Arbalah Question

Hello, it's been a while. I am beginning to play Arcanum again. The patched version with the official patch, the unofficial patch, and other stuff Drog made to make the game as much as it was originally intended, and fixing lots of bugs.

My question: I am wondering if the Arbalah and bandits quests (early in the game) can be finished in a way that allows you to complete them but allows Arbalah to be alive.

For example, could you not finish the quests until you find a DOT item, and a resurrection scroll.
First do Arbalah's quest, and kill Fahrkus and get the artifact. Turn it in to Arbalah.

Then drop the DOT item near him so he picks it up, wait until he dies. Go back to the crash site, and turn in the quest to Brehgo. Then go back and resurrect Arbalah, that way he does not stay dead.

I am purely thinking about this to see if anyone has tried it. My thinking is that your character has to 'actively' kill him, so the above strategy won't work. Still, it always bothered me to kill that character.

 

Dark Elf,

Will do. I think the first DOT item that comes up is in the shipwreck area. I will give it a shot.

Thanks,

DSDQ

 

I'd be interested to see how this turns out.

 

Probably easiest to use the Virgil Debug Menu to test it out most easily. Then you can use him to to-and-fro from the Isle of Despair for the Baneful Gauntlets, or there's that ring that allows for invisibility at a cost of DoT (you would need 20 PE to be able to see Arbalah when you've killed him with the ring, again easy enough to do with the Debug menu).

Links are here (for the older version, right click and save for the DAT) or here (for the newer version, where Virgil has to wear the GB ring to open up the menu). My preference is the older menu, personally.

I think the file used to be able to download the Debug menu in the downloads section, but I can't seem to get it working anymore.

 

Virgil's Debug Menu and other misc mods/cheats have always been available on my page.

 

Thanks all.

I think I will try Jojobobo's suggestion. I have never tried any of the Debug menus. It will be a learning experience.

 

Well friends, I gave it a shot using Virgil's Debug Menu, and it worked.

I was able to complete both the Arbalah and the bandits quests successfully, both showing Green in the log book. I used the Baneful Gauntlets from the Isle of Despair as Jojobobo suggested. I went to Tarant to buy a few resurrection scrolls. Then to the Isle of Despair for the gauntlets. Then to Shrouded Hills to get the gauntlets identified.

I went to Arbalah's house. I had Virgil wait outside so he would not pick up the gauntlets. I dropped the gauntlets near Arbalah, he picked them up and equipped them. He started taking damage. In a little time Arbalah dropped dead. I picked up the gauntlets. Then returned to the cave at the crash site to turn the quest in to Brehgo. That went as always, no problems. Then I went back to Arbalah's house and resurrected him, that way he did not stay dead. He did not attack me, and his reaction was amiable.This is something I have been wondering if it could be done for a long time after I read somewhere that you could drop DOT equipment near an NPC and that this could 'dead' them.

I used the Teleportation feature of the VDM during my try out. It worked fine. Thanks to Jojobobo for this suggestion as well, this was way faster than waiting to get to the Isle of Despair in regular time.

I did a secondary run. During this one, and while at the crash site, I advanced one day before teleporting. When I got to Arbalah's house his body had already disappeared (decomposed?) and on the floor was just a pile of equipment, consisting of his artifact and robes. So, time is a factor for this plan to end with Arbalah resurrected.

I reloaded an earlier save, and using the Worldmap I 'ran' from the cave to Arbalah's house as fast as possible. If I understand correctly, as long as it was less than a day it worked fine. There may be a more precise time lapse or range, but I did not test it that many times.

What I did experience on this second try was that my arrival to Arbalah's house was during the night. And this added an interesting element that I am sure can be circumvented if you plan your timing better than I did. As I said, when I arrived it was night, and Arbalah's door was locked. I picked the lock (using a Fate Point for speed) and was able to get to Arbalah's body on time. I resurrected him using a magic scroll. And his reaction to me was still amiable. His dialogue unchanged.

So, I think it is possible to do this in a regular game without the Debug Menu, just so long as you either wait to take these quests after the Isle of Despair portion of the story comes up and you have the gauntlets. Or you complete them only partially until you have the gauntlets.

I did not try this with any other equipment. Nor as a mage with a Teleportation spell of their own, which may be very well possible. I have never developed a mage long enough to get Teleportation, or finish the game for that matter.

I did resurrect Brehgo one time just to kill him. It was not very satisfying.

Anyway, there you go. Thank you Dark Elf, and Zanza for the encouragement and interest. Thank you again Jojobobo for the suggestions, you basically gave me the complete plan, I just executed it. And thank you Drog for Virgil's Debug Menu, among all the other things you have made and shared to improve Arcanum.

 

Cool stuff, I'm glad it worked! It feels like a true neutral path in a lot of ways.

I think bodies naturally disappear after a few in game days with a few exceptions, so the natural way to do this would be with Teleport (scrolls or the spell) to ensure the body doesn't disappear too quickly. I've never even thought of resurrecting Brehgo to kill him again, also a pretty neat thing to do.

 

Yeah it was actually a lot of fun to do, thanks for your suggestions. Using a scroll of teleportation would be a great way to do this whole thing faster and without the Debug. Virgil's Debug Menu is a thing of beauty, but given what you have suggested - and how it played out - I think it can be naturally done.

For a while now resurrecting and then killing Bregho was another thing I have been wondering if it could be done. And at this moment I am not sure if Arbalah's curse came back after I killed him or not. I don't remember. I was too focused on bringing Arbalah back to life. Damn! I am going to have to check that tonight. It would suck if my resurrecting him and then killing him cleared him of that. And now I am wondering if I had chosen the dialogue ending with " . . . I enjoy killing" maybe Bregho would not have gone hostile and attacked me. I will check that as well. As an aside, I was able to intimidate Fahrkus, which I don't remember doing at all during my past complete playthroughs. That was new to me.

This whole thing was a neat exercise. A lot of fun. One of the many things about the game is discovering all these little things. It would be interesting to mind control Fahrkus and have him join your party. Then teleport to the cave, have Fahrkus wait (if possible) next to you, and then bring Bregho back to life to see how those two interact.

Or, going in a somewhat different direction: Bring Fahrkus to the cave. Have him wait, if possible. Resurrect and mind control Bregho. Get Fahrkus to rejoin. Take them both to Arbalah's house. Before resurrecting Arbalah to get the gauntlets give him a full set of high end magical gear. Have the bandits wait inside the house. Resurrect Arbalah, and hopefully he would have equipped everything. And see how that reunion plays out. Hopefully he would not attack my character, but who knows. And then . . . ad nauseam.

Again, not only do you get to play the game, you get to play with the game. Good times!

This makes me think that a mod/hack could be made to right the wrongs in Arcanum. This may already have been done, I doubt I am the first to think of these things. Something along the lines of investigators looking into crimes, federal marshalls, or bounty hunters maybe. Imagine that once you get to Caladon Chief Inspector Henderson in the police headquarters 'deputises' your character. You have to go all the way back to Shrouded Hills to get Doc Roberts as a companion. He can heal you and is good with a gun. Together you go around Arcanum dealing with already present quests, but modified. You end up arresting bandits, busting the Thieves Underground, fighting the Molochean Hand, etc. With the largest modification being the culmination of the Re'nar siamese twin skulls storyline. With a satisfactory resolution. Some tweaks to the game, added dialogue, and something a bit larger with the conspiracy gnome.

Boy, I have had a lot of coffee today. Forgive the wall-o-text tangents and musings. And again, thanks for the suggestions.

DSDQ

 

Jolly good!