This is part of a faq I wrote to help people new to the game love it as I have. Submitted to GameFAQs on user account Leonidusx, copyright 2012.

BASIC CHARACTER CREATION
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Melee fighters are looking for STR and DEX.

Gunslingers are looking for DEX and PER. INT allows you to create good guns, but all guns can be found.

Mages are looking for WILL. Magic aptitude and int are welcome, but not the main focus at character creation.

Do not be female.

Half-Ogres are the best melee fighters. +4 STR and +10DR is just amazing. Orcs come in 2nd.

Halflings are the best for guns, but really any race is ok for guns. Ogres can use rifles but not pistols.

Elves and gnomes are the best mages.

Choose race and backgrounds for stats OR DR.

Do not choose race and backgrounds for items, gold, npc reactions, magic/tech aptitude, or bonuses to skills.

For starting items buy a staff, rapier, and lockpick.

ALL CHARACTERS HAVE A MUCH EASIER START IF YOU USE BEGINNING CHARACTER POINTS ON THE LESSER HEALING SPELL, 2 POINTS INTO MELEE SKILL (REQ. 9 DEX), AND ONE POINT OF PERSUASION. The fifth point is typically necessary to raise the regular 8 dex to 9 for the 2nd rank of melee.




Backgrounds good for melee fighters:
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Ran away with the circus +6 STR (generally the best fighting background)
Troll Offspring +2 STR +1 DEX
Tough Hide +10DR (orc or ogre only)
Escaped Lunatic +25 DR
Raised in the pits +2 STR +2 DEX +combat skills
Beat with an ugly stick +2 STR +2 DEX


Backgrounds good for gunslingers:
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Raised by orcs +2 PER +2 STR (generally best gunslinger background)
Raised by monks +1 PER no penalties
Beat with an ugly stick +2 DEX
Raised in the pits +2 DEX -6 INT
Feral Child +3 DEX -6 INT
Miracle operation is PER +5, which might seem like a good idea but the DEX -3 is so limiting that it just isn't worth it.
Escaped lunatic +25 DR
Sickly +6 INT -1 DEX -2 STR


Backgrounds good for mages:
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Only Child +6 WILL (easily the best mage background)
Escaped lunatic +25 DR
Dark Elf +2 WILL elf only






THE GENERALLY BEST (EASIEST DOMINATING IN COMBAT) HERO
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Note that the most important part of Arcanum is that you can get through the game with ANY PLAYSTYLE, and a hero of almost every type can do extremely well in battle using the right tactics, items, and so on. SO DON'T BE AFRAID TO PLAY A CRAZY HERO! You will be so pleasantly surprised. This faq is not for placing fun limitations on heroes however, but rather is intended for optimization.

A magic using, melee and dodge mastered, maximum strength and dex hero who uses fireflash and time spells, wearing heavy armor, rings of protection, the finger of mannox as a necklace, and a good melee weapon with a shield.

This is because magic items are easier to use and find than tech items, many of the best items are magic, and tech heroes have a harder time healing (potions and heal spells don't work on them, requiring you to craft herbal mixtures).

Melee has a plentiful amount of easily found amazing weapons, applies the huge strength damage bonus and requires no purchase of ammunition.

STR and DEX are the two most important combat stats for melee fighters. A 24 strength ogre receives +28 damage per hit. 20 dex gives 25 speed.

Fireflash can easily destroy large groups of powerful enemies.

Time spells can increase your speed to insane levels, and reduce the enemies as well. STR and DEX boosting spells are available from the very beginning, and can help immensely before you max STR and DEX with points.


INCREASING STATS:
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At level 1, you receive 5 character points (CP). You receive 1 character point for each level, except every 5th level you get 2 instead of 1 (levels 5, 10, 15, etc). That's 15 total CP at level 10, 39 at level 30, and 73 at level 50.

CP can raise basic attribute stats (DEX STR CON INT WILL BEA CHA PER) or the vitality stats directly (HP, FATIGUE) or learn spells, skills, and tech disciplines. One character point spent raises a stat by 1, except hp and fatigue which raise by 4. One character point learns one spell, one skill rank, or one tech discipline level.

HP and FATIGUE will automatically raise at level up, without spending any of your character points.

The basic attribute stats normally cap at 20. If your RACE (NOT BACKGROUND OR SEX) adjusts it, the cap is increased by a bonus or reduced by a penalty. If your RACE lowers a cap below 20, then your BACKGROUND or SEX bonuses can raise the cap UP TO 20, not beyond. BACKGROUND or SEX penalties will lower caps, EXCEPT A STR CAP RAISED BY RACE. All ingame effects on the basic attribute stats will abide by these limits set at character creation.

