Solo Martial Artitst

[starwarsskier]

I recently started a solo martial artist playthrough (a bit ambitious for a like me newbie, but whatever). Can I get some tips for how to become a master of fisticuffs? I tried making a "dojo" (where you capture raiders and put them in cages to 'train' on), but every time my charecter left for a while (to capture more raiders, get supplies, ect.), my victim dissapears.

So I need some help leveling up my level 28 martial artist (with around level 40 dodge, level 70-80 strength, 50-60 toughness, and 20 dex). Thanks!

[Sievers]

Hello, i suggest you get one more character ( for healing purposes ), as far as trainging goes, getting beaten up then your second guy will come and heal you.

I got my lvl55 Unarmed guy training with those Skeletons you can fight around the world, locked tree of them, gave them heavy armor and no weapons. They dont need food, and i didnt need to get out of the biulding for my second man would go and buy food for my main. So what i did was : Fight skeleton 1 -> repair him \ heal myself ->sleep -> go fight the next skelleton.

Eventually the skelletons got hight unarmed too, so i needed my second guy to be strong too in case my main lost the fight ... and thats what i did, i hope it helps!

[yippeekiay]

Sounds like your prisoners likely died of hunger or you never healed them & they died.

Also, if you save then exit game with them not in focus/view they are likely to disappear too I believe.

[Blueelzebub]

I find that when training high level attack skills it is useful to find truly tanky enemies to give yourself enough quick repetitions to rapidly increase the skill. I go to the Leviathan Coast and train on them. Usually I get 1-2 ranks in unarmed per heal cycle. Generally you'd want to build a small outpost with a bed. Make sure that your character is heavily armored, and since you have low dex, you'll want to be minimally encumbered to bring that up. Leviathans have a really long attack sequence, so you'll have plenty of opportunities to strike rather than being caught in dodge animations. It's really pretty trivial if you're working with masterwork armor. I think my solo martial artist is in the low 70s for dex and MA, 90something strength and like 98 toughness. Be prepared, you get walloped by the leviathans.

[balalaika86]

My most long-lived campaign so far is my solo MA character. Levelling MA is a grind and you'll have all the other pertinent skills in the high 80's before MA even reaches 60. But with the stats you just listed, you have far more training options open to you than a freshly baked character has. There's a few things you can do, and most of the are very grindy.

-For strenght, fill a backpack with enough stuff to make you heavily encumbered, then drop the backpack into your inventory. Then go out and pick a fight with big mobs of enemies that won't eat you, like Dust Bandits. Pick one up and carry it around when you fight. That'll see your strength skyrocket in no time flat.

-For Toughness, either walk around fighting enemies in the nude OR get some good medium armor and then park your character in the fog islands or cannibal plains. Toughness can take a long time to train if you're doing it wrong. Being nude will see you go down to lucky shots or overwhelmed even at high levels. But high toughness also means you'll likely never enter a coma, and you'll be able to get back up in just a few seconds most of the time, which increases toughness even more.

-Dexterity is the slowest of the main attributes to train for a martial artist. The only thing you can do is to keep at it OR pick up a crappy nodachi sword and train it that way. Like with toughness, park your character in the fog valley outside Mongrel or in the Cannibal Plains and just punch everything that comes at you. Dexterity will rise, slow and steady.

-Dodge can be trained easily by setting your character in the Block Stance while fighting low and medium level enemies. You have lvl 40 skill already so any place outside machine territory will do. Enemies won't really be skilled enough to hit you other than once in a blue moon.

-Finally, MA. The thing is that as both it and strenght and toughness increases, you'll make ridicilous amounts of damage per hit. That means enemies go down fast. Low level enemies will get one punched, some will even die outright if you hit them in the head or chest. As your skill increases, even Shek guards and Holy Sentinels will go down in just a couple of strikes. Doing the dojo setup is pretty much the only good way to train. But it is sooo tedious and grindy. But with the way the skill works, having an MA at 30+ and the above skills at 70+ means you can take on most things by yourself. Only high level guards and gutters are a problem at that point. So by that point, just travel around the world and fight at your leisure. It much more fun and grinding stats will have increasingly diminished returns after level 50.

