Then please reword/rewrite or source everything you reference.

Again, I'm not being a dick for the sake of being a dick (I do that in the GD), but because I've legal issues to keep from occurring (i.e: GameFAQ's suing us for 'stealing' their content).

Lastly, I'd love a wiki. I don't have the time to build one, however. You have the information and are capable of compiling it. Why not build a wiki? We can restrict access to who can log-in and edit it, then allow proven contributors to improve/correct data, once you've done a massive dump of it. If we post a link to it on the main page of the website, it'd be readily accessible.

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Like an entire stats and skills section, explaining what every part of your character helps you do? Maybe some suggestions too, like lets say:

Overall: if you want good fighting, max your weapon skill first, so go for dex then str. Dex first lets you get the skills you need to even hit the enemy, as well as good speed. Str then brings in the damage. If you need access to spells, willpower. If you are crafting as a technician, then get intelligence.

or maybe:

nonmagic theives need lockpicking, magic users need unlock spell.

or something like:

Gunslingers are looking for DEX and PER. INT allows you to create good guns

And don't you think it's strange that you consider an explanation of the bonuses from every stat and the useful skills an "unexplained suggestion"?













The difficulty of arcanum for new players is only a product of the game not being well explained, and that is what I will change. I finished the game with the first hero I made.

Please try not to just make up strange opinions about what you didn't read in the FAQ. It is quite frustrating.

Grossenschwamm, I've only been wrong on a handful of things so far (about 5 corrections properly pointed out in this thread). I didn't note after the fact that there are racial caps over the normal 20 max, that information is in the FAQ. You're wrong to say a stat can only be increased by 12. There are race/background combos that allow for more than 12 into a stat. And it's sayings like that which make this information necessary, my friend.

Lastly, let me give you some examples of why I had to make this FAQ. Here are some results from searching this forum for stat max and stat cap:

oni5115
Posted: Sun Jan 10, 2010 12:04 am Post subject: Reply with quote
Well 20 is the max, unless you have a racial bonus which allows you to go higher. Backgrounds can add or subtract from a stat, but do not affect the maximum for your race.

Josho
Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 3:45 am Post subject: Reply with quote
Half ogres cant get 20 int. max for any stat is 20 +/- racial modifiers. background cant increase it, but it can decrease it.

http://terra-arcanum.com/phpBB/viewtopi ... t=stat+max
This post does not talk at all about how stat maxes increased by a race are brought down concerning background/gender reductions. And this is by Drog, nonetheless.

So the information on this literally just isn't available. Until now!

Edit for DarkFool: I could add a fair use portion in the updated version specifically saying that placing any and all information on the terra-arcanum forum is allowed.

Building a wiki seems like a lot more effort, and I have already spent quite a good deal into this FAQ. Maybe it's super easy, I've never made a wiki, but to do 40 separate pages for each thing does sound arduous.

Worse comes to worse, if it comes to a point where there is no way to have this info on your site for legal reasons, then I understand. Do what you need to do.

What Gross meant is that you cannot manually add more than 12 CPs in a stat and that is correct.


That is not true. What is true is that only a handful of things were pointed out directly. I've only skimmed through your posts because of their length and composition and stumbled upon numerous lesser or greater errors.

Haven't posted, though, because just properly reading through it all would take tons of time and effort, let alone pointing out all of the errors accompanied with their appropriate corrections, occasionally preceded by finding them out in-game when exact numbers aren't recalled.

That is one of the reasons creating a wiki is being recommended to you by some here. People read those. How many new players will read a mile long post without a wiki's user-friendly arrangement and interface?

By the way, are you using Virgil's Debug Menu hack? If not, you should, it will save you tons of time with any Arcanum-related work.

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Where we're going, we won't need eyes to see.

This and most of what came after it in your post directly before my last one allowed me to say "after the fact." Having anything other than the information you collected due to more testing being done, would've been incorrect.

