first time playing Underrail, please recommend easy to follow builds!

[Replicante]

So I'm playing it for the first time. Number of builds seem confusing. Can you suggest a couple straight forward options?

 

[Old Hans]

i put all my point in top combuter hats

 

[ghostdog]

So I'm playing it for the first time. Number of builds seem confusing. Can you suggest a couple straight forward options?

Use this to plan your build: http://underrail.info.tm/build/

If youy want a direct recommendation, my melee/stealth build worked pretty well:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/melee-build.107081/#post-4392914

 

[Trashos]

Look for SMG builds if you want stealth, look for Assault Rifle builds if you want to be a tank instead. They are newbie-friendly builds. If you don't know what you want, choose SMG.

 

[Citizen]

Crossbows&traps

 

[Egosphere]

stealth and psy

 

[Vorark]

Stealth is extremely convenient and a lifesaver.

That being said... Why rob yourself the opportunity to freely explore the mechanics and come to your own conclusions? It's part of the fun to learn what works better, discover skill synergies and so on.

 

[Tigranes]

Play Normal/Oddity and take the time to explore - the game can be beaten with a wide variety of builds and you can have fun discovering and making decisions for yourself.

Maybe tell us what archetype you would like to try, e.g. stealth sniper, and then we can give general guidance around stats distribution and key milestones.

 

[Parabalus]

stealth and psy

This right here. It's like playing with cheats enabled.

 

[Trashos]

Psi might be overwhelming for some newcomers imo, until they learn the ropes.

 

[Parabalus]

Psi might be overwhelming for some newcomers imo, until they learn the ropes.

It's the easiest because it has built-in solutions for everything.

You don't need to bother with consumable items, optimizing crafted gear and carefully tuning character builds.

There's no burden of knowledge, dump everything into WILL and press F to choose a spell, that's all you need.

 

[Trashos]

One has to learn everything, and then psi too. It is powerful, yes, but it has the most stuff to learn. A newbie will have to learn consumables anyway, unless we are to consider that he is going to be a psi expert since birth. Psi can be postponed for next playthrough.

While we are at it, guns are more newbie friendly than melee (which I have seen suggested above).

 

[orcinator]

Play Normal

Don't do this it's the biggest mistake you can make. You'll just get tricked into thinking the game is actually challenging since you won't have any good gear or perks at the start but then once you get several hours in and level up the difficulty will nosedive and make the game's trash mob problem even worse since now 95% of the enemies you'll encounter will be trash mobs.

 

[Tigranes]

I've always played Hard, but I've seen many people say Normal can be entertaining and appropriate for a 'not-familiar-with-mechanics' first time play.

I suppose OP can make the call, knowing that 'Normal' here is akin to Hard/Hardest on modern RPGs, i.e. the first not-braindead-easy, reasonable difficulty.

 

[Trashos]

I don't think we have helped much. Everyone has a different opinion. If we are to help Underrail build the community it deserves, we need to agree on what we should be suggesting to the average newbie. We have a problem, Houston.

 

[Maxwell's Demon]

Doesn't the fact that there are so many opinions mean that Underrail support a wide variety of playstyles? Just check out a few example builds and pick one you like. Maybe make a few minor modifications if you're feeling courageous.

 

[gestalt11]

Decide whether you want stealth/movement or not. If not do AR + heavy armor. If so you can do all psi which is very strong, or SMG or energy pistol. Check the underrail build forum for specific information and do not take the advice that said crossbow+trap. Save that playthrough for later.

 

[Parabalus]

Hard/Oddity for first runs.

One has to learn everything, and then psi too. It is powerful, yes, but it has the most stuff to learn.

It has the least stuff to learn and is OP as well, meaning that you don't even have to learn it well.

It's very easy to grasp compared to other stuff because you have your entire toolbox always available, both to review and utilize. Every encounter comes down to just rotating your spells, no other knowledge needed.

E.g. the beast encounter or death stalkers or goliathuses throw a curve ball to new players, but as PSI it's just more business as usual. You don't have to think about traps, toxic gas grenades, flares, just press F and choose different pew pew.

 

[Trashos]

Parabalus, I don't know how you manage to always disagree with me, even in cases when I am clearly correct, like this one. You are basically saying that an absolute newbie to DnD should dive into BG2 playing a mage, because it is the most powerful.

