SheBear: I've never played a pure mechanics build (no, or almost no, combat skills), but I have played a build where I've made automatons. They are great - once you are able to build them. They are way faster than spiders, and do much more damage.

And in terms of spiders, use the normal ones; they are pretty good. The poison ones, are, in my opinion, not worth it. And the medical one which you can get from completing Maxim's quest isn't that useful either.

If you want to just let automatons do all of the killing for you you'll want to tech up to the end of the mechanics tree (and smithy? I forget if you can buy the armor required to build them or if you have to build it) as fast as possible and then get the schematic.

But basically, yeah that is almost certainly viable as a build for the game. And I think once you're able to build them you can build as many as you want without a follower limit. But make sure you keep Sogg around because they are heavy when in your inventory so if you want to have extras (in case some get destroyed) you'll probably want him to carry them.

In terms of the trap stuff: I've never played a trapper character. I think it is somewhat viable, though probably mostly with a lot of patience, prowling skill, and traps before luring enemies over the "minefield." But I think you can buy schematics for some other types of traps from the basic two you can build (spike trap and bear trap).

SheBear: Yeah, as Pulzarokkit said, only your character can learn found/bought schematics, and you can't influence what technology disciplines followers put points into. I believe all followers will learn up to the second to last item in the tech tree they put point into (in Vollinger's case, the Gunsmithy tree). And so you can have him build some guns, but not everything unfortunately.

Gazoinks: If you learn a schematic and try to build it, won't a follower step in if they have higher skill in a given discipline? I could be wrong though, I haven't done much Follower-crafting besides using Vollinger as my battery mule.

Gazoinks: Somewhat off-topic, but spell casting NPCs also only learn the second to last spell in a discipline (or at least most do, I'm not sure if there are any that learn an entire tree). It's, uh, kinda annoying.

SheBear: hmm... no idea actually. I don't know if I've ever tried that. I know they do that if you try to use a skill they are better at (like lockpicking for example).SheBear: Yeah, it is annoying. I think it is a design decision to force the player to choose to specialize in something rather than relying on followers if they want to best of anything. It is a bit annoying for sure.

Lukier: Ok, for now I can tell you, that mechanical thief with no serious damage (str 5 halfling) is hard to play :) My traps are hard to use in every combat, some times worked great, but sometimes were just useles, cause enemies came to me around :) Without Sogg I couldn't beat any hard battles. Also I hired dogg for Black Mountain Clan Dungeon, cause I was scarry about golems and stuff. And it was good decision :P I'm still waiting for Automaton, or at least Mechanical Spider to find, if electro-mechanical way is fun to play :)

Gazoinks: I believe the schematic for automaton is

[Don't read if you want to find it yourself]







In Ashbury.

Lukier: I think mage followers can have all spells from choosen schools, but I'm not sure about this.

SPOILER: Virgil has ressurection spell when he is experienced, hasn't he? END OF SPOILER.

Lukier: Now, when I learned all mechanic technology, I really want to create mechanical spider and automaton. That's why I asked you about one more thing. There are any places where i can find small steam engine? Or will it appear random in shops? I can imagine that it's rare item, but I have never seen it before (maybe because I used to play mages) and have no idea, where I should start my searching.