Exactly, by that point only the skull and the Hand are really important, because none of the other 4 penalties are anything more than minor inconvenience. You don't need to go through anymore combat or Special Skill checks if you make the right choices (the other 3 penalties are just minor losses in Skill, Stamina or Luck), so none of this are likely to kill us off. Also, since we have the Mask, we could have used it to survive a Special Skill check even after suffering from Gruul's Skill-stealing spell. Added to the fact that the Chain, the Shroud and the Mask all bring extra benefits, the Blood was the obvious one to skip if you know what to expect.Silent Wayfarer wrote:The Blood of Baron Milescu protects you from losing all your Special Skills when Gruul magics you, but the impact of actually losing all those skills can be completely avoided by the right choices. I mean, pretty much none of the choices leading to the good end require special skills at all, just Stamina checks, and the blood doesn't help with that.
The Hand and the Skull are the most important, but the Skull is a huge pain in the ass when sneaking or stealing. The Hand is quite crucial because it blocks the Rennur keyword, which turns you back into a Moonrunner and Gruul's loyal slave.
I did consider leaving the Skull till the last due to the hindrance in stealing/stealth......but then I remember that we didn't pick Sneak or Sleight of Hand at the beginning, so we're unlikely to vote for those kind of options anyway. With our skillset, we're fairly safe from the skull.
Oh yeah, and that "secret meeting" side-track during the Mask quest....that was totally a trap, but I was almost tempted to go for it, because that resulting encounter was one of the coolest ever in FF. We meet some killer machine that impervious to physical damage, and the only way to kill it is to lure it to somewhere high where it's metallic body will attract lightning bolts that blast it oblivion. But it wastes more time, and we'll lose the chance to get the mask, which I figured we might need if we run into a skill check that we don't have.