level, because it has some caps or stuff. So I suggest make it so that if skill is high enough, the player should not have any problems sneaking past critters. Also, make the player possible to stealthily assassinate someone (friendly or hostile), while sneaking behind him (or, well, just standing next to him) and using a rope, knife, or something. Better weapons will be able to kill stronger enemies. At higher skills there will be better tools for sneak-killing, bad for other uses. Using too much some weapon to kill targets will result in everyone knowing you use this, thus making impossible to kill non-hostile targets undetected in this way, until some time passes. Usable in combat. Not 100% chance to work - should be around 40%. Kills instantly (like 10 000 damage).
Lockpick - simply make more stuff for lockpicking, requiring 150+ skill, and containing good stuff that can't be found anywhere else, or can be found in limited numbers. Balanced in vanilla.
Steal - make every NPC requiring a certain skill level of Steal to steal from, so the more Steal you have, the more NPCs you can steal from, and the better items you can get by stealing. "Just killing them should grant you the same items" is an argument that limits this skill from giving stuff for like 150%+ Steal, but I guess you could sacrifice a little bit of the game realism here. NOTE: Making this skill not working would be very annoying for a lot of players (a lot of there who have the habit of stealing everything they can). It could actually make the gameplay worse. But I can hardly think of any other use of Steal.
Traps - lay traps down ("raised plate"), some of them triggerable just by your enemies. Higher skill = better traps. Available from early on. Cheap (otherwise, they will become like grenades - that's why nobody uses them). Good skill for planning strategies. If that's not possible to make in-game, then I don't know.
First Aid - already told my idea, look the upper post.
Doctor - add a new map, which serves as the Chosen One's lab. There, he'll be able to practice his Doctor skill when high enough - making enhancements adding HP, resistances/thresholds, SPECIAL and such to himself and his NPCs. Possibly change/add/remove traits. Chance to turn any NPC to a ghoul, super mutant or human, some of them need to be convinced by high enough speech. Could work good combined with what I thought of Outdoorsman.
Science - applicable at Chosen One's lab. Invent models of robots, and then copy the data and bring it at some (new?) location to get them make one for you to serve you as NPC. Same for armors and possibly other things usable by any character. Could be made just like Repair (see below). Or partly like Repair.
Repair - applicable at the Chosen One's lab. Create things depending on your skills - at high Small Guns, you could be able to create some new small guns, at high Science you could be able to create by yourself robots, etc. Possibly used for replicating of some unique items.
Gambling - remake all the gambling in the game. The player should be able to gamble until he wins a given amount of money depending on his Gambling skill and come back later if he gained more Gambling skill points. Save/load abuse of gamble should be encouraged. When playing somewhere, after a certain amount of caps won, an NPC bets an item (mostly unique items) instead of money. This makes high Gambling the only way to obtain some items, like having a good weapon at Klamath, or something.
Barter - one of the two ideas:
1: At a certain skill level, some shopkeepers offer you an unique item for sale.
2: The more your Barter skill, the more items for sale you have access to (applies only/mainly for shopkeepers). Bartering will be done by dialogue, and you will have access to one of the inventories of the shopkeeper, depending on your Barter skill. Some of the inventories requiring high level Barter skill will contain unique item(s).
Speech - at high skill levels, add options which grant you unique bonuses, like an extra NPC (unobtainable by other means), training for some skill, unique item, or something like that. The usual stuff you win from skills granting you "unique things" (like Gambling and Barter).
Outdoorsman - add the ability to have your own pets, each taking an NPC slot. Possibly taken from some NPC that sells them as babies (or eggs that require care), and they will grow as they travel with you and you feed them. Better pets at higher skill. Also, growing your own Spore Plants - different variants of them, seeds bought at somewhere - gathering their spikes for a use of your wish - make a weapon that shoots them, simply throw them at your opponents, use them for the creation of some medicine, or do something else with them. Outdoorsman has the potential for many other uses too, but I didn't managed to think of any good enough to mention.
I am really looking forward to trying this mod out since I love fallout 2 but just can't get it to work.
) Computers aren't workint - but if think it shoud be that way. Bug with those "zombie monsters" in targeting mode - no descriptions on body parts and other glithes. Light sabre 
