It teleports? Well hot-diggity!

It's just a sanity-saving measure on the game's part. Basically, anybody will do that if left far enough behind.
Not that it changes the awesomeness much.

The arachnids are slow as hell and weak in combat. The automatons move as fast as normal characters and get plenty of attacks at high damage and are much better in combat. I sometimes keep a medical arachnid or two in the group and tell them to back off during fights (they're pretty good at getting themselves killed). The other two arachnids are garbage. The decoys move pretty fast too and I like to keep the medical one and the lantern ones around as distractions (the actual decoy enrages your own party members unfortunately and dont live long enough to be a distraction)

I am level 35 and I have Dog, Gar, Raven and Virgil. Do you think I have a chance at the Vendigroth ruins? After soemone helps me lets get this back on topic.

Yes, you are strong enough to beat this ruins easily. Just watch out for the automatons (break your armors and weapons) and poison spider... They are quite nasty if you are unprepared... :-)

To get back on topic as I did sort of drive us off, I think a fun character build I want to try would be a very smart half-ogre with high persuasion. Something cool about being well-educated and thought of as just a dumb brute and surprising folk. There are some smart Ogre (or is the plural Ogres?) in the game and I find them neat. Maybe I'd go with s tech-leaning too.

Thanks for the help but I have beat the game this morning, I didnt lose a single party member to Kerghan. Well for my second runthrough Im doing an evil Arsonist that uses plenty of explosives.
That does sound cool David.

I did a run through as an idiot savant ogre mage. It was kind of funny to get all idiot dialog and then be a super powerful mage at the same time.

This was my first character, I made a mage half ogre with high persuasion. It was fun polymorphing enemies and having a big party. I went to a lot of trouble to get the ogre sized smoking jacket. The npc reactions coupled with the background trait that makes people either really like or hate your actions meant I could turn some people around but most initial reactions where downright mean.

Their reactions can seem totally unwarranted, until you do the optional side quest that covers the origins of the half ogre race. Takes on a whole level when you 'discover' that place and you're playing this nice guy half ogre.

My other favourite was is a loner mage/thief. I took every opportunity to piss people off just to trigger a fight. He was a real low life. But he was unstoppable in combat and levelled like crazy. Never needed super gear (cursed dagger and a casual suit for the whole game) and could handle just about anything. Stunning does wonders to your backstabbing ability in combat, and you get it so early you become a powerhouse. Four bears random fight early on? no trouble. Provided you don't crit-fail-murder yourself too often while learning the ropes (melee training). Save often early on, it will happen.

Where do you get a Half-Ogre smoking Jacket? My Half-Ogre is a friendly fellow but everyone is mean to him. Perhaps being an idiot savant doesn't help much. Heh. I'm doing a unique magic-tech balance too, trying to level up to make automatons and have some magic skills. It's making things harder than my straight-up mage who just rips through stuff.

<Edited one second later to change "Ogre" to "Half-Ogre" as I of course can't play an Ogre>

I'm currently running a half-orc techno/melee fighter. pretty standard stuff, but it's working quite well.

For my next character though I do have in mind a female half-orc gunslinger lady-killer. Where her looks and other 'persuasive skills' fail her, she'll have a high firearms skill to sort things out.

And making her a half-orc just seems narky to me for some reason, like a really smart half-ogre.

The tailor in Tarant sometimes has it in stock.
Chukka (GB's bodyguard) wears one. To get Chukka to join, you need to be good, have a CH of 12+, investigate the BMC mines for Gilbert Bates and agree to go to the Isle of Despair.

While I wouldn't recommend this for anyone's first character, I love the dumb brute Half-Ogre just for the hilarious journal entries. You do miss a LOT of the game this way, however.

It seems if you choose idiot-savant your journal is written as if you're smart--which you are, you just can't express yourself in an intelligent way and everyone assumes you are an idiot. Still, interesting.

in your head your are smart. so whatever you write is perfectly understandable for you.