Any way to remove 5th skil? without cheats?

[Swato85]

I trained a surivor with good skillset for food specialists in gardening and agriculture, thinking that once I get enough points and luck with trader I could purchase lichenology and swap it. its not working. So is there any normal way to remove the skill or is my only option to find a survivor without the fifth skill?

[Torque]

You need to a find a survivor without a 5th skill to use the lichenology book

[Protectron]

The only thing that can do that is the third-party Editor mod.

As Torque said, you need to find a survivor with no 5th skill. Those are generally the best to have anyway.

[Swato85]

So My last sentence answered this, sh.... I hoped there was something implemented in game that I missed....

I dont like cheating.

[Swato85]

Well its more of a life values I guess, I never cheat and this is cheating, going against game code to convert reality to your prefered state.

And I fully agree on the game constantly cheating players, especialy by throwing spawns on their heads, throwing bloaters on road in barely avoidable distance, throwing feral packs so close that they sence player immediately after being spawned - yeo, the game is a stupid cheater in some things, which implies tyranical behaviour of whoever encoded this mechanic.

[Protectron]

Originally posted by bill.russ:

The SOD2 Community Editor on Nexus does this easily; the caveat is that the now "empty" 5th skill slot actually does still have something in it so you can't use a skill book to insert a skill in the slot. Use the Community Editor again to put the skill you want in it along with the desired level of that skill.

You need to remove that something that is in it too. There is always a quirk skill that gives the survivor that skill in the first place. Use the SoD wiki traits list to figure out which one it is and remove that one too.

[Protectron]

Originally posted by bill.russ:

You can use the CE to change the quirk skills anyway, selecting from an astonishingly long list.

Yes this is the correct way to do it in order to be allowed to use skill books on the changed character:

1. Remove the 5th skill (specialization and base skill)
2. Figure out which trait that told the game to put that skill there in the first place. Use this list https://state-of-decay-2.fandom.com/wiki/Traits and check all the traits that the character has on it until you find the relevant one. For instance, Lab Technician enables Chemistry.
3. Click on Lab Technician and then put it back in the list (right). You can now save and go back to gaming and you can now use a skillbook. However, there is a chance that doing this (especially if you are also tempted to remove a bad trait like "psychopath"), the character may have fewer options to choose from when you specialize in the 4 main skills. Worst case scenario is that you get a Marathon, Stealth, Endurance, Weapon handling character (only basic choices).

I only do this to the 10th, 11th, 12th survivors when recruited through the Special enclaves. This is because I can't be bothered grinding Special Enclaves until I get a trio with no 5th skills or that somehow rounds out the other 9 characters (which is like finding a unicorn).

[Protectron]

Originally posted by bill.russ:

Yeah I said I didn't notice any difference if the quirk skill was totally inappropriate to the fifth skill; actually I also would do what you do and put quirk skills in line with my new 5th skill just to "make tidy". Thanks for shedding light on why after deleting the skill, you couldn't use a book to put a new one in. While I'm in CE I just put the new one in there and it will do it even if the quirks don't jive. It's probably better if you make sure that you do make them appropriate as you're saying. It's just that if you're using CE there's really no reason to use a skill book; just save it for if you pick up a survivor who "legitimately" has no 5th skill.

Yeah I do this because I generally do have all the skill books and a Trade Depot to get more of them when I recruit the trio to go to 12 survivors. So instead of giving myself whatever I want with the editor, I am just saving myself 20-30 hours of grinding to finally get a trio of Soldiers, Mechanics or Alcoholics who have the 5th skills (or lack of) that I want.

Another way to get what I want and save time would be to just take the first random trio that I get in the character generator and then just change them to Lichenology, Scrum and Hygiene with the editor. It would be much quicker. I did that once and didn't like it, because of course I gave myself Warlord, Sheriff and Trader as well. Didn't feel right.

It's a slippery slope and the only reason I don't feel that changing the final trio to having no 5th skills (if necessary) is just giving myself stuff with the editor is that the only other option would be to deem that playthrough for finished and a failure because I didn't get all 12 5th skills that I wanted on the first try. Kicking the trio out out to go down to 9 survivors again, then killing off unwanted Special Enclaves until I get another Soldier/Mechanic/Alcoholic, and then killing them off again or leaving to another map if they weren't the ones I wanted; rince repeat ad nauseam.... I am never doing that again.

Kicking out someone from the original 9 survivors in order to recruit a better one is fine, though.

[shmodzilla]

Originally posted by bill.russ:

The SOD2 Community Editor on Nexus does this easily; the caveat is that the now "empty" 5th skill slot actually does still have something in it so you can't use a skill book to insert a skill in the slot. Use the Community Editor again to put the skill you want in it along with the desired level of that skill. It's only my opinion but the game itself cheats - badly. There's unfortunately not any real meat in the plot so I feel why go thru a lot of agida over something that really isn't an achievement you're trying to do. You get no kind of kudos for your effort.

When i tried that it wouldnt take the skill book but you can add the skill with the editor. Unless its been fixed. So i just played as "fair" as i could , set the skill and trashed the book.