Arcanum : does high Beauty have any real effect ?

[Erebus]

The first time I ever played Arcanum, I did so with a diplomatic PC, who maxed Charisma, Beauty and Persuasion. But, while Charisma and Persuasion had clear effects (especially if you wanted to have a shitload of followers), Beauty didn't seem to be of any real use. It would sometimes change the very first sentence people said when they met you, but you'd still get the normal dialogue afterwards and while the percentage representing the NPC's attitude towards you would be higher, I never noticed any actual consequence. So, is there actually any point in having high Beauty ?

 

[JarlFrank]

As far as I know, all it does is increase initial NPC reaction.

 

[Kz3r0]

Beauty only change people's reaction to you, it's an issue only with certain races and traits, meaning that your evil half-orc/ogre could be attacked on sight for being too ugly or lose followers, in short, beauty, or not being ugly, is important only for characters with low reaction stats, being a super model is pretty useless without charisma and persuasion, that don't need beauty at all.
And even ugly characters can acquire high reaction items, males can easily acquire suits from tailor shops, female dresses with reaction+ are very rare tho, and some magical item, blessings too.

 

[ghostdog]

It's Arcanum's way of telling you that external beauty is superficial

 

[Commissar Draco]

Pick charisma and persuasion instead.... very first bonus quest gives you +1 to beauty this plus elegant smoking jacket is all you need... unless you play PC with really repulsive race + background... For females you can pick debutante backround which will give you silk dress + some bonus in social skills.... but huge in combat.

 

[JarlFrank]

Also, in my experience, beauty does not modify reaction after the initial conversation.

Which basically means: if you increase beauty before ever talking to someone, his reaction will be higher. If you have already talked to someone before and increase beauty, his reaction won't change at all.

 

[Turisas]

You don't get to have sex with that love cult priestess if you don't have high enough beauty.

 

[Erebus]

So, to sum it up, having 20 in Beauty really is pointless ?

 

[Whisky]

So, yes. Beauty = Dump-stat. Pick a background that makes you a hideous freak, but with massive gains elsewhere and you'll dominate.

At least when people don't shoot you after talking to them.

 

[Gragt]

I think that having high beauty helps to have sex with the lecherous halfling to gain access to the Gentlemen's Club in Tarant if you're a woman and decide to go that route. Or maybe if you're beautiful enough, he'll only require you to have sex to give you permission to enter, and you won't have to pay. It's been a while so it's likely I'm wrong.

 

[Raghar]

According to design it should have ONLY effect at the first encounter. Technically it should allow you to talk, show you have no brain, because you spend points for beauty, and be killed AFTER some conversation, instead of immediate fight.

 

[sea]

I wouldn't treat Beauty entirely as a dump stat because it's still handy on occasion and you don't want others' reaction to be extremely low (aside from them attacking you, I believe it also alters prices in shops and hurts persuasion chances). You never have to touch it if you're playing "normally", but if you're playing one of the ugly races or picked the "ugly stick" background, I'd suggest putting 1-2 points in on character creation just to make sure you aren't chased out of town.

 

[Xor]

I did a quick search through the dialog files and I couldn't find any beauty tests. There are a ton of charisma checks, though.

 

[20 Eyes]

It's Arcanum's way of telling you that external beauty is superficial

It's (yet another) gamer's way of noticing that Arcanum was half-finished.

 

[eric__s]

There were all these times in my game where Magnus would get mad at me about something (I have no idea what??) and his reaction would go down permanently, so I had to put points into beauty to make sure he didn't leave. IMO the game is best played as a low beauty half-orc. It's a completely different experience and shows how wretched most of the people in the game actually are.

 

[JarlFrank]

Magnus hates it when you attack innocents, which includes farm animals. (I once had him leave cause I grinded XP on farm animals)

 

[Modron]

Magnus hates it when you attack innocents, which includes farm animals. (I once had him leave cause I grinded XP on farm animals)

The only grinding you should be doing is at Liam's workshop against the void creatures; if your super powerful modern computer is not struggling with the loads of corpses you've left behind then you're doing something wrong. Creatures stop coming through the portal eventually but by that point you will have picked up 30-40 levels, that is if you beat your npc's to the punch (No exp sharing was my biggest gripe with the game).

 

[eric__s]

Magnus hates it when you attack innocents, which includes farm animals. (I once had him leave cause I grinded XP on farm animals)

It was usually in dungeons when I was fighting zombies or something. I'd use harm on a zombie that hadn't attacked yet and he'd get upset. It happened a few times in different places so it was probably a bug, but it really sucked.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

beauty is pretty much the social version of endurance

only increase it if you have problems

also it's been quite a while but if you want to grind, random encounter up a whole bunch of those wererat things, those were great for a fast boost

 

[Erebus]

IMO the game is best played as a low beauty half-orc. It's a completely different experience and shows how wretched most of the people in the game actually are.

Most NPCs will also react less than decently to a low-intelligence PC (Bates in particular is a complete asshole).

Most of the time, I'd say that the initial reaction is purely superficial. If the PC is a half-orc, most conversations will start along the lines of "What do you want, scum ?", but if you answer politely, you then get the normal conversation. Conversely, if you play a high-Beauty female PC, male NPCs will tend to start their conversations with the equivalent of "Hey, baby !", but you'll then also get the normal conversation.

 

[Kz3r0]

I think that having high beauty helps to have sex with the lecherous halfling to gain access to the Gentlemen's Club in Tarant if you're a woman and decide to go that route. Or maybe if you're beautiful enough, he'll only require you to have sex to give you permission to enter, and you won't have to pay. It's been a while so it's likely I'm wrong.

The pervert wanted to bang my dumb ugly half-orchess, you can intimidate him tho, if you have points in combat shills and a weapon equipped, this is true for all intimidate checks.

 

[Gragt]

He'll bang pretty much anything, but I kinda remember that beauty and/or persuasion would let you sleep with him without having to pay him in addition. Again, it's just hazy.

 

[eric__s]

IMO the game is best played as a low beauty half-orc. It's a completely different experience and shows how wretched most of the people in the game actually are.

Most NPCs will also react less than decently to a low-intelligence PC (Bates in particular is a complete asshole).

Most of the time, I'd say that the initial reaction is purely superficial. If the PC is a half-orc, most conversations will start along the lines of "What do you want, scum ?", but if you answer politely, you then get the normal conversation. Conversely, if you play a high-Beauty female PC, male NPCs will tend to start their conversations with the equivalent of "Hey, baby !", but you'll then also get the normal conversation.

Yeah, it's true that it usually follows a formula that's easy to get around but part of what makes Arcanum such a remarkable game is that so much of it mirrors the social issues of the late 19th, early 20th century. Half-Ogre Island is about eugenics and the shitty underbelly of democracy, the Don Throgg stuff is about unions and socialism and race relations, the Boil is about the squalid conditions of the 19th century underclass left behind by rapid industrialization (justified by race), the Appleby/Gates stuff is about the cutthroat capitalism of the early 20th century, Dernholm is about the death of monarchy. A lot of the game revolves around race and other social issues and I think it makes the game more meaningful if you don't just witness racism, but are victimized by it, regardless of the basic mechanics behind it.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Unless you're knee deep in Tech, I think Beauty of Water should be enough to keep you from "makes people vomit on sight" level.