Fatigue; or is this stupid?

Folks, hi. I'm starting up a new game of Arcanum after a long time doing other things, and decided to read up on the biggest forums to glean strategies and advice. In one particular forum, a couple of players seemed enthusiastic about creating a sickly Half-Ogre magicuser, because of the increased fatigue. But from all that I can see, fatigue derives directly from Constitution and nothing else. This means that a sickly Half-Ogre actually possesses less fatigue to cast spells than, say, a healthy Elf who works out regularly at the gym.

Am I wrong in this? Does the Half-Ogre receive some kind of fatigue bonus as they level up? In advance, thanks.

 

Fatigue-points are calculated from your con-score: CN*2+WP
So I can't see the point in a sickly half-ogre.
Oh, and HP are calculated from your strength: ST*2+WP
And you get 2 Hp and Fa every time you level up. Also you can buy 4 Fa or Hp using character points, which I think is a complete waste of time.

-Stuart

 

Stuart, thanks for the quick reply.

Why, in your opinion, is a mage buying fatigue a waste of points? Too poor a ratio of what you get for what you put into it?

I'm strongly considering building my mage from an Elf, but that would require working up his/her Constitution. That, a lot of Willpower, some fair Dexterity, a decent Charisma (for followers), and perhaps a 6 in Intelligence. Perception can go hang.

 

Investing character points directly into fatigue or hit points is a waste because you don't gain anything else from it. By boosting up constitution you get both fatigue increase (though less) and resistances.

Forget the constitution, unless you have too many character points and nothing to do with them. If you're going for a pure mage (that is, without any combat skills and fighting with spells only), make yourself a collection of Mage staves (+ 50 mana each and replenishes over time) or, even better, Arcane staves (+80 mana and also replenishes). I usually carry 5-6 of them, and it is enough for more or less any battle. What you do need is Willpower (to learn high level spells), some INT for spells that require maintenance (I find 12 sufficient most of the time), Dexterity for speed and Charisma if you want a bunch of followers.

 

Sounds like pretty good advice. I think I'll do as you suggest. Thanks.

 

You're welcome. Another tip: don't spend CPs on learning healing spells. If you're good, almost every magic follower you can get learns all the White Necromancy. If you're evil, just keep Virgil around. And there is one spell that is a must have for anyone magic oriented- Shield of Protection. Boosts your armor class and resistances to insane levels, provided you have high MA.

 

I was actually thinking of Harm, SoP, then Fire and either Temporal or Summoning. What do you think?

 

Summoning? Why not just take a Stillwater blade and summon a bunch of animals without using a single fatigue drop? Vorpal bunnies are better than any ogre or demon you can get
Harm and Temporal are a good choice. I would also recommend Conveyance- you'll need Unlocking Cuntrip sooner or later, and Teleportation allows you to check the inventory of all shops in Arcanum in the same day, so you don't miss the good stuff when it's for sale Force is good to have, but I only really use SoP and sometimes Wall of Force. Fireflash makes a good addition, but the rest of the Fire college isn't that useful.

 

I took summoning in one game, and found it absolutely useless. You get no exp for what your summoned stuff hurts, and you can handle those things yourself if take the direct damage highlights of harm and fireflash. Temporal is great. I did take fire to the top, but only so I could gain mastery in it so my fireflashes cost me less fatigue. Unlocking cantrip is an absolute necessity. There will be doors you want to unlock, and lockpick decreases your magickal aptitude, something you really don't want.

I wouldn't recommend this at all for anyone else, but if I play a mage again, I'm going to take Divine Magic for convenience. And maybe to see if certain diviners have more respect for me...

 

Summoning is useful when you DON'T want to level up just yet- like if you're playing unpatched and want to get your followers before they are too far behind you experience wise. But the Stillwater Blade makes learning Summoning spells useless. As for Mastery, it makes most sense on Temporal. Tempus Fugit is probably the most expensive spell to maintain, it doesn't hurt if you get it for half the price.

 

Great minds think alike. Previous to your comments, I was using the character planner Dark Elf suggested, and inputted Fire only to Fireflash. (Who needs Body of Fire? Pretty useless, IMO.) Then I took Temporal and Conveyence all the way up, I was surprised just how many spells I could learn, if I ignored combat skills completely. In fact, the only skills she's got are haggle and persuasion, but with a significant number of followers, I suspect she'll have no problems.

