Arcanum First time Arcanum player, need some general guidance

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

It's not hard. Once you get to Tarant, you're invincible if you play your cards right. Plus high technological aptitude = immunity to all magic.

It's a very balanced™ game indeed. But what do you expect from a game that contains a side quest that turns your character into a deity?

 

[Ninjerk]

Doesn't the building on the jetty near the gypsy woman have access to the old sewers?

Which gypsy woman is this again?

Indeed ! But I believe it's the entrance he doesn't manage to open. I can't tell for certain though, didn't play the game for some time now. And usually I skip this section of the sewers.

Nevermind, I'm an idiot. I did not find the entrance to the closed sewers at all, so I assumed that a closed room with treasure chests guarded by mechanized arachnids is the restricted part of the sewers. Whatever, I'm still too low level to deal with those things anyway.
I actually went to Ashbury and I failed the mayor's quest miserably. What stats do I need to complete that?

You can get to that closed room in the sewers another (easier) way, but those arachnid machines are pretty strong.

 

[Robespierre]

You can get to that closed room in the sewers another (easier) way, but those arachnid machines are pretty strong.

Agreed. And if I remember correctly if he is playing a solo-mage the prize for taking down the arachnids won't be worth it.

 

[Ninjerk]

You can get to that closed room in the sewers another (easier) way, but those arachnid machines are pretty strong.

Agreed. And if I remember correctly if he is playing a solo-mage the prize for taking down the arachnids won't be worth it.

I haven't tried since I found them way too early.

 

[Nas92]

You can get to that closed room in the sewers another (easier) way, but those arachnid machines are pretty strong.

Yeah, I noticed, I actually encountered them before by accident outside one of the warehouse buildings. I walked next to the building, suddenly combat triggered and they somehow attacked through a window and completely destroyed Virgil. This was some time before when I was level 7 or so and still had pretty shit gear.

Agreed. And if I remember correctly if he is playing a solo-mage the prize for taking down the arachnids won't be worth it.

Not solo, I'm actually doing a diplomat mage run, and I have Magnus for technological stuff.

 

[Robespierre]

Not solo, I'm actually doing a diplomat mage run, and I have Magnus for technological stuff.

Hum. In fact, it could be worth it. I'm not sure, since I've never tried this. For killing the arachnids, you will be rewarded with a schematic for the pyro axe (a pretty powerful weapon). Now if you're doing a full mage you won't (and shouldn't) have any crafting skills, but

Spoiler

you could buy some tech manuals in the Tarant university allowing you to increase your aptitudes in the technological disciplines and thus crafting the axe. If you try this, keep in mind that the more intelligent you are the more points you will receive in the attribute the manual increase.

BTW what is your level, and how many points did you invest in Int thus far?

 

[Nas92]

Not solo, I'm actually doing a diplomat mage run, and I have Magnus for technological stuff.

Hum. In fact, it could be worth it. I'm not sure, since I've never tried this. For killing the arachnids, you will be rewarded with a schematic for the pyro axe (a pretty powerful weapon). Now if you're doing a full mage you won't (and shouldn't) have any crafting skills, but

Spoiler

you could buy some tech manuals in the Tarant university allowing you to increase your aptitudes in the technological disciplines and thus crafting the axe. If you try this, keep in mind that the more intelligent you are the more points you will receive in the attribute the manual increase.

BTW what is your level, and how many points did you invest in Int thus far?

Level 13 and I have only increased Int by one point. I found it more prudent to focus on WP and Cha.
I admit I'm quite ignorant about the mechanics of the game - yep, didn't read the manual, even though I probably should - but doesn't my focus on magic thus far basically mean that I'm going to have a hard time with technological skills?

 

[Robespierre]

Level 13 and I have only increased Int by one point. I found it more prudent to focus on WP and Cha.
I admit I'm quite ignorant about the mechanics of the game - yep, didn't read the manual, even though I probably should - but doesn't my focus on magic thus far basically mean that I'm going to have a hard time with technological skills?

INT isn't THAT important for a mage, but since you want to build a diplomatic mage you definitely want to invest some points in INT. Don't forget about the potion of intellect. You did well in focusing on Willpower.

About your last interrogation. You can make a tech/mage build, it's possible but not recommended for a first playthrough. Basically if you lean too far towards technology or magick, you won't be able to use any magical or technological items; among some other things that you will discover soon enough. Your affinity towards technology or magick change according to the skills/spells/schematics you learn.
Still I believe a full mage - using manuals - can craft technological items in order to give them to a follower.

