Petty exploits that I've found

Now that I've (finally!) managed to make a complete playthrough of Arcanum, I'm ready to reveal a couple of discoveries/exploits that may, quite possibly be new to even the most experienced players. You might already recognize these exploits, as I’ve posted about some of them on this forum already. While most of them might be considered obsolete with nowadays modifications around and thus not overly useful to your player character, you might still get a laugh out of them as they show quite well how relatively easy it is to be “cheating within the workings of this game”.

Ok before we’re getting started, I've to mention that I made most of these discoveries while using the official patch only. While I’m sure that most of them remain intact in the UAP, you might have to take a slightly different approach to make the exploits work. If so, then I’ll try to notify you about what needs be done differently if I can.

1. Travel between Arcanum and the Void as many times as it suits you

If you for some reason want to do the above without relying on any modifications, then that's not beyond the realm of possibility. How you say, without reaching the limits with what can be done with either magick or technology? Well alright, the former still has a role to play, but most of the hardwork doesn’t go much further than a few clicks in some specific dialogs.
The dialogs I’m referring to are the ones used by individuals who take you from one place to another. Two obvious candidates for this are of course the sea captain and the train conductor found in most of the cities. You visit them, ask them about the costs for travelling from point A to be B, pay them and off you go. What if you’ve taken them to another location in beforehand? They still take you to B albeit from a different starting location. Were the starting location is doesn’t matter in the slightest…even if it is in another dimension such as the Void. You’ll always end up in your chosen destination.
Now there are a couple of things left to be solved, for one how do you get either the captain or the conductor to another area? Dominate Will is the key here. Once you release them be sure that you’re invisible should their reaction towards you drop below 1. I’m pretty certain that the conversation you have with either of them isn't altered by the fact that your PC is visible or not. If this is not so, then there are a couple of others who you can take advantage of for this method to work (more on that later). If your PC is a gnome you should simply be able to better your reaction with them by constantly casting Charm on them.
Getting to the Void in the first place you’ll have to choose the traditional route of dealing with either Nasrudin or Ku’an Hua. If you prefer to be banished to the Void by killing either of them (which can get you there pretty early, in fact even before you've finished your first main quest), neither the captain nor the conductor are favourable choices to take you back. This is at least true if you want to keep the option to travel back and forth between the two dimensions. Since in game time elapses as you pick your destination with either the captain or the conductor, Nasrudin’s or Ku’an Hua’s body will have decayed once you make it back to one of them. Luckily, as I mentioned earlier, you’ve a couple of other folks to choose from, namely the entrance guards of the Dredge and Quintarra (best choices), Priestess Birgit (only once and that is when you’re about to participate in the orgy), Gorrin on the Isle of Despair and The Pit guards in Dernholm. When you go back with one of the aforementioned, no (or not enough) time elapses for Nasrudin’s corpse to disappear which will allow you to teleport back to him and resurrect him.

I’ll improve this post a bit later on when I've got the time but all in all, you should be set if want to give it a try. The other exploits I'm going to post about will revolve around item transformations, endings, quests, reputations, spells and other pointless stuff of interest.

 

Interesting stuff, I never realised that using dominate will then cancelling the spell with invisibility on let you still talk to then NPCs. Suffice to stay, I would have never have got that Scavenger Hunt target!

EDIT: Actually I've checked and using the UAP it seems to work for some NPCs and not others. For the train conductor it worked fine, and when I teleported to a location with him his reaction returned to it's previous score, even when I cancelled dominate and then invisibility (however I had too high a magickal aptitude to use him to get anywhere, so even though he was cool with me he couldn't take me anywhere). However with the boat captain, I couldn't speak to him whilst invisible - and even though his reaction returned to normal once I teleported as soon as I cancelled the spell he hated me again. All in all, it seems quite unusual as to who it affects and who it doesn't.

 

Not very practical with the UAP, since the permanent follower glitch is no longer possible. Just use Virgil's debug menu to hop to the Void and back anytime you wish.

 

Now that would defeat the whole purpose of "cheating within the workings of this game", wouldn't it?

