Techie Dwarf needs help - Damned wolves

Hey all. First time player here, and I'm having some... issues.

I first of all tried making a female half-elf Debutante, trying to go for a social/thievy character. Got crushed before I left the crash site (yes, I realise now I can just skip that until I get Sogg and come back), so I tried making someone a little more robust..

So I've got a Dwarf Technologist, enough points in Charisma to get Sogg, some persuasion & haggle (merchant background), a point in Melee and then the rest has been going into Int and Electricity (would really like that Tesla staff...)

I've gone through the Hills (took me half a dozen attempts to kill the bandits at the gate, in the end I got lucky with a grenade that killed one and took 95% hp off the other two), then off to Tarant hoping to find someone to sell me the bits for Charged Rings. After failing to find anyone I decided to head back to the Hills and get the map point for Dennholm.
En route I get a random encounter with a pair of wolves (not ailing ones, standard wolves) and we get *crushed*. I think between me, Sog & Virgil we got about 10%hp off one wolf before we were all dead.

Am I doing something wrong with character building and ally equipping or is the game just that brutal when it comes to fighting?

Specific Issues:
1) Sogg can't hit the broad side of a barn. He's in the large leather from the bridge bandits and carrying a Broadsword, and hits about one swing out of five
2) Virgil is useless. Decent axe, enchanted leather armor, and not only is his damage less than I'd like he has a habit of (on full stamina) standing there and swinging with his axe while on 15% hp rather than bothering to heal himself
3) EVERY enemy that I fight has a 100% hit chance (barring dodges from Virgil). My Dwarf has a leather jerkin and a wooden shield but the moment he gets in a fight he's copping every hit and doing down like a sack of potatoes.
4) It seems darned near impossible to find armor that fits small characters, and my cash isn't high enough to buy it.

Does anyone have any advice other than simply lowering the difficulty to minimum? Have I built my character wrong/completely missed some obvious trick, or is the life of a Techie one of save-scumming until you get lucky?

 

Two points in Melee are generally required reach around 100% chance to hit, (a) point(s) in Dodge wouldn't hurt either. If you are going to make a techie, put a point in Herbology, it will greatly increase your chances of survival. Don't forget that a Tesla Rod is governed by the Firearms skill.

 

If random encounters are too much you can add -norandom to the shortcut's location.

But you shouldn't need to. When you're in Tarant, immediately take the train to ashbury to get Dog and then the game becomes easy mode.

For charged rings Lloyd the Blacksmith in SH always seems to always have 1 copper ring on him. And any inventor or techie shop has a chance to have the capacitors you need. If they don't have it in stock, advance the time to the next day and check again. Repeat until you get what you need.

Broadswords are REALLY slow. I would recommend getting him quality swords or taking up smithy to create a balanced sword. You can also make a really good axe for Virgil if you want him to use axes.

If you get your Dex up to 10 and put 2 CPs each into dodge and melee then, with 2 charged rings and velorien's blessing you should be able to reach 18 dex and master both melee and dodge. Also a 18 perception and 2 ranks in firearms will make you master firearm with his blessing for the tessla stuff.

Me techie dwarf IIRC had 10 dex, 19 int, 18 pe, 10 cha, 20 str, 2 melee, 2 dodge, 2 firearms, 7 electric, 7 smithy, 1 herbology, 3 persuasion and I don't remember what else. But with the all the blessings from gods and NPCs you can be pretty powerful.

Just make sure you do the gods quest and you'll make it

Final blessing total is 100hp, 100 fatigue, 12 persuasion, 12 firearms, 12 pick pockets, 12 melee, 12 dodge, 4 dex, Resist Magick 30, Resist Damage 30, 2 beatuy, 2 charisma, +5 reaction, +1 beatuy (affects reaction only not actual beauty)

 

Except that Velorien's blessing is usually received near the end of the game by most (unexperienced) players methinks. Not too useful in that case.

 

Ah, I thought from reading it that the Tesla Rod was a melee weapon. My bad, thanks

Oddly, Virgil looks to have 2-3 points in Melee and is still missing most of the time =(

Sounds like I shouldn't need to do too much to get things back on track though, thanks all

 

If you have the money and you haven't done it yet, asking a guard in one of the towns for combat training would be helpful.

Apprentice training boosts your speed with weapons by five, which can make a big difference in turn-based combat.

Also, if you're fighting in real-time you should switch to turn-based. It isn't as fun to watch, but it's a lot easier. You have more time to use inventory items and switch weapons and stuff.

 

The Post of Hyphens

I'm surprised at the number of people who have filed complaints against the wolves. I believe this is the second thread singling them out as obstacles in the game.

I'm surprised because my character was a Sickly Half-Elf Technologist and I don't recall having any trouble with wolves. It may be that I never encountered any healthy wolves in my play-through, or perhaps I did and they worked me over just as they have worked Leviathan over and I simply reloaded a previous saved game and got on with things, but in any case I think the following is a sound strategy.

Early-game (as in Character Generation early-game) sink as many character points into combat skills and combat-related attributes as is practical. This is an RPG and combat is nigh inescapable in RPGs, so any character points applied to combat are points wisely spent. Focusing one's inital energies toward combat will make the character more effective at the Crash Site where Social and Thieving skills would go unused and the character points earned from the triumphant skirmishes can be applied to more role-appropriate skills that can be used once one arrives at the various cities. At the cities, training your combat skills will pay rich dividends in the future!

 

I've had a lot of characters get pwned by the one regular wolf (as opposed to all the ailing ones) in the Bessie Toone mine.

There's no big mystery there. They're just an appropriately tough threat when you're only around level five.

Fighting hand-to-hand with a wolf is kind of foolhardy when you're just starting out because the wolf can kill you in three or four hits and you might not have anything better than a rapier. Unless you got lucky at the Crash Site and found something better you or your followers can use.

Later on in the game, when you have more health and you've had time to upgrade your equipment and train and so forth, wolves aren't a big deal any more. But when you first start exploring Shrouded Hills looking for things to do?

Some character builds just aren't going to do well against regular wolves. Even if they have a supply of healing salves and help from Virgil, chances of survival are pretty random.