 

[Nas92]

INT isn't THAT important for a mage, but since you want to build a diplomatic mage you definitely want to invest some points in INT. Don't forget about the potion of intellect. You did well in focusing on Willpower.

I leveled up doing the Ashbury quest in the cemetery and put one point in Int. That was enough to allow me to successfully complete the quest given by the mayor. There were still a few answers where my character could only chose the retarded options though.

How many points should I spend on Int? My points are already stretched thin.

 

[Robespierre]

I leveled up doing the Ashbury quest in the cemetery and put one point in Int. That was enough to allow me to successfully complete the quest given by the mayor. There were still a few answers where my character could only chose the retarded options though.

How many points should I spend on Int? My points are already stretched thin.

If I were you, I would buy a potion of intellect and drink it just before reaching the podium. I believe the elf vendor at the Ashbury's docks sells some. How many points have you invested in the persuasion skill thus far?

 

[Nas92]

If I were you, I would buy a potion of intellect and drink it just before reaching the podium. I believe the elf vendor at the Ashbury's docks sells some. How many points have you invested in the persuasion skill thus far?

I managed to complete the quest with 10 Int. I may not have gotten the best results, but at least it's not as bad as the first time.
Do Int potions allow me to use manuals better? I'm thinking I should save Int potions for that time.

I think I invested three or four points into Persuasion, and I got apprentice training for it too. I've been focusing on getting spells for the last few levels since I really started to suck at combat.

 

[Robespierre]

If I were you, I would buy a potion of intellect and drink it just before reaching the podium. I believe the elf vendor at the Ashbury's docks sells some. How many points have you invested in the persuasion skill thus far?

I managed to complete the quest with 10 Int. I may not have gotten the best results, but at least it's not as bad as the first time.
Do Int potions allow me to use manuals better? I'm thinking I should save Int potions for that time.

I think I invested three or four points into Persuasion, and I got apprentice training for it too. I've been focusing on getting spells for the last few levels since I really started to suck at combat.

Yes, they do. The increase you will receive in a technological skill from a manual is proportional to your int. Since yours is kinda low you should definitely drink one before buying manuals.

 

[Nas92]

The Haunted Castle in Ashbury is a pain in the ass, but I got like three levels by clearing out the ground level and the first floor. The ground floor was not very difficult, but even then the doors fucked me over numerous times. The fight against the skeleton archers upstairs was a straight nightmare. Really accurate and you have to run out there and attack them yourself, you can't order companions to advance. For some reason Sogg kept getting critical misses against them and actually managed to decapitate himself. The basement is another thing altogether, those Lord's Slaves can kill my character in two hits and once again I have to bait them myself to get my companions to attack them.

 

[Robespierre]

Nas92 Casting the shield of protection might help you against those archers. Or with 3 points in summoning you could summon ogres to keep you away from harm. Know that the more intelligent you are, the most spells you'll be able to maintain. Harm is another OP spell, and it's kinda cheap. Almost feels like cheating.

 

[Absinthe]

From a min/max perspective, maybe. The difference is that it makes people love you right off the bat and anything you do or say that might normally make people attack you usually gets shrugged off. So it does at least have an effect.

It's a very marginal effect. The idea is interesting but the game really didn't put it to good use. In the end it almost never matters what your character's beauty stat is as long as you don't do anything retarded. Even when people hate you and express their disgust, you can usually apologize for being an ugly half-breed and get them to tolerate you. So in reality, the main effects of beauty are really shopkeeper discounts and saving your ass from putting your foot in your mouth. I think the Arcanum devs tried to have it both ways on the beauty stat. On the one hand they wanted consequences where people would be disgusted by you and turn you away, but on the other hand they didn't want to lock you out of the game content and handed you means to get them to tolerate you anyway. So in the end beauty has minimal effect. It's all lip service, really. And considering how easily you can become filthy rich and how you can skill haggling, high shopkeeper prices are easily overcome.

At the end of the day Beat with an Ugly Stick is a really good background.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

you can usually apologize for being an ugly half-breed and get them to tolerate you.

Again, your are looking at it as a min/max thing.

From a role playing perspective, licking people's boots and apologizing for being an ugly, inhuman piece of shit all the time is a consequence in and of itself.

