OP u might wanna check the bioware forums. Some guy actually completed the game with a solo vanilla thief, without good stats either (i think had the same as Alora the npc). He posted his progress there, so it's definitely doable.
Edit: A lot of abuse and cheese was involved though.
Here's a tip that doesn't require any specialized gear or items - be prepared to run away when the odds of dying appear too high - if you make the decision promptly you should be able to get out of range and/or off the map to safety to fight another day. (Altho sometimes enemies may follow from one map to another - but this was pretty rare in the original)
Once away from a group you can make the decision whether or not to sneak back and try to snipe them down to size.
I like no reload games but only on core and with a full party that I can sacrifice when needed to stay alive ;-)
Thanks for all of the tips everyone. I restarted and have swiftly moved onto level 5 (fighter and mage) and level 6 (thief). Killing the basilisks proved to be so useful and has definitely helped to level up faster.
The spells sleep and grease have helped me the most so far along with the wand of fire. Does anyone know if damage is increased if you shoot a fireball within the grease area of effect? It does not appear to, but thought I would ask if someone knows for definite.
Also cheers to everyone for the invisibility potion tip...also been very useful.
So I kicked him in the- So I kicked- So I kicked him in the head- So kick- So I kicked him in the head until- he was dead- until he was- So I kicked him NYAHA- So I- NYAHAHA- until he was dead- dead -dead NYAHAHAHA *Awakes in a cold sweat.*
So I kicked him in the- So I kicked- So I kicked him in the head- So kick- So I kicked him in the head until- he was dead- until he was- So I kicked him NYAHA- So I- NYAHAHA- until he was dead- dead -dead NYAHAHAHA
Baldur's Gate Bandit Remix...could become a club classic :-)
For Solo Play consider Fighter/Cleric. Sanctuary can save your butt in a no-reload challenge.
Fighter/Thief/Mage is also great but mage is regulated to support (buffs) for your fighter aspect. Use wands (like wands of fireball and summoning) for your spell casting. Not like you have much else to spend your money on with only 1 character. Thief should be focused early on with Traps and use Knock to unlock chest until you manage to get your lockpicks high enough. Don't bother with Backstabing until BG2 or near the end of BG1 since it will be hard to place enough points Move Silently and Stealth to use it reliably in daylight.
Also, focus on Move Silently since the chance to stealth is the average between the two skills but how long you stay stealth once detected is determined by your Move Silently skill alone.
This inspired me to start a new game. Since I've run through many times with F/M/T, this time I am doing a slight variation to F/M/C (not sure how I am going to survive Durlag's Tower but let's just be happy if Charname lives that long).
I munchkin-ed the stats with my first ever 3 CHA but I figure this is why no one wants to travel with Charname. Opening two mage spells are Find Familiar and Protection from Petrification.
After summoning my new best friend familiar, I left Candlekeep with 23 hit points (thanks Faerie Dragon!) potions of clarity and antidote and having learned Identify. After booting my poor sister from the party, my familiar cast invisibility 10' radius and we went off exploring on our way to the Friendly Arms Inn. We knocked off a couple of gibberlings and then took down an Ogre with a Command and two rounds of melee combat. With the Ring of Protection and Belt equipped, my Charname's AC is a base -2 (Large Shield, Splint Mail, Ring) and is a -8 against missile weapons (-2 then 1 for shield, 2 for style, 3 for belt).
Feeling our oats, we decide to melee the next wolf we encounter. A crit for 16 damage right off the bat and we are running for the hills (thankful to be alive only by the grace of the bonus HP from Bi-tee). Better part of valor...better part of valor!!!
Day 1 finishes with us having visited Thalantyr over in High Hedge. (Now level 2 / 1 / 2). It is on to Nashkel and then the basilisks.
Playing solo is such a waste of a great combat system anyway... A well fleshed out party grants interesting strategic opportunities. Combat becomes much more enjoyable with a group.
