So I've been toying with the idea of playing through arcanum for the 10,000th time seeing as how I haven't touched it in a few years, and I need to try something new for a character. I'm wondering if anyone has played a gun toting mage? I'm wondering if keeping the tech/magic meter in neutral would let me create a kick ass gun wielding mage or if it would cause my character to be mediocre at both?
Mediocre at both, I'd say. The magick part: Most spells have an effect which is greater the greater the user's magick aptitude. As long as you stick to those ones which work the same no matter the aptitude, it should work fine. The tech part: As long as you have absolutely no magick aptitude (the neutral 0, for example), you won't suffer any +% to critical failure penalties. There are no guns which have increased damage with tech aptitude, so you won't be missing that. You will, however, suffer accuracy penalties against foes with magickal aptitude, down to 0% accuracy against the most magickal ones, no matter how high the tech complexity of your gun is. Armor: All pieces of magick armor and many pieces of the more advanced tech armor will work only partially as good as they could, which doesn't mean that it's impossible to collect some powerful sets. A good example of a functional technomage that should reap most of the benefits of both sides: A temporal master which uses his best gun against tech and neutral enemies and his best neutral/magick sword against magick ones.
