I personally think that dodge/evasion are bad skills that have very few benefits for the investment they require, and this comes from playing a game in normal difficulty where I chose to have a character with no crafting skills, so with nothing else to put points in I decided to go all out on evasion/dodge (and took the nimble feat and had a couple of boosts from equipment) and found the results very underwhelming if not a complete waste of points. Although there are better types of Tabi boots based on the protection they provide. You can get almost half of that from bonuses on your gear: Balaclava +20, Armor + 35 to +40, and Ninja Tabi boots +35. But you can't hang around that close as they will spot you very quickly. With (200) effective Stealth you can get right beside someone and attack before they see you.

With (110) Persuasion you will pass all checks in the game. But some haggling for deals on the prices of Jet Skis require higher. With (105) Mercantile you will pass all checks in the game to have vendors offer their expanded inventories to you. This can be quite nice on Dominating difficulty where vendors pay half for your stuff compared to what they pay on other difficulties. You will get things like 30-50 Charons, or 1 Medicine (health hypo or Adrenalin for example) or whatever ammo they have, including stacks of 100 bullets from most guards. With (50) effective Pickpocket you can take 1 item from almost every friendly npc you meet. With (120) you will pass all but a hand full. With (100) in both skills you will pass about 95% of the checks in the game. The highest Lockpick check is 135, but there is just 1 chest with that requirement and it contains random crap loot. The highest Hacking check in the game is 130, at a computer terminal, therefore you can't use any bonuses from a tool. I'm trying to go for a dagger stealth build. Originally posted by Strifeboy:New at the game and trying to optimize a bit, what do these skills cap at, Hacking, Lock Picking and Pick Pocketing.

Crafting build underrail