DISCLAIMER: This type of character is so powerful it has the potential to ruin the fun of the game. I don't recommend it unless you've already played through Arcanum at least a couple of times.

The Solo Halfling Stun-Assassin:

Halfling (Half-Orc also works)
Troll Blood
Put 1 point in WP
2 points in Mental Magic for the Stun Spell
1 point in Melee
1 point in Backstab
Buy a dagger at character creation

You can now mercilessly slaughter almost any creature in the game. Simply Stun them, move behind them, and Backstab them. Repeat until only steaming piles of entrails remain.

The only things to watch out for are Stun immune creatures, of which there are very few, and getting mobbed early on. Otherwise, you have almost godlike combat prowess.

You'll want to go all or almost all Magick, since there are lots of nice items for thieves. Also, this character will be so reviled by everyone he meets that some NPCs may attack on sight (including some of the city guards in Tarant). However, there are ways to diminish you reaction penalty enough that this doesn't happen, if that's what you want.).

Don't say I didn't warn you.

I have a bunch of questions about this.

First, why Troll Offspring? Why not Barbarian, or Ugly Stick, or any other background that doesn't automatically set whole villages against you?

Second, I kind of get the idea of halflings, what with their innate prowling bonus. But what's so special about half-orcs for this build? What's wrong with humans or half-elves, for example?

Third, which monsters are un-stunnable? And what happens with rock golems and fire elementals, who tend to damage weapons upon contact? Does Backstab make those weapons resistant to taking that kind of damage? Or would my PC require either a steady supply of daggers or skill points in Repair?

Fourth, is this pretty much a turn-based strategy, or do the effects of Stun last long enough for this to be effective even during real-time combat?

I don't mean to put you on the spot like this; but I've never tried anything even remotely like this before, and I'm honestly curious.

Oh, you could go that route if you wanted to. It would still work. I've always done Troll Offspring because I always play this type of character solo, so Charisma and Beauty are largely superfluous attributes. You could always have a follower or two as well, but it's less fun because you don't get to stun and murder everything.

The reaction penalty from Troll Offspring isn't nearly as bad as it looks from the description (in fact, I've always wished it were as bad as the description, because sadly there are no monster hunters or anything that track you down and try to kill you). If you get the priest's blessing right away at the beginning you take a big chunk out of your reaction penalty, and then there's the statue recovery quest in Stillwater that gives you another bonus, and you can get magic items to make you less hideous, and so on, and so on. It's quite easy to make yourself merely unpleasant to people you meet, rather than monstrous.

Finally, have you ever played a character so hideous everyone reacts negatively to him before they even know anything about him? If not, Troll Offspring makes a nice change. Halflings, as you said, have nice thief-type bonuses, and half-orcs are already ugly and despised (but with good physical stats), so you're playing to their strengths by giving them even more physical stats and just surrendering on the physical beauty front. The difference between the two is that halflings will have more action points to start with, while half-orcs will have more stamina and recover stamina more quickly.

You could use any race, but if you chose elf, for example, you wouldn't be gaining much from bonuses to charisma and beauty. The gnome's haggle bonus is useless, since you can just steal anything you need or want. Dwarf: not good at magic (although dwarf is doable, because magic isn't necessarily this build's primary skill, beyond Stun). There are some magic-immune creatures that are unstunnable, but they are few. I won't give you direct list, because it'll be more fun to discover on your own. Suffice it to say almost everything in the game is stunnable.

You might need a new dagger after you kill a couple of rock golems, but is that really a problem? Daggers are plentiful. If you have a really good one, you might want to put it away and just use a regular dagger to kill weapon damaging monsters. Well personally I only ever play turn-based, but Stun generally works for 2-3 combat turns, so it should be long enough to pull it off in RT if you want to try. You might enjoy it then! It's a great kind of character for exploring every nook and cranny of the game.

It does sound interesting, especially with those clarifications. I may just give something like this a try on my next playthrough; up till now I've never given either Stun or Backstab a fair trial and proper shakedown.

This sounds very interesting, I think I'll be giving it a try now.

Try out this one:

Half-Ogre, Ran Away with the Circus
- 2 points in ST
- 1 point in DX
- 1 point in both Melee and Dodge

You start out with 20 strength. It makes the game very easy. You get a massive damage bonus from the get-go and can have 2 ranks in both Melee and Dodge by level 3. I find it's best to put some points into IN to get it up to 5 by level 10. It helps you deal with people that you talk to for quest purposes, but not necessary. You can also, at IN 5, learn magic if you like to be able to heal yourself or disarm stong enemies. I find that if you're going to use this build to go magic or tech, magic seems the obvious best choice. You can get some damn good sword/shield combos that no other character can do because of the low strength. The hardest part of this build is finding good armor, but it's actually not that bad.

I want to play an orc or ogre that was raised in the pits and go the evil way.
Will people also hate me that much?

I started a game and just reading the first dialogue with a dumb char was so funny. But I did not continue.

I also finished the game twice. One of them was a half elf debutante with max int, cha and persuation, some spells and combat skills and her private armee and she tried to finish every quest the best possible way. So my dumb fighter/thief misses not much I do not know already.

I forgot to mention that Arcane-level magic weapons are immune to degradation effects, so if you find an Arcane Dagger, you're all set. You can backstab Ore Golems all day long.