Playing solo is such a waste of a great combat system anyway... A well fleshed out party grants interesting strategic opportunities. Combat becomes much more enjoyable with a group.
I'd agree if there were Heart of Fury option in BG. But there isn't and playing with a group, while enjoyable, isn't really challenging enough on Insane.
Playing solo is such a waste of a great combat system anyway... A well fleshed out party grants interesting strategic opportunities. Combat becomes much more enjoyable with a group.
Yeah I cannot deny that playing within a party is more enjoyable, but thought I would give myself a stiffer challenge. I don't know how much further I will get with no reloading...if I get anywhere near close to fighting aec'letec that would be amazing. Aec'letec was a big nemesis for me on my first party playthrough, and took me hours to eventually defeat. Anyone got any tips for solo defeating aec'letec?
Once I have finished my solo playthrough I will play the game again with a party and check out the new arrivals. There is loads of time before BG2 EE will come, which means loads of time to play through the first one.
Day 2 - Update. So day 2 for Willow is either the luck she needs to survive the series or an indication that at some point she is going to get unlucky and eat it. This is the day that her familiar Bi-tee played the hero. The first part was the ability to rest with no risk. I started using a pattern of casting invisibility 10' radius right before we rested and then if we were attacked the enemy would just stand there and Willow could pick them off at her leisure or just leave. That also meant that both characters start post-rest invisible and can scout the area with zero risk and Bi-tee has her mirror image and invisibility spells fresh and ready.
Willow made it to Nashkel with no problem and headed off for the basilisks. We scouted the area and then picked off the basilisks one-by-one. Then Willow silenced the insane mage and pounded him to dirt. She waited until the end of the board and after she had picked up the cloudkill spell from the insane mage to tackle the party. I figured that would be the biggest risk for the day but all the buffing turned out to be unnecessary. Two cloudkills + the friendly ghast meant that she could pummel the party into dust before they could even get a move off.
This all brought her to 4th level and near 5th level in cleric -- which would bring that key Summon Undead spell so I decided to stop by the Temple area and pick off the vampiric wolves. That was a mistake. I didn't think through the fact that undead are vulnerable to web (which I didn't have yet) but not cloudkill so I walked up expecting to pummel my enemies with my sling and some mage spells (switched to a robe for this) but first vampiric wolf in visual range didn't want to play along. Willow got off a couple of magic missiles and discovered that the electric bullets are not actually magical and so had no effect. She switched to the only magic weapon she had (+1 morning star) and tried to duke it out since the vampiric wolf was badly hurt -- forgetting their paralysis ability. It bit and paralyzed my character, and Willow was dead to rights. That invisible fairie dragon, however, was near by (Bi-tee had been slowing down the wolf's approach by running interference while Willow fired off magic missiles) and cast invisibility 10' radius right next to Willow. Everyone turned invisible and Willow waited out the paralysis and ran away.
Long story short, Willow had a similar experience with Bassilus. She drew him out and failed a save against a hold person spell. Bi-tee knew the drill at this point and ran up and turned Willow invisible again. (Bassilus was running through a script of casting more spells so he wasn't caught up in it). A bit more strategy after the paralysis wore off (silenced him from outside visual range) and Willow finally had a worthy weapon.
At the end of day 2, she had finished the Nashkel mines, the gnoll fortress (didn't go far in here), saved Brage, trounced some Sirens (who don't hold up well against a horde or Ghasts), and knocked out several other miscellaneous challenges.
Willow is sitting at:
Willow Chaotic Good 5 Fighter/5 Mage/6 Cleric XP: 29,199 (x3) Strength: 18/89 Dex: 18 Con: 19 Int: 15 Wis: 18 Cha: 4 HP: 67 (55 with boosted Con + 12 for familiar) AC: -5 (-14 against missiles) War Hammer** Sword and Shield Style* Slings** Familiar: Bi-tee Primary equipment: Boots of avoidance, Ankheg Plate, Evermemory (ring), Honorary Ring of Sune, Ahideena (hammer), Eyes of Truth (helmet), sling (+1 bullets), shield amulet (for when switch to robes for mage spell casting)
Next up is back to Beregost and to Feldpost's Inn to purchase an amulet of protection and to find out more about this iron crisis -- with a horde of Ghasts assisting the interrogation.
