I'm pretty sure that FAQ is wrong. You will need master skill *or* advanced + some accuracy mods for 100% accuracy. Upgrading a skill to master is quite expensive so unless you're really into rifles, leaving it at advanced and investing in lockpicking or multitooling (or whatever else you like) may be worth considering instead.

Like you said, head-on firefights can be deadly and getting to master level in some weapon skill does not really change that.

It's definitely worth thinking about alternatives to picking & tooling since there are often many alternative ways to get in. Windows, climbing, unlocked alternative routes, blowing up doors, finding a key, finding a computer that unlocks the door.. If you know all the possibilities, then you won't run out of picks & multitools too much, but especially on the first playthrough (when you inevitably miss some goodies littered on the levels) it really helps to get these two skills to advanced.

I wish I could watch you play Deus Ex :-)

Funny you should mention that as we played a version of house rules that added and differentiated between agility (ability to move your body quickly and change direction, as in dodging and whole body reactions) and dexterity (manual adroitness with your hands, as in manipulating lock picks or trying complicated spells).

There to compensate we added Willpower to the mental stats and replaced much of what wisdom did with it. Wisdom now directly affected exp gain (in 10% increments) and insight (DM would use a high wisdom score to drip feed hints to the team). Willpower affected spellcasting ability and Will saves.
I find 7-8 stats to be the perfect amount. SPECIAL is a great system, for instance, especially the way the skills and perks play off the stats.

Sure, SPECIAL is great. I love the fact that the character attributes in Fallout are rather meant as something permanent that defines the character you play and is the main reason why there's so much replay value and why characters can play so differently (and I was very disappointed to learn that there's actually quite a few ways to boost your attributes even in Fallout 1 and 2) and it's brilliant that the scale is rather small and every level is named and it's quite clear what value corresponds to what kind of character.

The skill system in Fallout, on the other hand, is in my opinion epically botched. The fact that skills were represented as percentages that go well beyond 100% (what was the upper limit? 300?) is the first big mistake. Unlike in case of the character attributes there's no notion of how skilled a character is, I would have very much preferred a smaller amount of distinct levels like "amateur", "trained", "expert" etc.. The fact that you can go well beyond any of the scripted skill checks also suggests that the developers had little notion of what percentage translates to what skill level. Secondly I don't like how skills are (mostly) improved in such an abstract manner, using a traditional level system. Gain a level by solving a riddle, improve shooting. Gain a level by killing enemies, become better at lockpicking etc.. It's pretty much the opposite of the SPECIAL system which is kinda authentic. I'm not saying that they should have made it similar to TES' system where skills improve by frequent use, which is prone to exploits, but there were certainly better ways to do it, e.g. by granting skill progress by solving quests and using the manner in which quests were solved to determine which skills improve or something like that.

A couple of my players were at first afraid to use their skills and apply effort, since you're effectively using up your health, but due to how healing/resting works, it hasn't been a problem yet. The more times you rest each day, the longer it takes to heal up, from "wait a few seconds to catch your breath" the first time up to "make camp and sleep for 8 hours" on the high end.

One of them is part machine though, and thus can't heal everything naturally, but need to break out the tools in order to heal the final few points.

I suppose they could've been more imaginative with the skill system but personally it never bothered me. Perhaps they could've, like you said, added some indication of how good certain skill levels were. Perhaps a simple colour code - red for low, orange for mid range, white for high and green for very high. And having appropriate skill point rewards for quests is a great idea as well. Like in that one mafia families questline in Fallout 2. You have to decide between three or four families I think, and each provided certain bonuses. Can't remember what specifically but I remember through one you could gain access to energy weapons. What would've been cool would've been added training in those weapons as an additional quest reward. Eg. a fancy energy weapon + 15 energy weapon skill points at that family, and the same at the other families but for other weapon types : heavy weapon, power fist etc.

But I think that perhaps I find Fallout's skill progression system preferable to that of ES since in the latter I'm constantly worried about whether or not I'm leveling at least somewhat efficiently. With the whole skill progression thing locked behind a level-up it kinda puts me at ease.

I don't know what the difference is; I was more focused on that wall of skills. You've gotta drop points to have a working minimap. That's how stupid the system is.

The thing about Final Fantasy and similar games of the era is that the stats are background. You don't have to choose how they go or anything bothersome like that.

What about the skill system of the original Wasteland? (Here, skills, acquired by spending skill points, could be improved by use; this was limited by both your level and the difficulty of the task. Also, improving skills did not influence level ups, so the issues with TES leveling aren't found here.

The only inelegant part of the system is that starting stats are randomly rolled (and, of course, having the confusingly similar stats of Dexterity, Agility, and Speed all in the same game).

It might have been actually that, Master skill (so the 4th level, not 3rd). For some reason I couldn't find that FAQ for now, maybe it was some web page or Deus Ex discussion where I saw it.

Anyway, it seemed to indicate quite strongly that you shouldn't waste any accuracy mods to the sniper rifle unless you will keep your rifle skill in low levels, but if the FAQ was really suggesting going all the way to Master level with rifles... then to me it seems it might be a good idea still to use those mods also to sniper rifle (just to stay in Advanced rifle level, and use the skill points for something else; heavy weapons sounds like a good candidate), especially since you apparently can find quite many of those mods throughout the game, still plenty also for your handguns or whatever you want to use them on.