-If you have no qualms about armor, Plate Armor, Plated Boots, Blackened Chainmail and Police Helmet is IMHO the best equipment for a martial artist. It doesn't impact your fighting stats and skills negatively and provides good coverage for the few times someone will actually be able to land a hit on you.

-Prisoners don't starve, IIRC. When they hit 200 hunger they'll stay there as long as they are in their cages. Set up a dojo in a rented house in a town, then buy your food from the local bars and bakeries, and make cheap and easily produced clothing armor to sell in order to feed you. Don't save and reload when away from the dojo, since that will despawn your prisoners. Otherwise they will stay where they are. Beware that they might try to pick the locks from time to time, though.

[starwarsskier]

Originally posted by balalaika86:

My most long-lived campaign so far is my solo MA character. Levelling MA is a grind and you'll have all the other pertinent skills in the high 80's before MA even reaches 60. But with the stats you just listed, you have far more training options open to you than a freshly baked character has. There's a few things you can do, and most of the are very grindy.

-For strenght, fill a backpack with enough stuff to make you heavily encumbered, then drop the backpack into your inventory. Then go out and pick a fight with big mobs of enemies that won't eat you, like Dust Bandits. Pick one up and carry it around when you fight. That'll see your strength skyrocket in no time flat.

-For Toughness, either walk around fighting enemies in the nude OR get some good medium armor and then park your character in the fog islands or cannibal plains. Toughness can take a long time to train if you're doing it wrong. Being nude will see you go down to lucky shots or overwhelmed even at high levels. But high toughness also means you'll likely never enter a coma, and you'll be able to get back up in just a few seconds most of the time, which increases toughness even more.

-Dexterity is the slowest of the main attributes to train for a martial artist. The only thing you can do is to keep at it OR pick up a crappy nodachi sword and train it that way. Like with toughness, park your character in the fog valley outside Mongrel or in the Cannibal Plains and just punch everything that comes at you. Dexterity will rise, slow and steady.

-Dodge can be trained easily by setting your character in the Block Stance while fighting low and medium level enemies. You have lvl 40 skill already so any place outside machine territory will do. Enemies won't really be skilled enough to hit you other than once in a blue moon.

-Finally, MA. The thing is that as both it and strenght and toughness increases, you'll make ridicilous amounts of damage per hit. That means enemies go down fast. Low level enemies will get one punched, some will even die outright if you hit them in the head or chest. As your skill increases, even Shek guards and Holy Sentinels will go down in just a couple of strikes. Doing the dojo setup is pretty much the only good way to train. But it is sooo tedious and grindy. But with the way the skill works, having an MA at 30+ and the above skills at 70+ means you can take on most things by yourself. Only high level guards and gutters are a problem at that point. So by that point, just travel around the world and fight at your leisure. It much more fun and grinding stats will have increasingly diminished returns after level 50.

-If you have no qualms about armor, Plate Armor, Plated Boots, Blackened Chainmail and Police Helmet is IMHO the best equipment for a martial artist. It doesn't impact your fighting stats and skills negatively and provides good coverage for the few times someone will actually be able to land a hit on you.

-Prisoners don't starve, IIRC. When they hit 200 hunger they'll stay there as long as they are in their cages. Set up a dojo in a rented house in a town, then buy your food from the local bars and bakeries, and make cheap and easily produced clothing armor to sell in order to feed you. Don't save and reload when away from the dojo, since that will despawn your prisoners. Otherwise they will stay where they are. Beware that they might try to pick the locks from time to time, though.

Thanks man! I'm currently in Mongrel so training won't be a problem. Strength is fine, like level 80 right now (I explored most of the eastern part of the map with a backpack full of rocks).

I'll try these, thanks for the help!

[balalaika86]

Bear in mind that dedicated training is pretty meaningless for skills above 90. Skills are slower to increase at higher levels than lower ones and above level 95 it's as slow as the rest of the scale combined, and nothing interesting happens for skills at the level either.

[Bored Peon]

They disappeared because the area was unloaded and reloaded. If you leave an area the game in order to save memory just wiped and reloads that particular landblock.