How did you mess up your game the first time?

My first screw-up didn't rear its ugly head until fairly late in the game. I was a Dwarf technologist and chose the "magick allergy" background (my favourite build has always been a Dwarf packing guns - I guess I'm a glutton for punishment). I decided to take the good path, everything was coming along quite nicely....until I reached Tulla. Because of my character's magick allergy, I could not equip Pelojian's amulet, making the game impossible to finish (because I had killed M'in Gorad). I was so pissed off that I didn't play Arcanum for about 3 or 4 years.

 

This bug was fixed in the very first official patch. It's always a good idea to patch your game before starting playing.

 

The same for me... aaaargh! good itemz... Virgil - return them!!!

The 1st time I was playing as a dwarf technologist, "Jonathan Smarthand", I wanted to style myself as an anti-magic technological inquisitor, having ALL the disciplines of technology.
I was so damn dissapointed when I found out that above level 50, I won't have any more points to distribute into my character. I thought I would level till level 100, or maybe above, as in many RPGs... And so I ended up having little of every technology, some of them more, some of them less, wanted a dynamite - Explosive Doctorate, and as well as I saw that MANY do it youself schematics (!!!), wanted to combine everything and see everything, but couldn't achieve any point of tech discipline anymore. :-x
This forced me to complete the game many times since then.

As my worst failure, I deemed my inability to convince Loghaire Thunderstone to return to his people, cos according to my solution manual I had, there were no means of "Stone and Shape" dialog. And so did it influence the ending sequence for dwarves, with skeletons picture, massacring one another.

The next thing I remember I was using unidentified things, some poisonous amulets - I think from Isle of Despair, from Sorcerous Beast you can loot some Baneful Gauntlets, plus the reward you gain for killing the beast - The serpentine necklace - I thought, how nice, I'll use that - and still, I couldn't understand why some not evil people in Tarant are ATTACKING me! :-? Well, at least I killed the inventor in Tarant along with the herbalist woman with him, and got a good loot that respawned there again and again
I was damn afraid what was going on... "I hope I don't have to kill all people, I wanna be good character"
1st times of playing are often lamer-like, though, nevermind, they're as funny as well

 

It has been a loooong time since the first time I played, but I believe that my first mess up was dying without an initial save while traveling between Shrouded Hills and Tarant.
But the first mess up that resulted in me not playing for years was the simple fact that I failed to see Pelojian's amulet when I picked up the books after opening the doors with Unlock Cantrip. So there I was, wandering Tulla and trying to fiqure out the riddle that I bypassed with magic while missing the key to the puzzle's next phase. Eventually I grew frustrated with Tulla and stop playing. Then that computer crashed and I didn't install the game on my next computer until many years had passed.

 

Didn´t mess up my game but naming my main character Magnus sure got a bit awkward later on.

 

Wow that's just like what I said, it makes me want to buy all your gold.

 

Fuck they gained sentience!

 

Still okay to post here? My first play was a Tech-Smith Half-Orc with decent strength, above average speed and most importantly, too many schematics, not enough melee/dodge. I was struggling hard to finish, but then I got stuck in a wall in the Wheel Clan when I stopped by to get some supplies. My last save was like 25 levels lower. Oh well....

 

I've had a few rather amusing bumbles over the years.. I guess I'll share a few with the class for entertainment purposes.

1.)

This was likely my first attempt at actually playing the game, rather than just constantly remaking level one characters trying to figure out the "optimum" starting setup. I'd made an Elven female Mage/Thief hybrid (low level enemies, cower before the might of high dex + harm), sporting an elegant dress, lockpicks, some ladies boots that I'd found in a trash can in Stillwater, soft delicate knuckles that I'd figured were unfit for the painful experience of wearing gauntlets and a small selection of spells.

After my trek to Tarant and finding a quest to go retrieve an elven artifact, I thought it a good idea to go complete the quest, at the very least for additional funds. "What's this!?" I said, as I saw a section of town that I'd completely skipped while entering the city. "Slums?", I thought. Well, after tactfully mousing over the rough looking half-orcs just inside and seeing that they had an "amiable" reaction towards me, I figured, "I'm part of the Underground. These people will accept me with open arms!". Forget the guards warnings about this "Boil" or whatever, I'm going in! ....And was subsequently butchered in about three seconds flat. I hadn't saved once.

2.)

This play through, I'd had access to a map of the whole continent, so I knew the location of Qintara, along with the location of the pass to gain access to Qintara. Yet again, I was a magic using Elf. I was figuring that the "best" magic equipment would be in Qintara, and beings as I'd already amassed a small fortune thanks to the purchase and exploitation of two manuals (herbology and explosives), just buying cheap ingredients and then selling the salves/grenades back to shopkeepers for insane profits (and stealing from shopkeeper chests - such as the inventor), I figured it would be a lovely time to get some quality magic arms and armor. So, I ran to where the pass was, manually, as I couldn't place a worldmap marker at the exact location of where the pass would be. Found the pass, and instantly exploited Teleport to get to the other side without having to fight (it works/worked), and off I went to Qintara.

Though I was disappointed with the lack of significant upgrades to my magical equipment, I was pleased with finding the place, and thought nothing of any significant side effects of entering the Elven city to soon. Later on, however, I was trapped (or so I thought) in Stillwater/Qintara, as Raven would never show up, because the Elf in Stillwater wouldn't give me the location of Qintara because I already had it. Not knowing that I could just take his amulet back to Shrouded Hills and bypass this, I fumbled blindly for at least another twelve hours of gameplay before I gave up and just put the game down for a few months.

