I am still in the middle of the game and have not finished it jet, so please no spoilers.
The questions are just about game mechanics.

I have played and liked computer games based on the rules of dungeons and dragons or "Das Schwarze Auge" because I WHY I hit the enemy, do this damage or another action failed. Arcanum is very complex so I try to understand how it works.
First I will will write my theory and then I ask if it is correct.

-Weapon skill
When you raise your skill (the red bar gets bigger, not the apprentice/expert/master bonus)
-Your to hit chance gets up (confirmed)
-your crit hit chance gets up
-your crit fail chance gets down
-But you do NOT do more damage with this kind of weapon.
-melee damage is affected by strength (confirmed)
-ranged weapons (bow, gun, throwing) are NOT affected by strength. They allways deal the weapon damage minus the resistence of the enemy.
IS THAT CORRECT?

Qustion: Are the action points needed for an unarmed attac dependend on the glove you wear? I know that the damage is dependent on the glove.

-how attacs work (again, this is just my theory)
-the enemy has a certain base attac chance (like you, it can be bigger than 100%)
-You have a certain armor class (AC)
-arbitary example: the enemy hit chance is 70% and your AC is 50. Than the enemy has a 35% chance to hit you (=50% of 70)
-When the enemy misses, nothing happens
-When he is successful, you get a "saving throw" depending on your dodge skill. I you are successful you dodge the attac, if not you get the damage.
IS THAT CORRECT?

-About tech rating
-I know that your magic rating influences the effectiveness of your spells and magic items
But what does a high tech value do?
A high tech value does:
-reduce the chance of a crit failure of technical things (confirmed)
-When you have a tech value of x, there is a x% chance that magic has no effect on you (confirmed)
-Does the damage of tech weapons get up?
-Does the protection of tech armor get up?
-Does the effect ot tech medicine get up?
-Magic shops will not trade with you?
-Any other effects I did not think of?
-Can a char with 100% tech value use a heal spell to heal (not himself of course) a magical or neutral crature? (his party members)
-Is there a negative effect of magic weapons? That means:
a: an increased crit fail chance
b: a weapon has 1-10(+10) damage. Does a 100% tech char do only 1-10 damage or will the damage even be lowered by a certain value (up to 10) which makes the weapon completely useless?

I am looking forward to get some answers to this.

I believe your chance to critically hit does go up, and your chance to critically fail does go down (but only to a certain level, because the Master Melee training prevents you from ever making a critical failure (except against a Dodge Master, the bonus of which is that opponents always (?) critically fail when attacking you).

And yes, I believe you are correct about the ranged weapon damage not changing (though maybe that amount of damage is affected by the skill with the weapon type...). Sorry, I'm not sure. I feel like I've been playing this game too many years to not know this type of thing. haha Nope, it shouldn't be. I think it is still the same standard number of action points for an unarmed attack. Yes, that sounds right (but again, I'm not 100% sure). All yes up to the question "Can a char with 100% tech value use a heal spell..."
I believe the answer is yes, but you have to be able to cast the spell first. And if you have a character with 100% tech rating (and buying the first spell in White Necromancy probably won't be enough to shift that down toward the Tech side) you are more likely to fail in casting the spell.
It is more effective to build and use tech healing if you want to heal magical followers because tech rating doesn't change the effectiveness of Healing Salves (unlike with Healing Potions which can fail if you are too techy). I think on a high enough Magical rating tech healing will also fail, but it is a much higher threshold than for a Healing Potion.

Negative effect on magic weapons: If the player character is using them? Yes to the second, maybe to the first. When magical weapons or armor have bonuses in parentheses that means that that bonus is the amount you get if the weapon is getting 100% "magically tuned" to the user (meaning the weapon's magical level is even with, or lower than, the player's magical aptitude). At 0% affinity (which shows on the weapon card) you get none of the bonus.
But unlike with a powerful mage using a tech thing (like a gun) there isn't a greater chance it will fail or explode, it just becomes a normal sword or helmet.


I hope all that was useful!

I don't know the exact mechanics, but chance to hit is also greatly affected by the magic/tech affinity of not just the character, but also the equipped weapon. I learned this from trial & error - for example, let's assume you have a balanced character fighting a magic-heavy monster like a mummy. If you're equipped with a neutral weapon like a balanced sword, your chance to hit will be close to zero. Swap it out with even a weak magic weapon (like an enchanted sword), and your chance to hit goes way up to the normal rating. The opposite is true when fighting a tech enemy, such as a mechanized arachnid - the balanced sword gives you a better hit chance than an arcane sword.

Thank you, that was very helpful.