That's the best way to lose potential players. The average Underrail newcomer won't even know how to sneak properly, and you are talking about death stalkers. I hope you are not a teacher, man. The goal is not to make them powerful, the goal is to ease them into the game. If they are eased into the game and don't like their build, they can always restart. If, on the other hand, they get hopelessly overwhelmed, they will not return.

Therefore, my advice is to guide all asking newbies to SMGs (or Assault Rifles if they prefer tanks) which is both powerful and simple. Definitely away from unarmed, pistols, crossbows, and psi.

Now, if a newbie actually has an opinion and prefers the idea of psi or unarmed, then sure, help him with that.

 

[Junmarko]

Can you suggest a couple straight forward options?

Game totally allows for "J.C Denton" pistol+sneak+hack+pick, combo. Level design is great.

Always a fun guideline for first playthrough.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

Hard/Oddity for first runs.

Do not believe this man's lies. The game is perfectly fine on normal exploring both the world and mechanics. If you are going to min-max the shit out of it (leading to, as always, some pretty obvious stuff) feel free to pick any of the harder difficulties.

 

[orcinator]

If we are to help Underrail build the community it deserves, we need to agree on what we should be suggesting to the average newbie.

Play Undertale instead.

 

[Kalin]

If you don't play on highest difficulty in every game you're a faggot.

Dominating or bust!

 

[Parabalus]

Parabalus, I don't know how you manage to always disagree with me, even in cases when I am clearly correct, like this one. You are basically saying that an absolute newbie to DnD should dive into BG2 playing a mage, because it is the most powerful.

That's the best way to lose potential players. The average Underrail newcomer won't even know how to sneak properly, and you are talking about death stalkers. I hope you are not a teacher, man. The goal is not to make them powerful, the goal is to ease them into the game. If they are eased into the game and don't like their build, they can always restart. If, on the other hand, they get hopelessly overwhelmed, they will not return.

Therefore, my advice is to guide all asking newbies to SMGs (or Assault Rifles if they prefer tanks) which is both powerful and simple. Definitely away from unarmed, pistols, crossbows, and psi.

Now, if a newbie actually has an opinion and prefers the idea of psi or unarmed, then sure, help him with that.

Comparing Underrail's PSI to Bg2's mages is insane.
Wizards have more lvl 1 spells than the entirety of the Underrail PSI repertoire.

There are no mage battles in UR, PSI just does everything by itself, better than every other build.

For SMGs you need grenades, switching ammo (and lugging around a ton of it), crafting gears to never be as effective as a brain-dead PSI user.

 

[Sheepherder]

Parabalus, I don't know how you manage to always disagree with me, even in cases when I am clearly correct, like this one. You are basically saying that an absolute newbie to DnD should dive into BG2 playing a mage, because it is the most powerful.

That's the best way to lose potential players. The average Underrail newcomer won't even know how to sneak properly, and you are talking about death stalkers. I hope you are not a teacher, man. The goal is not to make them powerful, the goal is to ease them into the game. If they are eased into the game and don't like their build, they can always restart. If, on the other hand, they get hopelessly overwhelmed, they will not return.

Therefore, my advice is to guide all asking newbies to SMGs (or Assault Rifles if they prefer tanks) which is both powerful and simple. Definitely away from unarmed, pistols, crossbows, and psi.

Now, if a newbie actually has an opinion and prefers the idea of psi or unarmed, then sure, help him with that.

Comparing Underrail's PSI to Bg2's mages is insane.
Wizards have more lvl 1 spells than the entirety of the Underrail PSI repertoire.

There are no mage battles in UR, PSI just does everything by itself, better than every other build.

For SMGs you need grenades, switching ammo (and lugging around a ton of it), crafting gears to never be as effective as a brain-dead PSI user.

Most of what you posted is correct, but I wouldn't call psi builds brain-dead. I remember having tons of fun when I played my first full psi build years ago. Figuring out how spells interact with each other, coming up with new combos, determining which spells work better against what enemies, locating new spells etc. Unless a newbie combs through the forums to find all that shit out, pure psi will be a lot of fun for them. They'll have lot's of flashy things to do each turn and overpoweredness of psi will carry even a retard through the whole game.