Your characters?

Character Name: Christopher Hazzard
Race: Human
Background: Extreme Personality

This character is level 42 (Thanks to Drogg the fucking legend), mainly a support character with high charisma, intelligence and willpower. Mastered many schools of magic, harm hits like a truck. I have the Dog, Sogg, Virgil and a few more of the "Hit like a truck characters" just twatting the enemy up close while I heal, buff and harm. Downloading the game now, can't wait to get back on this.

 

That is one character I have never played before, a healer. Its odd because I always play priests and paladins and other healing classes in games/mmos but in Arcanum I never did. Then again I never really played turn based combat in Arcanum either so I suppose there is a first for something. Going to have a little play and tell you guys about my character at some stage over the weekend.

 

You should try doing some MMO raiding style healing on arcanum. Exhilarating to say the least. Difference is you don't get noobs with a 4k gear score going "U SUCK AT HEALZORZ!". This is why I'm looking forward to finding out a bit more about Tim Cain's MMORPG that's in development.

 

It'll be more "You sir lack the desired skill to keep me alive, you are a rather green if I say so!"

 

My first character had his own little army. Human with 20 CH, Master Persuassion, Maxed NPC followers, summoned followers, dog, and a couple of mechanical arachnids and automatons to round it all out.

My favorite is playing a half-ogre idiot for the stupid responses and then getting charisma and persuassion as high as possible.

 

That sounds bloody cool.

 

So he is like the retarded member of the family that even though he does stupid things everyone loves him for it and will follow him no matter what... I love it!

 

I tried that once with a Raised in the Pits male elf. It's really fun when it works.

 

chemistry/explosive dwarf techno, with maxed out throwing skill character

in the start it's easy aswell: molotovs are easy and free to make(trashcans), you can get 2 stun granades before killing the 3 thieves that block the bridge at shrouded hills (The first time i plaed arcanum, i rushed them out at lvl 2, and got assraped; since then i've always killed them. Even after i convinced them to leave the bridge i killed them anyway), so when it comes to remove them from the bridge, since i usually don't spend points in persuasion, i attack from far away, with molotovs, stun granades, some throwing, and then kiting.

at tarant there is a lot of stuff to make granades, and usually, once there, i can start chemistry, with its OP anesthetizer. Followers are virgil and sogg, and if i don't forget it, even the dog. Tried once to bring with me that

 

That's my latest character to complete the game, named Varnhagen, who talked Khergan into surrendering to the Vendigroth device by his own free will.



Of course he mainly relied on his rethorical skills and had others around him for protection and pack mules. If anything ever managed to threaten him directly he took out his sidearm, namely pistols of all sorts, and confronted the assailant with a well aimed succession of beans heading for a point between the eyes. He also secured the crash site this way all by him self (yeah right, I increased the damage dealt by firearms to a degree when they finally become what they are supposed to be: easy to use weapons with which people who are not dedicated to fighting can put a stand against sword or bow wielding warriors who learned their craft from childhood on).

 

I typically play as an elf, or half elf, male Magick user, specialising in Necromantic Black and Summoning. I also will, depending on if I wish to be good or evil, start with Lady’s man or Sold Your Soul respectively.

If I am not playing that character then I will most likely be playing a Human Male who specialises in Guns.

For the magic users I always use the name Erich Allant, and for the human gunsmith I use the name Mr. Bomb.

 

I'm not sure what sort of character I like playing best... I've not played through the whole game yet. But currently I'm playing a female half-orc thief. Focusing on lockpicking and thievery skills, using daggers, and going it alone, no companions. I enjoy playing half-orcs for roleplaying reasons. And of course, I'm only using daggers for style. I don't think it's proper to be 'backstabbing' with a great bloody axe.

For some reason, I just don't like playing mage characters in Arcanum. Usually I prefer playing mages in games. But I have enjoyed techy characters when I've played them.

 

My only problem with mage characters in the world of Arcanum is that some of the spells that sound cool turn out to not be very useful.

Take Divination, for example. It's kind of neat being able to look at the character sheets for various enemies, but how much would that really help somebody unless it was their first time playing through the game? Or how about Sense Alignment? It's fun for a while to find out just how good or evil NPCs are, but then what?

Do you use it for role playing and turn down quests based on the alignment of the person offering you the job? Do you act like Roddy Piper in "They Live" and kill all the evil people in Tarant? Do you wish you had spent that character point on Agility of Fire instead?

I tend to stick with favorite spells like Stun or Harm instead of trying out spell colleges I haven't gotten around to using yet. Phantasm might be cool if you stick with it long enough to get Invisibility, but I'd rather just hurl heated plasma at people.

 

Some spells are really only useful for a Role Playing standpoint.

