Technologist Help

Yep.

 

Okay, thanks for the input guys.

Be prepared to hate me though... I'm going to uh... Almost afraid to admit it.

Dwarf Nietzsche Poster Child.

Creative, I know. I will do guns upon seeing all your guys arguing about it. And at the mention of the cool factor... Hell. I always do feel damn cool shooting things. And a gun makes a far more masculine sound than a damn bow.

And as a side note (I don't know how bad hijacks are looked upon in this forum but...)

I made a bow character once, got to Dernholm, and quit. Are they any good? Same with throwing. Or are they just something to play to make the game harder.

Another note. I play exclusively. As in if I do throwing, bow, or firearms, I just do one method of damage. Stay true to the art and all of that.

Edit: A few things I noticed with this patch that are either exclusive to it, or I've been too much of a dunce to notice and it's always been there. As a tech guy, I notice the magic icon on certain enemies when I attack them. Aside from that designating their aptitude (if that's what it indeed does) what else does it mean?

Also... Does my tech apt influence how much damage my guns do at all? Or is it always a constant value?

 

Tech aptitute gives you defense against magick and makes magick items fail around you, I believe. At least you can't be easily healed with magick.

Throwing is somewhat decent. Bowmanship is awesome only in Turn Based Combat - you can avoid the arrows by running in real time combat :S Turn based, a magickal bowman is the fastest ranged character when holding Ellumyn's Bow.

Also, the background you chose is pretty useless. You get all the experience you need in Arcanum while you play. +%10 XP isn't worth more critical fails.

Of course, if you wanna roleplay one, then go ahead.

P.S. I play exclusively too. Oh, and the magick sign means your technological aptitute is too less, so you miss more against magickal creatures. When you tech apt. rises, you can negate this effect completely, and turn their magickal aura against them.

Kinda like what science did to the Churches and Witches of the old. You no longer see miracles and magic around, right?

 

Oh yes! I should mention that. I play turn based almost always. So raising dexterity is usually a must. So I'll get the charged rings, and max dodge, since... Well, why not?

Yet I've always found turning turn based off better for guns in certain situations, as I've always played with fast pistols.

Although I've never gotten as far into it or as in depth to get these awesome guns you guys have been referencing.

One more question... Since I'm pumping intelligence for my tech recipes, should I get gamble? Is it worth it to use on shops? I've never really experimented with that skill. All I know is it'll save me the Stringy Pete hassle.

 

Throwing comes in handy if you want to use grenades. It's easier to hit what you want to if you put two or three points into the skill.

There are some good throwing weapons, but most of them are magical.

Throwing is better than a bow in the sense that a chakram doesn't use any ammo.

But... If you have the right bows, archery can be fun. Ellumyn's Bow, for example, is really fast and can be used by technologists. The compound bow does fairly good damage if you don't mind the slow rate of fire. The pyrotechnic bow is great for those times when you feel like setting a bear on fire.

 

I don't think anyone has mentioned Therapeutics yet. (And if they have, bear with lil ol me.)

Totally worth throwing a few points into. Okay, the first one sucks ass, but the results of the higher-ranking schematics are freakin' sweet. Put a little time into it and you're looking at major buffs to most of your stats and you won't have to worry about fatigue costs. They turn endgame into a cakewalk.

 

But the materials you need are kind of rare though... you can never buy them in batches like bullets and charges, just one of two per shop visit.

In fact some of my less combat capable techies ran out of healing salves during the early stages in the game, because you might not find enough to keep up with the consumption. I bought all the bandages I could get, but Janya's level was too low to use them effectively.

 

I will admit, finding components for various schematics can be a friggin' nightmare.

 

Neither do I see witches. I still see churches though. Hopefully I'll stop if I'll study more.

Seriously though. I noticed that, say, at higher MA I no longer have the magic/tech penalty agains automatons, but does, for example, extremely high MA really make one do more magical damage against tech creatures than against creatures with neutral aptitude (the same would go for technologists, TA and magickal creatures)?

And would you really want that? The experience, atmosphere and (possibly) an item coming from the Stringy Pete quests are far too fun to be omissioned.
As for the skill itself, in Arcanum you will always have eventually more money than you need, even with an ugly character and 0 haggle, so a skill making one earn more (gamble/haggle) is never needed. But you can always take it for roleplay reasons and/or to just experience how does it work in the game and to gain mastery for the very sake of having one.

One day I will create a character with Therapeutics so I can finally try out a tech discipline which always seem to me to be as useless as possible.

What? Healing salves are often my main source of income as a technologist, since I produce more of them than I and all my followers can carry without collapsing.

We may complain, but let's admit it - finding componets is one of the things that make the tech path so awesome.

 

Another reason why Jayna is awesome is that she can make fatigue restorers. For very little investment, you get 37 gold for each one you sell (that's with only one point in haggle, you presumably get more if you're better at it). So, that's a great way to make some extra spending money.

And like I sort of mentioned before, Jayna eventually can make the first four items in the Therapeutics discipline.

Yes, like Xiao_Caity said, the first one sucks. I have no idea if it ever does anybody any good. But the next three are terrific if you don't mind spending more time in shops.

And some of the ingredients being hard to find isn't even so bad, since Jayna makes three or four of each one out of a set of ingredients.

Her buffs are great in combat, and they can help you cheat if you want to get training but haven't invested enough CP in a skill yet.

Jayna's tonics and elixirs boost your strength, perception and dexterity.

The temporary two point boost to perception, for example, is great for a gunfighter. With eye gear equipped and a bottle of Jayna's special potion, you can do the Master quest even though your perception is really at fourteen or fifteen.

Yes, your Firearms skill drops a little after the tonic wears off. But who cares? Just drink another one before you get into a tough battle.

The strength boost is great for obvious reasons. Unless your melee guy is already at 20, you're going to love it.

The Tonic of Increased Reflexes is another one that can help you abuse game mechanics. Everybody could use two extra points of dexterity, right?

 

I guess it's just me disliking temporary boosts, preferring to just spend hard earned but stable character points. Plus the fact that I like to feel that the thing that makes me powerful is my very own capability, not the chems that flow in my veins. Aw well. How long does the effect of an average elixir last anyway?

 

You know... I'm really not sure. A couple of hours, maybe? Perhaps Drog Black Tooth can enlighten us?

 

That's a little impossible now.

Well, the only useful theurapeutics is:

Spoiler

That Vendigrothan elixir which boosts stats permanently

The others are only patches to a weak character, or so I think.

 

Can it be used several times? Seems broken if so.

 

It is one use, and a character can only produce it once.

Or it would be terribly overpowered.

 

They seem to last a fairly long time - I've only once had them wear off before travelling or resting. And that was in the *shudder* BMC mines.

 

Therapeutics: the most reliable way to kill Stringy Pete and crew without Disintegrate.

 

You say patches. I say "good way to power game." You can do more stuff when you feel like doing it instead of having to focus mainly on your stats. And it's easier to be a jack-of-all trades instead of specializing in a few things.

Tomato. To-mah-to. Potato. Po-tah-to. Let's call the whole thing off.

 

Spoiler

Ah, the godlike Vivifier.

That item alone would be a good reason to play with therapeutics...

...if not for the fact that I make it even with 100 MA characters with a bunch of tech manuals, since all the ingredients can be found at the same place you find the schematic. As much as I like doing it that way, I think that item created with the said schematic should be completely unavailable for non-therapeutic characters to give therapeutics charactets at least one chance to think that the path they choose gave them something really unique and valuable.

It's how I feel about it as well, which is why the only reason I will create a therapeutics character some day will be the satisfaction of trying out as much different things as possible in Arcanum.