If I'm repeating a post forgive me. Morrowind is the only game I ever played where the advice was to patch and mod BEFORE doing any playing. Everything else tends to be, play it first, get a feel for it, then tinker with it. What is the opinion on Arcanum in this regard? Thanks

Patch the game first, imo. You get some content that should've been in game but couldn't make it in. Not only but it fixes a lot of bugs from what I've heard.

Thanks! I'll do that. I got a nice patch/mod list from this thread to work with.

My advice would be to patch it with the official patch before playing; play it through a few times, to get the feel for the game as released; then add Drog's unofficial Arcanum patch (and the HQ town maps, and maybe even the level 50 crack) to up your gaming experience.

The UAP fixes a huge number of bugs (unusable schematics, broken or nonexistent dialog options, duplicate images for different items) but also removes a few of the in-game exploits (extra Fate points for certain courses of action, a permanent magical boost from equipping a specific cursed item). It'll be your call which way the game plays better for you.