ARCANUM ---> first try, suggestions ?

After playing WIZ8, BG2 again, playing THE WITCHER (which was a good step into the right direction) , i would like to give ARCANUM a try.
I bought this game back in 2001, but with the many technical problem i couldnt play it.
Therfore, i try it with the new patch, available at RPGCodex.

I would like to create a male character with good weapon skills, no magic skills. A real badass who should work the way like " My dog and I". (like my play in Fallout).
Any suggestion about the character and the stats ?
Maybe a hint which character i should take into my party ?

Thanks for the help.

I don't know if the user patch did much rebalancing, but a half-ogre fighter using 2 low-level buff spells was a major butt-kicker for me back in the day. A big letdown for me was that you couldn't give mechanical recipes to RPCs, so picking up the dwarf mechanic early in the game didn't work out nearly as well as I had hoped.

The game puts an emphasis on conversation skills, so know that the time-honored "dumb brute build" is going to dramatically affect your experience. That's not to say it can't be done, but it won't be easy.

Again, though, I played the game with "factory" patches and 2 user mods that removed the level cap and removed the incredibly annoying constant sounds of those 2 low level buff spells I mentioned earlier. Playing with the user project mod might be completely different.

Just remember sword skills are over powerful and guns are relatively weak. My friend quit after hitting level 50 relatively fast as a sword wielder - there was no motivation to keep playing for him. With the guns I just got more and more annoyed at how slow the grind was.

There is a cap remover which allows up to level 100 but it was tricky for me to install back in the day.

I'm not sure if Troika actually removed the problem with DirectX 8 in a patch or just showed how to remove the issue it had with sound caching.

These new unofficial patches do nothing for balance and weren't designed to work with them.

I wouldn't bother, game still feels lifeless and after a while you just forget why you even started or why you're in that town that looks like the last one, or why you spent money on this game or....melee is super unbalanced as others have stated, dumb characters are funny, but miss a lot of content due to limited dialog. dunno, tried 3 times to play this game and never get past tarant/durnheim. boring.

Thanks for the help.
I will play it because i couldnt play NWN2 (MotB), and i think its the gameflow. Its so cumbersome to play NWN2 with the different camera possibilities, the fonts are to small..... and i still love the D&D system, my best gaming experience in the past.
What patches should i use to remove the unbalanced combat styles ?
I think the level cap patch could be useful, maybe a patch which balance the swordplay and the firearms ?

Or.... should i try DRANKENSANG ? Anyone who plays this game and would like to share his feelings ?

The level cap doesnt matter a whole lot to the player. It's mainly an issue due to the fact that your followers level up as you do, and if you pick them up followers "too late" they'll be unable to reach level 50. The latest official patch allows followers to level up after the main character hit level 50 and solves that problem.

The main imbalance between swords and guns (aside from the latter doing far less damage until late game) is that the latter require you to haul a ton of expensive ammo around (and if you are using an automatic weapon you might use up your ammo faster than the cities can produce it), and a gunslinger requiring more skills (int to make the gun, perception to hit worth a damn, dex to shoot more often, and str to carry the ammo) compared to the melee brute who only relies on dex and str... Dex in particular is a force multiplier for any class since it affects so many crucial aspects. If I knew how to mod the game it would be a priority to reduce the weight of ammo and maybe lower the price of it to 1/3.

I really like the "battle mage" approach - max out the melee skills, and also get some spells (summoning, healing). Slightly overpowered, but very fun.

I somehow always end up a gunslinger. The only problems are that I have to rely on companions at first, and that too much technological aptitude makes healing a pain, made worse by sleeping not being allowed inside dungeons (one of the dumbest design decisions ever). The healing problem goes away in the late game as you find the medical arachnid though...

Melvil said:

I wouldn't bother, game still feels lifeless

Click to expand...

It is unfortunate you didn't enjoy it ... many of us consider it a flawed masterpiece, pretty much like everything Troika did ...

I finished it twice. first as the dwarf ... and it was harder, maybe because it was the first time, but i doubt it. And the second time as a human mage. Things went smoothly there.
The game is brilliant, and if it wasn't for the less realistic world, i would've preferred it to Fallout, but thats a matter of taste .