At this point Willow is pretty much not lifting a finger. Each board essentially starts with invisibility 10' radius, rest, and then using 3-4 animate dead spells to summon 5 ghasts. Then the invisible familiar leads the ghasts around the area slaughtering everything with Willow sitting somewhere safe (either firing the sling behind them or just waiting a safe distance away from the action). This has the bonus advantage of the invisible familiar not triggering fights so that sometimes the ghasts can just walk up and surround the enemies before combat begins (for example, this made the Thayan wizards a breeze).
This technique also works very, very well for some of the enclosed fights like the end of the bandit camp or the spider cave in the cloakwood forest. Willow steps into the room, insults the bad guys, fires a quick shot with the sling and runs out of the room. Enemies follow her outside and are met by 5 ghasts who start pummeling them while Willow fires the sling or spells. The only one who almost did something was the druid in the cloakwood forest who held Willow with a non-interruptable hold person spell but he didn't get to do any damage since the ghasts ripped him apart. Cloudkill is demonstrably inferior to web but a nice combination with the ghast horde.
Davaeorn wasn't much of a challenge but Bi-tee triggered the traps when scouting so she was almost killed off which would have sucked. I webbed the area and used the necklace of missiles to fireball the battle horrors to death and then had the ghasts surround Davaeorn while I pelted him with the sling. The only useful spell he got off before he went down was a fireball but that didn't touch Willow or take down any of the ghasts.
Two downsides to this playthrough: (1) Willow hit the 161K cap before the mines so the fun of leveling up is gone even though she is quite close to hitting level 7 in all three classes (I removed the cap but just won't level her up) and (2) it has become very difficult to manage items. Willlow typically has one open spot in her inventory at any time and I have to be very choosy about which items are worth carrying. Thank goodness for the potion case.
I have completed the BG1 several times solo without reload over the years. Oddly enough my favourite class for this was a female bard. There are several key items (wand of monster summoning, potions of invisibility, boots of speed, scroll of protection against undead) and strategies that most of the veteran players know off by heart that make it somewhat straight forward. That being said, I find soloing (power playing) quite boring actually as its the allies you make on your journey that make the game fun.
I agree on the party interaction but this is my first time trying a no reload game so the novelty is fun. I do frequently run with 3-4 party members when using multi-class characters, though.
If it is possible to do a solo run with reloads then it is technically possible to do a solo run with no reloads; it's just much more difficult.
The keys to successful solo runs are:
1. Know the game well enough that you know what is coming: metagaming is essential. 2. Decline or run away from any fight you aren't at least 99% certain you will win. Probability is not on your side. 3. Know which fights are worthwhile. Fighting bandits is almost never worthwhile: they are far more dangerous than their gold and XP value warrants. 4. Cheese!
Spoilers (if I remember them correctly):
In particular, I would want to get Algernon's cloak as soon as posible (once you reach Beregost). From Candlekeep, head south to High Hedge and then to Beregost and the area south. Make sure you get the ankheg plate and the ring of wizardry (but don't go to the FAI itself until you are 100% sure you can beat Tarnesh). There is a wand of fire in the Ankheg pits, and I think one of lightning in the Beregost manor. the necklace of missiles in high hedge is an excellent purchase. Sell the ankheg plate and/or ring of wizardry if you can't use them to buy it. A bow and the necklace in the area with all the ogres and ogrillions can get you a lot of XP. If you are level 5 or so when you do the Nashkel mines, you should be well on your way to finishing the game solo.
The ghast hordes plowed through everything through the Candlekeep return. At that point, I figured I had better take my shot at the Sword Coast material.