Muro had it on the nose. The only way to add more than 12 points in a stat is through blessings or specific stat-raising items - I used the word "naturally" to say all increases beyond 12 points are done artificially. I also recommend the Virgil Debug hack for any in-game research to speed things up dramatically. Your dedication is admirable, but you too may fall victim to "quitting out of frustration" if no simpler way can be found to get the information you seek.

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All subjects male: A half-orc miracle op can raise str from 6 to 19 and con from 4 to 17 (+13 each) using only cp. Half ogre miracle op can rase str from 9 to 24 (+15). A gnome agoraphobic can raise willpower from 8 to 22 (+14). Gnome ran with circus yields will from 7 to 21 (+14). The list goes on and on. Let's stick to the facts, gentlemen!

Corrections/additions list I have so far:
----------------------------------------

PER doesn't affect bow (check) Bow skill is listed as dex. Firearms is PER. (eyewear, stats correction)

Stat caps pushed over 20 by race which arent lowered below 20 by background seem to always stay at their absolute race max (STR 24 ogre, 22 DEX halfling, etc). Stat caps increased by race then lowered below 20 have their max lowered by the amount they overwhelm the racial bonus. OR SO IT SEEMS.

Need the tech potions which raise stats permanently (test). Can raise stat maxes up to 20 (test).

Missing any significant +stat items?

Spell Level Requirements (listed on spell learning screen)

Charged Ring dex range

-2FT only on turns where more ap used than your max

vivifier or blessings raise reduced stat caps? (test)

5 INT req for spell learning

INT intelligent dialogue requirement (5? test)
------------------------------------------------

Many of the testing requirements are low, so shouldn't be too hard.

As far as testing method goes, the download link on the terra arcanum page for the virgil debug doesn't work (nofile). I just checked for the original mod thread and downloaded it from a link there though, so thank you. I previously was using actual leveling up, and later moved into using Poke (a universal game cheating program). This debug mod is nice so far.

I am sympathetic to the idea of a wiki.

Forgive my incredulity, but I'd like to see a video of this occurring. It's something I've never encountered in the game. Either that or someone else running on the same patch as you confirming it - I'd do it myself, but I've been posting on other people's PCs for a few months.

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Did a fresh install of arcanum and tested ogre miracle op again. 15 points to 24 str just like last time.

Installed in this order:
Arcanum
official patch
unofficial patch
high res patch

I will attest to the fact Leonidus is most likely correct; I can remember playing a rare half-ogre birth and being able to raise my strength to 24 despite the fact it should be capped at 22 considering the background. What causes this I don't have a clue but I don't find the fact that it extends to more backgrounds than just the one surprising. I guess the bug/willingly-incorporated-feature seems to be invoked when the stat maximum has been raised by race already and then the deficient background applied lowers it again but I'm not sure.

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The chemistry must be respected.

For your clarification jojo I'll reiterate my findings so far.

When a race raises a stat max, that max is only lowered by the amount other factors reduce the stat below 20.

So race +4 background -6 = stat max +4 from race then -2 from [24-6 = 18 which is 2 lower than 20]

also expressed as

race bonus - (background/gender which lowers it below 20) + race bonus +20 = stat max

and this ONLY occurs when the stat is lowered below 20

That is how ogre str is eternally 24, no combination of backgrounds will overcome the +4 str bonus.

Interesting is it not? I find it important.

I can't really follow your calculation but I get the gist.

Basically if you have have a higher than average maximum statistic race value (>20) it's only if a starting background enforces a value below 8 that the maximum value changes. For every value under 8 that a background enforces for a ordinarily higher value race (eg half-ogres ST=12) their original race value is reduced on a point by point basis below 8. However if a background improves an original value of a race to 8 or greater their maximum value is capped at twenty.

Importance of this fact is subjective to play-style; as someone already stated this is really more of a min-max sort of thread rather than a beginners' FAQ. Many, many people have suggested min-max builds on this forum before, including myself, so unless someone is incapable of using the search function there's not a great deal of use collating all this information into one thread. As DF mentioned a wiki is of use but this isn't what you seem keen to achieve; I'm not trying to be a hardass but that's just the way I see it.