Abusing spell permanency to recruit permanent followers isn't neeeded in the trick Deman described. In fact, it goes against it. The trick requires cancelling dominate will, a step which becomes impossible once the spell has been made permanent.

Since it has been brought up though, I'd like to mention/remind that if anyone wants to take advantage of the mentioned spell permanency trick while playing the UAP, it's perfectly possibly with this little thing.

 

Re:

If your magickal aptitude is too high, you need to improve your persuasion a bit and he’ll let you "board the train".

As you all know, reaction is often determined by your characters’ beauty, where a score of 20 nets a reaction of 150 towards most people. However, some individuals are excluded by that rule and they seem to have set reaction values which are often 50 (the sea captain falls into this category).
Releasing someone from the spell always withdraws 50 reaction points. Sometimes it seems to be more but that is actually because there’s another withdrawal taking place (usually occurs when you dominate the wills of a whole group of people, who are close to one another and on the same “team”). I don’t know if this still works in the UAP but should your main character be a gnome then there is a bug which allows him to improve his reaction infinitely towards any living being (except for animals) by constantly casting Charm on them.

Heh, that’s pretty awesome. Apart from following the rule of playing the vanilla game first, I felt a bit reluctant about installing the UAP as I knew I would be without that glitch. But I’ll sure give it a try next time around.

To bring closure to the whole Void travelling scenario, I wrote down an explanation that will guide you on how to get there early on.

“You can most likely arrive at the Void before completing your first main quest by doing the following; collect the Ring of Shadows then use this trick found by Muro to water walk to Thanatos. While there find Nasrudin’s resting place. Teleport back to the main land and pick up any of the individuals which I mentioned in the first post, then teleport back to Nasrudin and kill him off. Now return with Kryggird's falchion and cause some havoc with it back in Arcanum…”

Alright leads head off to the next exploit.

Item transformation (The description for this is going to get somewhat lengthy)

I came across this in my feeble attempts to multiply particular items like the Vivifier. First off, I have to warn you about that crashes are likely to occur while attempting this.
Okay, let’s start off with a question. Have you ever witnessed any of your current followers to be turned into an item or an object? This can take place if a follower is deleted by the game, while he/she/it still is in your party.
As you might have guessed, this can happen to inventory items as well. To make this simple, the items which you can choose for this are those where your pointer changes (mostly consumables) once you select them from any of your hotkey slots, meaning all wearable and most miscellaneous items are out.
Fill your hotkey slots with such items and your inventory with items which you want the hotkey items to be transformed into, then move to a settlement that has an indoor area close it, like the Panarii Temple in Shrouded Hills and save there. For what I’ve figured so far, the only use which the later on transformed items will possess is for crafting purposes.
Now do the following; select any of the items placed on your hotkey slots (the pointer will change) then grab on to it by right clicking. Move the item over a target and left click on it without releasing your right mouse button. The item will be used but still return to its slot. Should you try to use it again, you’ll notice that it will longer have any effect. If the item vanished instead, then load your previous save and try again.
After you’ve sorted it out, do not enter your inventory or your game will crash. Instead enter the indoor area and open any container that you can find in there and you’ll have access to your inventory again. Do not replace or drop the item which you’ve been “working” on anywhere or the game will crash again. Leave the indoor area and once outside move the messed up item from the hotkey slot into your inventory. You’ll see that it and any other item you did the same thing with, have turned into different objects. Some might even have turned into a scenery object or a critter. They also seem to remain on your hotkey slots even though you’ve just moved them into your inventory. This is easily fixed by once left clicking on that item in your inventory. Should you want to leave the map you’re currently on, then place the item back onto its hotkey slot or else it will disappear. Lastly, if you redo all of this - starting from entering the indoor area (though you don’t have to open any container) - the transformed items will yet again change form.
Here’s the catch though, you still can’t drop any of these newly transformed items anywhere without crashing the game. Furthermore, should you save and reload all of these items will have disappeared. So what is this all good for? From what I’ve gathered, you can still use them as ingredients/components for crafting purposes. The crafted item will be useable and not corrupt your game in any way.
There is more that I need to get off my chest before we continue. I haven’t been able to discern any precise pattern (if there is any) for knowing what objects your items will turn into. Nevertheless I’ve observed that they most likely will become objects which are within close proximity to your character (like the ones I told you to place into your inventory). They’ll also most likely mirror these items which means for the upcoming example that even if you use the transformed items for crafting, the actually existing items that they’re reflecting/representing will also vanish.
Anyway, let’s assume that you want the hotkey items to be transformed into the components used for building the Vivifier. Once that has happened, place the real Vivifier components from your inventory into your hotkey slots, but not on the ones which are occupied by the transformed components. Next, move the transformed ones into your inventory. Now place the real ones onto the hand symbol so that they’ll be dropped. You’ll detect that the transformed ones will be placed weirdly in your inventory. Finally, enter the crafting menu and start hitting the crafting button for the Vivifier. You’ve one shot at creating as many as you like. Once you’re satisfied, exit the menu and save.

