Most difficult character you've played :)

There's some topics similar to this, but not quite what I was looking for.

Let's face it, if you play a strong character, combat in Arcanum is easy. My first game I did the classic mage with buffed up followers, spamming disintegrate. After that I tried a half-ogre melee fighter (mostly for the dumb dialogue) and again, everything was a breeze. I quickly realized that this game was going to be easy unless I made some serious efforts to fail. But with the deck so stacked in my favor, losing was no easy business.

Inspired by Catch-22, I set out with Colonel Cargill, ready to face the day and die miserably.

"Colonel Cargill, General Peckem's troubleshooter, was a forceful, ruddy man. Before the war he had been an alert, hard-hitting, aggressive marketing executive. He was a very bad marketing executive. Colonel Cargill was so awful a marketing executive that his services were much sought after by firms eager to establish losses for tax purposes. Throughout the civilized world, from Battery Park to Fulton Street, he was known as a dependable man for a fast tax write-off. His prices were high, for failure often did not come easily. He had to start at the top and work his way down, and with sympathetic friends in Washington, losing money was no simple matter. It took months of hard work and careful misplanning. A person misplaced, disorganized, miscalculated, overlooked everything and opened every loophole, and just when he thought he had it made, the government gave him a lake or a forest or an oilfield and spoiled everything. Even with such handicaps, Colonel Cargill could be relied on to run the most prosperous enterprise into the ground. He was a self-made man who owed his lack of success to nobody."

As Cargill's past would suggest, I had my work cut out for me. My first few attempts were miserable failures. No amount of limitations could stop me.

Early on, I realized that followers were far too powerful.

Still, I was met with nothing but success.

Soon, I realized items were overpowered as well.

Naked, I continued to conquer all before me.

Eventually, I decided that most spells were far too useful, so I limited myself to just a select few rarely used ones.

Naked, alone, with only entangle, firewall, and my knowledge of explosives, I set out to lose.

Sadly, even with these limitations I was able to beat Stringy Pete & Co on my first try at level 10.

What's it take to fail in this game!?



So good ladies and gentlemen, I ask of you... what challenging characters have you played, and how far have you gotten with them?

Has anyone made serious use of a trapper/gunman? Perhaps an otherwise naked bower spamming force of wind? Getting through the game without any kills, never losing a hitpoint, tell me of your stories of foolish bravery

 

You could edit one of the backgrounds to lower all your stats.

 

Yeah, I've tried playing turn based with 4 dexterity. Even with items its pretty challenging in some places.

Entangle is like the best spell in the game for messing around with goofy weak characters. Likewise, bear traps and paralysis grenades become amazing, even tho they're normally pretty lame (since you kill everything in one round, why bother to disable the enemy? )

Paralysis grenades kick serious ass. For a while I was using a paralysis grenade followed by knock out gas to first freeze then make the enemy go unconscious, but I found that a lot of the tougher enemies are seemingly immune to knock out gas. Not sure if that's based on some kind of immunity or what, but Stringy Pete and Co are all 100% immune to its fatigue effects

That said, paralysis followed by stacked firewalls is very amusing ^^

 

That must be some hardcore gaming you do. I tend to cheat, but the best and most interesting playthrough I had without cheating was a Half Orc technologist named Van Krunn. I found the background I created was a feasible play, though it did tend to make people hate me in the long run. I had to increase my beauty (with earned cp) so villagers wouldn't try to kill me on sight.
I mastered blacksmithing and gunsmithy, and dabbled in explosives, and found that a party of just Virgil and the worthless mutt was adequate. I couldn't get over how one sided combat became when I was an expert in guns.

 

A pacifist. You have to run away, or stun enemies and then get away before they wake up.

That was hard, especially to get through Hardin's Pass early on. I ran and ran and actually made it through to the World Map.

 

Been wanting to try a pacifist! I'll definitely have to give it a go sometime

 

I never did finish that playthrough, though. I guess I should try again, I've been feeling sort of peaceful lately.

 

I might take the Conveyance college of magick. It's offensive spells only do things like disarming enemies and pushing them away from the caster. Plus it's got Teleport.

You could do a pacifist technologist with Herbology and Therapeutics. The latter will give you major stat bonuses for most of the game.

I think a solo Firearms technologist with bad social skills would be harder, though.

 

I used to hang out on another board with a guy who insisted it was possible to play as a solo gunslinger without Melee skills. That sounds to me like a great way to drive yourself crazy.

Especially if you don't use Persuasion to talk your way out of fights. You'd probably have to learn how to make stun grenades as soon as possible just to make it out of Shrouded Hills.

 

It's not difficult at all. You just have to use real tactics instead of arcanums usual "run up to em and deal damage head on" tactic.

 

Zanza my half elf unarmed martial artist. Defeated the game but had to use the device as using a sword would of defeated the purpose. Did I mention it was solo? I had to play it on medium difficulty though.

 

Ever since I learned how Persuasion affects the outcome of the game, I've been completely unable to ignore the skill in any of my characters. This always puts a character point strain on my characters, usually maxing out their builds 10-15 levels later than they should have.

That usually provides enough difficulty for me. Especially as a techie who has to spend tons of CP's on schematics.

 

That's awesome. Did you only fist your opponents, or were any spells or explosives etc allowed?

 

I once played a Dwarven Earth Elementalist, as per the auto-levelling scheme. Soloing on hard, I usually fell to the sewer rats in Bregho's cave. Still, it was the most fun I had with non-half-orc since being a half ogre warlord (followers and buffing, healing and disabling abilities).

 

That's hilarious. I've never actually even thought of using an auto-level scheme.

I've often had a lot of trouble with the starting units at the Crash site on my weirder builds. I recall losing one vs. one to an Ailing Wolf at one point. I think I cheated a few times by running back to Virgil, who was still standing there like a moron, and having him beat the crap outta whatever poor forest critter had picked a fight with me...

I also recall that using turn based movement can skip a lot of triggers that require your character to pass a certain point. I believe you can skip the cloaked assassin at the Crash site by entering turn based movement and running to the world map... similarly you can do the Master Gunslinger quest that way as well. Makes it very easy to save the damsel in distress when you arrive before she does... (you have to turn off turn based movement after you're in the barn, or the enemies won't even show up).

 

Oh there was plenty of fisting going on. To answer your question though, bare knuckle brawling.

 

The naked solo pacifist is probably the hardest I've tried. Never did finish that walk through. I died to a level 12 bear on my to Tarant.

 

just playing on Hard difficulty without reloads should be challenge enough for anyone. All my games with this setup ended when I got stunned and subsequently killed. If you can't one-shot all enemies (unlikely), and if your companions can't take out everything by themselves (a little less unlikely), stunning criticals will take you down.

 

In a game without reloads, having followers carry Scrolls of Resurrection or Restore Lives is a must.

 

I usually got killed before I had the funds for those, which is probably because I didn't abuse the hell out of glitches in the game for money.