Case in point - I'm playing the Bioshock 2 expansion currently (Minerva's Den) and I'm going in completely blind as to how to optimise my character. If I think it's worthy of a replay, due to the story elements I missed out on, I then might try and min-max because I'm no longer a beginner and read a guide. However I wouldn't deem a guide on the subject a "beginner's guide" because I'm no longer a beginner and that's not what I'm after. A wiki really would be the most suitable place for this information; somewhere players could get greater info if they wanted it but not if they just wanted beginner level information like several websites - such as gamebanshee - already provide about Arcanum.

Also for God's sake - at least put Disintergrate as one of the most powerful spells in Arcanum. I know it's not necessary but it is the spell for any "maximized" mage, and its glaring omission effectively stabs me in the eye every time I look at the original post.

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The chemistry must be respected.

I see, that makes more sense. The background only has any bearing if the stat in question starts at 8. The reason I hadn't experienced it is because I'd never played a race/background combo where the stat lowered was more than 8. Very good to know!

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Right you are jojo. The amount which other background factors overwhelm the race bonus is the amount by which the racial bonus to stat max is lowered. So if a race raises stat above 8, that is added to max, and if background/gender forces the stat to start below 8, then the distance from 8 is the reduction in the stat max.

At least that is what explains everything so far.

Also I agree this entire thread has not been productive for beginners, but who's fault is that? I keep asking you guys for contributions, but too many of you are reluctant.

The first post has the FAQ itself however, which you should notice is still entirely geared towards beginning players. Character min maxing hasn't been added yet. The first post was edited for v1.0 of the FAQ, it will be edited with the next version (coming soon). There was simply nowhere on these forums to get this kind of quality information, especially easily laid out, and so I made it myself. I was given much hell for such a sinister idea.

The reason I think a min maxing section fits afterward is because game and character mechanics are already extensively covered in the FAQ, and the FAQ is almost entirely about character design. An advanced section would be welcome at the end.

Also min maxing arcanum interests me, regardless of how unnecessary it is. So that's probably why I personally want to do it.

I gave you a suggestion and you don't acknowledge it. It's pretty helpful to have an alternate to the beginning CP distribution you say makes every character easier to start with, especially if it allows for a personally functional ability later on depending on your character's aptitude direction. A magickal character will benefit from herbology as well, as there's not a drop in effectiveness for healing plants. Using a healing salve (or any other tech item) doesn't cost fatigue, which is good if you're currently being bludgeoned.

Keep the ingredients on one of your NPC's and retrieve them when the stock gets low. Either way, you've got finite healing, but the way I've mentioned is effective no matter what your aptitude is.

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Well, my two cents:

A worthy project, nicely done.

Two statements I disagree with:

1) don't be a female.

What's wrong with female pcs? Elven witches are better mages than elven wizards on account of the CN bonus. They can't go into the gentlemen's club, but they can get work at madam lil's. Now that's equality!

2) Drog is a fine gent. A fine programmer? Sure. An invaluable contributer to the longevity of Arcanum? Certainly. A fine gent? No. I submit his last post as evidence, to say nothing of the last hundred.

Yztk, con is almost entirely worthless and str is quite useful. You get free fatigue every level from leveling up, so 2 extra fatigue from 1 con is pretty negligible compared to easier carrying capacity and better melee early on. Even on a mage. You are completely correct though that as far as pure mageness is concerned, the female with 2 extra fatigue would be that little bit more magely.

On any other type of character it's not even debatable though, 1 str isnt worth 1 con on a thief, warrior, technician, gunslinger, and so on. But like I've said before, the cool thing about arcanum is that any type of character can own, it's not like 1 str is some unsurmountable problem. Just not recommended for new players is all.

As far as Drog goes, calling him a classy gent was just recognition of his contributions patch-wise. I don't know him personally.

Grossen, you should remember that the minor healing suggestion begins with "ALL CHARACTERS HAVE A MUCH EASIER START...." Herbology may indeed be better because it can be used without reducing fatigue in battle and applies to all character types, and because of this it certainly deserves a mention as an alternative. But I wouldn't say it's easier.

