Hey guys,

Strangely enough, I have not yet given Arcanum a try even though I am a huge CRPG fan. I think its about time I remedy this.

In Fallout 1 & 2 I prefer to play high intelligence characters that allow me to resolve quests by either talking or shooting. So, my question is the following: is it possible to create a similar type of character in Arcanum - e.g. a magic-/technology-wielding smooth talker - and if so, how would you suggest I go about it? Advice on useful skills, race, stat- and skill point distribution, et cetera are much appreciated!

Perhaps I should also mention that I am not a power-player by any means. However, I do appreciate to play fun and effective character builds that allow me to interact with the game in many and interesting ways.

This is the real, central matter, and honestly should be your first priority:
Persuasion, Charisma, and Intelligence. Probably in that order. Your background should reinforce this, perhaps even channeling your gameplay with appropriate failings, but certainly your race and strengths should reflect these goals. 20 Intelligence isn't as useful as it sounds. 20 Charisma's entertaining, but Persuasion should be your reason for raising it more than anything else.

First impressions. To be on an even keel with most people, you'll need to have an Appearance of at least 10, which is not too common a base. However, first impressions can often become irrelevant, and may depend on race.
Half-orcs will tend to get negative reactions no matter how you go about it. People will see you as less than human because they're racist bastards.
Scars can worsen your appearance, but can also be helped by the right healers and aren't too common a consequence of damage.

Technology vs. Magic: I found the Potion of Persuasion was rubbish. Technology is fun as heck, but ll-advised on a first playthrough for a number of reasons. If you wish to augment your smooth-talking with special abilities, I recommend throwing some effort at the Water elemental magics, so as to take Purity of Water (improves Beauty). It's an early spell which remains useful pretty much until the game ends.
However, this still only modifies impressions of you, which become irrelevant as scripted reactions or modifiers begin to mount during conversation. If you've angered somebody, you can make it immediately better yet in the long term worse by charming the individual with a mind-affecting spell called Charm. Likewise low-level. Immediately a Charmed person likes you more, yet in a little while they'll like you less than they did before.
Sadly, I don't think there's a way to improve another's impression of you once combat has begun. And interestingly enough, if you keep angering somebody, s/he will attack you. This can be done quite deliberately now and then, or quite accidentally if your character is just that ugly, terrifying or rude.

Finally, when you reach a town with glowing light things, don't leave until you get the dog. He's cheesy, but he's a combat monster who will keep you alive when everything else around you falls apart. Apparently many experienced players avoid having him about later if they want to enjoy the combat prowess of their own characters, but for a first playthrough he's indispensable.

That's what I've got right now. Select your race for maximum general impression, your background for bringing your most relevant stats toward 20, and try out magic first.

Everyone says this, but I had absolutely no problem my first time through without getting the dog. In fact, I didn't even know I could get a dog until I read about it later.

If you make a charismatic smooth-talker character, you'll be able to recruit a lot of AI allies so I don't think you'll have much trouble even if you don't get the dog.

Fair enough.
So not 'indispensable.'
Still, it's helpful to have a walking chainsaw which is repaired with healing spells.

My honest opinion is that a devoted diplomat is a very bad choice of character for a first time Arcanum player. There's too much forced combat/dungeon hacking in the game's main quest, and if your protagonist is a poor fighter they'll more than likely end up underlevelled, which means your entire party will also be underlevelled. I've known several first-time Arcanum players who abandoned the game either at the end of Shrouded Hills or at the BMC because they felt frustrated at having created an ineffective character. In fact I abandoned the game the first time I played it for the same reason.

For an effective character that will also have access to most of the dialog-related options in the game, I suggest deciding on a path that will let you fight properly, and whenever you feel comfortable with your ability in combat, invest points into diplomacy - you'll want charisma 20, persuasion 5 and intelligence 13. That's only 22 CP, minus the free points you'll possibly acquire in charisma from certain blessings and/or magic items. (Charisma 18 will suffice, but you will need some way of boosting it to 20 temporarily for an important late-game diplomatic solution.)

As far as fighting is concerned, how your character goes about doing that is up to you. Contrary to Fallout, firearms tend to be the weakest choice for fighting in Arcanum, whereas melee and magic are both extremely powerful.

For a guns character you'll want dexterity 20, perception 18 and firearms 5; you should get some free points in both dexterity and perception from various techs if you're clever about investing in tech disciplines, which you will probably wish to do with a gunner so as to boost your tech aptitude - it's important to have high tech aptitude for overcoming the to-hit penalty when using guns and other tech weapons against magickal foes.

For a melee character you'll want dexterity 20, strength 20, melee 5 and dodge 5. Backstab 5 is also valuable, though personally I usually save backstab for my thieves for roleplaying reasons.

For a dedicated mage you'll want willpower 18, probably some amount of constitution to get your fatigue up, possibly some additional intelligence to enable you to sustain more spells, and a respectable amount of CP invested in the magickal colleges to get your magickal aptitude up, as the strength of your damage spells scales directly to your MA (there's an item or two that will boost your MA, as well). Magic is obscene, and as long as your MA is respectable, you can quite easily sweep through the entire game using nothing but the Harm spell, which you can get at level 1 for the princely investment of a single CP.

You'll get 64 CP total throughout the game, and you should have a good chunk to spare for whatever else you please if you concentrate on one method of combat, along with your dialog skills.

I suggest you take a gnome.

And increase charisma so that you can get good companion to fight for you. Also raise persuation.

And if you want to be able to fight as well, pick up fire or black necromantic magic (so you do not have to waste points on tech skills).

