Title says it all, I'm starting a new game in Eschalon 1 and this is my first time with this series. Anyone have any pointers on character creation? Skills that are essential? Skills that are useless? Anything you wish you knew before you started? Etc, etc. (Without any spoilers though, please) From perusing this forum it seems as though I should specialize as much as possible, as multi-tasking doesn't seem to work. Is it possible to make a fighter/mage or mage/thief type character or are the skill points spread too thin with this type?

My advice is to pick a character you fancy playing and streamline skills for that game play. It's been a while since I last played (definitely due another play through soon though) so I may be a bit rusty on the finer points but I remember just building up the skills connected to my character. It does help that you can find and/or buy books which add points to skills so those are a cheap way of upgrading a different range of skills if you want to. One thing you'll probably need to be aware of is if you don't put any points in cartography, you won't have a map. Stumped me for a while that did :)

Yeah I made sure to start out with a point in cartography.

So after perusing the forum a bit and learning a bit about the mechanics of the game, I've decided to build a speedy axe wielding fighter loosely based on Ragnar Lothbrok from The History Channel's "The Vikings".

He's a Druidic Norlander Rogue starting with the following skills:
Light Armor
Cleaving Weapons
Dodge
Pick Locks
Cartography

I plan on prioritizing Speed during level ups, while also adding Strength, Endurance, and Perception as well.

Is this build workable? I'm not all that interested in min/maxing, so as long as I can make it through the campaign I'll be happy.

Also, I plan on adding some magical capability later on. Not much, but enough for a few combat buffs. Which school is better for this, divine or elemental?

I might also add a few points into bow, but I don't want to spread myself too thin.

Anyhow, I'd appreciate any input anyone has.

Cheers

I don't think this game knows how to math. How is that a Hive Drone with a 40% hit rate consistently hits me 5 out of 6 times? On the other end my character, with a hit rate of 83%, only hits about half of the time. I don't get it.

The game is really hard when it comes to melee combat. If you want to hit your enemies every time you attack, use magic.