First of all new players are unfamiliar with crafting, they don't know that you can pick up certain plants, they don't know what those plants look like even if you tell them to, and then once they do know they have to spend all the time to do it. I think years of experience might make it hard to remember this. I personally remember trying herbology for the first time (back in november) on my 2nd playthrough. It is about 10x the hassle of sleeping and casting the same spell 10 times, almost whenever you want. Which I would say is much easier, and that has certainly been my experience. Tech characters also don't seem to rush to extreme levels of TA, so they benefit for quite a good deal of time (and the first half is when you have a real chance of dying anyway).

Jojo you are right that disintegrate does the most damage in arcanum. I didn't add it because of the 50 FT cost and destroying corpses, so other spells really are more useful as combat spells. Like I mention in the FAQ, fireflash and harm are really the 'go to' combat spells, good for basically everything at every part of the game. I would certainly agree that disintegrate deserves on the spell list mentioning the drawbacks (just as I list fireflash drawbacks) because it is like you said, the most powerful spell in arcanum. So as far as mage optimization goes (for min maxing later) you are absolutely correct my good man. If I remember right, getting favor of the magical school halves mana use? So that would make disintegrate better, inconveniently near the very end of the game.

Edit for darkfool:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/features/help/entry.html?cat=29
Now, keep in mind that GameFAQs has no legal authority to stop this activity. Only the original author of a FAQ can take action against copyright infringement.

You're still telling those few players with characters that will go higher up on the TA scale to waste a character point. As for it being hard to find the right plants, that's what a wiki with pictures of said plants is for.

Useful for the entire game is better than useful for the first half of the game.

Not to mention the fatigue restorer that can be made as the second schematic in herbology that only requires 8 intelligence - and how many backgrounds start out with at least that score? Tobacco and coca leaves. All ingredients, if not found in the wild, are very cheap in stores. Considering how easy it is to find money in the game, it's a sound investment that keeps you alive, and it's cheaper than potions.

My first characters all went towards tech. I may have been unfamiliar with crafting, but to be unfamiliar with a system as simple as two ingredients and a button means you simply haven't tried it yet. You're very nearly insulting the new players by saying how hard something is for people you've never met. This might just be me, but I tend to wave my cursor over everything in this game just to see what I can interact with. That's how I found the plants in the first place, and I wiped the crash site clean before I even decided to spend that CP. Considering the output of the healing salve schematic with given ingredients, I'd say herbology is safer than magick.

Easy isn't always best, and the way your FAQ is written, you want to give these new gamers a good start. It's better to give them a primer course in schemata than to just dust it under the rug because of how easy magick is.

Now, while I know I'm not every gamer, you too must realize the same thing. Not every gamer plays like you, and if the player is that concerned with difficulty? Combat has a difficulty setting in this game changeable at will, both in obvious difficulty and through turn-based/real time combat.

Now I might ask, what's easier for you?

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Really you think people are retarded enough not to figure out how to use herbology right off the bat? I never had any issue, it really only takes a very mild interest in your game world and what all the icons do on your screen to figure it out. Also finding herbs, though slightly more difficult, isn't really that challenging; if you stop and start frequently on a forested of the world map you'll gather what you need in five minutes tops. Either that or buy what you need from a healer (the herbs for salves cost 3 a piece) as a side gig whilst gathering tech items from inventors that you wish to stockpile (e.g. for therapeutics), looking for a weapon at a smith or trying to make money (spamming eye gear) - it really isn't that hard.

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The chemistry must be respected.

Do you guys get a rise from trying to defame me?

A bunch of care-free schoolchildren.

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生者人之始也，死者人之终也，生死人之大道也。

Well, there is the Troikapedia, about 90% of which is my work (of content if not implementation). Regrettably, I didn't get that far.