 

Okay before moving on, I’ll share a few more titbits related to the last exploit. I've also patched my game with the UAP which means that from now on, every exploit’s description that I’ll post (or have posted) has been based on that version.

Continuation on the transforming item glitch

I’ve ascertained that the objects which your hotkey items can be transformed into are objects available on your current location. This means that if there aren't too many objects on a map, the greater the chance is for your hotkey items to be converted into the items you want them to become. It also means that should you be attempting this glitch on an outside area, your hotkey items can take forms of objects which are far away from your current position (since all outside areas aren’t really separated maps). So basically if your current location is Shrouded Hills, you can end up with a sword wielded by a guard in Ashbury on one of your hotkey slots. Should you equip that sword, you might notice that the game starts to load, because of the vast distances between the two settlements. If you now save and load, the sword will be gone both from your inventory and from the hand of the guard who had it originally equipped in Ashbury. Now, if that sword had any special effects such as attribute or skills raises, then those effects would actually stack on your character. After I had investigated this a little further, I eventually figured how you can keep the original wearable item and thus stack its effect over and over again.
The method of doing so doesn’t get much more complex than the one which I used to describe on how to create multiple Vivifiers. They’re in fact, almost identical. A minor drawback with this one is that you’ll have to make use of the inventory of a container or creature, which in turn will become inaccessible. I’d say you go for the inventory of an expendable creature which you either picked up in a random encounter or on the streets of Tarant at night.
Follow the instructions which I gave for creating unlimited Vivifiers, but instead of the Vivifier’s components use, let’s say, the Ring the Influence. Enter an indoor area (e.g. Shrouded Hill’s Panarii Temple), then save your game and reload it afterwards. Prepare your hotkey items (see my former post) then leave the temple. On the outside, enter your inventory and place one of your transformed hotkey items into it and finally place the item back onto its hotkey slot. Re-enter the temple and again check your hotkey items. If none of them has become the Ring of Influence then repeat the former step.
Once a hotkey item has turned into the ring, kill off the creature whose inventory you’re going to make use of. When it’s dead, open its inventory. Place the real ring on one of your of hotkey slots but not on the one which is occupied by the “imitated” ring. Equip the imitated ring onto one of your fingers, and then place the real ring into the dead creature’s inventory. You’ll notice that the imitated one has disappeared, but you'll also see that there is another (imitated) one left on your hotkey bar. Put that one onto your finger. Finally click the “move-all arrow” and afterward switch the inventory screen (from the one where you can see your equipped items, to the other one). Move the ring from that inventory onto the drop symbol. Exit the inventories, then save and reload. As you can see, while the real ring remains on the floor, only the bonuses (pluses to beauty, charisma, persuasion and haggle) remain from the imitated one. Should you now attempt to loot the creature’s or object’s inventory which you used for this trick, the game will crash. That’s why it’s preferable to use critters for this. There are plenty of them around and their body decomposes some time after use.
I believe that’s all for this glitch, but if anyone has made any other observations or discoveries (e.g. made items appear that are only available in the game files) then please post your input here.


