Which premade characters have you finished the game with?

It has been awhile since I played Arcanum, so I thought I would try to play it through with all of the premade characters for an interesting challenge. I have taken most of them up to the Black Mountain Mines, and have finished the game with Clarisse Vorak so far. So far it looks like the Ore Golem in the Black Mountain Mines is the biggest obstacle, since most of the premade characters will not be melee experts by then, will not have the charisma to recruit too many others, and because I am trying to roleplay properly and not go to Ashbury to get dog before then....

I have also noticed that the premade characters seem to "waste" points (at least in my opinion). Clarisse's technology disciplines are not the best, but worse than that, she puts points into perception, and does not develop anything that relies on it like prowling or firearms (though perhaps that comes later).

So I was curious to know what premade characters others have used and which you found to be easy/hard.

 

I'm currently running through the game with Muck Evil Eye (again; I've yet to finish with him as my token low-intelligence run through the game) who is outside the Wheel Clan right now, and Godfrey Castleburger who is right now at Shades Beach on the Isle of Despair.

As for wasting points in some of the prebuilt character's default autolevel schemes, I see it as part of the challenge. However, Perception may not be too bad for a bow user like Clarisse to pump up--increased perception lets you scroll the screen farther and I believe has an effect on accuracy for any ranged attack type.

I don't think I'd say Godfrey was hard--it's definitely a challenge to build him up in the early part, simply because he doesn't put out much damage (once he can make the Fine Revolver it provides for a nice jump) but he does make lots of friends which helps to compensate. He's relying on the guns he makes--right now he's up to Repeater Rifle--no purloining of advanced weapons early for him! I only unleashed him and the gang (Virgil, Sogg, Magnus, and Gar at the time) on Black Mountain Mines once he'd hit level 21 (earning Repair 3 and thus Repair Expert, thus turning weapon/armor damage into just a minor annoyance). Being a gnome, he can get Haggle Expert with his two points invested in Haggle--Haggle Expert makes "selling the loot" a breeze (no more circuits of Tarant trying to figure out who will buy what!).

Like any tech character, NPC healing options stink. Virgil is wonderful with bandages--except he will use them on himself, Sogg, Gar, Dog--even when his blue bar is full! I really wish he'd just save the bandages for the tech-heavy characters (Magnus and Godfrey in the above party). At least Godfrey has the option to force Virgil to try to heal him magically (once Virgil has wasted all his bandages)--poor Magnus has to make do with healing salves.

Muck is of course easy from a combat standpoint--but a bit of a challenge from the quest side of things, especially if you've played through with a smarter character before and realize Muck just won't get or be able to complete some quests. I'm not letting him drink any intelligence potions--though I think I may have to make one exception for part of the Mazzerin's Mystery (gods) "quest".

Looking at the prebuilts, the human female Victoria Warrington may be an interesting change of pace--she has absolutely zero combat skills. She develops Haggle, Persuasion, and the Divination and Mental colleges. I don't know if I'd have the patience to play a pure diplomat. (Godfrey is fairly close, but at least as long as he's got bullets he can fight!)

 

Pure diplomacy would be nicer if it wasn't for the guaranteed combat scenes like BMC. D:

 

Sorry to double post, but...

I've been playing Victoria Warrington. She's terrible at fighting. I've actually died to critical misses on defenseless enemies. BUT, she gets the stun spell, which is pretty epic. I killed the Dwarven Assassin in Black Root with it, and can increase my hit chance on a zombie to nearly 55%(using the enchanted sword from Doc Roberts)!

The persuasion helps too. I managed to get into the Gentleman's club without having sex with the gnome by saying I'd "come back later". Charisma comes a bit late though. At level 9, she's only got 9 Charisma. She's more of a reaction goddess, with her points being spent in Beauty, and her fancy dress.

 

Finished Muck now onto Victoria

I finished Muck. He was not too hard. He missed a few quests, but more than made up for the experience in combat. I was level 45 when I finished with the game with him. I only had to use an intelligence potion once: when he met Nasruden, the dialogue just ended with no talk of vendegroth or going into the void.

For me Victoria is quite difficult. Stun is nice, but she quickly runs out of fatigue points. Also she gets no XP from combat, so it is really tough to advance her (and the party) in levels. The party was only level 12 when facing the ore golem -- which was tough!!

 

Victoria was level 15 when I got to BMC. I went to Ashbury to get the dog, and then cleared Dorien'Ka and the Dragon Blood Pool before I set off.