3.)

This time, I was actually using a tech character, though I can't exactly remember the race I used. Likely a human, because I've never really been keen on Dwarves in any game.

I discovered the truly awesome power of the throwing skill, and, more specifically, the pure destructive power of grenades (explosive grenades, specifically). So, after about an in game "month" of making six explosive grenades per day in Tarant, buying the materials from the general shop, inventor, and gunsmith, I figured I was good to go. I had a significant stock of grenades on myself, though not enough to slow me down to much. I was "smart" and had Virgil serving as a packmule for my extra stock.

Now, I don't know if anyone else has noticed this, but Virgil never learns any skill in throwing. And to say that "Virgil throws like a girl" would be critically inappropriate. Virgil does throw quite well, actually. And often. And he also, apparently, discovered the RAW destructive power of explosive grenades. However, he apparently never noticed that he was critically failing at throws like crazy, and ended up blowing my character up instead of the enemy.

While it was comedic initially, my amusement quickly turned to anger when I realized that, yet again, I hadn't saved once during my entire time hoarding grenades. So, even though I was at around level twenty or so, I still ended up getting self-decimated by a random group of three ailing wolves, thanks to Virgil's impeccable throwing arm.

 

You do know you can quick save right, NoRudeLaw? It's one of the F buttons (F7 I believe - can't quite remember) - I just thought if you had many past mishaps due to not saving you might not know there was an easier way than going into the pause menu. I quick save every five minutes or so normally to avoid getting dicked over by happenstance.

 

I wanted to play a techie who specialized in high explosives. Half-Orc. I metagamed a little bit so I could level a tad faster - essentially just moving where I knew I was more likely to find higher level encounters.

I managed to find a cave with two massive red translucent warriors (I can't remember the cave or the name of the creature) behind a metal door, with another room just beyond them. Anyone who's only got Virgil and the Worthless mutt with an average party level of 10 had no business there, but I had dynamite. I yanked open the door and planted the dynamite without being seen, but it didn't kill either monster. So I used my last bundle and tried it again - killed one of them. I decided since the remaining creature only had what appeared to be a sliver of life left, I could probably take what it could dish out without killing my entire party. How very wrong I was. Reload after reload, the outcome was the same regardless of how successful the dynamite ended up being. Sometimes I killed one, but never both. And they always had a little bit of life left. My focus was trying to defeat much more powerful enemies than myself using what few resources I could utilize at that player level. Perhaps with more practice (and definitely a better throwing skill) I can succeed, but as for that particular game...I scrapped it and moved on. I have no idea what I would've done about the monsters behind the second door.

 

Of course I'm aware of the save/quicksave features, Jojobobo.

Or at least I am, now. These bumbles all happened, oh, probably a bit over a decade ago. Its just that, now that I picked the game back up after a few years (just for something to amuse myself in my free time), several of my old childish idiotic moments came back with it. I figured I'd share, if for no other reason than to possibly give someone else a good chuckle.

What's the point of doing something stupid, if you and your friends can't laugh about it later, right?

Dumb stuff, like permanently mind controlling Madame Lil, and then wondering why you can't accept the Master Persuasion quest, because she never told you to go visit the quest giver...before you infiltrated her brain.

Looking back, I find them all quite amusing.

 

You're a new member so I wasn't sure how long you'd been playing the game - that's why I asked. The Madame Lil story is indeed quite amusing!

 

forgot to save for quite a long time, i died and was back in shrouded hills. guess i learned the value of saving

 

I find there's plenty of times where I don't save often enough when I know I should. Even though now I make a conscious effort to I still end up forgetting and losing a good half an hour or an hour of gameplay through negligence.

 

If i recall correctly (it has been 10 years ago), i didn't really screw up, but i was rather blocked at shrouded hills, because i wanted to make a gunslinger, but didn't give a flying shit about investing points in firearms, and so i was always missing; moreover, i had chosen some weak-physique background, so the two ogres at the bridge just kept widening my anus. I also didn't know what was the purpose of charisma or about the followers (i was actually clueless, lol), and so i only had an unfortunate virgil, dressed up with Lloyd stuff (i had set dynamite in his bedroom, to loot all his stuff, haha). After that i didn't pick it up again for some time.

Then i got informed about the game features, followers etc, and started a new character (some kind of hybrid i think), and i had all the first followers (sogg, virgil, magnus, dog), but without even saving, i bravely entered the boil (thinking it was just another part of the town) and got smashed down by angry orcs. Tarant was really scary for me, back then and since that moment, i was cautious about any part of the town i entered. However, this time i got a bit discouraged with the Schuler's underground zombie zone (I was a bit low on hp and fire power in general, and i thought there were many levels (when it was just 2 levels) so i dropped the game.

The third time was the one i actually chose a fucking hi-tech dwarf, and went around destroying anything with tesla gun. That time nothing stopped me, and i also had put much into the persuasion department, so i was able to complete almost every quest, and it was the funniest time ever (it was the first time i was really experiencing the whole adventure). Then i got addicted to it, and since then i've been playing this game with many different characters. No matter how old it is, no matter how better they could balance the magick/technology thingie, it still remains the most entertaining game for me, for the huge freedom you have (turn the quest in to get the reward, or kill the quest giver and get it anyways, or rob him. That door to access nasrudin tombstone is blocking you with that retarded riddle? No problem, dynamite is there for you; just where do you find such game, really?

 

Almost like Fallout 3.