First, Willow took on the werewolves. The ghasts hit their first major stumbling block there. The siren was easy, but they couldn't hurt or stun any of the werewolves. Fortunately, they still made for fine fodder and a web spell pretty much incapacitates the wolves. The difficulty came when facing the greater werewolf. Bi-tee blocked the greater werewolf from joining the fight while Willow ran around spamming webs and then killing the rest of the werewolves at the top. Unfortunately, the greater werewolf's regenetation was such that magic missiles and lightning bolts etc. were all too slow even with the werewolf held. (Not sure why, but the lightning bolts hurt him the first time they passed through and then didn't hurt him again even though they passed through like a dozen times). The greater werewolf is also immune to melf's meteors (which means immune to +5 weapons). Since the game lacks a single weapon usable by a cleric against a greater werewolf and he was unharmed after regenerating each round, I was forced to do something other than man up and try to take him down.
Willow resorted to going invisible and running away from the fight and then spending a day building up skull traps. A dozen or so of those translates into a dead greater werewolf. Cheesy but effective. I didn't feel bad about the cheese since the game writers made it pretty much impossible for a cleric to take him down without some cheddar.
That left the part of the game I feared the most - Durlag's Tower. Using find traps, Willow could avoid many of the death traps. I followed that up by spamming potions of absorbtion (and/or the boots + a scroll) along with the ring of fire protection and the 3rd level protection from fire spell whenever I had to travel over the traps. That protected her from the recurring traps (the other damage ones are one time and gone which means that the tons of healing potions plus resting, etc. could clear those out). I made liberal use of the wands throughout (burned through two wands of paralyzation and one fireball wand). Ironically, the early levels of the tower (heading down) were actually much tougher than the last few levels.
The demon knight was also a bit harder than I remembered. Despite wearing a ring of free action, the demon knight used remove magic (dropped the 100+ fire resistance to 40 with the other ring) and then combo'd a fireball and powerword stun. Not sure why the powerword stun was effective with the free action but it was. Bi-tee again saved the day with an invisibility 10' radius and we ran away, refreshed spells and came back...to be instantly blinded by a powerword blind. Invisible again and waited it out. After that, pelting him with multiple melf's meteors was quite effective (my usual technique of using the wand of paralyzation didn't pan out this time).
After returning to the Baldur's Gate and taking the 16 hour trip to Ulgoth's Beard (meaning we arrived invisible), Willow walked to the north of the board out of sight of the cultist sneak attack and then buffed up, summoned the ghast horde, dropped multiple stinking clouds and send the horde in to eliminate the cultists. Not a problem. I had saved the potions of magic blocking for Aec Letec but they turned out to be unnecessary. A few fireballs from the wand combined with melf's attacks in between eliminated most of his supporting crew. Willow lured the demon to the top of the screen, went invisible and ran to the bottom where she used the scroll of cloudkill from Durlag's Tower to eliminate the rest of the supporting cultists. She then lured Aec Letec into the cloud where she figured on running around the perimeter of the cloud and pelting him with spells and wands but he died almost instantly from the cloudkill spell.
@AHF: wow, impressive, well done! good luck in the final fight.
I ran into this issue in the past vs the GWW on the island. I had a solo Cleric (so, no skull traps) and never managed to find a way to bring him down. Wand of Fire was not doing enough damage. My no-reload solo run back then ended right there (which was a pity because after the island the plan was to go in the final battle and finish the game...). I am interested to know if anyone managed to beat the GWW with a solo Cleric; not sure it is possible.
Impressed that you made it through DT without disarming any traps and without dying ! I thought there were quite a few insta-kills traps in there... also, did you visit the Pirates' Cave by the Ligthhouse?
I was doing a no-reload solo with a Halfling Cleric these last few days, got him to lvl.8 and past Cloakwood and it was all very comfortable (the ghasts make this really easy). I then decided I wanted to visit all TotSC areas and face all tough fights, so went to pick-up Imoen (who was still lvl.1) and now it is just the 2 of us rolling through the Sword Coast. They're quite a formidable pair and I am having good fun.
