Need some advice on where to go with my character.

My character is a Half-Ogre technologist who mainly uses melee. So far I have these stats:
Str: 10
Con: 6
Dex: 15
Be: 7
Cha: 8
Int: 19
Pe: 8
Wp: 8
Level: 20

and these skills:

Melee: rank 3
Dodge: rank 1
Mechanical: 35
Smithy: 20

I'm mainly focusing on getting my melee power up, and my int to where I can learn all tech skills, but I'm not sure what to do. Should I get dex to 18 and put my strength up and then max melee and dodge? or should I focus on tech skills? Also, since I'm mainly making melee weapons which disciplines should I take some ranks in along with mechanical and smithy in order to be able to make the best gear for a melee specialist? I didn't take guns because they were all too small and that made the early game impossible. Right now I'm not doing so well, I can't beat the ore golems in black mountain mines. My previous character was a half orc melee/guns type with no non-combat skills, which was powerful but boring, so thats kind of made my current character weak in comparison. I'd appreciate any advice.

 

Those things are friggin' hard in most cases anyway. Go get Dog, to help you out if you haven't already.

 

Where do I find him? Right now I only have Virgil. I had Magnus but he was just useless and died in every encounter.

 

I only find them near the south coast and around Kree in my games.

 

Thanks for the welcome. Looks like I'm doomed with dog, I spent ages a while back in ashbury using the zombies in the graveyard for XP. However I managed to beat the black mountain mines using some cheap weapons to kill a couple of the golems, then some sneaky running to get the items in the forge without the lava golem guy killing me. Now I have some nice machined gauntlets to punch golems with. With regards to stats I'm now level 28, got dex to 18, strength to 13 (or 14) and maxxed melee. I think I'm gonna get str to 15 and put another point in dodge, then go for tech disciplines with the next 20 or so levels. I'm thinking of getting the level uncapping patch but I have no idea which version of the game I have (I bought it in one of those budget DVD cases rather than the original version).

Also, where can I find more large leather armour? I'm starting to get worried, the lava spiders in the Drudge are ruining my two sets and I need those to make large size armour with.

 

Of course, now I am getting slaughtered by a lame ore golem in the Dredge, who just machineguns me down with his spell thing even when I'm meleeing him.

 

I solved pretty much all my problems by building the Pyrotechnic Axe. It kills golems in a couple of hits.

EDIT: Just got to level 36 (Levelling with the axe of instakill is fast ) and now I can make large armour. I've got two sets of Elite Plate, and now the question is where the heck do I get minute steamworks?

 

At the wheel clan mechanic?

 

Once in a great while the inventor in Tarant has one, but that's a rare occasion.

 

The accursed wheel clan inventor guy doesn't ever sell the minute steamworks for me

EDIT: wait, after an eternity I found some damn minute steamworks. And hey machined plate looks identical to regular plate on a half ogre. Which looks identical to chainmail on a half-ogre. Did they just add half-ogres in as an afterthought? They didn't even bother to recolour the armour either. It is literally identical.

 

I've heard that having lots of different "sprites" for the character models takes up lots of space. Supposedly that's why you can't be a female halfling or gnome.

 

Yeah, they *have* the sprites for the gnome/halfling females (they're around Tarant at least), but detailing them out to have art for EVERY POSSIBLE CHARACTER ACTION is a lot of work, vs. making them NPC only. That's probably why they're not allowed for player characters.

 

Which is the reason why worlds like Arcanum or Fallout are, visually, full of clones of several types of people. Of course, it would be nice, to choose from ten diffrent bodies when creating a character, but that's wanting too much. For me, Arcanum itself was FULL of diffrent body looks with armors etc, cos after playing with THE Fallout, in which i just got accustomed to the lack of sprites.
As for the half-ogre, you can imagine, that the mechanical armor in his case are some mechanical enhancements placed in stategic points on the body.
Also, when playing a half-ogre technologist, it would be nice, to invest in gunsmithy. A normal technologist usually doesn't have extreme strenght, but a half-ogre technologist with ease could achieve the 15 strenght required for his handmade blade launcher, which would be also very nice for the RPG values.

 

The problem is I'm level 42 (I've got 4 CP to spend, I've not used them yet). I'd really like to take up gunsmithy but I have 0 firearms skill, 8 perception and only a few levels till I hit the cap. So I'm not entirely sure what to do now. I've got max mechanical and smithy skill, max melee, rank 4 dodge, 14 str and 18 dex. I think I have enough points to master two more disciplines (I think, maybe I just can't count.). I wish I could take up gunsmithy but I just don't have the points. Plus I'd not be able to take any levels in electrical or anything so no tesla gun either.

 

When having the blade launcher, there is no need for the tesla gun, cos despite the strenght required for blade launcher, the are familiar and have about the same power.

Having level 42 you have 10 character points to gain and the 4 you have already, together 14. Having both mechanics and smithy high allows you to create the goggled helmet giving +3 perception, but that's not that much, when you think, that to be a master gunslinger you practically need all three perception, gunsmithy and firearms at maximum.

If I were you, I would give 1 point to dodge to get it maxed and mastered it, 2 points at dexterity for the 25 speed bonus, 6 points to strenght for the double additional damage in melee combat (and of course possibility to carry more stuff without penalties). About the remaining 5, I would invest them to have another skill at maximum and master it, for example doctor, cos healing is always good, and you already have all the intelligence required for it.

Question of curiousity: have you build an army of automatons?

 

No, I can't find any Small Steam Engines for the arachnids. The elite plate isn't a problem. I've got a medical arachnid, which seems to be virgil if virgil was an effective healer, and without virgil's complaining.

With 14 CP I could get per up to 18 including my goggled helmet, and max gunsmithy, but no firearms skill. Which would be useless. I would install the mod that adds level 50-100 so I could get more out of my technologist skills, but I have no idea which damn version of the game I have.