Arcanum Character creation

Hi everyone. I'm new to Arcanum and still reading the manual to try and grasp character creation and the gameplay basics. I got the game last week when Dhruin pointed out it was an absolute steal for 2.99$ at GOG

I basically would like to play a thief. Any tips on that? Is it doable to play a hybrid thief/mage? If I play a thief and steal/pickpocket a lot, will I automatically be aligned evil? Does chosing the evil path block you out of a lot of quests? I've also read that the number of NPC followers depends on my Charisma rating. How does that work and how many points should I put in Charisma if I want to play with a good amount of followers.

Thanks

not sure what it does to your character but likely the Troika team considered in most actions. If Fallout is any indicator of their style it probably amounts just stealing to the keys to what you need or the cash to buy it. On one occaision in FO2 I didn't have what was needed to get into either the gas station or the BoS so I snuck in. Unfortunately, it ended up I couldn't complete the game because I got what I needed in a way they didn't expect.

Getting back to character creation, Arcanum is unfortunately severely unbalanced. They nerfed the guns and made the sword wielder too powerful.

There are a number of bugfix and other mods out there. Will they work with a GoG version?

I have read somewhere that high charisma gives you the chance to talk yourself out of most situations ... rather combat-free role-playing.

I can't say. I haven't played Arcanum for many years now, and re-found the game CD only last week again.

Guns are fine if you play in a realtime/turnbased mode hybrid. Have every battle start out in tb. Find the guy you want to target then switch back to real time. You will get many more shots in RT than you would have in TB. I really had no problem as a gunslinger/inventor. Well, one problem. I had a TON of stuff I needed to collect. That's ok since I'm part rat I always horde anything I find in any game

As for a thief, I really can't really say since I didn't put any points into that character set. I did find a thief guide that should help you.

Thanks for the tips, I'll roll a thief character and see how it goes. I'll try the throwing skill as my primary attack. I wonder if it's a good idea to try a thief/mage hybrid or if I should tend to go more towards tech.

I strongly recommend magic as support if you're new to the game. It is far more powerful than tech (though tech is pretty cool).

Also, evil is definitely a viable way to play the game. One of the best things about Arcanum is how open it is - so many quests with lots of different outcomes. It's brilliant.

I actually think Arcanum is the most complex game I've ever played in terms of quests and options. You need to play through it quite a few times to see everything.

First time through go with thief mage. It's the easiest…well mages are, not sure about thieves

Just a little helpful hint, during character creation put 2 points into melee (you might have to bump up your dex)or at the very least 1 point. If you don't you will critically fail all the time in combat.

Also one point into herbology will help you survive in the beginning. Even if you go the mage route that one point isn't going to make a difference with your plans as a mage. Being able to make your own healing salves in the beginning saved me a lot of headaches.

Just thought of one last thing. Since you're definitely going to be a thief GET THE LOCKPICKS from the shop during character creation. No matter what character I am going to be I always grab those. It's a pain trying to find those later on.

Thanks for the tips. Should I put points in melee even if I want to use throwing weapons? During character creation, is it too early to put points in lockpicking/pickpocketing and prowling, or should I wait to level up for those?

You should still put a few points into melee. Melee and throwing use the same skill Dex, so if you have to bump up your dex at least you'll be able to improve throwing later on without increasing another stat. Two points should be enough to survive until you can really start to customize your character.

As for the thief skills I would wait on those. You will level up pretty fast so you can start to increase those fairly quickly. Take this advice with a grain of salt because I never put any points into those skills, except for lockpicking. I always waited on advancing that one until I had a solid start with my character.

For a ranged character when you fight try switching back and forth between turnbased and realtime. I never used those weapons, but with firearms I got off more shots in realtime than I did in TB. In RT sometimes I had a heck of a time targeting the enemy so I would switch to TB run away from it, target it (put my mouse over it ) and then switch back to real time. I did this for battles with a lot of enemies coming at me.

skavenhorde said:

Just a little helpful hint, during character creation put 2 points into melee (you might have to bump up your dex)or at the very least 1 point. If you don't you will critically fail all the time in combat.

Also one point into herbology will help you survive in the beginning. Even if you go the mage route that one point isn't going to make a difference with your plans as a mage. Being able to make your own healing salves in the beginning saved me a lot of headaches.

