Arcanum
I've had Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura sitting in my gog library for a couple of years, but never played past the opening area. I've decided to finally give it a good try, and am having a great time with it so far. I Got as far as the first town on my first try but felt like my character was a bit of a mess build-wise. Im about to the same place now on my second try with a seemingly much better character. I've got a female half-elf with high charisma and points in melee and dodge, extra points in persuasion, and she dabbles in some utility non- combat Magick.
My impressions so far is that the combat is so-so, but the dialog, exploration, and voice acting are all really great. It seems like a game that will require multiple playthroughs to get the bulk of the content out of it.
What do you guys and gals think of the game, and what are your favorite character builds?
My impressions so far is that the combat is so-so, but the dialog, exploration, and voice acting are all really great. It seems like a game that will require multiple playthroughs to get the bulk of the content out of it.
What do you guys and gals think of the game, and what are your favorite character builds?
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Comments
Of course his background was
Mad Doctor: You have performed numerous untested and dangerous medical experiments upon yourself but suffer from the adverse effects. You have gained +2 to Intelligence and Perception , a +20% to Poison and Electrical Resistance, and a +4 to Healing skill, but you suffer -1 to Beauty and Charisma , -2 to Dexterity and -3 to Constitution .
Fun times
I might go play this now, thanks a lot >.<
Edit: I really liked that Intelligence actually factored into your dialogue... to a major degree!
Heck, if I'd own beamdog I'd drop D&D and instead pursued the creation of Arcanum Enhanced Edition and especially new Arcanum games... full throttle! The world really needs new steampunk RPG's infused with magic.
http://paulthetall.com/arcanum-mac/
The crafting was pretty good I thought, searching a trash can and finding trash materials to make a Molotov cocktail, fuel, bullets or even a light revolver. I also really liked the Half-ogre story... to a point.
There's a lot of good build but the better is to choose them for lore reason. One of my favorites is the full techno (it's possible but a bit hard at first, but the medicine tree and the one with the meca - arachna is totally broken at end. And it still open a lot of social dialogue option)
Making a low intelligence character is always good for a chuckle too, mostly for how exasperated it makes Virgil at how terrible his luck is.
...why so ugly, Arcanum?
I love the game though. I think my favorite was an ogre technologist. Guns were too big for him, but giant electrical axes and magnetic tophats and all that sort were right up his alley! If ever there should be another Enhanced Edition of a game, please, please let it be this one. It needs some love.
I admit I am sorry I have overlooked the game, it seemed pretty good. Might give it a try after I finish SoD again.
One thing I really like is that the quests seldom seen to be resolvable in on step. I can only think of one or two simple fetch quests I've come upon. And no one should be taken at their word!
Also, with a companion like Virgil
The Virginnothing can ever go wrong, since if you're a "bad guy" he'll become a bad guy! You're a good guy? Then, so is Virgil! Such Loyalty!Otherwise, I don't really have any good character builds. Though, I have attempted to do a Blackguard that gets redeemed into a Paladin.
Still, I do need to beat the game going Full Evil one day, all three of my playthroughs I was playing largely the same game but with different race/class combos. I also need to beat it playing a super low intelligence character some day, as far through as I've gotten with that was a laugh riot. Great, great writing and overarching story to Arcanum. This thread makes me want to go play it but I'll probably hold off until I've cleared BG/ToSC -> SoD -> SoA/ToB a few times with different alignments/charname builds/party composition.
If there were a crowd-funder about this one to make the next game, I'd be all in for it.
I've played to nowhere near finishing several times.
I tend to favor mages because I like mages. I haven't tried a technologist yet.
I really enjoyed the worldbuilding.