Formulas for simplification, depending on wether race adds, subtracts, or does not affect the stat:

20 + RACE + or - BACKGROUND + or - SEX = CAP

20 - RACE + or - BACKGROUND + or - SEX = CAP LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO 20

20 + or - BACKGROUND + or - SEX = CAP LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO 20


STR CAP:

20 + RACE = CAP

20 - RACE + or - BACKGROUND + or - SEX = CAP LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO 20

20 + or - BACKGROUND + or - SEX = CAP LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO 20



It is important to note that there are ways to temporarily raise stats through spells, items, and potions, then learn what you'd like to which requires that stat while it is temporarily boosted without investing character points. These will not raise stats beyond their caps.

Through use of the elixirs of intelligence (sold at stores featuring magical potions) you can gain +10 to int, then spend points only on raising your technical field, and saving the points otherwise necessarily spent on intelligence. Purchasable technical manuals allow the proficiency to then craft items learned in this way while never raising intelligence.

The single point spent into the agility of fire spell allows you to train high in many crucial combat skills, without investing necessary dex into them. However, in the dex instance, it is not practicable as the combat skills revert to their previous level after the effect ends and the dex requirement is not met (so you have to cast agility of fire before you fight each time). But, items which have +dex will maintain their bonus as long as they are worn. The charged rings (+2 dex, tech) and gloves of dexterity (+2 dex, magical) are useful for this.

Blessings provide permanent bonuses to stats. Blessings will not raise a stat above it's max. They are almost all gained from providing the right offering at an altar to a god. The best blessing is from the final offering quest.

Blessings which are not offerings:
+npc reaction modifier from Arbalah's quest in beginning of game.
+1 beauty from stillwater temple quest. Keeping the statue in your inventory instead gives DEX -3, CHA +1, BEA +2.
+1 charisma from siding with Madam Toussade in the crystal ball quest (Tarant). Only given if you have completed the painting heist quest first.

Two things near the very end of the game give a huge permanent bonus to attributes: the vivifier potion (+1 all stats) and the final offering blessing, which gives +4 DEX, +100 HP, +100 Fatigue, 30 damage resistance, and significant bonuses to melee, dodge, lockpick, persuasion, and firearms. Planning your hero around this takes either extreme patience or going to secret areas far in advance of the storyline.

I think necroing is fine on game-specific forums. If you have a technical problem, though, be sure to post a new question thread or it may get overlooked. Also, resolved questions show up in the help section of the website. It's a great RPG, play whatever you want. If you're NOT playing a beatstick, don't waste points on combat abilities. There's one tough mandatory encounter near the beginning which may be difficult if you don't have an extra follower. Persuasion rules because it opens up new content and new options. Dialogue penalty (permanent stupid options no matter your intelligence) deprives you of a lot of quests. Special Person does not carry the penalty (Arcanum experts, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't have Arcanum installed right now), so if you really want to solve a quest, you can buy an Intelligence potion. While it effects last (a short time, but enough to have a conversation if you saved beforehand and are clicking through the correct options fast), you will have normal conversation options instead of stupid ones. I think you'll get more of the game if you do a normal playthrough first. Arcanum has a central mystery, and if you go stupid, events will just happen and your character won't be able to make sense of them. Which I guess simulates the experience of an exceptionally stupid person just fine, but then the grand reveal comes out of nowhere, not giving you a chance to figure things out by yourself.

Thanks a lot for your advice! Your suggestions are very useful to me. I guess I'll be starting a normal INT playthrough first, not the special needs ogre ;)

Also, glad I didn't inappropriately raise this thread from the dead.

My post does also say:

Note that the most important part of Arcanum is that you can get through the game with ANY PLAYSTYLE, and a hero of almost every type can do extremely well in battle using the right tactics, items, and so on. SO DON'T BE AFRAID TO PLAY A CRAZY HERO! You will be so pleasantly surprised. This faq is not for placing fun limitations on heroes however, but rather is intended for optimization.


You can basically play through the game however you want, but a lot of people have particular difficulty on the first playthrough when going through the Black Mountain Clan Mines, which is why I recommend playing as a melee powerhouse to solve that problem.

Some basic ways to get powerful on different hero types:

Melee just max str and dex, melee and dodge.

Mage get the harm, fireflash, and disintegrate spells

Gunslinger get good firearms ability, max out gunsmithing tech tree and craft an elephant gun early. Hand cannons available early are also a good idea.

Melee Thief max str and backstab (be sure to train backstab to advanced for backstabbing with swords)

Throw Tech just craft molotov cocktails, stun grenades, and explosive grenades and throw them at people.

Melee Tech craft the pyrotechnic axe.

Bows and Thrower Ranged characters need good weapons.

great starting tips here - thanks

Thanks for the tips!