Get access to the inaccessible

Ever wanted to join both of the gangs who’ve made the Boil their territory? If wouldn’t be for that damned floater which the opposite gang member shouts out at you once you’ve joined their rival. Well, now it’s even possible to bypass that. Once again the spells Dominate Will, Invisibility and Charm (if you’re a gnome) will be your friends here.
I stumbled onto this trick when I tried to make actual followers to re-join me over the follower-limit, after I had them temporarily under mind control. It goes like this; dominate an individual's mind and enter another area. Their reaction towards you must be positive after that they’re released from the spell. Don’t release them just yet but instead tell them to wait. Cast off a couple spells that will help to deplenish your fatigue more rapidly. Before that happens, talk to your controlled minion and choose the line “Give further instructions” and the option “Rejoin” should turn up. Select it once your fatigue has been emptied (thus cancelling all of your spells) and after your PC has regained consciousness. Sometimes this lets you continue a conversation which you no longer should have any access to.
As I’ve already hinted, this can be used to join both Clan Maug and Pollock. Here’s a step-by-step solution on how to do so.
First you’ll actually have to deal with the gnome Milo. Lower his reaction toward your PC beneath neutral, so that his dialog will contain a bad-reaction line. Enter his dialog, make sure that the line is there and then exit his dialog.
Now enter Caleb Malloy's Pub and find the representatives of each gang there. Let the halfling and the half-orc set you up, so that you can contact Miranda Tears and Muggs for their quest later on. Choose whom you’ll want join first. After making that choice, make use of the glitch which I formerly described. For a lesser reaction drop later on, start out with taking control over either Miranda or Muggs instead of attacking their allies first. Somewhat annoyingly, you can’t deal with Muggs' quest in beforehand, meaning to you’ll have to attempt this glitch on him again once you’ve collected the money from Lars.
To be able to continue on with Clan Maug’s quests you’ll have to choose Milo’s bad reaction line or else he won’t give you his mission (the conversation would have ended abruptly otherwise). You’ll also have to keep in mind that joining a gang results in a heavy reaction drop towards all members of the rival gang. You can still deal with both Damian Maug and Pollock while being invisible. A Gnome PC could once again take advantage of the Charm spell exploit which remains in the UAP.

EDIT: From now on, I’ll just update this post with the remaining exploits from time to time. Here comes a new batch together with some adjustments made to the last exploit that I posted.

Access the inaccessible (dialog paths) continuation

Despite my earlier claim, I must admit that I didn’t test this exploit fully while having the unofficial patch installed. Here are some corrections that you need to be aware of in order to become a member of both clans in the Boil.
When I first posted about this, I mentioned that your PC would receive reaction penalties against the gang that he/she didn’t join. This is false but on the other hand; the members of your rival gang will still become hostile, initially at least. There’s a way to prevent them from attacking you more than once, should your character be a gnome. I’ll add more meat to it later on and post it as a separate exploit after I’m done with this one.
To join both clans, start off with doing Muggs’ quest first and thereafter Milo’s. Next, you can make use of the exploit which was formerly described to get Tears’ quest (scroll up somewhat if you’ve forgotten about the procedure). You’ll have to “subject” her to the exploit twice, once for accepting her quest and once more in order to complete it.
You can still talk to Damian Maug while being invisible, but when it comes to Pollock it gets a little trickier. Pick up a piece of clothing that makes you more likeable (adds to your reaction) like the Smoking Jacket and then pay Pollock a visit without being noticed by his guards.
Once there, check Pollock’s reaction which should be set to 50. Kill him, then resurrect and mind control him and finally take him down into the sewers. Put on the jacket and release him. His reaction towards you should be 20 as long as you wear the jacket. You can now talk to him to accept his quest to kill Damian. After this you can also speak to him while being invisible. Return to Damian and report that you’ve killed Pollock then kill Damian and report back to Pollock.

