Oh, sorry, just two more questions:
(1) Once you start selling a whole bunch of stuff to merchants they eventually run out of cash. Do they replenish their coin supply if you allow them enough time by (for example) mucking about on the world map?

(2) I noticed in the game manual that receiving training in the Persuade skill does not actually improve your Persuasion, as such, but rather grants other little luxeries. But I'm guessing that levelling this skill actually grants passive advantages in certain dialogue situations? I wouldn't want to waste any points on it if it doesn't actually relate to dialogue.

Indeed, it's not a bad idea to get the benefits of formal training, but maxing out Persuasion is necessary for some kinds of quest resolution or even, occasionally, getting a quest in the first place (as I recall.)
You can get through the game without it, but you'll miss some dialogue and will fight a couple more battles.

Yep. Merchants reset their inventory and money supply after a day passes when they are "off-screen". So you can't just sit in a shop and then fast forward time to the next day - that won't have any effect. But if you go out of the shop and down the street a bit, until you can't see the person any more then fast forward a day their stock should reset.

And so that also means you can just "muck around the world map" and they'll replenish their supplies too.

You should base this decision on how you want to play your character. Do you want to talk your way out of a lot of situations? If so, persuasion is definitely a good skill to put points into. Also, you will need a minimum level in order to buy formal training for it.... i.e. you can't train to an apprentice if you still only have level 1 persuasion skill.

If you don't mind solving things in other ways, then you don't need persuasion at all. It's your choice how you want to overcome the obstacles in the game.


EDIT -- I meant Expert, not Apprentice. You can indeed get Apprentice level at low skill, but you need higher levels to get Expert.

You sure? Your general sentiment is certainly correct, but I thought you could get Apprentice training with even a token bonus to a skill, just Expert and Master had difficult minimums.
I could totally be wrong about this.

That said, you pretty much need to max out Persuasion if you want to depend on it. It's not quite all or nothing, but late game it gets to be, and end game it's very much so.

I believe to train as an apprentice in a particular skill path you need only input one point to meet the requirements.

You (and MackieStingray) are correct, I was thinking of Expert, not Apprentice.

In my experience the numbers are kind of funny across the board. You need minimal knowledge of a skill to get Apprentice benefits, middlin'-to-odd number of points for Expert, and something just short of capped to get Mastery.
I think. Not sure.

Does the game at least reward you handsomely for employing Persuasion instead of violence (or other alternatives)? I tend to get a little bit worried that if I don't do the fighting I will be missing out on cool swag and experience points. Even if one receives the XP, don't you miss out on certain items?

By the way, how often does one receive Fate Points? I'm guessing they are only awarded for completing certain quests, and that those quests are only those pertaining to the main plot (and not side quests)?

Well, you could always learn to pick pockets well enough to remove people's clothing, and then you won't miss much swag...
Honestly, you do get some decent swag for killing everybody you might potentially anger.* There's something to be said for that approach. That, and there's a couple of areas where combat's fairly forced which reward a combat-based character greatly by not being horribly, monstrously difficult.
On the other hand, Persuasion opens a lot of doors, and if combined with a decent Intelligence results in more interesting dialogue, and the combat system in the game, while entertaining, is not especially good. How often? Actually, that depends on how many side quests you do. Most possible Fate Points are from side quests, some mutually exclusive because they're spawned by different approaches to a given quest.

* Erm. Don't use Disintegrate on an opponent whose equipment interests you. Tends to destroy the equipment.

There are several walkthroughs on gamefaqs that list thing that you can do to receive fate points and not all of them are related to the main quest.

Experience points are a bit weird in Arcanum. From combat, you get points for hitting enemies as well as killing them... this is so that you could simply "knock out" everyone instead of killing them and still get experience. Practically it means that a melee fighter levels very fast, probably too fast, and you'll be maxed well before finishing the game. There are definitely experience rewards for using persuasion instead but they might not quite match what you get as a fighter.

That said, the point really is to have fun. You can go back and play a fighter who gets all the swag later. Then try an evil mage. Or a technologist thief. These characters all give different experiences and each can be really fun. So if being persuasive sounds fun to you, go for it! If you'd rather beat up people and get lots of swag, go for that instead. Ideally, after you've chosen, you can go back and try the other option with a new character.

Also I should note that Arcanum is not as heavy on loot as some other RPGs... it's no Diablo, but there's still enough cool stuff to find. There are also lots of unique items that you might miss on your first playthrough and can find with a new character later.