the-witcher-3
I've been happily upgrading my skills as I need them, without an overall strategy in mind. However it's dawned on me that there is no way to reassign points.
This makes me wonder, what is the maximum number of ability points available in the game? Will I be able to spread my points, or would picking a specialisation benefit me more?
There is a merchant in Novigrad that sells the Potion of Clearance as well, he's at the location shown in this screenshot, right next to the barber:
This potion is the only way to reset your skills as far as I know.
From the article Adrenaline - how to gain it and what is it used for:
Adrenaline on its own doesn't change anything. But it can cooperate with many skills, modifying them or increasing their effectiveness. Most important relations with adrenaline have:
Undying skill from the Combat category - Thanks to this skill when you lose all health points you don't die immediately, adrenaline points can be used to keep Geralt alive.
Rend skill from the Combat category - Adrenaline points can increase the amount of damage dealt even by 100%.
Deadly Precision skill from the Combat category - Adrenaline points increase the percentage chance of instantly killing the opponent.
Flood of Anger skill from the Combat category - Having enough adrenaline points allows you to activate the witcher sign on the highest level possible and increase the attack strength.
Hunter Instincts skill from the Alchemy category - Having the maximum amount of adrenaline points will increase the damage of critical hits. However, it will work only if an oil effective against a specific monster type has been used.
Rage management skill from the Abilities category - It allows you to activate witcher signs even if you don't have enough stamina. Adrenaline points will be consumed instead of the lacking stamina.
Focus skill from the Abilities category - One of more interesting skills. Thanks to adrenaline points Geralt can deal more damage and the strength of his signs increase.
Various other sources also mention a general damage increase the more adrenaline you have. From a post on CD Projekt Red Forum :
Each point of Adrenaline increases your sword damage by 5% So with 3 Adrenaline points your max sword damage is increased by 15%.
Finally, some skills such as Whirl can be maintained with the use of Adrenaline once Stamina is depleted.
Best Answer
Just to add: you will have the ability to respec, or reassign, your abilities. It comes in the form of an item, the Potion of Clearance, which you can buy for 1,000 crowns from merchants in Novigrad or fairly early on from Keira. If you want to get one immediately, this is where you'll find her:
There are 69 points from leveling to the level cap of 70 and up to 25 points from Places of Power throughout the world for 94 total available points. There may be further sources for points, but it certainly is not enough to upgrade all skills fully, which amount to 270 total points needed to upgrade all skills:
Given that you won't have the chance to upgrade everything (or even despite it), following down a specialization will probably benefit you the most. The gameplay design behind this is further accentuated by the fact that you only have 12 upgrade slots in which you can actually have the effects of the upgrade active.
Thinking through which skills and skill trees would be most useful to you would be helpful; Combat Fast Attack is a popular choice to "commit" to early on as far as I've seen and, in general, Combat will be universal, followed by Signs and then Alchemy. But if you think differently, you can assign points in different trees or in different orders, since that's the reason that there are so many. There are also many guides online suggesting which upgrades to choose and in which order depending on specific playstyles, if you need some ideas on how other players analytically upgrade. Of course, remember that upgrading in the most ideal manner isn't necessary. While it will make the game's challenges more manageable, there's also the value of discovery in experimenting yourself.
Since it's pricey at the beginning to reassign your points, you might want to upgrade thoughtfully. But if you make or have made some mistakes or if some upgrades are no longer as useful as they were, you'll still have many more points as well as the chance to reset with the Potion of Clearance.