New player, looking for character suggestions

Hi all. I've recently stumbled onto this gem of a game, and before I start any serious committment I would like to gather some feedback. In rpg games, I usually like to play fighter/mage types of characters, or mages that let their minions do the work while spamming spells from the back (aka necro from d2) Can someone give me a good template or suggestions? Thanks

 

First get patch(es).

Now decide if you want to play a dummy warrior like an half-ogre. It's straight-forward but can be difficult since you don't communicate well, yet you should be able to get through the game at IN=4 by really kicking ass and taking punishment through straight melee-dodge, ST & DX. You won't be able to do some side quests but should be able to stay on the main.

Or try someone charasmatic/persuasive. It allows you to talk your way through things giving you lots of dialog options, and let's you gather maximum followers. I find it fun to outfit them but frustrating that their level-ups don't go where I think they should.

I've only done magic-users a couple of times. It's mostly based on your willpower for learning spells (odd) and fatigue for casting spells. The spells aren't balanced, so Harm (maybe a fire spell too?) is either over-powered or the other spells use too much fatigue. The best(?) weapons have mana, which is used in place of fatigue.

Personally, for battle I like the Xena-like approach using those boomerang things (Chokrams?) by going for Throwing.

You also need a good magic-healer in the group like Virgil. It's no fun to keep having to save or leave dungeons because health or fatigue runs out (or bullets and arrows).

 

there is a magic discipline that teaches summoning, it's really powerful in my opinion. also, the 2 best offensive magicks are fire, and evil necromancy.
If your playing a mage, i recommend having at least 2 points in melee, in case you run out of fatigue

 

Beware: If you're playing regular Arcanum with just the patch, the Harm and Fireflash spells are stupidly overpowered. So much that it almost ruins the fun of the game by making it too easy.

 

So how do I make it more difficult?

 

In my opinion, the easiest character to play is the Harm-Spammer that kill everything by just thinking about it. Harm is pretty much THE ATACK SPELL, so to say.

These days, I'm playing a Dwarven gunslinger, which I find very dificult until I got to Tarant. I have Jayna and Magnus with me. Using guns is very hard because the first guns are slow, they suck and you have almost no bullets to work around, forcing you to skip the hard, combative quests (I only did Liam's quest after recruiting Magnus and going to Tarant to get me a decent amount of bullets) until you get enough ammunition and experience to go merrily gunning people down. But a gunslinger character can be very interesting.

 

yeh go mage for ya first go.. will be easy, and will be great for adjusting to the game. then go try some techy characters

 

I think that techy player is more challeging and funnier, though. Each coin of gold counts. A lot, actually. You need all the money you can get for what you need. You know, things like Charges, Fuel, components, Saltpeter for Bullets, plants for healing stuff and bullets. Technologists spend the right amount of money all (or almost all) kinds of character should spend.

 

yeh im playing techy now for the first time, far more challenging