Endings

Kill off the poachers while at the same time convincing the Bedokaans to come out of seclusion

Visit the Bedokaan Village when you’re about to rescue the elf and speak to Kan Kerai. Let him assign you the task of wiping out the poachers. Before heading off, check his dialog again and see if you still have the option to opt a non-violent solution (the line should go something like “Are you sure that I can’t convince you otherwise?”). Exit the dialog then teleport (more on why you did this later on) to the poachers.
Kill them off and teleport back to the Bedokaans. You’re about to tell Kan Kerai that you were successful in taking out the poachers, but before doing that place an item that deals fatigue damage (such as the Ring of Shadows) on the lizard chieftain. Speak to him and choose the line “I’ve killed the poachers” which will complete the quest. Don’t pick any other lines thereafter and instead wait until he succumbs because of the ring. Just let him fall unconscious (I’m not sure what happens should he die instead, it might set off an inconvenient variable, so don’t let that happen).
Steal the ring from him and then wait until he has become conscious again. You should still have the option of persuading him that not all warm bloods are bad, which will ultimately lead to the good ending for the Bedokaans.
Now here’s a fun thing; should Robert Miles’ (the head poacher's) corpse still be around (most likely because of that you did teleport back and forth between the two locations) you can now rat out the Bedokaans to him and still get their good ending. You’ll of course have to resurrect him first and then most likely talk to him while being invisible. Shouldn’t that work you can once again use the spell Dominate Will (dominate his will, take him to another map, check that his reaction wont go below 1, release him from the spell and finally talk to him about the Bedokaans location).

Get Don Throgg’s ending while at the same time becoming the Instigator of the orc riots

This is relatively easy. Go to the gnome Babcock and offer to help him out with Throgg. Enter the factory and convince Throgg to work together with the gnome on this matter. Return outside and report back to Babcock thus ending the quest. Next murder the guards and their captain (you can kill Babcock as well). Go back to Throgg and tell him that you’ve killed the guards. The conversation should eventually ignite the orcs riots, netting you the reputation Instigator of the orc riots. Orc bandits will now appear all over Tarant. When you eventually finish the game, the ending which deals with Don Throgg will claim the opposite of what had actually transpired. Furthermore, the ending will still come to pass even if Don Throgg should have died during the riots.
Even after all of this, I must say that this was one of the better scripted scenarios in the game. At least you couldn’t complete Wheeler’s two quests (which you shouldn’t be able to do either) at the same time as you convinced Throgg to listen to reason (which is all that is really required for getting his ending).

Coming up are quest, follower, reputation and more ending exploits.

 

Good God, man!

I, Yitzak the Black, discoverer of supermegameta-abuse, hereby pronounce you hexperimental exploiter extraordinaire!

My hat is off to you, sir.

 

The Great and Powerful Frigo, one of the three necromancer inventors of the Spirit Army spell, acknowledges your power and wisdom, and thanks you for your contributions to the Arcane Art.

 

This doesn't work for me or I am too stupid to make it work.
For example the unknown compound for the Vivifier, I put it in my quickslot, right click it, it lifts, I keep right clicking it, left click on another in world item but nothing happens or rather it moves back into my inventory. When I do this with usable items they get consumed. :/
I am using Arcanum 1074, can you post foolproof instructions?


apart from that, does perception matter for bow users, to hit, damage or otherwise?

 

Perception plays a role in calculating the to-hit chances for bow users. It does not affect damage.

 

Thanks.

One more thing, how does the use of brain builder or muscle maker affect the auto level schemes if at all?
I used it on a few followers at level 15 to max out str and dex, the melee guys just seem to stop investing points at all, except for willpower sometimes.
Virgil puts points in CON till 20 I suppose.

Is it level dependent for the followers to put points into melee/dodge, hit points?
Will they try to regain lost CH, IN (for mages, tech chars) or PE?

What about tech chars?


Or is there a hack that lets me level up my followers independent of exp to look for myself?

Tia

 

Re:

This allows you to remove their auto-levelling scheme and distribute their character points manually whenever they are gained from levelling up.

 

Level up schemes set out goals for the character to reach, and usually those are certain skill levels. In order to reach those skill levels the scheme usually has to invest points into the primary attributes those skills are based on. Once a goal is reached, the scheme tries to reach the next goal, until all goals are reached. I don't know what happens then, and I assume that is not meant to happen, and if the last goals in every scheme are always impossibly high, that would never happen.

