Using Non-Combat Skills In Combat

The Common Example: Stealth and Sneak Attacks

The most widespread example of non-combat skills affecting combat is the sneak attack bonus. A character's stealth skill grants a powerful opening strike in combat. This is typically one-and-done — once you attack, you're no longer hidden — but it offsets the opportunity cost of spending points on stealth rather than direct combat abilities. Tim notes this appears in "tons of games, including my own."

How The Outer Worlds Took It Further

The Outer Worlds experimented with a fourth pillar of gameplay beyond the traditional combat, stealth, and dialogue: leadership. This let players invest in making their companions stronger rather than themselves.

Leadership Skills

The leadership skill tree split into Inspiration and Determination, which directly affected companion damage output and health in combat. A strong leader got better companions in fights, creating a viable "commander" playstyle.

Dialogue Skills in Combat

The three dialogue skills — Persuasion, Lie, and Intimidate — each had distinct combat effects mapped to the three enemy types in the game:

• Persuasion → chance to make humans cower and temporarily stop fighting
• Lie → chance to scramble automechanicals (Tim's humorous justification: saying things like "one divided by zero" to confuse robots)
• Intimidate → chance to terrify creatures (non-human enemies)

All of these skills also had perks and skill unlocks at higher levels that further improved their combat utility.

Five Ways to Give Non-Combat Skills Combat Effects

Tim outlines five general mechanics that designers can attach to non-combat skills or perks:

Reduced Targeting

Make the player character targeted less often by enemies. With four companions, instead of the expected 20% chance of being targeted, non-combat skills reduce that further. Narratively, enemies go after "yard trash" (companions) before the "boss" (player). This can be tied to speech, leadership, or even a physical stat like beauty.

Enemy Target Switching

Increase the chance that enemies switch away from you after targeting you. After hitting you once, they decide to attack someone else instead. Tim suggests tying this to intimidation ("Yeah, you better run") or even a beauty stat — enemies can't bear to keep attacking someone that attractive (or that ugly).

Reduced Attack Rate or Damage

Enemies who attack the player do so less frequently or deal less damage per hit. Tim notes these are mathematically similar but have subtle gameplay differences — slower attacks are easier to block, while weaker attacks may not penetrate damage thresholds or armor.

Critical Hit Protection

The player is critically hit less often, takes less critical damage, or suffers less severe critical effects. In Fallout, this was tied to the Luck stat. Tim suggests it could be attached to speech skills or other non-combat attributes to protect non-combat-focused characters from devastating hits.

Trap and Mine Deployment

Stealth or related skills let players place traps or mines as a skill-based ability rather than an inventory-dependent action. This provides additional damage output without requiring crafting or item collection — it's simply part of the skill, usable when enemies are attacking.

The Arcanum Beauty Stat: A Missed Opportunity

Tim singles out Arcanum's Beauty stat as "vastly underused." He sees two compelling combat applications:

• High beauty → enemies don't want to hurt you, reducing incoming damage ("Cutting that face would be a crime against nature")
• Low beauty → enemies don't want to look at you, so you're targeted less often or they switch targets quickly

He jokes about his Oblivion Remastered character being great at stealth because "nobody liked looking at her."

The Reverse Question Nobody Asks

Tim closes with what he considers a telling observation: nobody ever asks about adding non-combat effects to combat skills. He points out the hypocrisy — both gamers and designers mock players for being "murder hobos," yet games rarely provide compelling pacifist playthroughs, and when they do, players rarely take them.

He has made games with pacifist routes and has shared ideas for moving RPGs beyond the traditional combat/stealth/dialogue trinity, suggesting there's much more design space to explore.

References

• Tim Cain. YouTube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhhjmTGnwEg