Playing Arcanum for the first time, and I'm definitely excited. Unfortunately, I'm not too sure on how to develop my character. I started out as a Half-Orc with Miracle Operation, giving me these stats (Beauty and Willpower don't matter much at all):

Str 6
Con 4
Dex 5
Int 11
Per 13
Cha 9

I'm pretty much dead set on this set-up. It's just from here, I don't know how to develop & distribute my stats. I know I need to pump Dex up big time. Outside the stats, I'm putting an extra point into Melee up to level 2 to get me through the beginning + taking out small fry so I don't have to waste my bullets. Going to max out Firearms, of course. Put some points into Persuasion and Dodge. Maybe throwing if I have points to spare. As for Techs, the only one I'm sure about taking is Gunsmith. I'm sorta clueless on how the other techs will benefit my character.

How should I develop my character? Like what order to distribute stats, and input on what other techs I should take up. Personal opinions and such.

Perception will help you shoot targets that are far away. But it's not as important as Dex, which will be your main stat. Early guns are pretty weak (like in Fallout) so be ready to hit things with swords too in the early game. Later on guns get more powerful.

You'll find that while there are many options for where to spend points, lots of things have prerequisites, so it's not that hard to decide where to put things. For example, getting tech disciplines requires Int, so if you know you want to get a new tech, you'll start pumping up Int. Dex is required for better melee and dodge skills.

I would stick to melee and firearms for weapons... throwing is far more useful if you want to play a grenadier instead of a gunslinger (grenadiers are probably easier, actually, but possibly less fun). I forget what the stat is that you need for higher firearms skill... it might be perception, meaning you'll be required to pump that a little as you bump your firearms skill.

You can play a gunslinger without gunsmithing... you can buy and find guns instead of making them yourself if you want. So that's sort of a personal choice. You should definitely consider putting 1 point into Explosives to let you make your own bullets. You can alternatively use a tech manual for this so you don't have to spend the character point, but you'll want to make bullets quite often so it's probably worth the character point so you don't have to lug a manual around or keep returning to a home base to make the bullets.

Other tech disciplines you might like to choose from include:

Mechanical, which will let you build robotic allies to fight for you
Smithing, which lets you build tech armor and melee weapons for yourself and your NPC followers to use
Herbology to make tech healing items (although you can also recruit a follower to make these for you, or just buy them)
Electrical, which lets you make some useful items like a healing jacket and a tesla rod which is like an electrical gun (and conveniently uses the firearms skill)

I'd recommend taking one of these disciplines in addition to gunsmithing to make your character more interesting. Or if you don't take gunsmithing, take two of these. You should have enough points for two tech disciplines.

The absolute most important thing is to have fun! Don't worry too much about designing an effective character, but instead think about what sounds fun to play. And if it doesn't work out, just start again with a new build that sounds more interesting.

Awesome, thanks for the advice. Put me on the right track

It's actually a bad idea to deviate a lot of your stats away from 8 in the beginning; low CN means you'll get knocked out from fatigue damage by wolves while low DX means less movement bubbles. If anything, you can fudge IN (keeping it at an eight or nine) because you can boost it (when needed for schematics) with an intelligence potion OR you can just steal a lot of the higher tech guns by using fate points (don't need any points in Gunsmith really).

I'd advise trying a game as human with NO heavy stat-shifting background; put your points into DX and throwing. Skip melee, because boomerangs and molotovs are the ticket to staying alive and leveling fast until you can access your gun arsenal. Charged rings are a pretty good schematic to go after as well, get two of those and you've added +4 to your DX.

My character is a molotov throwing gunsmith human with miracle operation background, with this build I find the game to be exceedingly easy. Just keep in mind that you're basically support, in other words, never ever tank. Invest a point in healing salve, build a repeater rifle, and fire away while sogg mead and co tank. (you can order them to attack, so you don't get flocked) Mollies are very cheap, both in cost and in battle. If you find yourself surrounded just firebomb them to hell. Since I avoid damage, I have the luxury of wearing the +20 reaction suit which helps with haggling and is extra stylish.

It's also a good idea to build yourself a pair of charged rings (+2 DX each) to bypass your low speed. Remember to get apprentice guns training from the doc, +5 speed.

Also, buy the bullet schematics in Tarant, cheap bullets are key to not going bankrupt.

Honestly the miracle op background seems like a great idea because of the huge perception boost, but it ends up a bad idea. This is because guns don't get any bonus damage, their damage is merely determined by the weapon itself.

This means the only way to increase your damage through stats as a gunslinger is by speed, determined by Dexterity. This makes the -3 dex rather crippling.

You can still actually overcome this up to a max of 20 by using 2 charged rings, but that's only to 20 dex. Halflings can get to 22, and they get increased crit chance.

Generally, halfling raised by orcs is the best way to go for gunslinging.

The main stats a gunslinger needs are dexterity and perception, plus enough strength to meet the minimum strength requirement of their weapon. You want dexterity at max as quickly as possible in your character's life, and perception probably at max, but 18 will suffice.

I wouldn't bother putting points in gunsmithy for any reason barring roleplay, because it doesn't give you anything that you can't acquire from various NPCs through the game anyway (albeit in limited quantities). More generally useful tech disciplines to invest in are herbology for curatives, electrics 2 for a pair of charged rings (that's +4 dexterity assuming you have something in the order of 16 or higher tech aptitude), and explosives 4/chemistry 1 for stun grenades, which are very good (both for fighting and selling en masse for easy cash), as well as paralysis grenades, which are obscenely overpowered and work against everything in the game, even mechanical enemies and undead.

If you take Magnus and get him a few levels, he can make you a set of eye gear, which will add +2 to your perception. You can use this along with a helmet of vision to build a goggled helmet that gives +3 to perception, but you need smithy 5 to build a helmet of vision, and I don't think any can be found in the game otherwise.

You get a fate point from dealing with the brigands blocking the way out of Shrouded Hills. Save it until you get to Tarant, then find Sammy White and use it to steal his hand cannon. It's the firearm you get from investing in gunsmithy 6, it does a lot of damage for the point at which you can acquire it, and it's the best pistol you can get until very late in the game.

Also keep an eye out for elephant guns (you can acquire two in the game from NPCs), and looking glass rifles (you get only get one of these without gunsmithy). Elephant guns are a powerful weapon on their own, and can be used to create a blade launcher with a schematic randomly stocked by quality smiths. Looking glass rifles are middling weapons post-patch, but are a component for creating tesla guns; inventors' shops randomly stock the schematic for those. You need electrics 7 to build a component for the tesla gun, however.

Some other assorted notes that might be useful for a gunslinger:

- Carrying a lantern or electric light in your offhand *does* increase your accuracy at a range in darkened areas, if you didn't already know this.

- All firearms are obviously tech weapons, and so if you're fighting enemies with magickal aptitude, your to hit chance will be penalised if your tech aptitude is lower. The game likes to be a dick with this by flatout giving enemies 100 MA, especially things like ore golems. Try to keep your tech aptitude high.

- Sniping actually does work well in this game in turn based combat, if you have a firearm with a long enough range to be able to hit enemies and still hit R to end combat (and that's not as long a range as you might imagine). It's possible to shoot your enemy until your AP runs low, then tap R twice to fully replenish it without giving them a chance to advance on you. Repeat until they're down. This is cheaty, though, I suppose.

- If you're at a loss for things to spend character points on, it's always worth it to invest in willpower up to 12, and then buy 3 points in temporal magick for the hasten spell. It's easy to maintain on its own, it ignores your magickal aptitude or lack thereof, and it doubles your speed, which is a tremendous advantage for a gunman. There are a few magickal colleges like this for which your magickal aptitude is largely irrelevent, but temporal really works very well for anyone. Techno-mages can be quite powerful. If you don't feel like dabbling in magick, though, you can also just stockpile potions of haste from gypsies; these will work regardless of your tech aptitude too.

Good luck!

There's some great advice in this forum. I'm doing my first playthrough as a melee character, but I really want to create a gunslinger in the future. Now I have a better idea of what to do!

You can get a temporary IN bonus via an aptitude-neutral potion from the gypsy. (Gypsies do not discriminate against techies.)

Technical manuals increase your expertise in a particular discipline by your intelligence for the purpose of using found schematics. They are permanent but pricey.

Note that learned schematics cannot be found - you have to spend points in a discipline to learn them, and your IN at the time of crafting should be high enough. So stock up on those potions.

Here's an awesome, slightly spoilerific (in that it mentions NPCs and place names) guide to schematics.

For what it's worth, master gunslingers don't all take the same form. (As if you couldn't guess by the similar-but-not-same advice seen above.)
My favourite gunslinger character to date only took up gunfighting as an alternative to diplomacy, and to back up her friends on her quest for self-discovery and safety. First and foremost she was a diplomat and a therapist.

Her trouble was that she was frightfully ill as a child. When a strange but effective operation miraculously granted her survival, she turned to learning internal medicine. I don't think she ever mastered surgical Healing, as it was really in part a matter of convenience for herself. She was seldom at the physical par of others, you see, and felt the key to better living was, if you'll pardon the joke, through chemistry.
After the zeppelin crashed and she discovered she was the target of assassins, it became clear to her she would be greatly reliant on friends and allies to keep her well. She learned to armour them, even going to the extra effort to create machined armour for most of the party, including herself.
Over the course of this time, she also learned to be at first a very competent, then a very masterful gunfighter.
She ever relied on technical manuals for her bullets, fuel and other ammunition, and never did learn gunsmithing. To the very end she headshotted her enemies from the hip with her hand cannon, and when the ammunition ran out she turned to a strange weapon which fired, well, fire and was made in part from mithril. She was a great warrior when she had taken her medication, and those same skills also improved all her allies fairly constantly.*
She was fun as hell.

* This does mean I would spend a lot of time and money crafting augmentations before most quests and combats, which could get tedious. Also, there's a late-game device which, if you make it and take it yourself, improves every stat by +1. However, it can be easily (and permanently) overridden by lesser potions! Be wary of that.

There is another way to get an early hand cannon - go into the closed sewers and through a trapdoor into the Boil.

The entrance to the closed sewers is in a little structure on a penninsula south of the gypsy, and she is on the right side exit of Tarant past the docks.

Fight left through some zombies until you reach the rats near the ladder.

Go up the latter and talk to the ogre leader through the wall without opening the door.

Tell him you will kill the other gang leader and you use technology.

I'm on my first ever playthrough and this is basically the plan I've followed. I took the Professional Knife-Thrower background because I thought the idea of a one-eyed gunfighter was cool, who cares about the -1 Perception.

The funny thing is, I'm level 18 now and I've had no need for guns so far. With maxed out dexterity and throwing skill, he gets like 11 attacks a round and once you make your way to Tarant there are a lot more options for throwing weapons. Molotovs are very useful and it's easy to have a huge stockpile of them.

So with my relentless boomerang assaults, liberal use of molotovs, and Sogg beating the crap out of stuff, I've been pretty much mowing down everything the game has thrown at me. The game has been really good so far, I really dig the world and the gameplay, it's just been a little too easy so far.

edit: sorry i didnt see your last post that you reached level 18. leveling goes fast doesnt it? :p

1 points in the melee trained as apprentice is enough to make any char pass trough the gunlessness of the first levels. make sure to have means to heal though. either pack virgil a while or take the healing powder tech method. instead of trying to pmup dodge and dex you might just take adventage of your 11 int and take gun-making techs as soon as possible to make good guns in beginning of the game.

so by the time youre level 5 and in shrouded hills you can take 2 gunmaking techs to be able to make a fine revolver and be able to put 3 points in firearms and save up enough money to have doc roberts to train you as firearms expert. bullets are sold everywhere though if youre finished just use your 1 point melee and bash things up. once i managed to go on till 10. level without any points in melee or any weapon level and i hadnt visited tarant yet (i took the dernholm + bllackroot route) but then i really needed to survive and put 1 point in melee (i still think was a mistake) and 3 points in bows. though i had virgil and sogg with me. you can take sogg too with miracle opration since it makes 9 cha.