Thanks guys, this is exactly the kind if info I was lookning for. Is there any particular school of magic I should focus on if I want to be able to blast my way through the aformentioned dungeons?

Harm is acquired at black necromantic 1. Fireflash is a very effective area damage spell, and acquired at fire 3. Disintegrate is force 5, and will instantly kill anything sans specific targets that the game doesn't want you to be able to 1HKO. Other good colleges are temporal (just about every spell in the college is excellent, and it'll help compensate for a low dexterity if you don't put any CP in that), and conveyance, mainly for Unlocking Cantrip at conveyance 2 and Teleportation at conveyance 5.

If you plan on playing a combat mage, consider making an elf, as they get a natural +15 to magickal aptitude. I can't really offer any advice for a background, as my mage was an elven only child, which is fantastically powerful for magickal purposes but not great for charismatic purposes.

I agree that you should not play a full diplomat for your first playthrough. What you should do is play someone who is effective at combat foremost, but has good persuasion also. Once you get your combat prowess to a good place, you can then focus entirely on charisma, beauty, and persuasion, but don't focus on that first and combat last or you will regret it.

You should have 1 in persuasion by the time you are ready to leave shrouded hills, because it allows you to not only bypass a 1000g toll from the bridge theives, but they end up giving you 200g. A masterful start to any charming adventure.

The advice given so far has been quite good, but there is something that really tips the balance here and it is this: there is a ring available early on which gives +3 CHA +3 BEA +3 Persuasion and +3 haggle and it is magic dependant (no bonus to tech users). Because of this you will probably want to be a magic user. The ring is stolen from a gnome in Grant's Tavern in Tarant. Use a fate point to ensure pickpocket success if you can't steal it otherwise.

Other good tips for you:

Jewel of Hebe - BE+2 CHA+1 in the chest in the panarii temple in Tarant

Silent Robes - AC 5(+6) DR 7(+12) MR(+10) - on the magic item merchant in Blackroot, and so is available very early in the game. Steal it using a fate point.

Statue of the goddess geshtiana - BE+2 CHA+1 DEX -3 while in inventory. It's in stillwater as part of the temple quest there. Return it to instead receive a permanent +1 BE blessing.

In Tarant finish the stolen painting quest in Tarant. Then and only then do the crystal ball quest started by talking to the high class fortune teller in Tarant. Side with the lower class fortune teller during the quest and she will give you a permanent +1 CHA blessing. If you had not finished the painting quest, you will not get the blessing!



As far as spells go, disintegrate isn't actually that good of a spell because it costs 50 fatigue and also destroys corpses (and therefore items). Harm and Fireflash are the go-to spells for damage. Fireflash will hurt enemy armor though. Also useful for breaking open chests or doors. The temporal spell college is indeed amazing, as they noted.


I wrote a FAQ for new players that has everything you need to know for character development, available at GameFAQs.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/914155-arcanum-of-steamworks-and-magick-obscura/faqs/63974

Arcanum is very diplomat-friendly, both from the combat standpoint and where it concerns the game content seen. As a diplomat, you complete more quests, you help or swindle more people and do more awesome things. Note that Persuasion is not the "I win" button - you'll still need to select correct responses, so being awesome does not detract from the fun.

There are 5 levels for each skill, each level being worth 1 character point or 4 bonus points. So when you find, say, a ring of +3 Persuasion, it's actually adds +0.75 to skill level. Apprentice/Expert/Master training are perks associated with the skill level that you get by training with NPCs. Training requires having the skill at at least 0.5 (apprentice), 2.5 (expert) and 4.5 (master). Persuasion is the only exception: you're going to need the full 5 levels (20 steps) to receive the mastery quest (but the minimum required Persuasion to use the mastery perk, once you have it, is 4.5).

There are rare instances where the conversation options are keyed off intelligence. You can do just fine with 12 intelligence and drink potions when necessary. (Potions are sold in neutral shops and work for techies, too.)

You don't really need beauty. If an NPC is being initially rude, more often than not it's more advantageous to apologize and his reaction will be set to a neutral number. Politeness + suit works anywhere, but if you really need a good starting reaction, get Purity of Water (lvl1 spell in Water). It stacks. Bam, instant love. There's also Charm, but that one affects the npc is question who might get pissed if you fail, and it doesn't stack. There's a peculiar bug?glitch? with Charm: when you cast it on an npc you haven't talked to, you find out the npc's name and once you do talk to him/her, the introductory conversation doesn't happen. There are 2-3 conversations where it might be advantageous - but not necessary.

There's only one obligatory tough dungeon where you might not want to go immediately when it becomes available as a diplomat - but by the time you need to go there you'll have the necessary forces to clear it.

You can give combat orders to followers by right-clicking on their portraits - attack, wait, back off, etc. You can direct them to attack a particular monster or object, but you can't choose the particular attack or spell. Since your own successful attacks give everyone more experience, if the battle looks easy, you can order everyone to back off (F5) and kill the monsters. Note that followers will heal you anyway - very convenient.

If a particular follower is "unhappy", generally you can give him something to improve the reaction (only possible when the dialogue option appears). If the reaction just happens to be low, have the follower killed (send him naked against a monster), then rez him.

It might seem that playing a diplomat techie is more difficult than a diplomat caster - it really isn't - your fighters are aptitude-neutral so charged rings will suit them just fine, and if you're Good (no reason not to be Good until at least level 20), you'll have a techie follower who'll make balanced swords for the party ("balanced", haha) and a techie healer.

To change your alignment, find a hobo and either tell him to get a job (-1 alignment per insult) or give him money (+1 alignment per $10).