Disarm Trap Expert?

Persuasion is a skill that is only apparent in dialogue. Different quests require different minimum level of Persuasion for a favorable solution. Since there are many quests, and many of them have a way of solving them using Persuasion, I'd say it's fairly balanced.

 

Breaking news, indeed! That was awesome!

Anyway...

On moderate difficulty, thief skills are less frustrating.

You can actually spot enough traps to make a difference in the BMC with only a point or two in the skill.

You can successfully pick pockets fairly often with only two points in the skill. Getting up to Expert seems sufficient on moderate difficulty.

Pick locks is still annoying, but otherwise you should be fine if you want to do some of the easier Thieves Underground jobs.

The one I don't get on moderate is Bow. There seems to be no real difference between 3, 4 and 5 points in the skill. But using a bow is a huge waste of time until you spend that third point.

 

I forgot that bow is one of the combat skills. I have yet to try that one out. So don't take my word for it changing from strange to balanced between medium and hard, Hawkthorne. But then again, all combat skills simply add percentage to the To Hit factor with each CP, so I find it bizarre that it worked how you described.

 

Maybe he included training into the equation? And nevertheless, there is a feelable difference between 60% and 80% (which are the approximate chances to hit with 2 and 3 points into skill respectively). You either miss every 2.5 hits, or every 5 hits.

 

since hit chances are significantly lower on Hard, you notice every CP invested into a combat skill, especially with a low damage output like you have in bows. And getting bow up to 3 is one of the most important skill steps in the game since you can do double damage with Expert training. At least that's how it seems to work in my game, since with the latest patches you don't fire two arrows anymore but only one, that seems to do twice the damage though.