Right so the character I am playing with at the moment is the typical 'raid healer' style. Necromancy White tree with the first tier of Earth and Fire for buffs. Looking to advance into Nature though besides the final spell the others don't really fit in with the build. Because I buff I have had to raise my intelligence a fair bit as well as grab Charisma for a larger party. As points are beginning to become scarce I have opted to do the Old Gods worship. Need to sacrifice myself to the All Father now. I've kept a fairly neutral aptitude party, leaning towards magic as being a magical healer it would only be detrimental to my play style to have a technologist. When it comes to entering the void I really don't know what will happen. Will my character's knowledge of healing cause him to sympathise with Kerghan's theory of pain and ultimate solution? Guess I'll have to wait and see.

 

I got bored and I was having issues with my Internet provider, so I started over again as another persuasive mage. I was going to try being as nonviolent as possible and specialize in social skills.

That plan fell apart once I realized I hadn't ever worked for Cedric Appleby and helped him get revenge on our old buddy Gilbert Bates. Not even as an evil character. I was too worried about the consequences or something.

So yeah... I ended up focusing more on magic early on because my Miracle Operation elf wouldn't have stood a chance during one of Appleby's missions otherwise. I'll have to finally get the hang of gambling some other time.

 

My most recent character is a half-orc technologist named Van Krunn. He dislikes the prejudice of Arcanum and so often gets into conflicts with those who act like half-orcs are scum. I convinced Don Throgg to storm Tarant with the other orcs, so my (for the most part) good half-orc with a nasty temper became the most hated man in Tarant. After killing Bates I had the real world to attend to, so the game has yet to be finished. I maxed out blacksmithing so I have a snazzy suit of elite platemail, and I learned the first three schematics of gunsmithy. I didn't believe in raising my charisma (at first), and with the background I created that meant I was an on-sight kill for the town guard until I wisened up.

 

I'm not actually playing right now... but the last few days I've been messing around to get back into the feel of things. Ever since the second version of Drog's patch I never played the game because my computer crashed and I just couldn't be bothered to try and get it set up the way I liked again.

Anyway, on to the character...

Arthur Denney

Human (male, obviously)

Alignment: Goody-two-shoes

Background: Raised by Monks

I envision the monastery he was in was an orphanage. The monks had a philosophy all about education but they didn't do much impress any religious views upon their children beyond a basic humanitarian philosophy. In fact some of the children learned fencing, target shooting, various magicks, and of-course a basic education concerning the sciences.

This I think adequately explains how Arthur starts out knowing how to use a pistol as well as how to put one together from spare parts. Beyond that I think his employment of the technological disciplines will be the result of him improvising new tools to survive as he embarks upon his quest. Chemistry was something he learned as a child from one his monk tutors so he'll naturally gravitate to that and from there explosives. His tutor once taught him how to make an electric light, and further research into the electrical discipline will reveal the charged ring and flow spectrometer. Firearms is easy... he'll eventually learn that a hunting rifle and fine revolver won't cut it against some foes, so he'll find something better.

However above all he prefers to avoid conflict, thus he'll be maxing charisma and persuasion. The interesting thing is what will he do with Magnus? He'll be horrified to see the dwarf slaves but when the Schuylers offer to negotiate Arthur will, I suspect, be completely opposed to killing them. After all, he kills because he has to, not because it is convenient.
I really would prefer to take Magnus along because I like his story, he can build some useful devices, and he gets some unique dialog with Z'an and Loghaire. However that's cheating I suppose... I just need to bite the bullet on this one.

Otherwise I imagine followers will be Virgil, Sogg, Jayna (probably send her back to Dernholm when it comes to time visit the Ilse of Despair because that is no place for a lady), Z'an, Raven, Loghaire, Franklin Payne, and if I have the space maybe that hafling adventurer. He'll Gar, but of-course it will be in nature to immediately release Gar as a free man. Torian Kel is also a possibility... makes for some nice drama at the end.

Edit: I think ultimately that Arthur will get a doctorate in chemistry and wield a tranquilizer rifle, hand-cannon, and various grenades.

 

Ah, the Isle of Despair not being a suitable place for a lady. The very thing that ended my lurking ways and made me submit my first post here.

Nice to see you back, Langolier. The amount of roleplay you put in your games has always been inspiring.

 

Speaking of langoliers... I remember watching a bit of that movie when I was little and being thoroughly terrified. Now I can surely stomach it, is it worth watching?

And just not to keep the post completely off-topic, I am currently doing a Throwing persuasive dwarf. My eventual goal will be to get to Ashbury, pick up a boulder and smash people to death with it.

 

I just won the game again with this guy:

Morgan Teslabolt:

Race: Elf (male)

Background: Army Training

The dorky last name reflects the fact that he mostly relied on spells from the Force college. He used a bow for most of his ranged attacks before he got to Tulla and completed the master quest. He had some money troubles, so he mastered Haggle and Persuasion. Creating an alliance between Caladon and Tarant wasn't as satisfying as the 10,000 gold.

My new character is a half-ogre who uses a rifle. This character isn't working out as well as I had hoped due mostly to shopkeepers being racist jerks. The Miracle Operation background I chose doesn't help either. I wanted a guy who could use stuff like the grenade launcher and the blade launcher without strength penalties and that seems like too much work now.