Am I the only one who kind of finds these skills useless? Sure, they save you from traps, but honestly, I've never really had a problem with traps. They hurt you, but I can live with that when there are so many better things to spend your points on. Anyone care to disagree with me?
I've never made a character who've invested a single point in those skills. Unless the master quests for those skills are super cool, I don't suppose I've missed anything.
Me thinks this topic has been discussed many, many, many, MANY times. However, I do agree. Spot traps is useless, considering the only place you could really use it is The Black Mountain Clan Mines, but with all those wonderfull scrolls laying around who cares. Even the most tech character can use them. Disarm traps is only usefull if you wish to get spot traps mastery, I did it once. Far quicker to disarm and make your own path through that danm castle than avoid them I say.
I don't bother with either. I used to beef them both up, but I eventually got to the point where I had tons of stuff to make traps, and no technical expertise to make them. Since I never even bother laying traps, aside from the random stick of dynamite I put on a person, I just dropped the whole idea and realized the game was more fun when I had a good chance of getting ripped to shreds when I walked down a narrow hallway.
BTW, can you lay traps that are hidden, because the one and only time I used traps, Witless and his gang, the traps were visible. I had layed enough that they had no choice but to walk over them. Were they hidden to them anyways, even though they saw me put them down? Are there other traps to be made other that the bear trap and spring trap? Plus I have noticed in some instances that if you are in fast turn-based combat you can "jump" right over traps. Is this the norm or am I just lucky?
I'm not certain, but I think your enemies can't see them. Of course, the way paths are sometimes generated with Arcanum, your enemies might run in a zig-zag to get you... go figure.