 

[Elex]

I believe you can access the old part of the sewers via the power plant (near the docks) or the Boil (in Maug's or Pollock's compound, I don't remember, perhaps in both).

yes there is 3 entrance, 2 in the boil one in the docks. (and another one under a factory but the door is guarded)

 

[Absinthe]

Again, your are looking at it as a min/max thing.

And you're looking at it from a LARP perspective. A min-max perspective is a perfectly good perspective to have when you're talking about whether or not an attribute is meaningful. The truth is that Beauty is an utter dump stat. I think there's one sexual encounter gated behind a high beauty check and that's about it as far as beauty's concerned? A bigger issue with the Beauty stat is that NPCs weren't fleshed out enough to have different behaviors for different reactions. There's an NPC reaction score but it's meaningless outside of shopkeeper prices.

From a role playing perspective, licking people's boots and apologizing for being an ugly, inhuman piece of shit all the time is a consequence in and of itself.

Sure, but it's utterly cosmetic. Do I care? Nope. I'd care a lot more if they actually did anything that matters, but they never do. High shopkeeper prices aside, I will only suffer a beauty-related consequence if my character managed to make enemies outright hostile before giving him a chance to speak (1 beauty build), but even that's rare, and you can collect reaction bonuses rather easily, esp. considering you can just go to a tailor and buy an Elegant Dress or Smoking Jacket for the +20 reaction bonus. Unlike regular min-maxing, I'm not even obliged to specialize in a direction by sacrificing the options my choice penalized me in, because there are no real penalties. I can have 1 beauty and still run 20 charisma and be a master of persuasion for any social questing, zero downside. And similarly there are virtually no benefits to high beauty other than shopkeeper discounts. There are zero skills tied to beauty score. It's all charisma. There's maybe 1 or 2 beauty checks total over the course of the entire game. That's a design problem.

At the end of the day beauty is only important for LARP reasons. You can roleplay by yourself how important looking good is, but ultimately the game itself doesn't give a shit.

 

[Master]

It's not entirely useless. I already wrote how guards will give you more warnings before attacking if they catch you doing something criminal, like breaking a window. If you aren't the saving/reloading type its pretty handy and it makes sense.

Some NPCs like the ogre with the hostage wizard (Drog Black Tooth) won't attack you on your way out if you have high reaction.

Companions can leave you if it gets too low.

Better prices.

Etc.

So I wouldn't call it useless though possibly more can be made with it with some modding... But it seems nobody will bother anymore.

 

[Nas92]

When will I actually get the option to ask for Stillwater's location? It seems as if the entire Elder Joachim plotline has been forgotten about, not even Virgil says anything about it anymore. When I ask him what should we do, he says that we should go to the Isle of Despair.

 

[Harold]

When will I actually get the option to ask for Stillwater's location? It seems as if the entire Elder Joachim plotline has been forgotten about, not even Virgil says anything about it anymore. When I ask him what should we do, he says that we should go to the Isle of Despair.

Don't worry about it, the main quest will send you to Stillwater a bit later. But also don't get your hopes up on the Joachim plotline - while it does get resolved eventually, he is used mostly as a mcguffin, so there are large stretches of nothing before that plot resurfaces.

 

[Master]

According to a certain book in the Tarantian Library, you can catch a train from Tarrant to Stillwater. But this isn't the case. It would be cool if somebody modded it in, for consistency.

 

[Nas92]

Another question: Does Summon Undead suck for anyone else? No matter how I try to position my summon, all it does is teleport in front of my character and refuses to attack unless it is itself attacked (and the enemies never seem to want to attack it). And it does actually teleport, I once summoned it during combat, in a situation where one of my allies was blocking the doorway, it still managed to appear in front of my character instead of helping out the idiot stuck between the enemy and my retarded party members.

 

[Master]

Can't you right click on summons portrait, choose attack and left click the enemy? It should work.

Edit

And summons should appear on wherever tile you click on, not only in front of you. It may be a bug.

 

[Nas92]

I can't get Sebastian make the Charged Ring because he keeps putting on the copper ring and apparently that doesn't count as him having it. Who the fuck came up with this retarded autopickup and auto-equip mechanisms? Isn't it obvious how fucking shit it is? Now I have to buy other useless rings so he won't put on the copper ring when I give it to him.

Also, Hadrian in the Panarii Temple is now all sad and won't speak to me because of all the revelations about the remains under the temple. Thing is, I need him for the Iron Clan quest. Did the game just arbitrarily lock me out of this quest?