Weapon? I don't need no stinking weapon!

Longtime Arcanum players are doubtless aware of this, so I mention it only for the lurkers who may not have discovered it. I noticed one day while trying out various weapons for Jayna that she was most combat-efficient with no weapon at all, just a pair of war gauntlets. With those alone, she dealt out more damage and had a better attack rating than with any weapon she could actually use.

Turns out, this is true of most characters, and of most weapons. Your backup guys end up being best as martial artists, so long as they have gauntlets that deal out some hurt. And there is an added bonus: when fighting adversaries that damage weapons, the gauntlets are never damaged, unlike that lovely power axe, e.g., which dissolves after a couple of smacks on an ore golem. (Instead, the character will take a few points of easily-healed damage. Bruised knuckles, I guess)

As a third advantage, it really is kind of funny to watch characters like Jayna and Virgil kick the snot (stone fragments?) out of an ore golem....

The disadvantage is that if you ever give the character anything that can be used as a weapon, even a pointed stick, they will use that in preference to going at it with fists (and feet) alone. So you can't use them as mules for crappy weapons you intend to sell in town later.

-- Mal

 

I have played 3/4 through with a complete team fighting fisty cuffs, it's actually quite enjoyable. But I have never tried hardened hands, excellent idea. You would need a high int. rating to carry enough spells for the whole party though, plus I beleive you drain fatigue when hand to hand also, so a high fatigue for the PC is also needed.

As far as carrying weapons to sell, there is a work around for that, but some may consider it cheating.

Spoiler

Google arcanum cheats and you will find a trick using empty containers to get unlimited money, and it works on anything that is stackable, bullets, arrows, fuel and batteries.

 

Interesting - is this because your followers generally don't have training in weapons skills and aren't apprentices, so use weapons very, very slowly? Or because most non-pure-melee/dodge characters rarely have the minimum strength required to use most weapons effectively? I'm going to try this out myself.

 

I had a character using Hardened Hands, Haste and Disarm a while back. It was fun, but I didn't record the actual effect of HH.

 

From my observation it seems to double the damage, so strength is also a factor in effectiveness.

But the big question is: Do you go hardened hands for just the PC or on the entire party?

Character development is quite different between the two.

 

So temporal maxed, hardened hands, melee and dodge maxed, strength maxed and dex maxed with gloves of dex. Int. up to 8 for 2 spells with extra points over for healing or extra Fatigue or what ever. It could be very do-able solo as a half ogre.

Edit: So I picked up Worthless Mutt and went to the cemetery, cast hardened hand on him and he hits for 45 damage each shot. With 15 strength and 3 points into melee w/expert I am hitting 15-20 w/ hardened hands.

 

What about a technological fisticuff character? Maybe toss in a little explosives skill so that you could knock out ranged opponents? God... now I've to find my Arcanum disk and install it again. XD

 

speaking of which, does anyone know of a way to disable npcs picking up items on the ground?