I ran into this issue in the past vs the GWW on the island. I had a solo Cleric (so, no skull traps) and never managed to find a way to bring him down. Wand of Fire was not doing enough damage. My no-reload solo run back then ended right there (which was a pity because after the island the plan was to go in the final battle and finish the game...). I am interested to know if anyone managed to beat the GWW with a solo Cleric; not sure it is possible.
Impressed that you made it through DT without disarming any traps and without dying ! I thought there were quite a few insta-kills traps in there... also, did you visit the Pirates' Cave by the Ligthhouse?
On the GWW, I wonder if the Glyph of Warding spell could be used the same way. The big difference between the two is that you suffer no damage if you make your save from the glyph and it only does 1d4 damage per level but if you stack an absolute ton of them that might work. You could use protection from electricity or a potion of absorption, etc. and actually just walk safely in amongst them if you want to make sure they get triggered.
I did visit the Pirate's Cave for the Constitution tome - very important to surviving those traps! At the level Willow did it, she used the Ghasts for protection and attacked with magic sling bullets from a safe distance.
In Durlag's Tower, the only trap that was truly instant death that she didn't avoid was one that either almost killed her or should have killed her. On the final level of the Tower, there is a large trap that has the walls crush you and kill you regardless of HP. Willow was fully buffed so I wasn't really thinking about it and when she shot past it with the boots of speed. It actually triggered after Willow had already passed through. (It would have been a crushing way to go after that long in every sense of the word).
The main key to survival without a thief was being patient - rest and rebuff if you are at any kind of risk. You can't gamble in that area because a fireball that gets through combined with a critical hit by a skeletal warrior, etc. can be deadly. Invisibility was key for safe resting (I saved Bi-tee's 10' spell either for resting or for when Willow was otherwise going to bite it). Much of the combat was done with +2 bullets and boots of speed to avoid melee. It was probably easier doing solo than with a party because Willow could carry around a ton of potions for buffing and didn't have to share.
I was doing a no-reload solo with a Halfling Cleric these last few days, got him to lvl.8 and past Cloakwood and it was all very comfortable (the ghasts make this really easy). I then decided I wanted to visit all TotSC areas and face all tough fights, so went to pick-up Imoen (who was still lvl.1) and now it is just the 2 of us rolling through the Sword Coast. They're quite a formidable pair and I am having good fun.
@Beverast@AHF@Ossory You might want to check out my videos. Total run time 02:06 (critical path), one save at each chapter's end allowed (mostly for convenience's sake -- BG:EE is not a paragon of stability, to put it mildly).
Warning! Some heavy meta-gaming and definite cheese is going on, but no cheating involved:
On the GWW, I wonder if the Glyph of Warding spell could be used the same way. The big difference between the two is that you suffer no damage if you make your save from the glyph and it only does 1d4 damage per level but if you stack an absolute ton of them that might work. You could use protection from electricity or a potion of absorption, etc. and actually just walk safely in amongst them if you want to make sure they get triggered.
Ah! now you got me thinking. Worth a try but not on my current no-reload ;-) but yes basically you would have to stack them all and be lucky with the GWW saves... there are also lvl.4 Cause Serious Wounds (17 damage...) that might help, as well as Poison. Would the GWW be poisoinable? if yes, that would be 2D8+2/round... would it be stackable? not sure. I fear all this might not deal sufficient damage on any given round though, before the insane regeneration kicks in.
I did visit the Pirate's Cave for the Constitution tome - very important to surviving those traps! At the level Willow did it, she used the Ghasts for protection and attacked with magic sling bullets from a safe distance.
I was not worried about the golems, but the traps! one of them at least is -save-or-die...
