Some new questions about Arcanum in General

Okay....

I am in Tarant. And I'm getting... er, for lack of a better word.... ass raped.

Worse - I am playing a mage - which everyone on here said was the easiest to play so now I'm scared.

I have Harm, Summon Ogre, Summon Undead, Force Protection

With Force Protection, I have an armor rating of around 79 but still get hit and hurt by a lot of things.

I use harm - but run out of fatigue quickly - especially if there are multiple opponents.

What is weird to me is that I keep running into level 15-20 opponents (I'm level 9) in Tarant - although I assumed it was where I was to go next given the clues/storyline???

I obviously run if I enter a place (sewers, building etc) and see some level 15+ creature. But, for example, I'm just walking the streets and suddenly two 15 level orc thieves attack me in eastern Tarant. I had to use a crap load of potions just to survive.....

Am I doing something wrong? I don't like to "spam" the game - i.e. have omniscient knowledge of an item to steal right away, or advance time days at a time so I can steal.... I try and stay immersed in the world.

Am I in the wrong city? wrong place? I went from Shrouded Hills to Tarant and haven't gone anywhere else yet ..... I did all the quests in SH I could and a few are still running (Bessie Toone, Jongle)...

Help!

 

Do P. Schyler and Sons (it's in Tarant).

 

I run around in the wilderness between SH and Tarant for a while if I'm going solo. When the Hand start coming at you three at a time, it's time to head for Tarant.


(I need to play a full game again...)

 

Treat Tarant like you would any big city in real life. You wouldn't just wander around aimlessly and risk getting jumped by cutthroats who have been at it their whole lives. You probably wouldn't fraternize with the rabble when asking for directions either. When you reach Tarant the first time, you have an agenda. Stick to it. If you need directions, converse with authority figures who you can trust not to mug you.

THEN go explore for a little bit.

 

Okay, I scrapped my mage - once i got the hang of it it was too easy .... I was level 19 and could kill just about anything unless ganged upon...

Now playing a dwarven gunslinger.

Two primary questions:

1) Is it worth taking the gunsmithing skill or will I find plenty of decent guns ? (Didn't know if the Elephant Gun was majorly worth getting - I believe that is the max gun to make....)

2) I have a fate point from Shrouded Hills - is there a gun worth "pickpocketing" with it that will give me an edge up?

 

I usually put into gun smithy up to fine revolver at the beginning then max out metal smithy for the Feather weight chainmail, then Elite plate.

Spoiler

The pickpocket master at Kensington Park, Tarant, short guy, has a Hand Cannon you can steal, very nice gun for most of the game. Then it's up to you if you want to go bigger.

 

Every gunslinger should put two points in electrical for charged rings and then three points into throwing. Add one point (at least) in explosives and you'll have a really nice weapon to fall back on.

 

What exactly do charged rings do?

 

They add to your dexterity, giving one or two bonus points per ring, depending on what your tech level is.

Damn handy for only a couple of points into electricity.

 

I see you've quickly become a true Arcanum player, jwh, scrapping a character and starting over already

One of these days, I'll have to actually finish the game.

Fine revolver is actually a fine weapon. Subsequent weapons on that tech tree have underwhelmed me, although I hear good things about elephant guns.

-- Mal

 

If you are playing a stock game ignore this.

If you are playing A:WIP check this out...

Spoiler

Alot of The Hand wear charged rings, plus the Pawnshop by the bridge in Tarant is a good place to get charged rings also, I got 6 on one trip there.

 

Spoiler

Looks like I need to redo a couple of inventories....

 

To rroyo:

Spoiler

Maybe lowering the chance to get stuff in A:WIP, the stock game restocking is brutal and having it all available is a little over the top. No offence to your work intended.

 

To wastelandhero:

Spoiler

I agree, it is too much. And no offense is taken.

 

as for the gun technologist character, I have a couple comments about where to put points:

-gunsmithy: the fine revolver is very powerful for early in the game, I'd go with that. I also tend to make a looking-glass rifle for the dungeon right after Tarant, there tend to be a few enemies there that you don't want to be close to when fighting. Also, there are some very interesting weapons you can make with found schematics, most notably the mechanized gun, tranquilizer gun and tesla gun (although the latter 2 require full points in chemistry and electrical, respectively). Most of the guns found in the game that don't require assembly aren't nearly as powerful as the ones you can make, although as mentioned above, there are 1 or 2 iterations of the guns you would normally make with top level gunsmithy.

-do yourself a favor and get some supplies to make your own bullets, once you have a bit of money. Get some explosives manuals at tarant university if you don't plan to put points in that, and then you can buy saltpeter and find charcoal in trash cans. Although the manuals are a bit expensive and heavy, it's more annoying to have to carry 500 bullets, which are really heavy to have in quanitity. I don't know about you, but most of my gun technologist type characters aren't very strong.

-mechanical+smithy: if you plan to put points in mechanical anyway, get that eye gear for the +2 PE, that way you can save 2 points on the way to getting 18 PE for max firearms. Magnus can make this later, but it takes forever for any follower in the game to become good at technology. If you're going to put points in smithy anyway, you should make the helm of vision later on (once you spent points on important stuff like gunsmithy) and combine eye gear and the helm of vision into the goggled helmet (+3 PE, plus decent head protection.)

Since you already made a new character at level 19, I don't know if I should bother saying it, but you should fully explore the following place when you get there for parts to make an interesting gun...

Spoiler

Shades Beach on the Isle of Despair