I made a new character like this and tested it out last night, just to be sure I didn't forget anything. He was third-level when he got to Shrouded Hills, and he easily killed the Lukan and the ogre bandits guarding the bridge without taking a single hit.

The first time you gain a level, you'll probably want to put a second point into Melee, just because it makes the odds of a critical miss nearly vanish. If you critically miss a backstab, you'll die instantly.

From Shrouded Hills my murderous halfling backstabber went to the Ancient Maze (if you don't know where that is, I won't spoil the surprise for you) and cleared it effortlessly. He went from level five to level ten by singlehandedly slaughtering Gore Guards, huge Swamp Shamblers, Ore Golems, Grizzly Bears, Skullcrushers, and Infernal Ghouls (I think that's what they're called). The two Ore Golems wore down his Fine Steel Dagger to 10/50, but kiling them wasn't a problem.

One of the most fun thing about this character was murdering Virgil. Heh.

The only thing you have to beware of is getting mobbed while you're still low level. After a few levels you'll be powerful enough to survive, but if you're low level and get attacked by something like, say, five Wolves and a Patriarch Wolf, you'll be in trouble. Always separate your enemies if possible. A Stun-Backstab assassin is better, trust me. My halfling has 7 strength, and he can kill almost anything in the game with a dagger. Negative reaction is very easy to overcome in Arcanum. It's a shame, really, because it would be fun if everyone really did hate you. As it is, they'll be really rude to you but if you don't insult them back they get over it. As I said, a few NPCs, most notably Tarant City Guards might attack you if your reaction modifier is really far into the negative, but it's super-easy to fix that. Just buy a Smoking Jacket (the red one) at any tailor shop and you'll be fine.

That'd help. One of the things I like most about magical throwing weapons is that they seemed to be essentially immune to damage. In fairness, for half-ogres large smoking jackets are unavailable for sale. There's only one in the game, and with a build like that only two ways to get it...

PLOT SPOILER

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Kill or pickpocket Chukka for it.

(The third way would be to take him on as a follower. But if Bates doesn't like you enough, that won't happen.)

If I want to backstab something, I do it with something BIG.
My char will be a strong, evil idiot so something like the (bangelien scorge? exact name forgotten) would be nice.
An axe will do fine against golems and elementals.

Can you backstab when you fight without weapon? There are some good gloves and i will have lots of strengh.
How would you call that: "backpunch"?

If you have at least Backstab expertise, you can indeed use swords and axes. But never hammers or hands, ever; in order to qualify as a backstab, it has to be a bladed weapon, not a bludgeoning one.

That's not to say you can't punch anyone in the back, stunned or not; you just won't get the backstab bonus for doing so.

Thanks

Then I need to make a monk/rogue in the NWN games (or others with the DnD3 system) to "stun and backpunch" with my bare hands.

Even so, there are many, many ways to raise your reaction bonus/penalty. It's really far too easy. And the people in the game don't generally hate half-ogres the way they hate half-orcs.

Or at least, they don't antagonize them quite so openly. After all, would you want Goliath mad at you?

And now I'm thinking I might want to try a half-ogre build with this. Can you imagine one-handing a Barbarian's Heavy Blade (or an Arcane Greatsword) into the back of a Burnowar? Muahahahaha!

You have convinced me.

Next time I will play a half orc idiot who was raised in the pits and has max strengh, dex, fighting and thieving skills who goes the evil path. From a role playing point of view, this should be the most hated person in the world (maybe with the exception of the same person with troll offspring).
He is an idiot, that means no magic. But if I can´t backstab it, I have to use brute force. Not as powerful as the char you have described in the beginning, but this game is so easy that you can play it with almost any char.

about backstab: this works only if the target has not seen you already, right?
So if you have backstab skill and the right weapon and attac from behind:

example 1: The target ist stunned - you do extra damage

example 2: you sneak behind the target and it does not see you - you do extra damage

example 3: The target stands behind a corner and has not seen you. You enter turn based combat, walk behind it and attac. - You do extra damage even if it can see the path that you walk

example 4: the enemy sees you and walks towards you. Then its your turn. You walk behind it and attac. - You do NOT do extra damage.

example 5: The target is not hostile. You walk around, then you go behind a person and then you attac. - You do extra damage

Is this correct? A char with lots of strengh and a big sword should have no problem to defeat any enemy with brute force, but I like to see really BIG numbers.

If you can work it out so you can get Stun, it will be well worth your while. Actually I believe it works for ANY attack from the rear quadrant, although with varying amounts of damage. I believe stunned give you x5 damage. That's why backstabbing combined with Stun is so lethal. I think this does slightly less damage than a stunned or incapacitated target. This is extremely difficult to pull off against hostiles, however.

Backstab is useful even in normal melee situations against fully aware monsters. You can see the effects quite clearly by trying it on the wolves at the crash site. Instead of simply attacking them, run behind and attack them. Not as decisive as Stun+Backstab, but far more effective than a straight ahead attack.

Your ogre will do extreme amounts of damage, but you'll want to pump points into DEX because mobility is important for positioning (and for lots of other reasons). DEX is far more important than STR for a Stun/Backstab character, actually.