Eschalon book 1: advice for getting started?

I plan to start playing Eschalon book 1 soon, but there is one thing that I would like to know before I get the ball rolling, as I want to avoid dead ends and having to restart.

When designing a character, are there anythings that I should think about? Any skills that I should avoid/absolutely must have? Also, is it better to focus on a handful of skills (like in most CRPGs), or is a diverse character better/more fun to play?

I would recommend to try on your own as is more fun to experiment yourself. If you are interested what skills are good and what no, I could say that all related to rogue skills seem useless to raise. Also not sure about it but I passed the game without a problem without skills for protection, such as dodge,block or armour ones. Can have instead of them Alchemy since at later point Find secret or Gatherer does not look that worth to be used but maybe if you try to role play you can. Also trainers raise skills and you can even buy in shops as books, wich is better then waste 3 of your points to acquire it, so best what to do is hold your points till you manage to have it.

First, I must caution that it's been around 3 years since I last played Eschalon Book 1, so I deny any responsibilty to the effectiveness of the following advice.

In my opinion, it is better to specialize. Book 1 isn't overly difficult, but if you spead your skill points too much, you're probably going to have a tough time by the latter half of the game. However, you don't have to completely min-max your character, the points aren't that sparse, there is room for some generalization. There are also skill books in the world, so some skills can be gained "free" via these. Protip: Opening a skill costs 3 points, IIRC, but raising an open/learned skill by a level costs 1 point, regardless of level. So, it's very effective to open skills via skill books as you save points this way. Of course, the problem is actually finding the books…

Playing a ranger can get ardorous as arrows weigh quite much (could even be as silly as 1 pound each, can't remember), so you'll quickly reach your ENC limit with just a hefty bundle of arrows leaving little room for loot. Also, the merchants' supplies of arrows aren't guaranteed; I recall having a real problem with that when the merchants didn't restock on arrows very fast. Kiting, of sorts, is quite effective, however, so it's good to carry a bow if you're a melee fighter, to soften your foes up before close combat (and to kill certain acid creatures which can destroy you equipment).

A pure melee fighter is bound to be dull in the long run, as the game has very simplistic melee combat (this was improved a little, but not much, in Book 2). Unless you really like "I hit, you hit, I hit, you hit" type of combat, it's better to steer away from pure melee. Of course, the same could be said of many other CRPGs, but in Eschalon pure melee combat is particularly boring, IMO. This coming from a guy who regularly plays and likes roguelikes, which at their base have similar styled combat. I can't put my finger on why Book 1 melee combat is so dull, maybe it's the scarcity of different types of enemies (lack of variety) or the general slowness of it with too much missing or hitting for puny amounts of damage (combat drags on too long). CAn't remember, it's been awhile, but I still remember being quite bored with melee combat in Eschalon Book 1.

Note that in order to have a minimap, you must have at least one point in Cartography. More points in it increases the fidelity of the map. There is a skill book on Cartography so if you're fine with a pretty rudimentary map (but good enough to navigate by), don't put too many points in it. However, if you want a pretty and fully filled minimap, then you need to put some extra points in Cartography.

(Sorry have to stop. At work and have to go.)

Thanks, that was exactly what I wanted, some basic info so that I don't make any game breaking mistakes. Alright, time to boot this sucker up!

Mostly agree with the previous 2 posters. Like them, it's been a while since I've played Book1 and I'm actually chipping my way thru Book2 right now, so hopefully I'm not blurring the two.

Cartography of 3 is adequate. I like a pretty map, so I usually try to get it to 7 or 8, but that's up to you. Definitely dump lots of points into your attack of choice (melee, ranged, or magic). Meditation is valuable, even for a melee grunt, as mana regen is more important than you might think. If you're a "complete-ist", you'll want some points in open locks and find hidden (search, or spot, or whatever that skill is called), but it's not a requirement.

Ability scores work on 5's, so make sure you get the ones that are important to your character to some multiple of 5 if possible—a strength of 15 is much better than a 14, but the difference between an 11 and a 14 isn't that noticeable.

Ah, thanks for that info, the stat thing is probably one of the things that I would not have been able to figure out on my own.

By the way, is there a hard cap on skills, and is there a point where skills are not worth developing anymore?

Actually, you'd figure out the stat thing pretty quickly on your own. The game tells you (for example) "you must have a wisdom of 15 to cast this spell" and that number was usually a multiple of 5.

I don't know of any skill cap, but you'll want to spread your points around some anyway. I don't have any facts to back it up, but I seem to remember that the "return on investment" for skill points dropped off after 10. So, push your primary skills to 10 or so, then focus on boosting secondary skills.