History YMMV / ArcanumOfSteamworksAndMagickObscura

* PacifistRun: Possible if you have a high Persuasion skill and one of the following: [[StealthRun High prowling skill]], [[NonLethalWarfare technological non-lethal explosives]], or the {{Invisibility}} spell. Unless you side with the dark elves (where you need to go OmnicidalManiac on a town) and/or count [[spoiler:Kerghan's letting you kill him]] nothing must be killed to beat the game, or at least nothing sapient. TechnicalPacifist Runs are a bit easier: just build up your Charisma until you can sign up a bunch of henchmen to do your fighting for you.

** If you somehow provoke to fight [[spoiler:K'an Hua]] during the evil walkthrough, you may notice that, while he isn't the most challenging opponent overall, he knows [[OneHitKill the Disintegration spell]] and uses it well.

** NPCs automatically come to pick up any items that lay on the ground. While it can be useful in case you want NPCs to equip some hexed items, it gets very annoying with followers when they stash their inventory with garbage and you have to manually remove it to decrease their load.

** [[spoiler:Due to a bug, Kerghan in his OneWingedAngel form isn't as strong as you would expect from the final boss, as he deals very small damage in melee. In fact, [[FlunkyBoss blue zombies summoned by him]] are arguably a bigger threat than him, since they can [[ThatOneAttack damage your armor with their fire attack]]]].

* AntiClimaxBoss: [[spoiler:Due to a bug, Kerghan in his OneWingedAngel form isn't as strong as you would probably expect from the final boss, as he deals very small damage in melee. In fact, [[FlunkyBoss blue zombies, summoned by him]], are arguably more a threat than him, since they can [[ThatOneAttack damage your armor with their fire attack]]]].

** The way your followers may negatively react to whom you choose to attack. While it's not a bad idea in principle, this mechanic has a very nasty habit of firing off in the most bizarre of situations, like with the Stillwater Giant, a prostitute murderer fulfilling the whims of a sadistic demon, or with a man who literally just asked you to assassinate the king of Caladon, or when you choose to attack an ''already hostile creature'' before they had a chance to see you.

** The way your followers may negatively react to whom you choose to attack. While it's not a bad idea in principle, this mechanic has a very nasty habit of firing off in the most bizarre of situations, like with the Stillwater Giant, or with a man who literally just asked you to assassinate the king of Caladon, or when you choose to attack an ''already hostile creature'' before they had a chance to see you.

** The name of priest Arbalah, a central character one of the first side quests in the game, consists of two parts: arba (a Hebrew word for "four") and alah (an Arabic word for "god"). This makes a perfect name for a priest in the universe where are ''four'' Greater Gods.

** [[BonusBoss While it isn't necessary to kill Stringy Pete in order to advance the plot (though it's a possible option)]], if you dare to challenge him, prepare to fight with probably the toughest enemy in the game, as Stringy Pete not only one of the best NPC melee fighters and has the strongest magickal equipment in the game, but he also summons five pirate skeletons, who are as strong as Pete is.
** In a simular case, the Old Blind Master ([[GuideDangIt in case if you can find him with a guide]], since his location won't show on your map). He has [[MadeOfIron a massive amount of HP]] and has the best throwing weapon in the entire game. Thankfully, sometimes he can just run away from you and doesn't fight back.

* HilariousInHindsight: Gilbert Bates, the presumed inventor of the steam engine, who holds the monopoly on making steam engines, is a reference to Bill Gates of Microsoft. His competitor, Cedric Appleby (probably an {{Expy}} of Steve Jobs), is a reference to the Apple corporation, who competes with Microsoft. Today, Apple has already surpassed Microsoft as the bigger tech company made famous by their I-Products such as the iPod, iPhone, and iPad. With a market value of about $460 billion, Apple is worth more than Google, Goldman Sachs, General Motors, Ford, Starbucks and Boeing combined. Apple is now worth almost twice as much as Microsoft (about $258 billion) and more than twice as much as Google ($198 billion).

* GoodBadBugs: The Reflective Shield spell has a certain unorthodox application. Normally it reflects any spell cast at the character with the shield on them back at the caster, this goes for both beneficial and damaging spells. However, the shield treats canceling sustained spells as a spell in and of itself. Meaning if you cast, for instance, Polymorph on someone, then cast Reflective Shield on them and ''then'' cancel the Polymorph, then the ''cancellation'' will be reflected back at you, the Polymorph effect will be removed from your sustained effects bar but will ''not'' be removed from the target, meaning they are now permanently a sheep. This works for any spell that needs to be sustained, including Mind Control and summoning creatures.

