Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura Qs

My GF has been playing this game, and has some question I have not been able to find answers for on the Net, so if you’re familiar with it- please help. She asks-

How do you change the reactions of other characters to you aside from wearing clothes or articles? I’m traveling with Sogg Mead Mug and Angus. I did not have them wait while I was going to pick pockets and think this has negatively impacted how they feel towards me. I’ve been killing a whole horde of zombies is Ashbury and for some reason, this has made Sogg want to kill me. Why did this happen & how can I correct it? It seems like my relationship with all of my followers is steadily declining even though I am very careful to act positively in front of them. How do you improve relations with your followers?

Of what use is prowling? I don’t get it.

Is there a way to pick pockets more than 100 pieces of gold at a time?

What do I need to do to unlock the barrels or the chests that won’t come open with the unlocking cantrip or the basic lockpicking skill?

Does anyone have any suggestion for the best placement of character points or is it pretty much open for anything?

Btw, isn’t this one of the bad-assest games you’ve ever played. I love it!

I’m not sure how to improve the reactions of your travelling companions. I usually ran solo. I do know that Master Persuasion grants you the bonus that NPCs will never leave your party. I’m not sure how easy that is to obtain though.

Prowling is pretty handy if you want to pick the lock of something in the presence of an NPC. There are other ways of course but they get increasingly cheesy. Also, with master prowling you can hide while in combat. Imagine a master prowling/backstab combo!

You can bash doors and crates using an axe and (I think) a hammer without them taking damage. I always keep a light weight axe around just for that reason.

If I’m a techy I tend to rush to electronics level 2 for two charged rings (+4 dex) and then max my dexterity. That also allows you to put points in to Melee and Dodge if you want to.

I haven’t made many mages but I would probably follow a similar route. Take the spell that gives a dexterity bonus and then max my dex. I would usually start with a reasonably decent willpower score, so could leave that for a while. Harm is a very powerful (probably too powerful) combat spell and will last a long time.

I agree, Arcanum is a great game. I’ve wasted too many hours on it.

The House Of Lords has an Arcanum forum, I can usually find whatever I need to know using the search engine there.

There are two more things I know to increase reaction-

Your beauty stat (I think it’s about 5 reaction per point) brings it up slowly, but you can be scarred to bring down beauty for a long, long time.

If a character dies and you (personally, not someone in your party) revive them, this often adds a massive boost to reaction- I think 15 or 25.
As for locks- I second “smash them” if there’s no-one around, but having a higher magic aptitiude (that meter on the right-hand side of your character sheet) increases the chance, as does more int. More spells gives more aptitude.

Now, does anyone know how you use books for your technology skills? They don’t “use” like every other item, in my game (never been patched).

Each technology book increases your aptitude in that college. You don’t use them, just having them in your backpack increases it. The increase is equal to your intelligence I think. You can have multiple books, the only limit is how many you can carry.

Lets say I learn a schematic that requires 80 Mechanical and 60 Electrical aptitude. I already have 100 Mechanical aptitude, so I’m fine there, however I haven’t put any points into Electrical. With 20 intelligence I’d need to buy three books. I can then make the item*.
*Assuming it doesn’t require a part I can only make by putting actual skill points in the electrical college.

Once you’re done with them, store the books away in a container somewhere for later use. They are incredibly useful, allow you to make some very nice items without investing skill points.

How do you remove scars? That has become a problem.

Try Mike’s RPG Center, or GameBanshee, they might have suggestions? I got stuck on some things myself with Arcanum. ETA: She means Magnus, right? He’s a goody good, you can’t pick pockets around him. Same as Virgil. (And why isn’t he with her, he’s a central NPC?)

Coming back to add, here’s GameBanshee’s Arcanum forum, some of the questions are probably covered there?

There is a lot of useful information on Gamespy.

You need to find a healer. I believe the Doc in Shrouded Hills offers the service. If they ask, request the actual heal skill be used. I don’t think the magic or tech healing will heal scars.

Master-level healers (skill) can do it as well.

Put me down as a hardcore lover of this game. Played it through to its various endings many, many times until sob my CD’s got broken in transit. Can’t play it now heavy sob.

(Favorite character? James Bomb. Elf with maxed out charisma, beauty, and an unhealthy fascination with explosives!)

She did mean Magnus, I mis-heard her. And while Virgil is with her, she doesn’t have the problem with him that she does with Sogg & Magnus.

Btw, she is also finding that when her group fights enemies, the enemies all focus on her instead of other members of her party. Even if those other members are attacking them, the enemy doesn’t redirect their attacks. They still focus on her.
Is there some way to compensate for this?

So far she is up to the towns of Ashbury & Blackroot, and she has noticed
that when she used the map course charting feature, it suddenly no longer works. She might be able to get them to go to one point on the map but she can no longer make them go to all six points she selects. Why is this and is there a way to fix it?

I have exactly the same problem with waypoints. It’s very annoying and I’ve no idea how to fix it other than re-installing (I assume). It even happens to new characters I create.

I can now walk through Tarrant wearing a blindfold though… So it’s not all bad (just mostly).

Isn’t there a patch? Look on the GameBanshee site, they usually mention/link to/have the game patches if they exist. As for compensating, use Virgil for healing, and move the other party members behind the critter/person so they can beat it down, while you take the beating and get healed by Virgil? Basically, “tank” the mob, take the beating, hit it as often as you can, and have a healer keeping you up. Or, don’t engage the enemies, run them past your party (pull/train them) and have the rest of your party beat on them. If they do enough damage, they will get the aggro. ETA: Then you can join in and beat on the mob too. :wink:

There is a patch, I always patch up to the latest version when I install. I still have that waypoint problem though, it must be obscure enough that they missed it.

Check the various forums then, maybe there is workaround?

Thanks for the help so far- she’s now at Theo’s boulders and has lifted one but can’t get the others as she can lift 4000 lbs but they weigh more than that.
One walkthrough suggests asking her companions but she doesn’t seem to be able to do that as there are no dialogue options for that.

bump

She hasn’t tried carrying one to the wagon, then going back for the rest, one at a time, then talking to Theo yet? :confused: ETA: Or, coming back to the quest when her character is stronger?