It seems some skills that are useless without 3 CPs

Particularly a thief's skill, pick pocket, prowling and lock picking.

I tried many times to play a thief. The role-playing kind of a D&D rogue, with suitable personality, skills and abilities.

I found the thievery skills not very useful - or the skill checks too harsh - unless I focus all my efforts into it.

But my rogues were often loners, and if I invest heavily into thievery skills I die in combat (like those vicious wolves, wererat trios of doom or those Hand assassins with a whole lot of APs plus a mid level undead summon).

I often end up playing a melee fighter, or a mage with a bit of prowling, pick pocket and lock picking. I just deleted my second failed rogue attempts. :/

What are your experience in playing a rogue in Arcanum? Is the D&D rogue just not workable here?

 

I focus on a bit of survivability first before I go into rogue style, remember rogues do backstab after all. That is all I can offer as I haven't really had a problem with my rogue attempt.

 

But that'd leave me playing a melee fighter with a bit of rogue skills... many early quests like robbing the bank, sneaking into Bates mansion, etc. would be impossible without cheating (ie unlocking cantrip with screen moved to one side, entering Bates bedroom during evening + 2 hours), or you will have to go wander around a lot to level up ahead of the main plot.

 

Rogues do tend to be useful in melee though? I can see the problem if you figure you cant raise bow/melee/thrown/firearms because rogues arent supposed to fight. Throwing daggers are pretty rogue-ish I guess, but you'd have to carry tons of them (assuming they work at all?). Anyways, dodge is your friend as a rogue.

While I've never tried to play the game entirely by sneaking around, it could probably be done if you max prowling early enough. I think it's possible to travel in prowling mode as well, so you wont automatically get attacked in random encounters, assuming you remain undetected. It sure wont be worth a lot of experience points though.

I always do the side quests before the main plot, unless I really want certain followers (with the save game editor that problem was solved), but having a couple of points in pick lock and pickpocket shouldnt be an issue when you're leaving Shrouded Hills.

You might want to look into persuasion as well, though Im unsure of how many fights that will actually get you out of (and if you're doing the loner path, you wont need the charisma anyways).

Finally, I would probably suggest taking Worthless Mutt with you, as he makes for a decent rogue accessory (again, assuming you dont want any humanoid followers).

 

I once finished the game with a solo thief/assassin. As fun as it was, it was frustrating at times.

I remember how Lock Picking was pretty much useless at 0, 1, 2 and 3 CP's added (usually using the skill meaned failing over and over again until the lock got jammed) and after adding the 4th CP nearly every try was a successful one. Too bad that I didn't really need that skill anymore when I was that far in my game.

Pick Pocket worked pretty much the same way, sadly.

Prowling was useful from the time the skill was high to become a tool enabling powerful backstabbing (which means backstabs turned from meh to HOLY FUCKING SHIT WOW with just one added CP, the one which made most enemies unaware of my presence when I was right behind them). Other than the combo with backstab, prowling was completely useless for me until I had 5 CPs invested in it and gained the mastery. It finally made prowling worth having and gave me the possibility to escape all battles at any time. A possibility which would be invaluable at the beginning of the game, yes, but at the time I finally gained the mastery I didn't need anything like that anymore.

Conclusion: The playthrough was entartaining, but the progression of thief skills turned up to be designed so badly that I'm not planning to play another thief character any time soon. Or late, for that matter.

 

I guess I'll give up on playing a pure rogue then...

 

I enjoy playing a full rogue BECAUSE it's hard. If you want to be able to open locks early on, everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, goes into Dexterity and Lockpicking, with maybe a rank in Melee so you can actually hit things. It's difficult to survive at early levels as a pure rogue, but it is hella fun if you can manage it.

 

If you're having a hard time as a thief, you really don't want to try playing as a mage/thief.

A question on another thread got me to start a new character just to try out some things and, well...

The good news: If you have enough magickal aptitude, Light-fingered Gauntlets work for you. So, you can wear those gloves and Oiled Thieve's Leather and actually lift stuff off people with only two points in the skill. If you don't mind spending a bunch of money on special gear first.

The bad news: Unlocking Cantrip doesn't work on some locks. Also, you'll get into more fights while you're trying to steal stuff because NPCs can hear the sound effect.

Long story short, I ended up investing CP in Pick Locks because I got tired of getting dog piled by city guards while trying to steal a certain looking glass.

There's stuff in Tarant you can steal at lower skill levels. Especially if you're willing to save a lot and reload when you jam a lock. That's basically cheating, but hey... you've got to get experience and a little extra spending money somehow.