I am wondering what your thoughts are on the Poster Child background, which gives +10% experience for the game, in exchange for slightly higher chance of critical hits? Is that background worth considering for any class, or is it not really that great?

If you aren't using the level cap remover, then the bonus is a waste (making the accompanying penalty not worth it). You'll max out at level 50 anyway; the bonus will just get you there sooner.

Things get a bit murkier if you install the level cap remover. I'd still vote against using that background, since it means you'll have to worry about critical misses throughout the game, IIRC even when your to-hit percentage exceeds 100% (which normally eliminates the chance of a critical miss entirely). But in terms of role playing, anything goes.

Why not? I've partially played this game through a few times, but never got more than halfway due to bugs, poor builds, and life interruptions. Each time I've started I've played a male, but this time I decided to play a female because I remember there being a brothel in one of the first areas and I was curious how that would be handled differently. Is it because I'm supposed to be the one the prophecies speak of, and they speak of a male, and if I play a female I ultimately can't be the one I'm destined to be or somesuch? I'd like little in the way of spoilers, but if a spoiler is required to explain to me why, that is fine, just try and do it minimally.

I realize that I perhaps never got farther in the game because I didn't get into the role-play aspect very much for some reason. I was wanting the story to carry me along, but I think for this game if I don't invest to play a character in the story, I'm not doing it justice, and so I'm going to do that. My thought was that I would play a Half-Elf female melee mage (thinking I'd look good with a dagger and a robe) who was Born Under a Sign to a tech-human father who was not a good man whose way of being eventually turned my once strong and beautiful magick-using mother (who awed me with her insight into nature, of humans and the earth, and use of magick as a child) into a pale and worn version of herself (which I witnessed disappear as I grew up, and by the age of 15, she was not the mother I had grown with) and so now I believe that the introduction of technology is destroying the ability for magick to exist and that I must do all that I can in order to sway the world and the people within it to once again embrace magick and forgo technology (it leads to the destruction of nature, to the tainting of the mind, etc.)

So, with all that in mind, I can simply change my character to a male and implant all that biography to him. But as you can understand, I already built it in my head as a female, and would like a good reason to switch it to male (I've not even left the crash site yet, so I don't care if I have to start over at all.)

The original thinking is twofold: Females start with a -1 to ST, which means that unless you choose a background with a strength bonus you can no longer max out at 20, which makes melee weapon damage über-powerful. And some of the NPC reactions and quests are a bit different when your PC is a woman, most notably in Tarant (where for example, instead of hiring a prostitute, you might have to be one).

That being said, not every build benefits from having high strength: bows, firearms, throwing weapons and pure mages, for example. I've played through with a female character several times, and had a blast doing so. Every available race and gender combination is capable of finishing the game; the only one where the outcome is affected is the dumbspeak half-ogre, since everyone including the final boss has to dumb down their own dialog to match his lack of wit. (I recommend finishing the game first with a more standard character before doing this playthrough, however; you won't appreciate the humor as much unless you have something to compare it to.)

Exactamundo. The best character ever is not female, it only makes it slightly harder on yourself.

The game is still fine as a female, just a little harder to be ridiculously good at melee.

So if you're not a min-maxer or don't want an OP character, there's no need for it at all, whether you're going to be playing a melee class or not, right?

Can you actually solve that one quest differently, eg. hire the prostitute as well or kill the guy/intimidate him instead?

But if you play a non-melee character (eg. mage) it doesn't matter at all, right? Or is the 'best character ever' only a melee fighter?

With all due respect to ewmarch -- because I think this thread has a lot of good info -- I don't know where this idea comes from. There are at least two or three builds (very gamey builds, mind you) that wipe the floor with a magick-based melee fighter in most situations. A magick-based melee character can easliy dominate combat throughout the game however, so what's the point? Worrying about trying to make the most powerful combat character in Arcanum is a silly waste of time, IMO. The combat system is sort of a mess, and that's not really what the game is about anyway.

That's correct. Besides the other options I already mentioned (magic, guns, etc.) you can even choose to be a backstabbing prowler, or a diplomat whose followers are the ones getting their hands bloody, etc. etc.

As far as the quest in question goes, you're dealing with a men-only facility. If you aren't male, the only way in (if you want to follow that particular side quest) is to sleep your way in.

Each of us has our own idea as to what makes a "best" character. I'm as adamant a supporter of Throwing as ewmarch is of Melee; but I've also experimented with a variety of builds, and will often create a less-than-optimal PC simply for the roleplay value (e.g. the dumbspeak Half-Ogre). YMMVAPD.

The most ridiculously powerful build I know of is the Meta Mage:

http://www.terra-arcanum.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=16678