 

Victoria is at level 24 now

I certainly agree that BMM and the Ore Golem are much more managable at level 15 with dog. It was strictly a roleplaying decision on my part not to go to Ashbury before BMM -- this made the fight with the Ore Golem incredibly tough!!! And in general it was tough keeping Magnus alive in BMM. Has anyone ever made a mod to ask Vigil to heal other characters??? Occasionally he will try healing Magnus, but that is rare (and of course it fails about every other time).

Now Victoria is level 24 and we are headed off to Caledon to find Nasruden's grave. It does not look like she will even make it to level 40, since she does almost no combat damage, but combat is a lot easier with a front line of Dog and Gar to hack away at stunned enemies.

 

Once Virgil has Heal 4+, just start loading him up with bandages. Then in between combats he'll tend to slap bandages on everything that needs healing (including himself, but I suppose it keeps his fatigue up for the next combat).

Both my Muck and Godfrey games are post T'sen Ang... but I've gotten sidetracked on some other characters. Godfrey's got a veritable armada with him (I picked up Jormund in Qintarra just for something different, and with Virgil taking his vacation I replaced him with Raven)--Gar, Magnus, and Sogg are all armed with pyro axes while Godfrey is using Bronwyck's Gun.

Muck has a pyro axe (I loaded him down with tech manuals--sticking to the no intelligence potion rule) but I'd forgotten how ineffective tech weapons are against magical beings (like ore golems) when the wielder has no technical aptitude (0% against ore golems). Ah well, he's good just using his gauntlets to fight in those situations.

 

Every time I play, I always like to make my own. Even in games like Fallout I do the same thing. Playing with a pre-fab always made me feel dirty or tied to something I didn't want. If I want to play with a character on rails that I can't customize very well I can always play a console rpg!

 

Re: Victoria is at level 24 now

First time I played the game, I was impressed on how the tenuous relationship between Virgil and Magnus extends to combat, where Virgil would almost never heal him.

Now, I know that Virgil is just a dumbass.

"I've been badly hurt madam, please help me!"

"Oh, I notice you're missed 3 hit points"

"I'll use my heal spell on you"

"NOBLE SACRIFICE!"

 

This message is approved for by Doc Roberts band-aid

Yeah, I used to think that the Arcanum AI was just being smart (I first did just warrior and mages), but now I've started being more technical, I realise that it ain't the case.

Oh well... broken ribs? Gaping flesh wounds? Your innards are almost dropping out? No problem: bandages heal all.

 

I did it with Merwin Tumblebrook, I didn't think it was too hard, probably because I almost always play thieves.

 

4.5 down, 7.5 to go, but running out of steam

Let's see, in earlier posts I mentioned that I completed Clarisse and Muck. Since then I finished Victoria. She made it to level 32 with a moderate amount of side-questing. She got a lot easier to play later on, but still did not gain levels very quickly as she got almost no XP from combat.

I played Lugard Bloodstone next, and finished with him at level 43 and with Magnus and Loghair (and of course dog) in my party. I did a fair amount of side quests and it would not have been too hard to make it to level 50 if I had been more thorough and wondered a bit more picking up combat XP. Lugard learns all the gun schematics -- though I only used three guns through the game: fine revolver -> hand cannon -> drochs warbringer. some of the rifles seemed cool, but they were slow and I could not use a shielf with them. Healing was annoying until I picked up the medical arachnid. Finally, I find it irritating that Harrow is such a weak weapon (Loghair won't even use it if given the option of a featherweight axe)!!

Most recently, I played most of the way through with the halfelf thief guy (hopefully his name will come to me before I finish this post). I must say that he is an interesting roleplay. I robbed the bank in shrouded hills and did not give th other guy his cut. Luckily I waited until level 20 or so to come back so doc roberts was not a problem. I thought it was interesting to decide what to do with Bates. There was a certain kinship, as both Bates and the character (nope still have not thought of his name) were orphans. So even after sabotoging the steam engine, I talked to Bates and agreed to go to the BMM for him. After I got back there was a newspaper headline that Applebee had died. This was the first time I had encountered that.

Unfortunately I am running out of steam, so I do not know if I will finish the others anytime soon. I must say I like the premade characters as it feels like true roleplaying to me, rather than some powergaming. It is a bit irritaing though that not all of them get a point in persuade, and that the tech chars cannot all be bothered to get a point in herbology (sure you can collect the ingredients for healing salves and go to Janna every so often, but that does not seem legit to me).

Anyhow, I will probably pick it back up again at some point. If I do, does anyone have any recommendations for characters that would be particularly fun/challenging to play?

 

Muck Evil Eye.
He's has the only levelling scheme that didn't drive me up the wall with frustration. I forget if I started with low intelligence and then got the Vivifier later, or he started with IN>5. I only had one follower (Virgil), but found I had room for two when I went back to my pre-void saved game.