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Glad to see these tips skavenhorde. I've been thinking about Arcanum a lot lately, and it might be the next game I play that doesn't have "Fallout" in the title.

A little off-topic, but have you ever seen the movie 'Wild Wild West'? I caught it on cable a few weeks ago, and that's what really got me thinking about Arcanum.

Good movie. Tons of steampunk in that one I was reading about that on IMDB and saw that they also had a TV show back in the 60's. Might try to catch a few episodes one day.

As for Arcanum, I've played it to completion a few times and a few other times I made it about halfway before some "new and shiny" game came out If you need any more help I've played as a tech/gunslinger, tech/swordsman, pure mage, different schools pure mage, and tried a combination of magic and tech (tried to keep the meter right in the middle) but that didn't work out too well. Spells are too weak. I am still going to try and do that again on my next playthrough. It's really difficult, but giving myself that handicap will keep the game from getting boring.

I can't help out with the evil quests. I've never gone the evil route. I see enough of that crap every day. I want my games to have at least one good guy out there even if in real life they don't exist. Still managed to get some evil NPCs in one playthrough because I was a persuasion master.

Speaking of companions, if you like Sog then don't neglect persuasion. In every playthrough I always became a persuasion expert. Only once did I get the master rank because I wanted to see what the evil NPCs were like, but at expert you can get more followers. I believe I always had at least 4 of them with a combination of Charisma and persuasion expert.

A note about gunslingers. Everyone will say they're harder to play. While that might be true, the tech makes up for any shortcomings that come with using guns. Like I said before I played a combination of TB and RT. In TB you'd get a few shots off then the enemy would be right next to you on their turn. In RT you would get more shots before they were close to you. This might not have been the intention of Troika, but by mix and matching the combat I sorta balanced out the gunslingers.

A note about mages, personally I found that after my first playthrough mages were too easy. All I needed really was one spell, Tempus Fugit and I could level up at lightning speed and kill just about anything I came across all on my own. Almost ruined my first playthrough because the game became too easy. It was ridiculous how many attacks I got using Tempus Fugit. Stay away from that one if you prefer a more challenging game.

Ok then, that's it from me. I'm glad I could tempt you back into Arcanum since Steampunk has become a recent obsession of mine. It's all Arcanums fault!!!

I rarely put anything into persuasion. I usually get the charisma needed for Sogg (9 charisma), pick up Dog (does not take up any spots) and let Virgil stick around.

And yes, Tempus Fugit is extremely overpowered.

Also, for the thorough: Here's a nice character planner I've used in the past.
http://www.terra-arcanum.com/arcanum/old/characterbank/WEB_ACP.html

It shouldn't be needed for the first time through Arcanum, however, as you should probably spend more time exploring the fascinating world than nitpicking tiny character details.

Maylander said:

I rarely put anything into persuasion. I usually get the charisma needed for Sogg (9 charisma), pick up Dog (does not take up any spots) and let Virgil stick around.

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I like companions just as a personal preference. I always have as many as I can without compromising too many other skills. It's going around with a gang for good

I've never managed to play very far, but I'd definitely like to finish the game as a gunslinger. Is it possible to be decent at melee at the same time?

Also, does 'gambling' have any use other than to earn extra money? I wanted to invest in that for role-playing purposes, but I've been told that it's rather useless.

The character I envision is a (Human male) smooth-talking, gambling, gunslinger. He can also hold his own in a melee fight, and is fairly competent at disarming traps, and lockpicking. I'd like him to be strong in Gunsmithing, Explosives, and at least one other tech discipline.

Should be possible, as you get quite a few points by level 50. However, you'll be hard pressed to reach Master in a bunch of skills in addition to doing well in three tech disciplines, so you'll end up as something of a jack-of-all-trades.

skavenhorde said:

I like companions just as a personal preference. I always have as many as I can without compromising too many other skills. It's going around with a gang for good

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True, but it also makes the game very easy. I've played through it a few times with a smooth talker. Once I reach 4-5 companions, combat starts to feel a little silly, as the companions will kill everything before I can react (unless I turn on TB mode). Having Dog, Sogg and Chukka is crazy, especially if you use magic to summon ogres/demons as well.

Also, if I recall correctly, each hit with a weapon, spell or ranged attack will give your main character experience. The more you kill with followers, the slower you level up.

