Skill gain with +skill items

[Conan]

Hello,

I'm fairly new to UO (I played years ago, but just recently started again with some friends here on Second Age).

I apologize if this has been answered elsewhere or is somewhere on the Wiki, as I haven't been able to find it.

My question is that if you use a magic item with a bonus to a skill, with that skill progress more slowly as if it is at the level the bonus brings it to? For example, I have a broadsword with +10 tactics, and that brings me to 85 tactics. Will my tactics progress at the rate they would if they were actually at 85? Or will they continue to progress at the rate of my natural skill level of 75?

I ask because a friend of mine was given a +15 archery bow that brought him to 92 archery and he says his archery gains seem to come a lot more slowly when using it than they were before. So is there anything to that?

Thanks.

Edit: As an additional related question, do skills go beyond the GM cap? ie. that friend uses his +15 archery bow or I use a +tactics sword once we're GM, will he have additional accuracy and would I have additional damage? Or is it a hard cap of 100?

[Rammar]

Unsure about it affecting skill-gain... I would err on the side of caution and say yes though.

As to bonuses over 100 (GM), yes magic weapons with accuracy bonuses can do that. Just keep in mind 'accuracy' for archery weapons increase archery skill (increasing chance to hit), whereas it increases tactics for melee weapons (increasing damage). For melee it's +5/10/15/20/25 tactics, for archery it's +4.6/9.3/14/18.7/23.3 archery.

[Conan]

Unsure about it affecting skill-gain... I would err on the side of caution and say yes though.

As to bonuses over 100 (GM), yes magic weapons with accuracy bonuses can do that. Just keep in mind 'accuracy' for archery weapons increase archery skill (increasing chance to hit), whereas it increases tactics for melee weapons (increasing damage). For melee it's +5/10/15/20/25 tactics, for archery it's +4.6/9.3/14/18.7/23.3 archery.

Thank you for the reply, that's good to know. I didn't know the bonuses could go that high.

So I suppose while I'm still training my tactics I'll just use a regular weapon or in my friend's case while he's training his archery for the sake of not slowing gains to a crawl.

One more question: I found a magic hat that raised my dexterity and like an idiot I equipped/unequipped it a bunch of times to see the bonus. It ended up running out of charges. Do magic weapons have limited charges as well? If I unequip and re-equip a magic sword a bunch of times to use spells will it quickly run out of charges on it's tactics bonus?

[Rammar]

It runs out with charged items/weapons -- those with a number. Weapons it's per hit, teleport per use, everything else it's per equip or a short time interval (eg. bless/invis). Durability, accuracy, damage, and silver mods last the life of the item.

So as an example, a silver fortified katana of burning (30) and power, would lose one charge of burning per hit, but retain all the other bonuses even after it reaches 0.

[Conan]

It runs out with charged items/weapons -- those with a number. Weapons it's per hit, teleport per use, everything else it's per equip or a short time interval (eg. bless/invis). Durability, accuracy, damage, and silver mods last the life of the item.

So as an example, a silver fortified katana of burning (30) and power, would lose one charge of burning per hit, but retain all the other bonuses even after it reaches 0.

Cool thanks again