going beyond 20 in a attribute line

i haven't actually played the game yet (preordered now so will do in a few weeks :) So i wanted to know the following:
if you max out one of your skill lines for example necro blood magic to 20 and have +3 blood magic from armour runes/scar pattern, does that actually count as 23 for calculating skill modifiers/damage dealt or is it capped to 20 and a waste of time to include further bonuses of that nature?

The highest you can put one attribute line through attribute points is 12. But if you add a +3 rune and a +1 headgear you can bump it up to 16. 16 is the highest you can get, but +3 runes reduce 75 hps from your health.

ah yes dont know where i got the 20 figure from, but thanks, i figured a +2 rune (-50hp) would balance with the best vigor rune (+50hp) though

You can actually get up to 18 or 20 of an attribute.
12 max attribute
+3 Supperior Rune
+1 Headgear
+1 Weapon with % chance
+1 focus with when you use ____ attack you get +1 of that attribute
+2 from a skill that gives a temperary boost.

So your normal attribute you can get a constant 16 but you can get it higher.

I believe weapons and focuses that boosted your attributes were taken out of the game. All I saw this past weekend were things with faster cast rate or faster recharge, nothing that boosted your attribute. You can still get 18 in some attribute lines by using headgear, a superior rune, and either glyph of elemental power or awaken the blood- so any of the elemental lines, blood magic, and curses can all hit 18 in an attribute, everything else is limited to 16.

The PvP characters, at least, had access to items with a modifier something like "+1 to attribute while using skills (20% chance)" so those, at least, should be in the game and 19 is possible, although infrequent. I didn't see any of the +1 to a an attribute while using a specific skill, though.

And, since there was no wipe the old items were floating around, too.

The weapon and focus + attribute points may have been taken out of the game but, I don't know since I didn't find any last Beta. I have seen people with screenshots of weapons with +attributes but, these weapons may be from past Betas. I have also noticed that all the + attribute weapon I have seen have been blue lettered (rare), so that may be why people think they have been removed.

If both weapons and foci have the +attrubte chance, then you could get to 20, but it would be very unlikely.

I still dont understand about the RPg character, once you max out attributes and are at level 20, do you just play the rest of the game through making absolutley no improvement on your character whatsoever?

This seems that once you've maxed out the character you might as well just make a new one? But then you'll never get to new regions!

No, you'll reach lv20 well before you make it through the entire game. In fact, much of the later content, the content not revealed over the BWEs is geared towards max level characters. After you hit lv20 you'll still continue to gain XP which is used for gaining more skill points to buy more skills with and more refund points to readjust your attributes with. And, of course, you'll still want to gather materials to craft the best armor and the best weapons or gold with which to buy it.

Yup, he's right. You'll get everything you usually get, except that little number on the screen that says 'R/Mo21' and no more health and energy. Well actually Rangers max out energy early on. But that's what Expertise is for! For all of you people new to GW, Expertise lowers your cost of skills. For more direct info on it click here.

What I wanna know, is does it a appear on the Skill Bar, or do you have to constantly do Math?

That's a total of one major and one superior rune needed for a +2 attribute modifier. With two minor runes of the same attribute, you are still getting a +2 attribute modifier. I would asume two minor runes are easier to find then one major and one superior (i know you didn't ask about this but I thought I should point it out).

Please correct me if this is untrue (and i'm not sure if you can have two runes effect the same attribute, in which case your choices would be better...havn't tried).