I will probably concentrate on rifles and maybe heavy weapons though, I even deducted the skill points from my handgun skill so that I am untrained with them. I think I will mostly use the sniper rifle and an assault rifle, and use most of the gun upgrades on them. Apparently the assault rifle can shoot grenades as well, I just don't have them yet apparently.

Still, if I have an option to sneak behind an enemy and club him down silently, I'd still like to use that. Clean, conserves bullets, and apparently by brother Paul likes me better if I don't kill the terrorists (I can already see why that is and where the story is probably going...).

Curious, how far into the game are you now? Which mission are you doing?

Can't say I've ever really paid close attention to stat management in RPGs beyond "This is the one the skills I'm interested in depend on, so I need to up that. So less or more isn't really as relevant to me as much as complexity. If you're going to have more base stats and each is exclusive to specific skills I need, then there should be frequent level ups or a greater number of stats to allocate if there is less frequent levelling.
Was that really an issue in Deus Ex? From what I remember, there was only one type of each weapon (one sniper rifle, one pistol, etc), and for the most part weapon upgrades were specific to the type of weapon: a mod for a rocket launcher wouldn't work on a rifle. Stuff that WAS usable on multiple weapon types (laser sights is an example), were available in some number.
Sounds like it is near the beginning.
Nonlethal silent playthroughs are quite hard in DX what with the dart gun being essentially useless, and the stun baton needs you to sneak up to people and whack them only on the very specific part of the back of their head.

Well, it so happens I restarted Dues Ex when I was just on my way to destroy the power generator in Hell's Kitchen to help Paul. Now I am pretty much in the same place. So good way in Hell's Kitchen, still in early parts of the game I guess.

It was a pretty stupid reason why I restarted the game though. I thought I had missed getting 750 skill points in Liberty Island, when I read some FAQ. It mentioned you get 750 "extra" skill points by getting to the top of the Statue of Liberty, and I really thought you have to somehow climb to the very top of the statue. I tried to find my way up there, walking by narrow ledges on the top of the statue, almost falling down from the heights etc...

...but then I realized by reading the logs that I already got those points. You get them when you get to the Commander which you are supposed to arrest. So that is the "reaching the top of the statue" then. I got confused because you get another 150 points just before reaching that part.

Anyway I didn't mind replaying the Battery Park and Hell's Kitchen, doing some things a bit differently (even managed to save all the hostages in the subway and the Milton's Hotel this time), so here I am now, on my way to the generator. At this very point I am seeing the Smuggler and got a quest to save his friend.

Yeah, I can definitely see how that would be a problem... reminds me of spells in FF VIII, because you could attach them to stats to boost them you never wanted to use them as it would lower your stats..

But if it's easy enough to replenish your health / skills then it's not so bad.

Thinking about it Banner Saga uses a similar (ish) system where your strength and hit points are the same stat and the more damage you take the less you can do. Which is nice, but a little swingy sometimes (a strong hit to one of your good characters can leave you with little potential for doing damage).

Yes, beginning parts. I take my time exploring everything. :)

For now the baton seems great, I don't seem to have issues hitting the right spot. I just sneak up on a patrolling or standing enemy crawling, and as soon I get close enough that the square "hitbox" appears, I just aim at his head or back (while crawling) and they go down with one hit. The only time that doesn't happen if I am not behind them.

Not sure if this tactic will work anymore with future enemies, e.g. I am not expecting to knock down robots from behind. After all, Thief games also had enemies (monsters, zombies, humans with a better helmet) that couldn't be knocked down from behind either. And of course this doesn't work on groups of enemies that see each other, usually just lone guards patrolling or standing.

Still, up until now I think I've knocked down maybe 50-60% of my enemies, and I tend to take them all down (either knock them out, or shoot them; occasionally blow them away). I feel like a coward if I simply evade some enemies, they all need to go down one way or another. That's how I normally played Thief games too, first knocking or killing down everyone in the level, and then concentrating on the actual mission objectives, with no enemies roaming around. :)

The reason I was thinking of training sneaking as well was because apparently it makes your crawling faster, making those silent approaches from behind even easier.

I like playing RPGs that were released before skill systems were commonplace, so stats were really the only thing characters had besides class, level, and known spells; hence, in such games, stats are rather important.

Also, I've played games where stats are not dependent on some leveling system. In Ultima 3, for example, stats are independent of level and are improved by spending money in a certain place. In SaGa 1 and 2, there are no levels; only stats. (The same is also true of Final Fantasy 2, though that game does have weapon and magic skills.)

Maybe not, I wouldn't know yet. So I have (had) no idea if there are e.g. several types of sniper rifles, or assault rifles, or handguns in the game. Apparently not, which is a plus (ie. I can freely upgrade my current sniper rifle, assault rifle and sawed-off shotgun). And yeah, reading some FAQ on the weapon upgrades, apparently there are plenty of them around, some even exceeding the amount of weapons (e.g. you can find or buy more scopes that that are types of weapons where you can even install one; maybe the same for silencers?).

Quite many of the weapon upgrades do work for many types of weapons. If you check the weapons' details, they show what parts of it can be upgraded, and at least the weapons I have now have many common things to upgrade, like accuracy, recoil, rate of fire, clip size etc. Silencer can be installed only on the sniper and assault rifles if I read right; scope can be put to quite many weapons, even the mini-crossbow and the rocket launcher, apparently.