You could easily be an expert melee fighter while mastering firearms. Since you'll need to buff up dex to get melee then it couldn't hurt to put a few points into dodge as well. Maybe get that one up to expert as well.

I never put any points into gambling, but since it's an intelligence based skill and you'll need a lot of intelligence it couldn't hurt to try it out. I actually prefer haggling, but for the techies it just isn't cost effective. You need willpower for haggle. I got expert haggle for my mages. It was nice being able to sell anything anywhere, but in the end it really isn't that big a deal. I didn't mind the random encounters when heading back to Tarant. I'd normally do some exploring on the way back (I love how I forget some of the hidden locations and then would find them again ). I normally had to go to Tarant anyways since I always had stuff to put into my "storage unit." I used the abandoned …..tool shed (I guess that's what it was) just north of the railway station. They had a box there that I kept everything I needed for my inventions.

Explosives is almost a must for the gunslinger. You'll need the throwing skill to effectively use what you create. I didn't go crazy with the throwing skill maybe putting in a point or two and never used it for anything but the explosives. Mechanical is a nice discipline if you like tiny versions of the Wild Wild West spiderbot. The traps aren't that useful, imo, but I used them every now and then. Plus, with the patch from Drog he added a few variants to the spiderbot. Herbology isn't that bad either.

This is exactly why Arcanum is my most replayed game to date. There are so many different variants of characters you can play it's almost unreal. I was looking at all the disciplines and thinking damn that one is good too…..but there are only so many skillpoints you'll get throughout the game. I hated the level cap at first, but without that cap I would have made the SUPER DUPER CHARACTER OF AWESOMENESS in my first game.

If you don't want to go the mechanical route. Smithy is a good discipline since you'll put some points into melee. Those balanced swords and axes were a god send with my melee character. I can't tell you how many weapons I broke on some of those enemies who damage your weapon when you hit them and having a few spare swords and a few axes helped me a lot. Explosives also work nicely on those suckers

Ok, I've rambled on enough. I think you got the right idea. Stick to roleplaying the character you want. Gambling while most people say is useless will certainly help. Maybe you won't have to go hunting down a ton different shops because you'll have more money than I did. Plus, they have that gambling option in the shops. Not exactly sure how that works. I used it once, but since I wasn't a gambler I never used it again. I think I lost

BTW, sorry K1000 for probably spoiling some of the more surprising things I found out about Arcanum like the monsters that damage your weapons. Fear not though this is just the technical aspects of the game. The story, characters and setting is where this game really shines.

Maylander said:

Should be possible, as you get quite a few points by level 50. However, you'll be hard pressed to reach Master in a bunch of skills in addition to doing well in three tech disciplines, so you'll end up as something of a jack-of-all-trades.

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Ever try the mod that removes the level cap?

skavenhorde said:

Gambling while most people say is useless will certainly help. Maybe you won't have to go hunting down a ton different shops because you'll have more money than I did. Plus, they have that gambling option in the shops. Not exactly sure how that works. I used it once, but since I wasn't a gambler I never used it again. I think I lost .

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Thanks, I'll probably try to find a walkthrough that gives a little more detail on how gambling can be used.

Maylander said:

Having Dog, Sogg and Chukka is crazy, especially if you use magic to summon ogres/demons as well.

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Don't get dog. I love dogs and kept that lovable mutt alive for as long as possible in Fallout, but in Arcanum the dog is just a powerhouse. He makes Cujo look like a poodle. Sogg was the only heavy hitter I kept and that was mostly for his carrying capacity (need lots of stuff for inventions). The rest I recruited for either roleplaying reasons or wanted to see what they were like.

skavenhorde said:

Good movie. Tons of steampunk in that one I was reading about that on IMDB and saw that they also had a TV show back in the 60's. Might try to catch a few episodes one day.

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*sigh*
Kids these days...

(Although the movie was reasonably entertaining, the show was FAR better although not really as steampunk. Track down an episode or two and learn your history, youngun.)

The comments for the TV show mentioned how much better it was than the movie. From what I read the two main characters meshed together much better than the movie or at least weren't complete opposites of each other. They did have inventions in it as well so it also has a sci-fi aspect to itl. At least that's what I read.

I gotta see it just for the fact that Ricardo Montobaln was one of the villains. Looks good, thanks dte for the recommendation.