Arcanum Arcanum beginner's advice

[Egosphere]

Dude, healing as techies is trivial. Just take one point in herbology. Few hours into the game you can't talk to cashier in the fucking techstop without Healing Salves falling out of your pockets. The ingredients are literally everywhere, and you're crafting them in fives. That means you're getting 10 of them after every other wilderness battle, provided you gather every plant you see like a proper arcanum autist.

Or just acquire ( or craft ) a medical arachnid. Unlimited healing.

 

[Uncle Skull]

Some geneal tips:

You can whack chests, doors and most other objects in melee by holding alt and attacking them.
Axes don't take durability damage when attacking things that should dent them. This includes chests and doors, and is necessary to access a semi hidden dungeon.
When you reach 20 in a stat, you gain a major bonus effect. The positive effects of STR and DEX reaching 20 are massive. Keep that in mind if you are gonna make a melee character -- though 20 DEX is handy for everyone.
If you are going for an charisma build and wanna persuade everyone, you should keep your also raise your INT to 12 or something like that. There are only really two conversations that require you to have above average INT, but they are major.
Potions of Haste are overpowered for everyone as long as you use them in turn based.
Potions of INT are overpowered for a techie.

1- Kill virgil as soon as you get another companion, he's the most annoying companion in cRPG history, it'll improve your experience a lot.

Virgil is the only companion who somewhat ties into the main quest.

If I may butt in with a question...in the September 2000 issue of CGW page 35 it says Arcanum "is coming with a robust editor". Did that really happen?

From what I gather, adding your own backgrounds and tweaking numbers is easy. Making a new module is an absolute bitch, though.

Is it viable ?

Very. An Half Ogre who uses whatever he finds can easily beat the game, just pump STR, DEX and Melee.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Best general advice:

1. Play a magick character.

2. Work your way up to Disintegrate ASAP.

3. Faceroll EVERYTHING by disintegrating it. Including doors, quest NPCs, major bosses, everything.

4. Enjoy a game where magic work likes magic, ridiculous spells are ridiculous and work just as expected and are not limited by arbitrary shit limits.

5. Laugh at millennials who insist that everything be balanced and all choices lead to pretty much the same outcome, and the pitiful games they play these days.

 

[Chippy]

Ask Cael, who did a thread and first-time playthrough recently. Dude always seems to have some advice for people regarding Battletech, FR, and fantasy lore, etc. Only flaw I ever noticed is that he played IWD2 for years without noticing stealth is broken.

 

[Spukrian]

Loghaire (?) never had him in the party so I don't know, but was told that he has some important contributions in some quests

I had both Magnus and Loghaire in the party once and IIRC Loghaire made a few nice comments during Magnus clan quest.

 

[flushfire]

In all my playthroughs of this game I never used TB. Scrambling to click the enemy while also running away as a gunslinger early on is always fun :D

 

[Incendax]

Messing with a new character.
How do you increase Magic Aptitude with an intelligence of 4 or less?
Basically want that sweet magic item power on an idiot.

 

[Egosphere]

Messing with a new character.
How do you increase Magic Aptitude with an intelligence of 4 or less?
Basically want that sweet magic item power on an idiot.

Don't you just sink points into magic colleges when you level up?

 

[Darth Canoli]

Messing with a new character.
How do you increase Magic Aptitude with an intelligence of 4 or less?
Basically want that sweet magic item power on an idiot.

By meeting the level and willpower requirements ?

 

[Incendax]

Don't you just sink points into magic colleges when you level up?

By meeting the level and willpower requirements ?

Idiots cannot learn or cast spells.
Any other way to get Magic Aptitude?

 

[Spukrian]

Play a human and choose Idiot Savant background? You will have dumb speech but will be intelligent enough to cast spells. This is actually what I'm thinking about doing next time I play.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

How do I get Virgil to pick a lock for me?

 

[Neanderthal]

I think he offers to do it if you try it first, but his skills shit so it'll usually never work. I prefer unlock spell.

 

[Spukrian]

How do I get Virgil to pick a lock for me?

IIRC I think there's some setting for follower skills that needs to be turned on.
Then:
1. Virgil needs to have higher lockpick skill than you.
2. Click on your lockpick skill icon (or your lockpick item) and then click on the locked object.
3. What should happen is that your character will stand still while Virgil says something and runs to the locked object. If he doesn't and your own character runs to the locked object: something went wrong.

 

[gunman]

If I remember right, the character with the highest skill will take over, but he must also have lockpicks in inventory.

The same for all technical skills, if an item is required for you to use the skill, it is also needed for a follower - for healing the character must have bandages and so on

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Thanks fellas, I'm lacking the lockpicks that's probably why he hasn't tried anything.

 

[Cael]

I found Virgil's lockpicking to be pretty annoying. I would rather do it myself.

 

[Cael]

Ask Cael, who did a thread and first-time playthrough recently. Dude always seems to have some advice for people regarding Battletech, FR, and fantasy lore, etc. Only flaw I ever noticed is that he played IWD2 for years without noticing stealth is broken.

I walked right through the three goblin tribes under the Horde fortress, sneaked past the spiders and trolls and nuked the drum at the back of the Orog cavern. All without being detected. Then the rest of the party came in the front door and killed everything, giving me maximum bonus XP for not alerting all three tribes. And then I went back and massacred them for even more XP.

Yeah, stealth is broken, alright. Just not the way you claim it is.

 

[Cael]

Don't you just sink points into magic colleges when you level up?

By meeting the level and willpower requirements ?

Idiots cannot learn or cast spells.
Any other way to get Magic Aptitude?

Dark Helm.

 

[Beastro]

Is it viable ?

Yes.

Was my first playthrough as a meleer using lockpicks and the arcane axe (?) or some other cursed item.