Hi, nice to see a new Arcanum player.

You mentioned you looked at the manual briefly, but I would advise taking the time to read it as it really helps explain all the mechanics of the game. Yes, there are a huge number of character possibilities... one of the great things about Arcanum is playing it many times with different characters and seeing how the game reacts differently based on how you play and what you do.

For a first-time player, I'd recommend a mage or a straight fighter. They're fairly easy to play, whereas tech characters tend to be a bit harder (but still very fun). Unfortunately, the best fighters are half-orcs or half-ogres, both of whom are rather poorly-liked by most people. You can try a dwarven or human fighter so people won't treat you so badly. Also, when you are in town, if you wear either the smoking jacket or elegant dress (I think it's called an elegant dress) people will react to you better. For a fighter character you will want dexterity, strength, melee skill and dodge skill mainly. You can also take a few spells or technologies if you want but you will mostly just hit things. I found a pure melee character got a little boring after a while, but the game's plot is really interesting so you'll probably still want to continue.

I have not played a mage yet personally, but I hear they are some of the easiest to play, especially if you take the spell Harm. Elves make good mages and they also get a bonus to beauty so people will likely react to you better also. For a mage you will want Willpower to unlock more powerful spells, and intelligence if you want to sustain many spells at once. Also remember that your spells use up your stamina, and if you run out you'll fall unconscious and probably get killed. I prefer turn-based for everything. I have heard some people say that real-time can be good for distance fighters like gunmen, but I haven't played a gunman myself. Melee and magic are probably best in turn-based mode. I find real-time is too fast for me to react. I believe that when someone dies, they're dead, so you have to re-load an old save. This is more important for characters like thieves or ranged fighters... for example, if you were making a grenadier character, you'd want to grab a boomerang so you could have a backup throwing weapon to go with your thrown grenades. For a fighter, any decent-looking weapon and armor is fine. For a mage, I'm not sure actually. But it's probably not that important. One thing that trips up a lot of new players is not knowing about fast-travel. When you finish the starting area of the game, you will be able to enter the world map and fast-travel to the first town. This is MUCH safer than just trying to walk there. You bring up the map with the "W" key, but it only works when the map button in the top left corner has turned into a blue globe.

Sometimes item stats are confusing. There's a page in the manual that lists all the abbreviations used, like FD = "Fire damage", etc. Worth looking up. It's also been posted elsewhere in these forums.

You will find after not too long that your weapons and armor can get damaged frequently. They can be repaired, but often this lowers the item's maximum health each time. In Tarant there are some good smiths who can repair your stuff without lowering the max health. If you find that hitting things with your weapon is damaging your weapon, you can just switch to fists instead.