I've noticed that the fastest way to gain XP is through combat. I know this might sound obvious, but I can take one romp through some dwarven mines with no amount on my XP bar, and by the end of it, I'll have almost leveled up twice. By contract, I'll hang around the cities, knock off a few non-combat quests and I'll barely get through one level. Fair enough, maybe I'm knocking off quests that are a bit too easy for my level, or I'm tackling combat areas just right for my level. Either way, it seems that the game really heavily rewards combat, moreso than quests.

I'm not really complaining, just commenting.

I've noticed that too, you're definitely not the only one. The only thing keeping us (the player) from slaughtering entire towns for the XP is probably fear of killing someone important in the main quest. ;-)

Regardless, I found Arcanum to be extremely satisfying for both story & combat.

Yeah, the leveling in Arcanum is not really balanced. Experience is given for hitting enemies as well as killing them in an attempt to reward players who were attempting non-lethal combat like knocking out enemies. In practice it means that characters gain XP through combat much faster than they do by other methods, and characters with fewer followers level faster because they are doing most of the killing themselves.

But like ChaunceyK said, I find Arcanum to be really fun even with its balance issues. While they're problematic from an intellectual standpoint (i.e. asking whether Arcanum contains good game design), I don't think the imbalances really affect my enjoyment. And having played a melee character with only one follower, I found that I really leveled too quickly anyway, maxing out long before the main quest was done. So if anything focusing on combat can make the game too easy, rather than it being the only viable solution.

Yeah, my current character only has virgil and dog. And dog is insane in combat. So I dont even have to do much and I get Kill XP. Unfortunately i'm a tech character and Virgil can't heal me. But he does a good job of keeping Dog in good condition, and he's getting good spells, like the speed one I saw him use the other day.

Fun times...

But yeah, it definitely would be an experience using a charisma/persuation heavy character, with lots of followers.

Haha thats an interested character type.

On another note, I've just picked up Jayna, and the annoying thing is that she's level 6, and I'm level 30. Oh well, at least it's someone who can make therapeutics for me, and carry extra stuff.

Thankfully, in my experience once you hit the cap at 50, your party members continue levelling when you would have. I don't know if that's a result of patching, or just a good design decision.

Both. It's a good design decision by Drog Black Tooth (patch v091225).

I have many love for Drog Black Tooth. I say coochy-coochy too.

Cool. Thanks to Drog, I wonder what he's working on now (if anything).

Jayna has already come in handy, providing a few elixers of persuasion. I've slipped through a couple dialogue chokepoints already since picking her up. Ace!