* GoddamnBats: Orc bandits and the Molochean Hand can be a threat early in the game, but they're quickly reduced to an annoyance that pops up any time you're wandering the eastern half of the map. Their loot isn't even worth that much if you sell it.

** The way your followers may negatively react to whom you choose to attack. While it's not a bad idea in principle, this mechanic has a very nasty habit of firing off in the most bizarre of situations, like with the Stillwater Giant, or with a man who literally just asked you to assassinate the king of Caladon. There are also a handful of situations where you'll choose to attack an ''already hostile creature'' before they had a chance to see you.

* AntiClimaxBoss: [[spoiler:Due to a bug, Kerghan in his OneWingedAngel form isn't as strong as you would probably expect from the final boss, as he deals very small damage in melee. In fact, [[FlunkyBoss blue zombies summoned by him]] are arguably more a threat than him, since they can [[ThatOneAttack damage your armor with their fire attack]]]].

** If you somehow provoke to fight [[spoiler:K'an Hua]] during the evil walkthrough, you may notice that, while he isn't the most challenging opponent overall, but he knows [[OneHitKill the Disintegration spell]] and uses it well.
* ThatOneBoss: [[BonusBoss While it isn't necessary to kill Stringy Pete in order to advance the plot (though it's a possible option)]], if you dare to challenge him, prepare to fight with probably the toughest enemy in the game, as Stringy Pete not only one of the best NPC melee fighters and has the strongest magickal equipment in the game, but he also summons five pirate skeletons, who are as strong as Pete is.

* GeniusBonus: You shouldn't be surprised that the ''Zephyr'' is doomed once you see its interior: the staircase and lounge look just like those on board the ''Titanic''.

* ThatOneAttack: As noted in DemonicSpiders above, anything with the potential for fire damage is immediately at least twice as dangerous as any other form of enemy. Fire damages equipment, most things are not resistant to it, and the enemies that tend to use it are also usually much tougher than other enemies. Fortunately, if you get your hands on something with fire damage, like the pyrotechnic axe, it's just as broken in your hands.

** [[spoiler: Charles Bregho and his friend Simon Farcus murdered the wife and daughter of elven priest Arbalah after the latter took them to their house and fed them, and stole his sacred artefact.]]

** The way your followers may negatively react to whom you choose to attack. While it's not a bad idea in principle, this mechanic has a very nasty habit of firing off in the most bizarre of situations, like when you choose to attack an ''already hostile creature'' before they had a chance to see you.

* TheWoobie: Randver Thunder Stone loses his father to exile long before he's ready to inherit the throne, and [[spoiler: he gets ''no'' endings that aren't at least somewhat [[BittersweetEnding bittersweet]]: either his father returns to the throne and he isn't even mentioned in the ending, his father [[DyingMomentOfAwesome dies heroically]] and allows him to become a good ruler, or his failures as a king lead to a civil war that either causes him to lose the throne to a stronger candidate, or drives the dwarven race to near-extinction]].
* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: Poor Torian Kel. After his resurrection he's on a hopeless quest trying to find a way to release his trapped friends. But what makes him a Destroyer of Worlds? [[spoiler: Besides being evil aligned, he's willing to side with Kerghan's quest in exterminating all life so said friends can be released, making him a literal example of this trope.]]

* UnwinnableByInsanity: The developers went out of their way to avert this; at worst, you should be able to find the next main quest by consulting a guide and walking around randomly in the right place until you find a relevant location. However, if you [[spoiler: kill Edward Teach before going to the Isle of Despair]], there isn't a workaround for that. Other than that, as a developer interview indicated, if you go out of the way to break the game, all you're doing is making it harder on yourself once you stop screwing around.
** While doing the above would certainly complicate things, it still would not make the game "unwinnable". No matter what you do or who you kill, at the end of the day you can always just [[spoiler: kill Stringy Pete, steal his ship, go to the isle of Thanatos and kill Nasrudin, which automatically banishes you to [[TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon the Void]].]]

