Just a quick question: I agreed to help Geoffrey in Ashbury to find the gem in the cemetary. Now my main problem is that he doesn't use his spells, he just goes around punching zombies and running away. In the very last chamber of the crypt when I was actually getting hurt, then he decides to summon, shield himself, and cast spells. Is this normal? I might just dump him because he hardly helps me kill most enemies, but I wanted a magick aligned character to use my various magick items I have saved up (I have magick allergy).
The mage AI in Arcanum is a weak one. No matter if they're with you or againts you, they always use melee (or bow, if it's their cup of tea) as their primary form of attack, while casting spells once in a blue moon, and when they do it, they do it badly (Geoffrey on higher levels sometimes casts on himself a shield of protection, agility of fire, body of fire and summons a fire elemental all at the same time, which ends in not much more than him fainting out of exhaustion after a few rounds). Followers like Mr Tarellond-Ashe do not become part of the party because of their fighting skills but because of how awesome their personalities are.
Bleah... I'd the same problem too with that Dark Elf chick. She just wandered around, fighting with a darn knife. (As to why I chose her over Raven? I found her voice much more mysterious and sexy. ) Man, I am soo playing an evil chick next round.
After playing with him for a while, he's not that bad. He uses magic whenever we come up against strong enemies and it helps more than another melee member. Now Virgil is another story, if I am low on health he will proceed to use all of his fatigue casting healing spells on me.... and I have 100 tech aptitude. Well now I gave him about 10 boxes of bandages so now he uses them sometimes. I just keep him around because he's a major part of the story, and I want to see this "Evil Virgil" I hear talk about.
Mwahahaha, I got you interested. *grin* I find being a technologist to be a real pain, because any allies who OUGHT to be able to help heal you tend to, you know, NOT, and there aren't any mages with Greater Healing and a high enough aptitude to affect you. Playing balanced was a hell of a lot of fun though, I should totally res that medic.
It's a pain that the allies don't use the bandages in combat, but my homemade healing salves do the trick pretty well so far. I just don't like Virgil wasting all his fatigue when he could be healing himself or my other allies. I'm currently working my way up to the cure-all discipline so healing won't be a problem much longer. Even the wonder drug is fine with me, but the only ones I have are ones squandered from rare treasure chests. Can someone with 100 tech aptitude use potions, or do they just have no effect on me because I picked Magick Allergy?
I seem to get better results with mage followers (beside Virgil, Raven and Dante) if I don't give them weapons. If the dark elf Z'an Alurin is unarmed, for example, she seems more likely to cast Body of Stone on herself and beat the crap out of enemies with her bare hands. It's almost like having an ore golem on your side. Raven's bow skills are useful enough that I don't mind her not using her crappy attack spells more often, but I can see what everybody is saying. It would be nice, however, if she healed people more often and spent less time casting Body of Water on herself or running away. As far as magic potions go, some of them stop working for technologists long before you get to 100 percent TA. Drog Black Tooth could give you the exact numbers, but somewhere around 25 the regular fatigue and heal potions stop doing anything useful. However, I've gotten good results from potions of haste and essence of intellect with my TA somewhere around 60.
YES! So very yes! Gosh, Evil!Virgil is very bad-arse. He completely shoots you-know-who down is epic style. I never loved him more than when he told you-know-who where to go. Mmmm, Rino Romano doing the angry evil voice. Yummy.
