The companion shuffle...

Hi,

I'm currently going through Arcanum again, having played it to various degrees of completion over the years, only ever really finishing it once. When my newest in a long line of gun using characters reached Shrouded Hills, I realized that I never actually got into the wonderful world of party building, always sticking to a boring Virigil/Magnus combo.

So I thought I'd look into the wide selection of followers this game has to offer and sample something new and wonderful, picked up Sogg Mead Mug and made my way to Tarant. I'm currently returning from the Black Mountain Clan mines and I'm interested in picking up Chukka, simply because Sogg has been an unprecedented success so far and having two of him seems like a really, really good idea at this point.

My other two slots are taken by Virigil and Magnus however and even though I have enough CPs hoarded to open another one, I'm not sure if I want to do that right now. What I *do* want to do is give Magnus the boot. Having him around is turning out to be quite a nightmare. In a fight he either runs off to get killed by some random creature or does the deed himself by critically missing with his bloody fists. When not sabotaging my battles, he runs around setting off all the traps in sight. His constant bitching is really getting to me too. I almost snapped my keyboard in twain the last time he babbled on about being "wounded terribly."

Aaaanyways, I do make use of Magnus' crafting skills, so I was wondering if I can re-recruit him if I let him go (as in make him leave the party, not wait) and if so, where I'd find him should I have need of his services. I'm also kind of interested in his backstory, which makes me wonder if I shouldn't keep him around just in case something comes up. I'm probably going to go to 16 with my charisma somewhere down the road anyway, being a technological character I thought I'd pick up Jayna Stiles to fill Virgils role as he becomes less and less capable of healing me. So should I just do it now and replace one of my companions with Jayna later on?

And one last thing, am I going to run into more technological followers later on? I thought it'd be interesting to have an all-tech party, except for Virigil whom I plan to keep around to finally find out his story.

Any thoughts are appreciated, just try not to spoil it too much for me. Thanks.

 

You should find Magnus again in front of P. Shuyler and Sons.

Technological followers are: Magnus, Sebastian and Jayna Stiles. There might be others, but these are the ones that instantly come up to my mind.

 

Additional Tech Guy: Vollinger (That little gnomish bastard.)

 

I would pick Vollinger up. If you'ven't ever played it with him, he's interesting to have (story-wise, at least). That's the best I can say without giving away story-line. I would say just go through, and pick whoever suits the party.

 

I'm officially dubbing Vollinger "That little gnomish bastard" from now on. I shall not refer to him by name. I shall call him what he is - that little gnomish BASTARD.

No, I'm not even remotely bitter at the retardation the end of his plot represents. Why would I be bitter? They only took one of the few plot points that it's almost impossible to screw up, and promptly screwed it up.

That little gnomish bastard.

 

Spoiler

And just why in the world didn't anyone mention the loudest follower ever? Mr Franklin Payne would be very, very upset if he knew of this outrage.

 

Gawdammit! I was expecting to meet him somewhere down the line, having read about him in the Tarantian, but I didn't know you could recruit him...still, my fault for asking :roll:

Anyhooo, thank you all for your valuable input. Much appreciate it.

 

My bad. I've edited my post and put the text in spoiler tags so it won't spoil it for you anymore.

 

Franklin Payne is a fun character to have around at least once.

Sebastian is one of my favorite followers, so for me it's a real drag that they make you wait until fairly late in the game to even get to meet him.

If you're playing as a mage, he helps you dabble in all sorts of things you wouldn't be able to do otherwise. If you're playing as a gunfighter, his skills might be a little redundant but he's still incredibly useful to have around and good in a fight. And he can help you make a lot of extra money.

It's good to keep Magnus around for story reasons. You find out more about the little pain in the neck later, and he gets a neat subplot if you want to pursue it.

I'd say spend more CP on charisma and have both Jayna and Virgil in your party... but that's just me.

 

A bit of an update is expected on my part I guess, so here I go:

Switching Chukka for Magnus was probably the best thing I've done so far in this game. I gave my new Half-Ogre pal a broadsword and he's been creaming pretty much everything that crossed our path. Only thing that gave him any kind of trouble was a bunch of no-good thugs in the sealed parts of the Tarant sewers (first time I found the lighthouse enterance by the way), which was quickly solved with the use of my two stun grenades. I knew there was a reason for not selling them. Now I want to take him back to BMC, just to see if I'll have an easier time looting all the side rooms.

Indeed. Thank you. Am I to infer that all the fired party members return to their original place of recruitment where they can be persuaded to re-join? Even Chukka who can be told to "...return to mister Bates."?

It's quite alright. The damage is done, but like I said, I asked for it by...well, asking for it. At least I now have something to look forward to and know what to look for when I get there. I couldn't be mad at someone with an avatar as awesome as yours anyway.

Noted, thanks. I plan on rotating him in for one of the Half-Ogres when I start doing some real damage. Ideally, I want him with me when I start dealing with the Dwarves.

Yer. Virgil isn't going anywhere. He's just becoming less and less able to heal me with my tech aptitude rising. I wonder if Magnus becomes a little less useless with a tech healer on the team...

 

Magnus is definitely more useful if you have somebody who can heal him.

 

I like people with voices, really adds character to them, now if no one had voices I'd be fine but I feel like I'm missing something when they are unvoiced.

 

I think so. I've never seen an exception, I mean.