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Lacy: How did I fall in love with such a jerk like him? Why can't I ever meet a nice man?
Tom: You've met lots of nice men, Lacy. I'm a nice man. The biggest lie all of you women tell yourselves is that you like nice men, when, in fact, we bore you silly.
The trouble is, you tell this lie out loud and so damned often that some of us more gullible types hear it growing up and work hard to become nice men.
Well, from all the nice men in the world, Lacy, fuck you very much.

Oh look! Drog writes in Haiku!

But seriously, I can tell when there's lambasting to be found when I find that Drog has posted.


Ease up on Leonidus, Gentlemen. He's trying to do something good.

That said, Leonidus, since I will defend you against their anger, I expect you to calmly and rationally read and review their input. If this turns into a flame war and I determine (using metrics purely of my own divising [I flip a coin]) that you started the flame war? I'll use my fun little 'purge' button.

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How did I miss this!

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Darkfool, much appreciated. If you read my responses you will see that I tend to remain logical regardless of the circumstances.

Dark elf, the troikapedia looks like fertile ground. This will probably be the final resting place of much of my data, to help the newer players.

I would request that this thread be left standing though, as the FAQ in the first post can help anyone doing a search for stat answers and beginner help on the forum. As I have said before, all mistakes will be corrected.

Gross and Jojo, I did say minor healing is easier than herbology. I also said that seems rather undebatable - using the heal spell is much simpler, quicker, etc. I also already said you were right in that herbology might be arguably better, and said for that reason I will gladly put it in the FAQ. There is a slavic saying that goes something like "It is insane for a man to bark at a quiet dog." I have told you both that you are correct, so perhaps stop fighting after victory my friends. Your contribution does not go unappreciated.

On that note if there is any other useful info players would like beginners to know, please feel free to post it.[/i]

You can't wait at all locations. You can craft in all locations. If you run out of fatigue in certain areas, you're without healing for as long as you stay there unless you have potions, and I'd hope you've got enough to stay (though the cost of potions is far higher than kadura stems and ginka roots). Is it really easier to keep running in and out of the BMC every time you need fatigue? What about every other dungeon-map? Your immediate fight might be over, but there's no sleeping in those areas. It costs more in the long run to use magick like this.



I offered something doable at any time. Think about how often you can craft as opposed to how often you can sleep to regain fatigue. I can think of one good place to sleep for free (The Wilderness), but very few things happen that are important there other than random encounters. Tarant? Find an inn. Caladon? Inn. Nearly any other place you could have a fight, you can't sleep just anywhere - you have to pay for it or you have to leave. That's a hassle, and it invariably costs more than ingredients for a healing salve, either by time spent moving or money spent sleeping. Plus, dwarven characters are covered by your "All characters" easier recommendation. There's a problem with that, though - all spells cost twice as much for a dwarf to cast, simply because he's a dwarf. That 10x now is 5x, and you've healed half as much. Also, you have to sleep even more often.

Also, within the time you run out of fatigue, you could die. Your fight might not be over. It's easier to stay alive with herbology than hope your fatigue lasts through a fight because you've only got minor healing. If it gets really bad and you've got herbology, the hassle you're describing is;

Finding ingredients, having them in your inventory, and making healing salves. With one ginka and one kadura, you get two salves. 9 of each ingredient? Well, that's 18, which is plenty to get you through the BMC with some left over, all without sleeping.

This, as opposed to using all your fatigue, needing to run out of the mine, then sleep and run all the way back in to where you left off. Sure, there's no enemies, but even with waypoints the whole thing takes longer than my method.

All I'm trying to do is convince you to rethink your method. Is what you say objectively better? Not from where I stand. Lower cost, sustainability, raw materials literally all around you in the wilderness, and high return on investment into the skill. It's better and easy at the same time, especially since you want players not to quit out of frustration. The single method you've described as easy would become so very frustrating that I'd quit within the first half of the game and try to find a better way.

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Um, simply advancing time by one hour fully restores your fatigue.

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生者人之始也，死者人之终也，生死人之大道也。

That seems to have a similar real-time investment to making healing salves.

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