* HilariousInHindsight: Gilbert Bates, the presumed inventor of the steam engine, who holds the monopoly on making steam engines, is a reference to Bill Gates of Microsoft. His competitor, Cedric Appleby (probably an {{Expy}} of Steve Jobs), is a reference to the Apple corporation, who competes with Microsoft. Today, Apple has already surpassed Microsoft as the bigger tech company made famous by their I-Products such as the iPod, iPhone, and iPad.
** With a market value of about $460 billion, Apple is worth more than Google, Goldman Sachs, General Motors, Ford, Starbucks and Boeing combined. – Apple is now worth almost twice as much as Microsoft (about $258 billion) and more than twice as much as Google ($198 billion).
* MoralEventHorizon: [[spoiler: Garrick Stout became captain of the guard purely so he could stalk a noblewoman, and when he found out she was already engaged, he rendered the fiancee blind in what was promised to be a fair duel, then arranged for the fiancee to become trapped in a cave full of monsters solely so he could save her (or have the player save her on his behalf).]]

* GameBreaker:
** The Explosives line for technologists becomes absurdly powerful if you invest in it and throwing. Almost all of the crafting recipes have materials which can be scoured from trash bins, they can be sold for massive profit, and the higher level schematics create deadly combinations. You'll have a character who can stun an entire room and then blow them all up before they know what hit them.
*** Puny Molotov is enough to throw your enemies all around, forcing melee fighters to waste all their AP to close in once again.
*** Throwable explosives by default are broken by the sheer virtue of costing 1 AP to use. Or ''no AP at all'' with the Apprentice training. As long as you still have supply in your backpack, you can keep tossing grenades until nobody is left standing.
** Looking-Glass Rifle borders on GoodBadBugs. The rifle comes with few really potent properties. It has the longest range of all weapons, surpassing any possible form of attack. There are absolutely no range penalties when firing (it takes Master of Firearms with other guns to get this effect) and the weapon itself comes with additional ''+20'' to-hit bonus, making it pretty much impossible to miss a shot, even while having just single point in Firearms. It's all balanced out by the fact the rifle deals 10-30 damage - a massive gap combined with so-so maximum output... unless you happen to have a version of the game where it deals instead ''40-40'' damage, while retaining all the other nice properties. That's about the amount of HP average mid-tier enemy has, so it's perfectly possible to waltz through the game up until T'sen Ang or so with this rifle. Combined with mentioned above explosives and you can take down an army all by yourself.
** For melee technologists, Smithy is just as broken. Balanced swords can be created in the first town or have Magnus make them for you by the second. They have one of the the fastest attack rates in the game, but still have good damage. The next step up is the featherweight axe, which is slower but stronger. The axe can then be upgraded into the deadly pyrotechic axe, which pound for pound is pretty much the deadliest tech melee weapon in the game thanks to fire being such a broken damage aspect. The only things that outclass it are InfinityPlusOneSword weapons. After that, you get to make the best tech armor in the game.
** There is an unique sword to be found in Isle of Despair. At first glance, [[ADogNamedDog it's just a generic sword like every other]], used by one of the bandits in the fighting pit... only that it deals 10-15 damage and comes with Speed of 15. To put that into perspective, the mentioned above Balanced sword, one of the best melee weapons in the game, deals 3-12 damage and has Speed rating of 18, while Feather-weight axe is 1-16 damage and Speed of 12. Thus it deals a consistent, reliable damage and is one of the faster melee weapons in the game. In fact, only a handful of weapons deal minimal damage equal to or above 10. Due to its Speed, it can outdamage pyrotechnic axe, ''without'' the standard downside of destroying or badly damaging armor of attacked people. The best part? It has neutral aplitude, being, well, a generic sword, so just about any melee character can use it.
** A minor one for technologists is the electric ring in the second level of the electric tech tree. It gives a +2 to Dexterity when worn. You can wear two. In a game with only 60ish character points to give your character, four extra is a huge bonus, minus the two you spend to get there. If you're going for electric mastery, then it might as well be four more points.
** Similarly, if you go the magic route and specialize in Force magic, you will eventually be able to cast the Disintegrate spell at half endurance cost. It will completely and instantly vaporize whatever it hits, essentially letting you run all over the place destroying anything that stands in your way, be it monster, NPC, or a door. It destroys loot, which is something of a downside, but there are a lot of things to kill that do not drop loot (or drop worthless loot).
** The fifth-level time magic spell ''tempus fugit'' speeds your party by a factor of two, and slows everything not in your party by the same factor (no saving throw, no immunity, magic resistance does not apply). It has a large up-front cost, but the cost to ''sustain'' it is trivial. It's every bit as broken as you would expect for something that increases the number of actions your party gets per enemy action by a factor of 4.
** Fatigue slowers halve the fatigue cost of all spells while they're active. Combine that with fatigue-restoring potions, and you can throw around several hundred fatigue points worth of spells without rest. And yes, that can be combined with Force mastery, which allows you to Disintegrate the entire population of TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon.
** The dog. Really high damage, fast attacks, and usually hits. For added cheapness, he even automatically gets the mastery bonuses that you have to either pay or work your ass off for. Makes combat a bit too easy, and kill-steals like you wouldn't believe.
*** He can even bite open doors and chests inflicting only minor damage to himself. You do not need keys or unlocking skills/magic anymore.
** Every combat skill has a matching uber-weapon, almost all of which become available at an appropriate stage of the game. However, Throwing specialists can obtain the Aerial Decapitator around halfway. Finding it may be a GuideDangIt, but after that you have a one-hit killer that requires no ammo and doesn't break. It's also one of the fastest weapons, so even if the first hit isn't lethal, your opponent probably won't be able to retaliate before the next one does the job.
** Even though it's somewhat late-game, the healing mechanical spider gifted to the PC by returning the camera from the crash site counts. As soon as you have it, forget any possible need for any type of healing. One spider, so long as you can keep your party alive, will heal anything short of a maxed-out mage.
*** And the late-game aspect is dropped if you can navigate to a certain mountain passagee and cross it in reverse direction.
** With just a few points invested in Pickpocket (or SaveScumming), you can steal a key from Ristezze, a merchant in the first town, allowing you to open his loot chest and take his entire inventory (It's mostly junk, but technologists can craft some of it into useful items) and all of his money (usually about 1300 coins), and continue to do so every time you visit Shrouded Hills for the rest of the game. Never again will you worry about money.
** Once you find the Necromizer schematics, you can turn some of the most dangerous enemies in the game into your eternal zombie companions. And if they die, just revive them again. The ingredients can be bought or stolen from shops, so you craft an endless amount, for free if you have the lockpicking skills to rob them.
** As soon as you visit Tarant or Blackroot, you can take a train to Ashbury and then dart straight to [[spoiler: Vendigroth ruins]]. With some speed potions you can run past most enemies and get yourself the components and schematic for what may be the best firearm in the game, but if you are willing to pack a couple of invisibility scrolls and explore further, you may also get a chemical that raises all your stats by 1 permanently, and an army of battle robots.