 

The Sickly Half-Ogre is a techie start. Those players were either confused or taking on a chalenge.

My first attempt at a PC was a female Elf, Miracle Opperation. As a mage. The Crash Site went like Harm, Harm, faint. :lol:

 

I personally think Haggle isn't worth any points. There's plenty of money in the game and if you use the Blackroot Magic Clerk to your advantage, you get free items and all the cash she ever gets. How? Like this:
Break the window on the western side of the house, that shouldn't draw any attention. Then just get in and open the chest where all the stuff is. You can Unlock Cantrip it if you stand near the northern wall (might not draw attention anywhere, but I was plaing it safe). Then you can bash the door down, but use prowl just to make sure. Now, you get all the potions and scrolls you need for free, not to mention the mage staffs and magical armors there and you can sell those useless resurrection scrolls back to the clerck to get about 3k gold each time the shop restocks. Add in Teleport and start to shop but most of you prolly knew this already.

I also fancy Divination school a lot. Read Aura and of course the final spell are really worth it.

The Energy (?) school is important too. Lightning and Disintegrate are just great.

For a mage, I'd start with a female human and the (sorry, can't remember) background which gives +6 WP. Then you take spells, spells, a little WP and some DX. Now that's a mage.

 

Hmm, I could never open a chest with Unlocking Cantrip without waking up the owner, even with MA 100... Gotta try it next time I play a mage

Divination is quite useless, IMHO. Especially the last spell, all it does is saves you some money on identification.
Force is nice to have, but lightning is too costly fatigue wise for the damage it does. Disintegrate is an overkill. Literally. Good for emergencies, but consumes way too much fatigue to be used as a main combat spell. Besides, after you use it, you can't loot the corpse. Shield of Protection os awesome though, at 100 MA you get some 150+ Armor class when naked and a fair boost to resistances. Wall of Force is also good for safety- ever tried imprisoning a Seething Mass? :lol:

Harm is by far the best combat spell against anything that isn't made of wood or metal. Fireflash does area damage- useful to clear up those swarms of rats or zombies in the sewers. Get those two and some good support spells- and you're set.

 

The answer is simple. One: tell party (especially Magnus) to wait outside. Two: Kill chest owner. Three: Get party. Four: Use UC to unlock the chest.

Divination is quite useless, IMHO. Especially the last spell, all it does is saves you some money on identification.

Some spells are more a matter of having a narrow base of need rather than being useless, but Divine Magic comes as close to redundant as anything in a mage's spell arsenal. By the time you get it, you should have more than enough cash to identify everything you find, unless you're roleplaying someone who took a vow of poverty. And placing it as the last, and presumably best, spell in Divination makes it anti-climactic. I would have preferred a spell that automatically revealed for a few seconds the presence of every enemy in a given area, or all the pcokets of treasure.

 

THe noise comes from the caster. Careful placement is everything. Some rooms are too small for careful placement. Prowl is said to help, but I havn't had the right combo on a PC to test it yet.

 

As someone who palys nearly purely tech I can see the usefulness of the final Divination spell.

Recently I have just been doing the Bangellan deeps (man, I have to upgrade from Healing Jacket to Electro-armour one of these days). I have the new, improved, resurrected Virgil, Raven (rowr!) and my substitute for a sword or pyro-axe, Dog. Oh, and my clockwork healing spider thing I got from my good freind Max in Caladon, who is a scientist as well, but unfortunately not an electrician, or as I like to call them, a Man Of The Future.

In any event, you find plenty of groovy stuff in the deeps, but with no nearby town, a low strength myself, and followers with fairly low strength, I simply cannot be bothered lumping what may be worth something (or not). I don't really want for money, and I'm not too impressed dragging heavy and bulky armour/weapons/equipment all over the place that is magical to boot, when I have my own armour/weapons/equipment that is bulky enough thank you very much. (damn that flow disruptor is big when you're using a tesla rod, but want your charged sword as a backup!)

 

I suspect you'd also find good reason to possess the final Conveyance spell.

 

actually, no. I LIKE running from one end of Arcanum to the other, catching the occasional ship or train. I like the fact that all I need to do is go from Caladon to Tarant and I will have gained some experience slaying nasty beasties that I otherwise would have missed as a mage.