I also don't get the whining about the combat system in general. It seems like there's a lot of butthurt steampunk fetishists who are ragin' that tech wasn't as strong enough as magick but then 1) it was still fun to play in my opinion and 2) should it really have been lorewise anyway? I think the issue with magick was that it should have been similarly as involved as tech, required spell reagents or something but it's not like most games have a detailed magic system, it's often just a mana bar, it's only in comparison to the tech it looks dull. Still I found as long as you don't abuse the turn-based/real-time switching the combat is fine. Way better than in Fallout or Planescape as far as the holy trinity goes at least.
Tech was probably the most fun to play, I'll agree. At least when you fatepoint-steal a proper gun so you're not piss weak. Magic was fun too, when you used the more interesting spells than just straight damage-dealing, both in and out of combat.
Problem with the techs balance was mostly that it went totally against how all the fluff was written - tech was supposed to be easy to use, instant gratification, while magic was the slow path to power. Instead in the actual game it was quite opposite, techie/gunman starts out the weakest even if he'll catch up a bit. And as far as pure killing power is concerned, melee trumps all... And gun using enemies were mostly pathetic, since they mostly used the shitty basic guns.
Playing as a techie (shooter), once you have a non-pathetic gun, the difficulty felt about right to me. But when using magic or melee, things are way too easy (I guess if you play it on normal with a gunner, and on hard otherwise will balance that out though), which felt like a bigger problem to me. And overall while the system is fun enough if the encounter is interesting enough, most battles are against boring melee enemies who do nothing special or distinct from each other. But yeah, it's not as awful as people often make it out to be - just mediocre.
Also, loved my first try at Arcanum in the BMC - just ran past everything in the first tunnel, leaving followers behind, in realtime mode, since I couldn't figure how to properly kill the golems with. Then desperately scrounged for healing and quest clues in the lower levels, only 1 visit since I knew the only way out was with one of those escape scrolls.
Another PC with magic was much more boring to play that, since I just methodically blasted everything with harm... Which totally lacked that tension of having your escape route blocked and being against actually dangerous enemies.
