Life Regen a Viable Strategy? Other questions too.

[Galax, the Trashman]

I hear you can unlearn skills in towns. How do you do that?

With a simple right-click. However, this only works for the last 5 or so talents that you invested in. You can easily notice them via the blue edges around them as opposed to the regular white edges.
You used to be able to respec anywhere, but SOMEONE, I'm not gonna give names..., decided that EVERYONE is a scummer and will abused this because, apparently it is THE OPTIMAL WAY!1! D= to play the game.

Also... I don't know what scumming is.

Scumming is pretty much a word used for restarting a run in order to get specific items, escorts, resources. It is highly debated by some folk of the community as cheating or something among those lines.

Also I read in another thread something about "drowning every NPC" in the game...
Am I right in thinking that A: I CAN kill NPC's & B: They DO Drop stuff or at least give EXP?
I usually play games "Honorably" but when lvl 40 bone giants can pop out of boxes...
This game may require some special treatment.

This is also a part of scumming. NPCs can spawn with fixarts, randarts, rares, which will be dropped upon death. Only the boss/rare/boss-rare enemies, the ones in blue rectangles will give EXP.
Such tactics are definitely not needed for a play-through on Normal difficulty, I would even say Nightmare. If you wish to tackle Insane and above difficulties then you're pretty much forced to employ them in order to stand a chance. It is a very bothersome preparation, so I don't recommend using them, it leads to great frustration and will make the game not fun to play.

[lanfear]

Life Regen bulwarks can work, but don't go all Con. The main thing that will screw you is disarmed status.

Also, tho the rod thing isn't a bad idea, there are alot of places u can just equip and use a teleport rune instead of that with the same effect, provided its area is bigger than 15 squares.

A regen build really relies on +healing modifiers tho. U can get some crazy buffs from items.

[cctobias]

Well thank you all for all of those replies.

I'll definitely be messing around with Archmages for a while. I did skim mex's guide, and all that really stuck (considering that I don't have wildfire yet) was that with Shalore class talent + that time talent you can hit 200% global speed if I am correct.

That sounds very good to me.

If anyone can enlighten me... I hear you can unlearn skills in towns.
How do you do that? Also... I don't know what scumming is.

Also I read in another thread something about "drowning every NPC" in the game...
Am I right in thinking that A: I CAN kill NPC's & B: They DO Drop stuff or at least give EXP?
I usually play games "Honorably" but when lvl 40 bone giants can pop out of boxes...
This game may require some special treatment.

Drowning is really something for Insane or Madness. You could do it on NM but I really wouldn't bother. It probably a waste of time on Normal.

[magic]

I may mess around with it...
It sounds like you drown them so that you don't incur any "hate" from that town or race?
Could I just pummel them to death?

Also (Thank you guys for helping a n00b), I just tried something and it worked...
I got a talent and then unlearnt the talent required to learn it. I already asked a similar question about stat requirements, but it looks like if I save my skills, that I can skip undesirable skills in certain trees entirely. Or am I pushing the game too far and it this wont actually work?

Also if anyone wants to gimme advice on archmages, I'm actually just sitting here looking at my lvl 4 guy who just got out of the "space dungeon" alive (got that cool lamp).

Like... For an "easy" playthrough, considering I don't have wildfire yet (I DO have lightning though! I seem to be one of the luckiest guys who plays this game seeing as I got it with a lvl 15 chara on my first try). Anyway... Just tips for archmages would be appreciated.

I'm just a bit baffled at all the options archmages have... They are almost the opposite of my tanking bulwarks (many different ways to build, as opposed to just one thing the class "does").
Anyway, I guess I'm gonna go throw points on my guy.

Oh yes.... And I can't figure out what "command staff" does.... Like... I use it and nothing I can detect seems to happen... So help on that would be awesome as well.

[grayswandir]

Command Staff changes the element of the damage bonus the staff gives you.

A standard early archmage build is to put a lot of points into manathrust, lightning, and flame, since they all eventually become beams and have a cooldown of 3.