Most difficult character you've played :)

I liked playing the Born Under a Sign background on normal. I found that I critically failed more often on this playthrough, making saves a must, because who knew when I'd slip up and cripple one of my legs or accidentally cut off my own head.

 

I got this goofy idea in my head (probably from Zanza) to play a martial arts movie-style monk. I was a male elf with the Raised by Monks background, a few buff spells, a brown robe and no weapons.

I thought it might be entertaining to cast Hardened Hands on myself and punch enemies to death, but that got old a lot sooner than I expected.

With Agility of Fire and Hardened Hands cast on yourself, you should be able to at least kill a dang Sewer Rat. I found out the hard way that it takes what feels like a month to kill any of the hostile critters wandering around the Crash Site.

You don't even get to do roundhouse kicks or anything fancy (in Vanilla Arcanum anyway) to keep yourself from getting bored.

I could have stuck with my plan long enough to add Stone Throw to my bag of tricks, but then I would have just been a lame mage character (reasonably effective until the fatigue runs low and then... more boring punching).

That character build was just frustrating enough to make me give up. When you suck, but you don't suck in an entertaining way it's hard to stay motivated.

 

sounds to me that your problem was lack of STR in the first place. Hardened hands, agility of fire, some nice STR and a nice gauntlet (machined gauntlets in BMC mines for example) would let you rock.

you can also do a technomancer with fistfighing. just get along jayna and run on steroids of theurap...(can never type this). when you stack them(yes they stack) along with stat boosting magic and hardened hands with a little imagination of yours added .....lets imagine..

half-orc (ran away with circus?)
Agility of fire, Strength of Earth, Disarm(why not be on equal terms?), Explosives(1), Hardened Hands, Temporal College,Mechanical(1)

not much points now are they? lets add chemistry/electrical/Explosives (any you desire) to add some action to things. AND hey get Jayna Stiles. (rest of followers upto you). Even better lets enhance your body with Fire College; Body of Fire to deal additional fire damage on your punchs.

now you have some real good speed, some real nice STR (max actually with jayna and earth magic) at least war gauntlets (you must be able to afford 600 gold come on!) , you have molotovs, spike traps (late game you have access to much better tools)

engaging the opponents;

-disarm if armed, now we are on equal terms (Jayna please stand back my dear lady)
-place a trap before your foot, step back and one more ?
-opponents enjoyed a little your traps (incase you are swarmed by annoying pests like rats, this will allow you to kill one on first turn, rest will flee)
-punch in the face hard! (leave 5 action at least) throw a molotov, now they are a little farther again, put another trap?

best part is, fatigue/health ratio of opponents seem to favor health. so you will mostly end up knocking them down before they die.

just some imagination and support and you will go just fine sir!

 

That impression is caused by the fact that fatigue resistance = normal damage resistance x 70%. The greater the opponent's normal damage resistance, the more visible the disproportion between the normal and fatigue damage he receives.

 

Muro, I was wondering, do you ever use the follower skill editor?

I always wanted to have a Virgil WITHOUT points in Lockpicking, like Zen Virgil (RIP)!
He was pure awesome, healed me effortlessly, was a bad-ass fighter with the Mage robe and sword of air and even spammed harm!

Would it be considered cheating using the editor to get him back?

 

Not yet. Editing levelling schemes of followers is something I plan to try out in the future, but I want to finish the game with each follower in my party first. All to experience what Troika intended followers to be like before changing them to what I want them to be.

More like modding, I'd say.