My question: "can a tech char use healing magic?" was mainly because of one reason:
There are some areas full of traps. I think I lost more hit points at traps than in fights.
My mage standart way is:Tell your followers to wait, undress yourself (some traps damage your weapon or armor), walk around and heal yourself when you found a trap. In some areas I had to wait a very long time to recover my fatigue because I needet lots of healing every few steps.
When I play a tech char, I wanted to tell my naked follower to go ahead and heal him from the distance. Exept for these areas I think it is not neccessary to max out find/disarm traps.
I know that I can build a trap finder, but in these areas I have to fill my entire inventory with batteries for it. (I never did this so far, so I don`t know how many charges they have).
And than I cannot disarm them. thats fine with me but my followers walk how they want and will most likely trigger many traps.
In any case: A mage will never need healing items exept you run out of hp or fatigue in a hard battle. A tech char needs items for absolutely every healing.
When I make a tech char, I wanted to give him exactly 1 spell (heal) to save lots of items.

As a mage I have the habit of healing every char up to full health after every fight, even if they loose only 1 hp. I should stop this as a scientist. When fighting robots or golems, I remove the weapon from myself and my followers so they don`t get damaged. When fighting monsters that damage your armor I also removed the armor of myself and my followers.

Fatigue used for healing recovers by itself but equipment gets permanently damaged when repaired unless you are a master of repair. I only played a mage so far.

Edit. (When you make a new post before someone answers, it is put together as 1 post)

I have finished the game and found some new questions.

- I have read somewhere that the game is open ended, but after i deal with XXX (no spoilers^^) there was a video and I came to the menu screen.
Any idea where this rumor comes from?

-Does the the efficiency of your equipment get down when it gets damaged or has it the full effect until it gets destroied. In some games, weapons that lost 50% of their durability do only 50% damage.
As written above I always removed weapons/armors when fighting enemies that damage them.

-Can the magic/tech value or the alignment get above 100, even when it is not shown?
I played a mage, reached 100% magic value, and obtained new spells after reaching 100% magic. Did the spell effect get better by doing this?

-What does the reaction value do? No one (exept assassins, robbers and monsters of course) was hostile against me unless I provoked them. Some people did not want to cooperate with me, but that was because they were evil and I was good (I think).

I have not finished the game, though I have some 4+ games with somewhat balanced (less than 15 in tech/magic) level 40+ characters.

I presume the "Open-Endedness" refers to the game play and not necessarily the ending (though I believe the ending also changes)... that is, the choices and results in character development, npc dialogues, and quest availability & results.
For example, certain npcs join only if an attribute and/or skill is a certain level, an elf will elicit different reactions than a human when dealing with dwarves (etc.), and some areas never appear if you solve your quest goal by doing "x" rather than "y".

It's basically the same format as Fallout. It's open ended in the sense that there's a ton of side quests and player choice (and one of the few games with a main story that actually significantly changes if you choose to be evil). Like Fallout, you can't play after the ending, but there're a lot of different ending slides depending on what you did. No, I believe they work fine till they break. Nope, 100% is as high as it'll go. Reaction Value is only really noticeable when it's really high or low. Having it high will make people love you, which makes them easier to negotiate with, makes prices cheaper while shopping, can get you some quests, etc. Really low reaction means people will often refuse to talk to you unless you grovel and act pathetic, prices will be more expensive, and some people will attack you on sight. Try playing a Half-orc, it's pretty noticeable.

I wrote a FAQ to clarify a lot of how the game works.

[url=]http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/914155-arcanum-of-steamworks-and-magick-obscura/faqs/63974[/url]

Some things I never got conclusive results on: exact to hit formula, backstab formula

Thank you.
There is only a little problem.
When you click on the link, you get to the site we are now.
I had to copy this and paste it in the browser.
This problem seems to happen often in the gog forums.

Okay, since someone has already made a thread like this I wanted to add a question - how is experience obtained in arcanum ? Based on what? Opponents level? Damage done? Both? And what about companions?

Companions have a base level that is a set value, so they join at the same level every game. Companions then level up only when you level up, so the amount of level difference between you and a companion will always remain the same amount.

You get experience whenever an enemy is killed by you or a companion, and whenever you do damage to an enemy. More damage does seem to give higher exp. Melee main characters seem to get the most exp, but I don't know whether this is because they get the most hits and do the most damage (melee is really rigged in Arcanum) or if melee innately gives more exp from hits on enemies.

I believe that the PC gets experience for each hit on an enemy (which might vary by level of enemy, or by how much damage you do, I'm not sure) + a bonus when the enemy dies (which is the only way that a character which deals no direct damage can get experience through combat).

Edit: And your character also gets experience from completing quests.

Except when the player reaches max level. Then, you will notice that the experience bubbles still fill up as the player gains experience, and when they fill up all the way, followers will gain a level, but the player character will not since the player character is already at max level.

Yes, thank you waltorious for catching that. I only play with the level cap removed so it is different for my particular gameplay, and it's been so long since I played without it that I had completely forgotten.

I don`t want to start a new thread so I write this here.

I have a question about backstabbing.

Is it necessary that the enemy does not detect me before my attac
or can I step behind the enemy every round so that the bonus damage
compensates for losing an attac because you need some ap to walk behind him?

I can ask the same thing for pickpocket.

When just standing behind somebody is enough, I don`t have to spend points in prowling.

I want to create an half-orc evil genius. (fighter/thief/scientist combination)

Try creating a halfogre genius instead.