Hi All,

I've recently picked up Arcanum from GoG, and after reading up on some character ideas, I've thought about building up a Half-orc tech/melee. the biggest downfall I can think of is that I don't think I'll have a lot of points to spend on Charisma to get more followers.

I can see this being remedied by building automatons and getting the dog.

What other options would I have, if i were to keep the character in that theme? The reason I've chosen half-orc is that they get some good combat bonuses without severe drawbacks to intel.

I've also thought of boosting gambling, since it requires a high intel.

Any thought are appreciated.

No advice to offer, but tell us how it goes. I have a hankering to play a tech half ogre, but I'm afraid of the intelligence penalty and the risk of not being able to make armor for him for want of large size. . .

That would be a workable character, I think. Would you go with tech disciplines that would boost your melee (smithy, electrical, herbology, theraputics maybe)? Melee and dodge master aren't too hard to get enough points for - the intelligence and tech stuff takes longer. I think the gambling thing would probably want to come later, after your character is fairly developed so you don't have to worry about fights anymore.

Followers can be cool, but it's definitely possible to finish the game with only one follower, and a melee specialist shouldn't have any trouble.

As a tech melee character I would recommend taking smithing so you can craft some nice weapons and armor for yourself and your follower. There are followers who know some smithing but they never get the highest ranks in it so if you want the best smithed items you'll want to specialize in it yourself.

Other disciplines that could be good include mechanical for making automatons as you said, or herbology to make healing items (alternatively recruit an NPC who makes tech healing items or just buy lots of healing salves). Other disciplines have some useful things too; electrical for example can let you make some useful things like a healing jacket and a device to detect traps, and therapeutics lets you make temporary stat-boosting items.

A half-orc is a good choice for such a character. You could also use a dwarf, but a dwarf would need to wear small-size armor, which can make smithing armor for yourself slightly harder. On the other hand, a dwarf has some innate tech aptitude which would improve your performance using tech armor and weapons. As a half-orc you can use normal-sized armor but will suffer from racist attitudes, but it's nothing that can't be overcome by dressing nicely in towns and being humble and polite to people rather than confrontational.

I'd encourage you to pick your race at least partially based on what you think would be fun to roleplay. Both are certainly viable, but they'll definitely be treated differently by NPCs.

I would think if you smith your own armor, you'd have relatively little trouble getting the right sizes of leather armor if you've a little patience. After that, it all follows fairly logically. The right size leather for the Feather-Weight Chain, the right size Feather-Weight Chain for the right size Elite Plate Mail, and the right size of Elite Plate Mail for the right size of Machined Armor (if you so wish.)
However, I know from experience that patience is most accessible when you've a decent-sized body of followers to take the damage for you, so your mileage may vary.

I haven't done smithing myself, so I didn't realize that each subsequent armor was smithed out of the previous one. I would have guessed that the Elite Plate Mail would be smithed out of a plate mail rather than a featther-weight chainmail, but this is not the case!

So yeah, finding a small leather armor to start everything off isn't too hard.

By the way, for the OP: The standard smithing schematics that you learn automatically are mostly armor but you will be able to find a lot of schematics for weapons.

Actually, this is something of an endorsement for any technologist whose own size or the size of his/her companions is going to be terribly small or (especially) large to specialize in this field.
I suppose a hardcore magician could just turn everybody into elementals, right? Never tried it, can't say for sure.

That would actually be quite interesting - can you cast the "Body of..." spells on followers? If you can that would be really cool. If you are a mage with all of the elemental colleges you could turn four followers into each college's elemental. That would be pretty neat. That way you could have the elementals without sacrificing followers' stories.

If you want automatons you need smith and mechanical maxed out. This goes well with a melee character since you can use the melee weapons and armor you get from those two branches your self. For a first play through I wouldn't use more than two or three tech trees so split points between your tech stuff and your fighting ability. For melee build up your dex, enough so that your melee and dodge can be expert status (you need 3 melee/dodge) and you should be fine for the whole game. Followers benefit greatly from the stuff you can make so I personally wouldn't play an orc unless you were going solo but spending a bunch of extra points in charisma isn't the end of the world.

I recommend ditching vigil ASAP and getting janya from dernholm at the lowest level you can (i think its seven) and she can use bandages and make/use healing salves. For the other followers its your preference just dont use magic ones.

I made a character that used gambling and was pretty unimpressed. If you don't mind saving before every gambling attempt and reloading when it doesn't work you can get a lot of free crap but its really tedious. If you take my advice and max mechanical you can make and sell eye pieces to the junk dealers for around 800 coins and the parts cost less than 50 (you can buy both from the tech dealer and keep waiting 24 hours for him to restock till you get all the money you need). So money is a non-issue for most tech guys.

Also buy her bandages. She once cured a scar from me instants after I incurred it because she healed me with bandages and got a critical success. It was a little weird, the timing there. A strong skill in Gambling is more or less another way to get the benefits of strong Haggling. Though it doesn't allow you to gamble or sell away items to shops what don't want them, it does allow you to gamble the clothing and personal equipment off shopkeepers. And, unlike Haggling, it's a solid way to get past a major plot point. Not a necessary way, though, and arguably not as much fun.
...but when I played a gambler, I won a boat in two different ways by initiating one set of quests and then initiating that one. It was amusing.

Thanks for the advice everyone. I don't mind role playing a half-orc, although it does get a bit tiresome having to be such a boot-grubber to get any answers from people.

I've boosted melee and dodge, so fights now are ok. But in terms of tech, I'm a bit all over the joint. I'm def going smithy for the weapons and armour, and I'm keen on electrical for a bit of utility (lights, healing jacket, etc) and I've got a couple points in Herb for healing. So far, it's working out ok. I don't think I'll have enough to spread out to mechanical though, so Automatons might be out of the question for now.

And I don't mind gambling. It seems like a fairly easy and cheap way (in terms of char points) to get some stuff for free. Fair enough, you have to save/load to maximise the benefit, but it's easy since I'm heavy of the intel anyway.

I tried a dwarf, but the hit to dex is a killer early game. Made combat quite hard. And since the half-orcs get a .5 bonus to melee and dodge straight away, it's making things a lot smoother.

I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

Also, I played Arcanum a few years ago (I bought it, and have downloaded it again =P) but never finished it. I remember getting to the elves, and into the mines, but gave up once things got too hard. But having matured a bit, I think I'm better prepared to make a character that actually works.

Use your smithy points and some explosive tech manuals to give everyone in your party a pyrotechnic axe before you enter the mines and you will be fine. Other weapons break against the stone guys and thats the biggest problem most people have with the mines.

You can get the schematic in the tarant sewers near the area where you do the gold ring quest. You will have to break down a metal door and fight some metal arachnids to get it.

I'm still trying to find enough copper rings to make charged rings, but once I really get my tech sorted, I should be able to scavenge and sell stuff for income, and buy any tech manuals I need to make the awesome stuff.

I might take a walk back to Shrouded Hills and see if I can get some rings there, and maybe pick up an npc as a tank. maybe.

You can get copper rings from the tailor or the blacksmith in tarant. If they dont have them wait 24 hours. They must be off the screen while your waiting and their inventory will reload. You will eventually get them.