Hi,

Is there any benefit to wearing a "light armor" like studded leather versus "heavy armor" like chainmail, machined plate etc.? There doesn't seem to be: the item details listed on the item description seem to be the only modifiers.

- Jamie

As far as i remember light armor is a lot more lighter than heavier amors so characters with lower strength can use it for protection.
Also it is good for sneaking because heavy armor makes too much noise.

The biggest benefit to light armor is its lower weight. This is especially important for low- and mid-strength characters since weight affects encumbrance, which (among other things) affects your attack speed, including the number of actions you get per round in turn-based mode.

A secondary benefit (as Pulzarokkit pointed out above) is that lighter armors tend to be quieter, which is important for thieving skills such as prowling, and for not attracting too much attention while exploring a dungeon. If this matters to you, hover your mouse over a given piece of armor to check its NP (noise penalty) among other things.

Ah, word. Thanks again guys, you've been saving my ass a lot on this stuff (TwoHandedSword especially.)

My pleasure. However, I should also point out that since lighter armors have fewer hit points, they run a somewhat higher risk of being critically damaged,* or of simply being damaged to the point of falling apart. You can offset this by taking the item to a Repair expert such as a blacksmith or quality armorer, providing your MA isn't too high for them to do business with you; or to the Repair master in Caladon, who'll help you out regardless (especially if you've saved his bacon by helping him out with his urgent request).

Techies** can also invest in Repair expertise themselves, which requires a minimum investment of 2 1/4 points in that skill. Doing so allows your PC to fix items with no more than a 1% permanent loss of HP, which means that items with less than 100 HP become infinitely repairable... and armor with more HP will simply lose 1-4 HP per repair until they too are at 99 or less.***

*It's not a strict 1:1 ratio, but the chance of critical failure is based upon what percentage of its HP an item has lost. So 50 HP of damage on a 150 HP leather armor is a bigger deal than the same 50 HP on a 400 HP plate mail. Note that this is damage to the armor itself (from fire, acid, explosions, etc.) and NOT damage to your PC or followers through their armor.

**And mages who don't mind the loss of MA.

***Except for Dread Armour, which (thanks to its 10,000 HP) hardly anybody ever bothers to repair anyway; since only Repair mastery would stop it from permanently losing at least 100 HP from each repair.

Hmm duly noted.

Going off that, is there any way to influence how enemies aggro? I'd love to be able to wear studded leather and snipe from afar, but I can't afford that if enemies all come flocking to me (which they frequently do.) I have Jayna wearing a basic machined plate (since she's a shit fighter so who cares about her speed) so I'd prefer she tank.

The game's AI is rather limited; enemies will tend to target whoever's closest, which is usually you. You can control your followers somewhat, either en masse (with the F1 [walk to a target location], F2 [everyone attack], F3 [follow close], F4 [spread out] and F5 [stop attacking] keys) or by clicking on their portrait and issuing orders individually.

The problem is, there's no learning curve and no way to set standing orders; so you have to tell them what to do before every single battle. Otherwise, they'll simply attack (and be attacked by) whoever's closest to them when you engage. It's a fair bit of an annoyance, and the main reason I often play without any followers.

It's really a shame. As good as it is already, Arcanum could have had combat that was an asset to the game rather than a drag on it.

At least it's relatively fast.

One might say... too fast?

(I will admit, the first time I watched a real-time combat in Arcanum I thought it looked hysterical. I kind of still do.)

That's true.

The real-time combat was actually tacked on at the last minute at the insistence of the publisher. Turn-based is what Arcanum's combat was intended to be. The real-time screwed up both of them.

I've heard that. It's really sad what design fashions can do to tried-and-true mechanics. (Some might argue that the Wii is basically that argument on an entire console-wide scale, in fact...)

Kind of annoying what rushed deadlines can do, too - do you think that anyone would still be playing this game if it weren't for Drog?
...okay, the fan community would have picked up the slack. But if fan modding weren't in the equation?

Just another note on repair: A non-tech repair option, who is actually better at repair (and so will more easily repair all your stuff to full HP) is the Tarant junk dealer by the docks. It is sort of random, but he is the best early-mid-game repair option if your character doesn't invest in repair.