 

I can totally relate. There are a couple of side quests later in the game where it helps if you have that fourth point in the skill. But, yeah... After you start running out of things to steal in Tarant, Pick Locks is kind of useless until you finally get to Caladon.

I did the Master Quest for Pick Locks once. That was fun, but it happens so late in the game that it's not really worth spending the fifth point on the skill. Unless there are some tough thief jobs I don't know about.

 

1. The success and failure rate of Unlocking Cantrip depends of magickal aptitude. Some doors/containers etc. require higher aptitude.

2.Turn-based+backstab+stun=Ownage, almost cheating. Get high backstab which requires dexterity. Dex gives you more AP. So if you counter multiple enemies and have high Dex, there are multiple things you could do:

1) Have great amount of AP- backstab all your opponents without them even touching you.

2) Use Realtime. Run, run and run from your enemies until only 1 or 2 of them(depends of your skill levels) follow(s) you. And kill them this way 1 by 1. It takes time, but if you're patient, no battles should be hard.

If you are at the beginning of your game, get high dex to either run away or have high Dex(AP) and kill your enemy. You could also use running to run away from random encounter packs(wererats probably the worst).

 

I have another character who kept finding magic daggers with good bonuses. So I gave him a point in backstab to see how much ownage I could do. I must have been doing it wrong, or not using Stun enough. I would get some nice hits with my Arcane Dagger, but it was kind of hard to tell if I was actually backstabbing or if it was just a good weapon.

 

Well just to explain the mechanics... As you may know, each skill ranges from 0 to 20 (each CP adds 4 "skill points"). The backstab skill adds X damage to every attack done in the enemy's back (X equals the number of points you have in the backstab skill), or it ads 5X when the foe is unaware of your presence behind him (high prowl skill or the oponent being stunned/unconcious). This means that when you (with 1 CP invested in Backstab) backstabbed just like that you did exactly 4 additional damage with each hit. If the opponent would be unaware, you would do 20 additional damage. If you would have max backstab, you would do additional 20 damage at each aware enemy or an additional 100 damage at each unaware foe with each hit. If we mention how apprentice training makes every backstab to unaware opponents go past resistances we can just imagine what sheer power is that.

 

You must be doing something wrong. I prefer playing hard, solo and with turned based combat and a thief is in my opinion the most powerful non-party char in Arcanum.

For example:
- Halfling, Troll Offspring or Raised by Orcs, max Dex, Meele/Dodge/Backstab Master + Hasten + Dagger of Speed
- Halfling, Troll Offspring or Raised by Orcs, max Dex (with Charged Rings), Dodge/Bow/Pick Poket Master + Pyrotechnic Bow, Explosives (ever placed dynamite in the Inventory of an enemy *g*)
Add to those "builds" everything you want to make it more "rouglike" e.g. Prowling, but you won't need it because you will 1-2 hit every enemy.

 

Well yeah, a backstab+melee master is one of the more powerful being which can be created in Arcanum. Merge that with max Constitution, max Prowling, Hasten, Temporal mastery, Tempus Fugit and

Spoiler

Torian Kel's Ancestral Sword

and Velorien himself will shit his divine underpants every time he'll think about you. But before one gets all those maxed out stats and abilities, he has to survive somehow. It's an exchange - being a vulnerable worm for most of the game for becoming a god of combat at the endgame. So is the playthrough challenging and entertaining? Yes, but unbalanced as hell.

Oh, by the way, welcome to the forums, DuncanDelgado!

:hmm, where did I put that thing... Ah, here it is!:

 

I've read in this forum for a longer time, so not really new

Ah and you don't need max Constitution ... I don't spend a single point in it.

If you want a easy start: max Dex, Dodoge, Meele, 1 point in Backstab and use a dagger.

 

Ah, newbie! Love the name. Don't suppose you're a fan of old-school Doctor Who by any chance?

 

No, the name is from a German Sci-fi novel by Gisbert Haefs.

 

Necessary - maybe not, but useful - oh yes. How, do you ask? Because with max Constitution (17, actually) one would regenerate 6 fatigue points every 10 seconds. With Temporal Mastery it would cost him only 3 fatigue points every 10 seconds to maintain both Tempus Fugit and Hasten on himself, which means that with the said 17 Constitution he would be able to maintain those spells constantly while still being able to regenerate 3 fatigue points every 10 seconds.

 

That's remarkable! I have a newfound respect for powergaming.

 

Ah, never mind then. I just saw 'Delgado' and had a quiet fangirl squee moment.