In Durlag's Tower, the only trap that was truly instant death that she didn't avoid was one that either almost killed her or should have killed her. On the final level of the Tower, there is a large trap that has the walls crush you and kill you regardless of HP. Willow was fully buffed so I wasn't really thinking about it and when she shot past it with the boots of speed. It actually triggered after Willow had already passed through. (It would have been a crushing way to go after that long in every sense of the word).
The main key to survival without a thief was being patient - rest and rebuff if you are at any kind of risk. You can't gamble in that area because a fireball that gets through combined with a critical hit by a skeletal warrior, etc. can be deadly. Invisibility was key for safe resting (I saved Bi-tee's 10' spell either for resting or for when Willow was otherwise going to bite it). Much of the combat was done with +2 bullets and boots of speed to avoid melee. It was probably easier doing solo than with a party because Willow could carry around a ton of potions for buffing and didn't have to share.
That's actually very impressive. Obviously the familiar helped a lot and a solo Cleric would have a much tougher time, but still, really quite an achievement.
The final update for Willow and Bi-tee ends with good news -- she has taken the first steps to godhood!
The final run through was alternately easy and challenging. Running through the Iron Throne, helping the Duke, etc. was easy for Willow as the ghasts pretty much tore all the opposition apart. Once in the palace, the fight against the dopplegangers was actually fairly tough. Willow set up the ghasts at the far end of the room and then webbed all the guests. The web let Willow destroy a couple of the dopplegangers and those that gave chase get let into the ghast fodder zone. However, only the wand of paralyzation picked up in the eastern district of BG allowed her to stop having all the nobles killed.
After that, the charge through the maze wasn't too bad since everything is preset and manageable. A scroll of protection against undead allowed for the safe elimination of the skeletal warriors in and beyond the maze while a couple webs combined with some fireballs to eliminate the opposing party before Willow got into visual range. The traps followed the Tower formula of potion of absorption + fire resistance = not much damage gets through (and the couple fireball traps actually heal with the ring + spell) for the ones that can't be avoided (the magic missile ones near the end in particular).
The final faceoff against Sarevok was at hand. Bi-Tee was on the alert, invisible in a remote corner of the room, but not needed in this battle. Willow went through all the pre-buffing that she had left with spells, potions, etc. Several potions of invisibility were on hand but not ultimately needed. A web scroll was fired off near the stairs and then both second level spells were fired as cloudkills so they extended further over the middle of the room (where the ghasts were stationed), followed by a fireball wand and a scroll of greater malison (each time running back to the entry to room as the spell moved towards Sarevok and his buddies). When Sarevok's minions started emerging (after the greater malison), they targeted the ghasts with their spells (preserving Willow's buffing and presenting zero risk to the ghasts of being confused, etc.) and were pretty much chewed apart by the ghasts and a nice dosage of melf's meteors (3 sets with one pre-cast and two as her 3rd level spells).
By the time the ghasts were dead, Angelo and Semaj were both down, Tazok was badly injured, and Sarevok was untouched. It was time for the wand of monster summoning to keep Sarevok occupied. The sling took down Tazok while Sarevok battled the first two packs of wolves appearing at his feet and then it was a matter of just firing the sling into Sarevok while the summons were chewed down and then using the summoning wand again. This process was sped up by the fact that I decided to fire the wand of paralyzation somewhat on a lark between bullets, and it actually held Sarevok. Willow then pelted him with bullets (along with the help of the last hobgoblin archer in the summoned group who could now hit the stunned Sarevok) until it was obvious that he was only still standing because he was still stunned. Willow then just simply waited for the stun to wear off and received the sad news that her half-brother was no longer with us.
It was a gratifying feeling making it through without a reload. I then immediately violated the 'no reload' challenge by reloading the auto-save file following Sarevok's defeat, so I could level Willow up since I had removed the cap but left her at levels 6 / 6 / 6 and she went to level 9 fighter / 10 mage / 9 cleric (with 301+K experience in each category). I may import her like this for a solo run at the Black Pits at some point in the future.
