Need advice for a Stealth/Melee/Throwing Knives/Temporal Manipulation Character

[Ronn0k]

First off, I've barely played through more than the tutorial so is a build such as this even viable? I'd prefer to use a Sword, or if not then a knife if possible.
Any advice, suggestions or just a quick 'No. Not going to work', would be awesome! Also, I usually skip past Normal and go for Hard in games these days, but I get a feeling it could be a bad idea as it appears UnderRail has a fair amount of depth, just what you want in a good cRPG! Thoughts?

I suspect I might be stretching it a bit going for Temporal Manipulation, so I could drop that (it just sounds awesome), but I don't know enough to know if am.

Any help is appreciated!

Edit: The research I've done always seems to come up with 'use grenades, traps, and mines!' Grenades and a trap here and there sounds good, but the talk about mines makes it sound like if I'm using them then what's the point of using anything else since they're just that good.

[chimaera]

There is no problem in adding temporal psi to any build, because you can successfully use it even with 3 will. Most abilities are buffs & debuffs, and for them you only need to spend the exact amount of skillpoints to be able to learn them, not more. For temporal it would be either 55 (if you want just the 'haste' buff) or 70 if you want all abilities.

I don't play melee characters, so I can't help here, but I think a sword build should be viable on hard. I'd aim for the expose weakness feat (which requires 5 intelligence), because some enemies can have high resistances. Getting throwing is good advice too, because in some rare instances enemies can be reached only by ranged attacks.

[Ronn0k]

Thanks for replying!

Awesome about the Temporal Manipulation and especially being probably okay on hard. I've spent the few hours since posting looking into things further and messing with the build calculator and started a test character about 20minutes ago on normal. So far it's been way too easy, but then 90% of enemies have been rathounds so who knows.

I'll definitely look into expose weakness.

The starting stats I went with for now are.

5 STR
9 DEX
7 AGI
5 CON
4 PER
4 WIL
6 INT

For feats I started with nimble and snooping. From what I've heard snooping is seen as kind of a waste, but since it's my first proper playthrough and the character idea I'm going for should find most secrets, I'd like to at least experience a fair amount of them this time round.

I'll probably restart on hard and see how it goes. Thanks again.

[Bruno]

Edit: The research I've done always seems to come up with 'use grenades, traps, and mines!' Grenades and a trap here and there sounds good, but the talk about mines makes it sound like if I'm using them then what's the point of using anything else since they're just that good.

About mines, yes they can be devastating, but they have some drawbacks. Setting up a minefield while hidden in stealth at a chokepoint is instant death for those who step on them.

But mines are very heavy. At 2kg per mine, it is limited how many you want to lug around. The more dangerous kinds also cost a lot.

Human enemies can and will detect your mines, and bypass them, if your skill is low. To place mines close by enemies, you need to have a quite decent stealth skill, and either Quick Tinkering, Trap Expert and/or the Interloper feat at least, if not you will be detected.

Most importantly, mines only help you if you have the luxury of being able to prepare the battleground in advance, preferably from stealth. (So you probably have to be the lightly armored, stealthy, squishy type.) Unfortunately there are several times when you have to fight right away with no chance to place mines beforehand, so you need to have other tricks up your sleeve.

[chimaera]

4 PER
4 WIL

You can lower these two to 3, and gain two more stat points that way. The penalty to psi skills from low will won't matter, because it doesn't influence the buffs/debuffs, and because only the invested points count for learning an ability. So even if your temporal skill is something like 55 (46), you can still learn any ability that requires 55.

Same for perception. Having 4 per vs. 3 doesn't really give you any advantage, because it will be low either way. You can increase detection with food & goggles anyway.

[Ronn0k]

That's good to know about the mines. I'm going to be fairly squishy and lightly armoured with good stealth, so perhaps I will carry a few for difficult situations. I'll give them a try at least. Thanks.

You can lower these two to 3, and gain two more stat points that way. The penalty to psi skills from low will won't matter, because it doesn't influence the buffs/debuffs, and because only the invested points count for learning an ability. So even if your temporal skill is something like 55 (46), you can still learn any ability that requires 55.

Same for perception. Having 4 per vs. 3 doesn't really give you any advantage, because it will be low either way. You can increase detection with food & goggles anyway.

These points you could spend on: dexterity & agility. With 7 agility you can pick both 'sprint' and 'fancy footwork', which will give you more mobility on the battlefield. And you will definitely want mobility when playing melee.

I had no idea that only the invested points counted for learning abilities, but I suppose it makes sense so it isn't affected by stat increasing gear. It really does mean only 2 abilities are affected. I was toying with the idea of using Precognition in combination with Premeditation for a large defensive buff that I can keep up the rest of the fight after using the bulk of my PSI activating Psycho-temporal Contraction, and sadly it's one of the two that are. I was thinking of doing this so I wouldn't feel like I was losing too much survivability if I didn't take Parry->Riposte and instead took two other feats.
Still dropping it sounds like it might be worthwhile.

I'm already at the 7agi for 'sprint' and 'fancy footwork', but of course more stats are always good! I avoided sprint because having a 10 turn CD seemed a bit much and I'll get Psycho-temporal Contraction which will do the same anyway. If I find I need 'sprint' in addition, I'll grab it or restart. I'll take 'fancy footwork' at some point though.

Thanks again!

[chimaera]

Well, with 8 agility you could pick up uncanny dodge. But I have no idea how useful it is in practice.
For evasion you have evasive maneuvers & the jumping bean pill (which needs to be crafted, but doesn't require much biology) & tabi boots & siphoner leather armor. Which imo is more economic than wasting too many skillpoints on temporal psi.

Sprint is useful for that first strike, when you start combat from stealth. So the long cooldown doesn't matter, because once you start fighting fancy footwork will kick in.

[Ronn0k]

Oh yeah that makes sense. Thanks!

[brobotics]

I dont know anything about melee builds but I would highly recommend Trap Expert if you intend to use traps in any major capacity. For me, setting up more than 3 traps without it is painful just because it takes so damn long. May be controversial but I'd even take it over Quick Tinkering.

Of course getting both would be ideal, but I don't know what the feat order looks like in your build. Sometimes you get this slowdown in builds where from levels 8 to 14 you have to choose a few decent feats instead of the outstanding ones youre working towards. Always tricky min/maxing those levels in my experience

[Ronn0k]

They both look pretty good. I definitely need to test traps properly before I make a decision, but I'll keep them in mind. Thanks.

So far I'm level 6 about to go to Junkyard and haven't used a trap yet. The only problems I've had are a few instances of getting one shot with 'aimed shot' criticals,  dealing with the first bots (which I really should have just ignored but I wanted to test), and finally a raider leader who throws grenades at his own feet killing both of us as well as his two companions...which seems a bit suspect AI to be honest.

If I kited the Raider Leader into traps and tried to get him to waste his grenade before engaging it might have been better. I did try to buy a few before realizing the shops only buy things they actually want, so I had less money to throw around and sadly cut them to afford a better weapon and a couple spare healing hypos.