Some quick stuff:
Merchant and Mercenary are good first-time picks. Merchant is the most straightforwardly 'predictable' talker faction in Teron, whereas the Thief, for example, has many different ways to solve quests so people can get a bit lost vis-a-vis skills. Mercenary is the easiest to go full fighter and beat shit up and not die too many times doing it.
Start specialised then branch out. Even if you start out with 4 STR/CON and most of your points on noncombat skills, once you get the hang of things, and especially as you get to late Teron / Maadoran, you'll be able to start investing in the gear and skills to make yourself not entirely useless at combat, and vice versa. In contrast, if your very first character wants to do a little of everything, he will. Sadly, just like in real life, being a little bit talented at shooting guns and a little bit at sneaking will result in dead yous.
What can you expect from each 'class'? Thief, Assassin, Merchant, Praetor and Mercenary begin 'in' their own faction in Teron, although you get opportunities to backstab/etc.
- As a merchant, expect to talk a lot. Persuasion, Etiquette, Streetwise often go together; Trading does get used in conversations. But other skills will also have their uses.
- As an assassin, you have multiple means of taking out your target. You can go full combat; you can focus on sneak and critical strike to succeed in in-dialogue backstabs, and maybe support that with skills in Impersonate and Streetwise for infiltration.
- Praetor again supports everything from a full blown talker - e.g. with lots of Etiquette and Persuade - silvertonguing his/her way through the elite - to the full blown fighter.
- Mercenaries tend to be fighter-oriented and will be easiest that way, though this isn't necessary. Most predictable builds would focus on combat, alchemy and crafting, maybe some streetwise.
- Thieves get a lot of options, which cater to burglar thieves (Lockpick/Sneak/Steal often work in tandem here), combat thieves, and even talker thieves (Impersonate/Streetwise with some burglar skills). Any such grouping would ensure that your thief survives Teron in some way. Probably.
Grifter, drifter and loremaster begin a little more flexibly, and are open to many combinations. Keep in mind, of course, that most characters will end up working with the factions outlined above.
To be extra clear: every background can support everything from the most talky to the most fighty. But if you're just starting out, that's my suggestion of the most predictably survivable options.
How to assign attributes? It is not easy to increase your attributes later, so choose carefully. The HP you start with as a result of your CON is basically your HP, for example. Some tips:
- STR is important, because many heavily armoured enemies will have enough DR to threaten even an axe-wielding fighter (axes having the most pure damage output). It is not uncommon for, say, a low-STR dagger-wielding thief to discover that his high DEX/PER allows him to hit the armoured centurion 4 times a turn, but he's doing 1 damage a turn because of the DR. So think about how much you want to be fighting; what weapon you will be wielding; and whether you have other ways of bypassing DR (e.g. hammers' special ability is to reduce DR may mean you are OK with 4 STR).
- DEX is very important for the obvious reason: AP. In this case it might help you to know the typical AP spread of your weapon type. E.g. if you want to wield the largest two-handed hammer types, consider that a normal attack is 6AP (meaning fast=5, power=7). So you might want to try and hit 11AP rather than 10. This is important with bows/crossbows due to reloading; e.g. with a hand crossbow, a normal shot is 2AP and reloading is 3AP, so you might want 10AP rather than 9. Keep in mind every weapon type has multiple subtypes with different AP spread, of course. Dexterity is also used quite frequently in conversations, e.g. for running away.
- CON is dump-able, but that depends, just like STR. You will generally be dodge-fighter or block-fighter (see below). A dodge-fighter relies on getting hit very infrequently. If you go all out on pumping your dodge, you might get into fights where they hit you only ~20% of the time. Block fighters can rely on heavy armour and shield to mitigate damage. You will have to decide how much you are going to focus on these defensive skills, and how far the extra HP gets you. Just personally, I tend to put CON up with blocks and down with dodges; if a dodge dude, lightly armed, is getting hit frequently, then he's not going to survive very long anyway.
- PER is very important, because AOD is a bit stingy with THC (to-hit chance). Now, THC is also dependent strongly on your weapon skill. In any case, it's not infrequent to get into fights and see that you have sub-50% THC, hovering over an enemy, even with decent PER. So your decision here depends on how much you'll invest in your weapon skill; whether you're going for 'swing many times' or 'swing few times for big damage' tactics; etc. Perception is also used quite a lot in dialogues, e.g. to spot hidden things in the environment.
- INT is important for everyone, but especially for talkers, because (1) there are many INT checks in dialogue especially when you want to pull a fast one, (2) it controls your skill point gain, and talkers tend to need more skill points because they need to invest into quite a few different skills.
- CHA is not a dump stat. (Well, none of these are.) Charisma is often checked alongside persuasion, streetwise, etc., so if you want to be a talker you do want to have high charisma as support.
Dodge vs. Block. Choose one. Anybody who is going to get in a fight will need one of those two. Nobody really needs both. Why? Dodge is about wearing light armour and not getting hit, because heavier armour has "Armour Penalty' (which is actually a penalty to your dodge). Lighter armour have very low DR. So you don't want to get hit. Block is about getting hit, but reducing the damage. You'll usually go with heavy armour and a shield; you can't dodge for shit, but you might find that they hit you for 8 damage and you have 9 DR. It's generally inadvisable to combine these. (Corollary: that means two-handed weapons, light armour and dodge typically go together. Not always, but typically.) So you can see that picking one at the start is important for your gear choices, other skill choices, and your fight strategy. A block fighter will sometimes charge into the fray, and even if his one-handed sword isn't doing a whole lot, his allies (you do fight with allies a fair bit in AOD) will take the enemies down. A dodge fighter might do the opposite.
Finally, I am pretty sure I don't need to tell Codexers this, but
pick your fights. Almost every fight in Teron is avoidable. For some, every fight is avoidable. Sometimes, non-combat solutions get you a similar level of rewards. Sometimes, that might mean leaving a quest unsolved... because hey, you can't fix all the problems in the world. Maybe another version of you, rolled in some alternate universe, could.
