Mage Build Help

I just got back into playing Arcanum, and I was thinking about playing as a mage, however, I have no experience with mage characters, as all of my Arcanum experience comes from my partial playthroughs with tech and melee characters. This being said, I'm hoping for some advice in creating a good mage character. Thanks in advance for any help.

 

Its hard to go wrong with a mage character if you have 100% magic aptitude (gained by learning spells) and using Harm as your spam attack. After choosing Harm all you have to do is fill in the gaps for aptitude. Personally I go through the Conveyance tree to get teleportation and if I am feeling up to it the Force tree for disintegrate.

 

Getting the spell Charm Beast will make traveling while a low level a breeze. Just tell your part to back off then charm the level 15 bear that decided to ambush you and virgil and you'll be good

As said above, Harm is your bread and butter spell. Get it early and use it often. As your MA goes up so does the power of Harm.

Other useful spells (you won't be able to take all of these I don't think): Shield of Force, Disintegrate, Body of Air/Water, Teleport, the entire White Magic school, the Temporal spells if you want to also engage in melee or to buff your melee comrades (also get strength of earth and agility of fire to further buff combat), Wall of Force/Fire + Unseen force is a fun combo, Stun, the Summoning spells are great for gaining more followers.

 

Okay, so i started planning a character. He's going to be a Human w/ Elven Blood background (More Magic aptitude at the loss of tech). I'll put a point into INT, WIL, and CON, get Harm and I can't decide where to allocate the last point. I'd kinda like to use throwing as a back up, so should I put the point there immediately, or should I use that point for one of the social skills so that I can get along with NPC's more easily, or should I just put it into more magical skills?

 

Truthfully, I'd get Charm Beast or Shield of Force. You can reach level 5 by the time you get to Shrouded Hills giving you more than enough character points to start on the social skills or picking up a backup.

 

Egads man, only level 5 by the time you reach Shrouded Hills? I reach at least 7!

 

I should have said 'at least.' I've done 7 before, but I usually hurry up and get to shrouded hills quickly so I only aim for level 5 when I enter the town.

 

Yeah I occasionally just speed through to Shrouded Hills. I usually do the quest from the cave, in fact both of them and be all like "Damn you!" at the end. The drawback to leveling so much though is that Sogg will be lower than your character. I think I've only ever had him in my group once and that was on my first play through because I was very cautious and slow like I usually am with new games.

 

Thanks for the advice guys, I now have a kickass level 25 mage with harm, the first three Fire spells and the whole colleges of Conveyance and Force. I'm now debating between the colleges of Temporal or Summoning. Between those two, is there a wrong choice?

 

There isn't a wrong choice assuming you have the IN and Fatigue to sustain the spells, but it depends on what you want to do.

If you want a horde of minions at your command go with Summoning. If you want to be a combat god go with Temporal.

 

Personally, I try to get to Shrouded Hills at lvl 2 to get Sogg while he's still fresh. Then I go back to the crash site and pick up the monster slaying where I left it.

 

Why does everyone in this thread take Sogg as a companion? I never did because i think he's a boring character.

 

I do what Wolfsbane does because I'm obsessive enough to want Sogg to be at the same level as me.

Sogg is a great help early on in the game (he's really useful for fighting the half-ogres who hang out with Lukan the Witless, for example). Especially if you're playing as a Miracle Operation elf or something like that where you can barely survive fights with wolves at first. He's really fast in addition to being ridiculously strong and he kicks butt with pretty much any melee weapon.

Sogg also can carry a lot of stuff without getting slowed down enough to matter. Which is helpful if you like to take everything that isn't nailed down and/or carry a lot of spare armor and weapons. I generally do both.

 

I have to agree with Dark Elf here, voiced characters are more interesting. Which is why by the time I get bored of my characters I usually have a party of Virgil, Magnus and the Elf chick. Although this time through, I discovered Worthless Mutt before he died, and that's working out nicely.

 

You really can't go wrong with the Worthless Mutt. He ends up being master of melee at 20 strength when you level him up. The only drawback to the mutt is that he has no inventory. But, as a free character, you really can't do better.

 

A trick i discovered on my 2nd playthrough to kill Lukan and his 2 half-ogres with a really weak character at the beginning is to stand as far away as possible from them and put a dynamite on Lukan. Wait 2 sec and boom and you can just finish the last half-ogre still standing.

It's a cheesy tactic but it does the trick lol.

I never used Sogg personally, like Dark elf, i only like to take voiced characters like Virgil, Magnus, Raven or Loghaire Thunderstone. I just love the conversation between Magnus and Loghaire when you find the Iron Clan, really epic!

 

Haha Muro, don't you only get him for the trip to Tulla?

 

I think he stays to the very end unless dismissed but I can't say for sure, to be honest. It's not like I ever picked him up.