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It's been a long time since i played Arcanum and i was wondering what type of character do you play?Thief,warrior,mage or something different.

I've completed it with a half-elf blacksmith/fighter, a female elf debutante mage, a halfling throw-focussed thief and an idiot savant human engineer.

My favourite types tend to be either craftsmen or thieves, mages just don't suit my tastes. Thieves I really enjoy, however they are quite weak for a long portion of the game (that's possibly why I like them).

In terms of power play the most powerful I've created was a half-ogre backstab mage. Weaken seems to ease my hth combat a lot if I ever bother to use it on top of the imba half-ogre bonus damage.

Other than that I enjoy playing an evil half-orc slicing my way up with the Bangelian Scourge.

On the tech side a bow/melee hybrid was most entertaining.

I don't really understand what a thief consists of, because I guess he'll probably be using melee/dodge skills anyway and once you have that the backstab skill provides with an excellent spice to it to be left ignored. Most of my chars have 2 points of pickpocket anyway since it makes the game so much easier considering all the keys and stuff people tend to wear, not to mention the thief quests. Well... that's all I can think of for now I guess.

Well the thieves I play tend to rely on backstab and Prowling, at max prowl level the character can run without slowing down and becomes invisible to all monsters and characters. Then by standing behind someone and hitting them, it tends to instant kill most monsters.

Prowling is really bizzare at mastery level.

However backstab seems to be tied with melee and a low melee means missed backstabs (annoying and logical).

There are quite a few variations to the thief class though.

Most of the times, I play a melee Fighter/Mage, which is by far the most powerful character you can get, I think.
I also enjoyed my gunsmith.
I also tried a tech melee dwarf. He was ok, but got a bit boring after a while.
Next up is a thief/technologist.

Half-elven, Famale, Wizard (force and transport school). Reputation: -100
I was investing in dodge and melee too.

The first character I played was a half-elf melee/mage but that didn't work so well for me. The first character I completed the game with was a butt-ugly dwarf technologist with wicked guns and firearm skills. At the moment I have quite a few chars. on the go including a neutral-ish aptitude half elf archer, a 100% evil and magic Dark Elf, another neutral-ish aptitude char but this time he's a halfling thief and a big dumb half Ogre who tries to be good but sometimes doesn't understand the situation and ends up doing evil.
I must say that Bodge (my idiot Ogre) is great for dialogue but the amount of missions I've missed out on...and the fact I can't even TALK to the peeps at P. Schyler and Sons is annoying. Evil is great , again for dialogue, but similar story problems occur though these can be overcome, for the most part anyway, by chucking points in CH and Persuasion. And...I think I'll shut up now :laugh:
Hi, BTW!

I havent done a technologist yet, but i made a dwarf-gunner Miracle operation background and it looks pretty nice. All i did was make him i haven't actually played him yet though.

My very first chr was a half elf Magick/mellee chr with a lot in chr. it was ok i guess but i uninstalled the game thinking i wouldnt play him again and alas he is gone now.

I'm also working on an ogre...Thief? sounds terrible but i made him have a feral child background which also negates the prowling deduction on ogres, and he gets lots of dex, str, plus ogres are just mean, and i have him working on pickpocket and picklock skills. I dunno how a big guy like that sneaks up behind you and hits you but he does!

Charisma is prob my fav thing, in fact it's almost required of all my chrs cuz to me the game isn't as much fun without some followers, and the ability to talk yourself into and out of anything.

I like to play with a pure melle doge type character {half orc"}

At the moment a halfling with troll-offspring, dex 22, dodge master, meele master, backstab master, prowling master, pick pocket master; spot trap apprentice, using the spell "hasten", no followers.
I use some "arcane" stuff and the finger of mannox, the dagger of speed/the sword you get in the pit(?) and enchanted war boots.

Before i tried a (solo) halfling thief with the pyrotechnic bow and dynamite, also a very powerfull char.

I like solo chars

I prefer to play without followers, and am something of a min-maxer. (No rotten tomatoes, please! )

So I've played everything from an elven mage who ran away with the circus, to a human escaped lunatic (for the bonuses), to a dwarf technologist beaten with the ugly stick (so I could still get to 20 DX).

Except for the dwarf, who took Virgil plus every dwarven follower available in the game, almost all of my characters are solo tank mages: I use spells for healing, protection and enhancement (like Hasten, Purity of Water and Blur Sight) rather than to attack.

:mischief: I also love Haggle; it lets me convert spoils into cash without having to drag my inventory all over the map! So my current favorite character is a Gnome professional knife tosser; by the time I've left Shrouded Hills, I've cleaned out Bessie Toome's mine and power-shopped the local wise woman for a mystical chakram that pretty much cuts Lukan's entire clan's heads clean off - often in three rounds or less!