A scheme doesn't care if a primary attribute or skill is raised or lowered by temporary effects, so the consequence is that it won't bother putting points into that attribute if it's already high enough to allow the character to reach the current goal. And if that goal is never repeated in the scheme, perhaps with a higher value than even a boosted attribute would allow, then the scheme will never see a reason to raise that attribute even if it's been lowered to the point of uselessness.

So yeah, the consequence of using Muscle Builders on followers is that their level up schemes will simply save points on physical attributes and instead use those points for extra hit points and fatigue or something like that. And once the follower has reached Melee 20 and Dodge 20, their melee fighter scheme won't have a reason to ever raise Dexterity to 18.

And while I don't use hacks to break game rules, I have been thinking about tricks to affect schemes in the ways I might want, such as using bottles of wine on followers to lower their Dexterity at the time of levelling up. This could force them to raise Dexterity to 20 (-2 dex for two bottles of wine) before their scheme can max out the Melee and Dodge skills. That seems like a good idea if I'd want them to wear other rings than Charged Rings, or if it's Dog, who can't wear rings.

I'd have to watch out if they're also building Strength, as one bottle of wine gives +1 Strength, and I want them to reach 20+ there too. I could also make them max out Intelligence if they're building that, since each bottle lowers Intelligence by 3 points. That way their scheme could be forced to go for 20, and they'd get +10% on all skills. But I suppose extra hit points might be more desirable.

And if I want them to gain extra Melee and Dodge skill quicker, I could have an Agility of Fire active on each such follower at the time of levelling up. After I drop the spell and their Dexterity is too low, they'd still have access to some of the skill that is then higher than their Dexterity allows for. Certainly things to consider, both as possibilities and pitfalls.

 

I very much dislike Arcanum's levelling scheme system because of that goal mechanic. It makes managing worn inventories of followers quite a chore, specifically when it comes to charged rings and Magnus' mysterious dwarven gauntlets.

Those items grant an immediate bonus, but if they're ignored after being put on, followers will end up having lower stats than they should have. For example, if a follower was instructed in the scheme to invest in dexterity up to 18 and was wearing charged rings for most of the game, he will indeed end up having 18 dex, but only with the rings put on indefinitely. Take them off after all the level ups and his dexterity drops below 18. What was a bonus at first turned into an obligatory handicap nullifier with a history of wasted character points.

The flaw can be fully avoided by taking all charged rings and similar stat-affecting items from followers right before each level up, but the necessity of remembering about it and executing the procedure is fairly tiresome.

 

Thanks. I especially like the idea of giving the dog alcohol, ingenious. :booze:

What's up with 20IN bonus btw, how does that work exactly? Just more points in a tech discipline or better lockpicking, shooting, melee etc too?

 

Re:

This.

For crafting items NPC followers don't need higher expertise than they already get from their highest technological degree, because they can't learn found schematics anyway. Instead of wine you could feed an NPC a Potion of Intellect right before they level up, and they wouldn't need to put points into IN and could go straight for the degrees. That should make their degrees available sooner, particularly in combination with something boosting their Dexterity to push them along the path to max Melee and Dodge. (Or boost Vollinger's Perception so no points would have to go there.)

But then you'd have to use either technical manuals or a Potion of Intellect or Mind Marvel (and maybe Revitalizer too) every time you actually want them to craft the higher stuff. And that seems like a hassle not worth the few points they'd save for extra hit points. But it seems like a handy way to speed things up if you plan to ditch the NPC after they've crafted some specific items for you.

 

I found that followers sometimes don't spend points on levelup at all, neither on hit points or any skills. :???:

Even more so if some stats are artificially high. This seems especially true for mental stats like IN or WP. Some seem to raise dx if one (artifically) lowers it, though not all. Might be kit-dependent, pure melee seem kinda weird and not adapt at all?
Also makes it hard to calculate whether muscle maker is actually worth it if half the points get wasted because followers dont use their points on levelup. Say if you max Virgil to 20ST /w muscle builder he won't reup IN/WP on every levelup. :/
Magic exploit route is probably more useful anyway or just use Drog's program.