Offtopic - Since this was the first time I had run through BG:EE, I am going to add an editorial comment that the final movie redo was the only cinematic that I felt really was a let down as compared to the original. A lot of the detail was taken out (both out of the tunnel transition and more importantly from the part where all the statutes are being shown) and it just really lacked the same impressive feeling that you just went from a fight against the "big bad" in Sarevok to suddenly realizing that you and Sarevok are just two of many, many players in a much bigger narrative. It was the panning over multiple and varied statutues and panning out to the larger image that made that scene really successful and the cut from the Sarevok statue crumbling to the final shot is too abrupt for me.
I did something similar... but instead of insane difficulty I put mods from bg2 to allow lvl and hlas to go up to 50, and rolled my stats on an outside RNG, then rolled from races available to those stats (usually human or half orc which humans at least are more common lorewise) and then rolled alignment and chose my class from what that person was allowed to be. Most of my characters had sucky stats but made due with whatever they got. It was fun, but the best character I rolled (16 int neut chaos wild mage) got insta gibbed along with a full party by circle of bandits. No reloads.
I was so pissed because I've never played BG before and was learning the ropes with each new char, then finally got a relatively strong one who was doing well.
Cast Invisibility before you travel. If you get a random encounter while invisible you can just walk away.
If you pick chaotic good and find familiar as one of your spells for your F/M/T your familiar can cast invisible on both of you. Do this every time before you travel.
WTF just happened, I was walking down the street in berogosh or whatever the town is called and Khalim instagibbed randomly. It said "Baresh's new transformation" and Khalim:death in the log.
It autopaused enemy sighted, and there was a loup garu standing where khalim just was. I couldn't even damage it so it wiped my group.
Comments
Edit: A lot of abuse and cheese was involved though.
Once away from a group you can make the decision whether or not to sneak back and try to snipe them down to size.
I like no reload games but only on core and with a full party that I can sacrifice when needed to stay alive ;-)
The spells sleep and grease have helped me the most so far along with the wand of fire. Does anyone know if damage is increased if you shoot a fireball within the grease area of effect? It does not appear to, but thought I would ask if someone knows for definite.
Also cheers to everyone for the invisibility potion tip...also been very useful.
*Awakes in a cold sweat.*
Fighter/Thief/Mage is also great but mage is regulated to support (buffs) for your fighter aspect. Use wands (like wands of fireball and summoning) for your spell casting. Not like you have much else to spend your money on with only 1 character. Thief should be focused early on with Traps and use Knock to unlock chest until you manage to get your lockpicks high enough. Don't bother with Backstabing until BG2 or near the end of BG1 since it will be hard to place enough points Move Silently and Stealth to use it reliably in daylight.
Also, focus on Move Silently since the chance to stealth is the average between the two skills but how long you stay stealth once detected is determined by your Move Silently skill alone.
I munchkin-ed the stats with my first ever 3 CHA but I figure this is why no one wants to travel with Charname. Opening two mage spells are Find Familiar and Protection from Petrification.
Willow
Chaotic Good
1 Fighter/1 Mage/1 Cleric
XP: 0
Strength: 18/89
Dex: 18
Con: 18
Int: 15
Wis: 18
Cha: 3
HP:11
War Hammer**
Sword and Shield Style*
Slings*
Familiar: Bi-tee
After summoning my new best friend familiar, I left Candlekeep with 23 hit points (thanks Faerie Dragon!) potions of clarity and antidote and having learned Identify. After booting my poor sister from the party, my familiar cast invisibility 10' radius and we went off exploring on our way to the Friendly Arms Inn. We knocked off a couple of gibberlings and then took down an Ogre with a Command and two rounds of melee combat. With the Ring of Protection and Belt equipped, my Charname's AC is a base -2 (Large Shield, Splint Mail, Ring) and is a -8 against missile weapons (-2 then 1 for shield, 2 for style, 3 for belt).
Feeling our oats, we decide to melee the next wolf we encounter. A crit for 16 damage right off the bat and we are running for the hills (thankful to be alive only by the grace of the bonus HP from Bi-tee). Better part of valor...better part of valor!!!