Right now i have a magic-allergic dwarf with an elephant gun. It looks pretty hilarious, since the muzzle flame that comes out is as big as himself! I wish it had more of a cannon-like sound though. Would be even funnier if you'd get knocked back a square with every shot, something i can imagine pretty well with Mr. shorty here.

My first char was a half-elf mage with transport, mental and white necro schools, who used melee dodge persuasion and pickpocket, but he wasn't quite good. Then I played with a halfling thief tech with electricity mechanics and smith, who used melee and dodge again, and pickpocket, pick-lock, backstab and prowling. He was alright as a build and was powerful in using found schematics, but needed more XP to advance with so much skills, attributes and disciplines on his head. Now, I play with female for a change, a human tech with gunsmith and explosives, who uses firearms, repair, and persuasion (and I'm thinking about adding some dodge in case someone gets near me).

The first time I completed the game I used a bizarre combination. I played a human female with "Charlatan's Protege" feat and, unsurprisingly, maxed Charisma and Persuasion. That meant that I hardly took part in battle during the game. All I did was picking locks and doing the talking. Basically, Dex and Cha are the most important skills in the game. The final baddy was dead long before I could even reach him.
That's why I LOVE this game. You can actually talk your way through. Oh, and hangin' around with dwarven and elven royalty is really good for one's reputation.

P.S. Oh, I maxed Dex for speed and Dodge eventually, and Melee at the very end of the game, though I never used used it, cause my Strength sucked anyway.

If I play the game normally I have a swordfighter mage with spells teleport, fireflash, reserect, and a few others.

Recently I found a character editor and have a "god" character with all stats, spells and techs maxed, along with 1k hp and mp.
It feels great destroying everything. Too bad when you get to Kergan you cant tell him you already killed everyone.

Well, I've played the game a few times, but the latest character I ran through it with was a Half-Orc debutante electrician/smith/fighter/theif. Alas, I didn't plan it well, so by the time I had crafted the Tesla Rod, I had only the firearms skill gained from the Aincient Gods quesline, giving me, at best, a 60% chance to hit anything at range. Plus my perception was very poor. Still, Charged Axes were quite probably the best weapon that I used. Seems they don't suffer from getting damaged when you pound on rock creatures with them

I'm going to try this game again soon. The only problem with it (besides the bugs, which aren't a problem anymore) is choosing the right character, because they all look so damn fun.

I have played

Human gunslinger - He was okay. I think I gave him up at Vendigroth. It was my first so that's understandable. Virgil was useless because he kept wasting his spells on me (which didn't do anything because of high aptitude). I took almost every follower I could.

Human mage - Surprisingly adept. I took a more traditional team with Virgil and Sogg, and eventually Raven, and someone else I forget. I was sent to the void for insulting or attacking (I forget) Nasrudin, made it to the end guy, but couldn't kill him because I never got the device. Gave that guy up.

Elf diplomat - Once I reached the caves with the golems I kind of gave him up. Giving up the ability to really fight anything for the sake of charisma and beauty wasn't really worth it.

Halfling idiot fighter - I gave him the fine steel dagger, pumped up melee, dodge, dex, and strength, destroyed his charisma and intelligence, and just hacked my way through. Probably the most effective character there is combat-wise, but you miss out on EVERYTHING. It's okay, I just wanted to beat the game. When he couldn't hit golems with his dagger he punched them to death. I'll tell you what though, there was some incredibly hilarious dialog. There have been only two games where I've really laughed out loud - Secret of Monkey Island and the idiot path in Arcanum. He tore through everyone in the void, right up to the final boss. The ending is pretty wonky though and doesn't really account for you being an idiot if you decide to join the bad guy (I honestly forget his name).

I started with d0rf technologist, and focused more on the gunsmithy/engineering. Of course the first time has to be done, without any help or guides, and it has been so. I found hard to destroy golems in dwarf mountains, but after that part of the game it has been pretty cake.

All the characters i rolled after that have always been tech users, mainly focused on throwing + bombs of any kind(mixed up blacksmith/alchemy to make deadly and funny bombs), especially those bombs that cut enemy's fatigue.

Rolled once a caster, but didn't play force, too much faceroll, so i preferred going with black necro and summoning. Also rolled a melee user, but after getting obese armor, obese weapons, 5/5 dodge-melee, you are just a ****ing tank, nothing can take you down and gets boring.

So ye, always tech bro

I've just started my first run of this game. Purely on instinct I went for a Human Gunslinger with Tech skills, as I found out on the bandits/bridge mission grenates are incredibly powerfull, so I'll probably go that direction with high PE and guns.

Enjoying it so far, except the first couple of enemies seem overly powerfull, and the lack of them makes it hard to grind/farm to raise lvl.