Still, would really like to solve this puzzle.

 

The schemes aren't set to raise X at level Y; they're set to raise X to a certain number. And raise the prerequisites first, if that's necessary.

The only time level should have any effect in a scheme would be for an NPC taking spells, since higher spells have level requirements, and a seriously boosted NPC follower might potentially bump into that level requirement by having the scheme try to get a level 4 or 5 spell before it's supposed to. Though that seems highly unlikely, since the requirements aren't that high, and at least in the Arcanum module, Virgil is the only spell caster who doesn't start at level 12+, which is only three levels away from the level requirement for the highest level of spells. And Virgil gets a lot of different skills, so I wouldn't be surprised if his scheme is filled with enough skill goals to make sure that there is no way to boost him to his third spell before level 5, or his fourth spell before level 10. (And doesn't he gain his fifth spell only after becoming a new NPC, with a different scheme?)

But I'm not sure what the scheme would do if it can't get the spell because the NPC is too low level. Maybe it would just save the points while waiting for the NPC to level up some more, or maybe it would skip the spell until the next spell in that college becomes a goal, at which point the scheme would most likely spend a point on the skipped spell as it's then become a prerequisite.

And apparently some followers don't have level up schemes, so they'll just save their points. But I think Drog patched all those followers in the Unofficial Arcanum Patch. Don't think I have ever seen a follower with a scheme not spend points though. But perhaps that happens if you use so many Muscle Makers on them that they can't get a high enough Intelligence to qualify for a technological degree unless you also feed them a Potion of Intellect? And maybe the same applies to spells? If they can't get high enough Willpower to get a spell, maybe the scheme just halts while waiting for the NPC to somehow become able to fulfil the current goal? Since the NPC would normally be able to fulfil every goal given enough levelling up, perhaps the level up schemes don't have any backup plans if a goal is impossible to reach?

EDIT: Oh ok, so you are using Muscle Makers then? That is probably the culprit. Virgil is set to gain Heal 20, and for that he needs IN 18, and if he can't get that high, I guess the scheme just waits, and allows the points to accumulate. You could wait for him to max Heal and gain all his spells, and then use Muscle Makers. Or just let him get all his spells, and then feed him those Potions of Intellect whenever you're about to level up. Assuming that you don't use so many Muscle Makers that even +10 IN isn't enough to bring him up to 18.

 

Actually I metagamed quite a bit and got Virgil to go Zen at lvl1 because I left him waiting at the grave and Tsen Ang (he's only five levels behind my main char that way). Zen Virgil mostly invests into CN, healing spells and DX I think. When all is said and done he goes for hp and mana.
It's not really the WP or IN thing because it works for Dante. When I muscle him he raises IN back to 5, then goes for WP. Maybe Virgil is saving up points but shouldn't that show up? It does show up for NPCs when they have non-invested points I think.

Potions of Intellect work for Magnus and Vollinger but if Magnus ST, CON and DX are maxed out he is also not going to level up to schematic number four even if he has the necessary IN


Doesn't really matter, just going for the supermetaabuse now
edit: nope that doesnt work either. Apparently Arcanum saves the animations in memory even if they aren't visible which makes the game unbearably slow if too many bonuses are stacked.

 

I should note that the game considers stat maximums differently for brain builder and muscle maker than for many other stat alteration effects. From my faq, here is the explanation:

BB/MM lower stat maxes only if their penalties are greater than the sum of
all race, gender, background, item, and blessing bonuses (even if the total
sum didn't raise the max by that amount!).

For example, a dwarf who ran away with the circus and wears mysterious
dwarven gauntlets has STR bonus of +1 +6 +1 = +8 although only the race bonus
increases his max by the +1 to 21.

7 Brain Builders later, he still has a max STR of 21 because +8 -7 = +1.

At 9 Brain Builders we finally see his max STR lower to 20, because +8 -9 = -
1 to STR from the STR max of 21.


If I remember right, this was opposed to the most common circumstance, where any decrease would just decrease the max directly.