Save Games for Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura

These are my save games for Arcanum, patched up to version 1.0.7.4. I played a
budget version in the "Best Seller Series" on 2 CD-ROM's, in case that matters.


About the character

After reading a lot of FAQs and forum posts, I decided to be a pure mage. This
type of character was said to be a lot easier to play than a techie. Since I've
always wanted games to be easy, the choice was clear for me. You will be almost
godlike with this character, making most battles a walk in the park.

At the character creation, I named my mage "Van Splint" and chose the following
attributes and settings for him:

	Race			Half Elf
	Age			35
	Gender			Male
	Background		Only Child (+6 to WP, but -4 to CH)
	Scheme			Manual level up

The following is the statistics in the start of the game (at Crash Site) and at
the end of the game (before performing the very last action):

	Attribute		Start of game		End of game
					
	Level			1			50 (level cap)

	Strength		8			8
	Constitution		7			19
	Dexterity		11			21 (green)
	Beauty			9			10 (green)
	Intelligence		9			12
	Willpower		14			20
	Perception		8			7 (red)
	Charisma		4			12

	Hit points		36			140
	Fatigue points		34			170

	Carry weight		4000			4000
	Damage bonus		-1			-1
	AC adjustment		1			11
	Speed			11			24
	Heal rate		2			6
	Poison recovery		7			19
	Reaction modifier	-3			5
	Max followers		1			4

	Damage resistance	2			60
	Magick resistance	0			65
	Fire resistance		0			65
	Poison resistance	15			95
	Electrical resistance	0			15

	Persuasion skill	0			3 (expert)

	Alignment		0			96% good
	Aptitude		15% magick		100% magick
	Money			216			78599

I actually kept the alignment at 100 most of the time, but for some reason it
went down close to the end. The following spells were selected during the game:

	Spell name		Start of game		End of game
					
	Air			-			-
	Conveyance		-			All spells
	Divination		-			-
	Earth			-			-
	Fire			-			All spells
	Force			Shield of Protection	All spells (master)
	Mental			-			Charm, Stun
	Meta			-			-
	Morph			-			-
	Nature			-			-
	Necromantic (Black)	Harm			Harm
	Necromantic (White)	Minor Healing		Minor Healing
	Phantasm		-			-
	summoning		-			-
	Temporal		-			-
	Water			-			-

Early in the game I bought the Stillwater Blade and made frequent use of its
ability to summon a couple of helpful animals. Right at the end of the game, my
character was wearing the following equipment:

	Tempered Shield, Robe of Fire Protection, Stillwater Blade, Gloves
	of Dexterity, Mystic Helmet, Ring of Poison Resistance, Mystic
	Ring, Dorian Amulet, Fine Stout Boots

Reputations at the end of the game were as follows:

	Hero of Shrouded Hills, Savior of Bessie Toone, Member of the
	Pollock Gang, Enemy of the Clan Maug, Destroyer of the Dread
	Crystal Spider, Killer of the Whytechurch Murderer, Winner of the
	Ancient Game, Liberator of Maug Maulman, Master of Force

About "Member of the Pollock Gang"; I did accept killing the Clan Maug gang for
Pollock and thus joined his gang just to complete the quest and earn XP. Later,
I also killed Pollock's gang for Sebastian.


Playing the game

I tried to be as goody two-shoes as possible with this character, only seeking
XP for doing good deeds. However, since I knew this would probably be the only
time I completed the game, I sometimes looked in an FAQ after completing a part
of the world or a dungeon, to see if I missed something. Then if it wasn't too
late, I often went back and did it. Small bits of information about the way I
played and completed quests may be useful to you, so here goes:

 o  About followers. Since my max follower limit was only 1 in the begin-
    ning of the game, I settled with Virgil to begin with. As soon as I
    hit the town Ashbury, I hastened over to the hotel and bought Dog, be-
    fore it was kicked to death. Both Virgil and Dog stayed by my side for
    the rest of the game. When Raven offered her help in Qintarra, I also
    added her to the party (my max follower limit had risen by at this
    point). Apart from the odd temporary quest follower and the two-three
    animals spawned by my Stillwater Blade, no other follower was taken.

 o  As you might already have seen, the weakness of the character was that
    his CH was low, offering both a low follower limit and bad persuasion
    skills. Midway through the game I started patching it up by throwing a
    lot of points into CH and then Persuasion. It didn't help much though.
    I still couldn't get the quest involving the king, but at least it was
    possible to free Gar and earn a Fate Point there.

 o  I stored all my stash in one desk drawer in the entire game, namely
    the one in the Bridesdale Inn. Everything that was no longer needed in
    a quest, great armor and weapons neither I nor my followers could use,
    newspapers, books - everything I didn't want to carry with me. If you
    decide to use these save games and choose other followers, you might
    want to stop by here and have a look see.

 o  In the last half of the game, the hot slots were equipped as follows:

	1	Haste potions
	2	Slowered Fatigue potions
	3	Great Fatigue potions
	4	Bolt of Lightning spell
	5	Disintegrate spell

	6	Harm spell
	7	Unlocking Cantrip spell
	8	Fire Flash spell
	9	Fire Elemental spell
	0	Stun spell

    Of the spells, I used 4, 6, 8 and 0 severely in battles. 5 once in a
    while. 9 oddly enough not even once (not necessary). In the two slots
    in the bottom left, I had Minor Healing and Teleportation spells.

 o  Although I solved a lot of quests and was generelly thorough with most
    things, I didn't dwelve too much into the Ancient Gods altars. I did
    offer something for two or three of them, but that's about it.

I hope you may find the save games useful. I must say that Arcanum was quite a
pleasant experience. Yes, the graphics was awful considering that the game was
released in 2001, and at one point during the first third I even felt burnt out
and procrastinated. However, in retrospect I am very happy I persevered. There
are many great quests and the dialog is well written. I also liked the sporadic
random encounters. To me, Arcanum was like playing Fallout 2.

JCH, 6 February 2005
