Hi guys,

I want to play a magic-char. I'm level 4 now, but still don't have a single spell. How can I get one? By the way, I'm slaughtered by wolfes (the real ones, not the ones at the crash site). Is this normal? They have level 3, but kill me and virgil without a problem.

Greetings!


Edit: Ok, I can see where to select and learn spells. But how do I get Character points? I had 3 level-ups, but got not a single point to change anything on my character?

You should get a character point every level. Are you sure you don't have any? It should look the same as when you added points during character creation. Unless you are using one of the pre-set characters? If so, you may have an auto-leveling scheme selected. This will automatically distribute your character points for you, so you'll want to turn that off. If you feel like this has wasted some points, it may be worth starting over (since you're still at the start) and turning off the auto-level scheme so you can distribute your points manually.

If you haven't done so yet, it's worth reading the manual, as the interface has a lot going on and it's easy to miss things if you don't know what they are. The manual should be in your install directory as a PDF, or you can download it separately from the extras.

As for being killed by regular wolves, that is normal. Once you exit the crash site, you should be able to enter the "World Map" mode and auto-travel to Shrouded Hills. This is much safer than trying to walk there manually as you'll run into some tough wolves that will kill you easily if you walk. The map button at the top of the screen should turn into a globe icon, then you can click it to view the world map and do auto-travel. It's also on the keyboard shortcut W.

Waltorius covered it pretty thoroughly.

I had a long response typed up but it got eaten by a lost connection from my ISP. It was mostly just agreeing with him anyway.

The auto-level scheme settings are in the upper right-hand quadrant of the character screen, iirc. I'd start with that and make sure you have auto-levelling turned off.

Thank you very much! It explains a lot ;) I'll restart with auto-upgrade off.

Thanks again!

One more question:

Can I have my weapons and armour repaired? My skill is not existing, but there is a blacksmith in shrouding hills or however the first city is called. I often get the message "weapon damaged", but I can't see its state in the invatory?

Many greetings,

Chris

Any blacksmith can repair an item, although their skill varies. If you go to the inventory screen and hover your mouse over the item, you'll see two numbers in red on the bottom right-hand corner of the info screen. Those are that item's current hit points as compared to its maximum HP.

If a weapon or piece of armor is damaged, it's more likely to critically fail; the worse it is, the greater the chance. Mediocre blacksmiths will fix your item, but possibly at a cost of lowering its maximum HP permanently. Master blacksmiths can fix anything that's not totally broken (0 HP) without damaging it further. (There's a bit more to it than that, but you get the general idea.)

Investing in Repair is worth it if you're going the tech route. As with all skills, after you invest sufficient points in the skill, be sure to seek out someone to grant you Apprentice, Expert and (possibly eventually) Master level in the skill. Apprenticeship and expertise will cost you only gold; mastery usually involves a quest — although the Repair master's quest is potentially one of the easiest ones to complete.

TwoHandedSword is correct. If you don't want to invest in Repair skill yourself, the trick is to find a smith with master level skill who can repair your items without reducing their maximum HP. I believe you can find one pretty early in the game, but not in the very first town.

I like to walk to Shrouded Hills from the crash site in order to get XP. If you're a magic user, I highly recommend the "harm" spell before spending points on anything else, as that will blow through lower level enemies like a bullet through butter. It's not an auto-win for the walk to SH, but with Virgil healing and you smartly using harm (don't get exhausted and knock yourself out), you should be able to make it without much effort, and be better off with the XP you do get.

Weapon damage is something you're going to have to deal with on a regular basis if you're not careful. One possible cause of it is a critical miss, but usually this is only going to be a problem if you have no points in melee skill at all, so don't use a weapon if you don't know how to wield it.

More importantly: do not use melee weapons to bash open doors or chests. Axes are suitable for breaking wood, but will suffer damage if used on metal objects. Swords and daggers will break after enough bashing on any hard object/creature; so will staves. "Arcane" weapons can usually break anything without taking damage, but they're rare and expensive. There are some nearly indestructible tech axes as well, but those have to be crafted from found/bought schematics (and you'll need the base component); of course, a mage should never attempt to wield tech weapons, but in case you get some tech companions along the way, those could be useful.

I believe Arcane weapons are invulnerable to damage of any kind, so feel free to abuse them. They're rare, but you can get lucky. I've stumbled upon an Arcane dagger quite early on a couple of occasions.

I prefer thrown weapons myself. All the advantages of ranged combat without the corresponding disadvantage of ammo. And I've never seen a boomerang or chakram damaged due to bouncing off a rock monster or from opening a chest.*

'Course, as an avowed magic user you may prefer the more "traditional" route: Unlocking Cantrip is the second spell of the Conveyance college (which may be worth maxing out in any case, to gain access to the convenience of Teleportation).

*Bear in mind that Throwing is its own skill, separate from Melee; and that while thrown weapons don't enjoy any damage bonuses from increased strength, you also won't need to pump up your ST stat any further than whatever you need to avoid dealing with encumbrance penalties.


Ouch; that sounds dreadful! I hope you had a follower with decent Healing skill; untreated knife wounds can be nasty.

...m'kay, I'll see myself out now. :p

Hilarious!

Also, because of your input years ago regarding thrown weapons urging me to try them (I don't think you urged me directly, just info you had somewhere made me consider it), that is now my preferred choice of weapon too!

I'm actually pretty sure there only are two ways to damage a non-melee weapon - as a side effect of a critical miss, or by dropping the item on the ground and explicitly attacking it.

And yeah, throwing is definitely the easiest to go for ranged weapons, mainly because of the fact that ammo in Arcanum is expensive to the point that Dick's Sporting Goods feels like the dollar store ... :(

Thanks for your kind help :)

Aw, gee. Now I'm blushing.


It's been a while since I tested it, but I'm pretty sure wooden weapons such as boomerangs don't do well against fire monsters. As far as metal ones go, however, I believe you're pretty much correct. Although IIRC there is a small chance that setting off a fire trap, or walking through a bonfire, might randomly damage another worn/carried item in addition to (or perhaps instead of) the main piece of armor your PC or follower is wearing.