Geas

I often have to flee from fights (despite my cunning martial style of mood: wimpy and encumberance under 10%... deflect = *******************!) and sneak back to get in a few more licks. Sadly, because I instantly jump back into melee, the sneak is essentially ruined. Is there a setting I can change, so I will not instantly attack a creature I was previously fighting? Sometimes there are multiple foes, and I want to take a little time in the shadows, and pick out the correct target.

Also: I assume backstab must be trained to 1 before it can be used? I would surely love some back-stabbiness.

If you "stop hunting all" before you sneak back in, it works better.

And yeah, you have to learn a point of backstab before you can use it (and you have to be using a weapon suitable for such things). You can do this either via a book, or watching someone skilled doing it. However, it's one of those things that might make people think you're a thief or have aspirations of becoming one, so you might wanna be careful with that.

Nope -- no aspirations of living an illicit lifestyle. I just suck at fighting, so I want every dirty advantage I can get.

How do you learn skills from books? That sounds pretty cool.

Someone who knows the skill reasonably well (and who's able to write) can write a book containing some knowledge about it, then you "study book" and wait a while, then "read book" every now and then. This gives you theoretical points...you still have to go out and *use* the skill to learn the practical ones.

Note that this isn't too commonly done in most circles, and decent quality books are hard to find, so you probably shouldn't run around asking everyone and their brother for one. And since most skills don't require a book to learn, the ones that do are more often than not kept only by certain people (i.e. guilds).