** There is an unique sword to be found in Isle of Despair. At first glance, [[ADogNamedDog it's just a generic sword like every other]], used by one of the bandits in the fighting pit... only that it deals 10-15 damage and comes with Speed of 15. To put that into perspective, the mentioned above Balanced sword, one of the best melee weapons in the game, deals 3-12 damage and has Speed rating of 18, while Feather-weight axe is 1-16 damage and Speed of 12. Thus it deals a consistent, reliable damage and is one of the faster melee weapons in the game. In fact, only a handful of weapons deal minimal damage equal to or above 10. And the best part? It has neutral aplitude, being, well, a generic sword.

** Getting out of the first town can be this for the violence-inclined and/or those without the right build. In order to leave, you have to get past the guys guarding the bridge. Unfortunately, the leader has two half-ogres who will beat your party to death in short order. You get stun grenades early on, but without throwing skill you have to save scum for a solid hit. To get past charitably, you either need a ton of money (more than you're likely to have or want to spend), to sabotage the new bridge being built (which will make the town hate you), or a single skill point in persuasion. You can also abuse the game mechanics by dropping some railroad spikes next to the thugs. You can cheese the encounter by dropping some railroad spikes next to them, which are found with the grenades. Because they're all using their fists (which do a crapload of damage), the game considers them to be unarmed. That means they will automatically pick up and equip ''any'' weapon on the ground nearby, even if that weapon does far less damage than they'd normally do unarmed. Railroad spikes have a maximum damage of 1, which will render them mostly harmless.