Third Mind |
As the title asks. I have room for 1 of the above skills that I'm interested in. Which would be better to invest in? Is one generally used more often then the other? Is one better to have in tight / "dangerous" situations?
The character in question is more of a strength melee type, if that matters (which it shouldn't since his DEX will be the same).
The black raven |
Stealth is only useful if you are on par with the highest stealth character in the group AND if all lower-stealth PCs (cough, cough, Cleric) stay behind while the Stealth guys adventure on their own.
Sometimes useful , but really not that much, except if the whole party is built around it. Also sometimes a recipe for disaster.
Acrobatics is useful as soon as you wish to avoid AoOs when moving through the battlefield. Which happens pretty frequently IMO.
In your case, I would go for Acrobatics.
BretI |
You didn't mention the setting or environment.
Stealth is situationally useful. You need some sort of concealment to even be able to do it. You also need the rest of the group to allow you the opportunity.
Acrobatics is much more generally useful. If you are not sure, go acrobatics.
Claxon |
Stealth isn't that useful unless you really want to build around it, or the party as a whole likes to be stealthy.
Scouting out ahead alone has lead to the demise of many characters, when they get noticed unexpectedly and their party isn't nearby.
Acrobatics is more generally useful, especially if you aren't a class with sneak attack. Which is the main reason many people invest in stealth.
Otherwise, acrobatics is more generally useful for avoiding AoO. Of course playing smart can also minimize provoking, but it can be nice to just freely acrobatics away from an enemy when you want without having to worry.
I think acrobatics is a better general choice unless you have a specific plan for what you would like to do with stealth.
Mysterious Stranger |
What class is your character? If one of them is a class skill and the other is not it would probably be best to invest in that one. If both are class skills you can invest in both. You don’t have to max out a skill for it to be useful. Many skills have fixed difficulty for tasks associated with the skill. Having large numbers does not really do much after you can reliably make the DC of the task is not that important.
Even skills that use opposed rolls can still be useful at lower levels. Even if your stealth is not high enough to sneak past the high perception rolls there are a lot of creatures that don’t have that high of a perception roll. So you only managed to avoid a couple of patrols, but that is still better than having to deal with all of them.
Also magic items that boost those abilities are cheap so a small investment of points and some gold will provide decent returns. Shadow armor is only 3,750 gp in addition to the normal cost of magic armor. Boots of elvenkind are only 2,500 gp. Both of these give +5 to their respective skills. So assuming both skills are class skills an investment of 6,250 gp will get you at least a +9 in both skills assuming you only spend a single skill point. For a low level character those are probably too costly but anything above mid-level should easily be able to afford it.