Day 1 finishes with us having visited Thalantyr over in High Hedge. (Now level 2 / 1 / 2). It is on to Nashkel and then the basilisks.
Once I have finished my solo playthrough I will play the game again with a party and check out the new arrivals. There is loads of time before BG2 EE will come, which means loads of time to play through the first one.
Willow made it to Nashkel with no problem and headed off for the basilisks. We scouted the area and then picked off the basilisks one-by-one. Then Willow silenced the insane mage and pounded him to dirt. She waited until the end of the board and after she had picked up the cloudkill spell from the insane mage to tackle the party. I figured that would be the biggest risk for the day but all the buffing turned out to be unnecessary. Two cloudkills + the friendly ghast meant that she could pummel the party into dust before they could even get a move off.
This all brought her to 4th level and near 5th level in cleric -- which would bring that key Summon Undead spell so I decided to stop by the Temple area and pick off the vampiric wolves. That was a mistake. I didn't think through the fact that undead are vulnerable to web (which I didn't have yet) but not cloudkill so I walked up expecting to pummel my enemies with my sling and some mage spells (switched to a robe for this) but first vampiric wolf in visual range didn't want to play along. Willow got off a couple of magic missiles and discovered that the electric bullets are not actually magical and so had no effect. She switched to the only magic weapon she had (+1 morning star) and tried to duke it out since the vampiric wolf was badly hurt -- forgetting their paralysis ability. It bit and paralyzed my character, and Willow was dead to rights. That invisible fairie dragon, however, was near by (Bi-tee had been slowing down the wolf's approach by running interference while Willow fired off magic missiles) and cast invisibility 10' radius right next to Willow. Everyone turned invisible and Willow waited out the paralysis and ran away.
Long story short, Willow had a similar experience with Bassilus. She drew him out and failed a save against a hold person spell. Bi-tee knew the drill at this point and ran up and turned Willow invisible again. (Bassilus was running through a script of casting more spells so he wasn't caught up in it). A bit more strategy after the paralysis wore off (silenced him from outside visual range) and Willow finally had a worthy weapon.
At the end of day 2, she had finished the Nashkel mines, the gnoll fortress (didn't go far in here), saved Brage, trounced some Sirens (who don't hold up well against a horde or Ghasts), and knocked out several other miscellaneous challenges.
Willow is sitting at:
Willow
Chaotic Good
5 Fighter/5 Mage/6 Cleric
XP: 29,199 (x3)
Strength: 18/89
Dex: 18
Con: 19
Int: 15
Wis: 18
Cha: 4
HP: 67 (55 with boosted Con + 12 for familiar)
AC: -5 (-14 against missiles)
War Hammer**
Sword and Shield Style*
Slings**
Familiar: Bi-tee
Primary equipment: Boots of avoidance, Ankheg Plate, Evermemory (ring), Honorary Ring of Sune, Ahideena (hammer), Eyes of Truth (helmet), sling (+1 bullets), shield amulet (for when switch to robes for mage spell casting)
Next up is back to Beregost and to Feldpost's Inn to purchase an amulet of protection and to find out more about this iron crisis -- with a horde of Ghasts assisting the interrogation.
This technique also works very, very well for some of the enclosed fights like the end of the bandit camp or the spider cave in the cloakwood forest. Willow steps into the room, insults the bad guys, fires a quick shot with the sling and runs out of the room. Enemies follow her outside and are met by 5 ghasts who start pummeling them while Willow fires the sling or spells. The only one who almost did something was the druid in the cloakwood forest who held Willow with a non-interruptable hold person spell but he didn't get to do any damage since the ghasts ripped him apart. Cloudkill is demonstrably inferior to web but a nice combination with the ghast horde.
Davaeorn wasn't much of a challenge but Bi-tee triggered the traps when scouting so she was almost killed off which would have sucked. I webbed the area and used the necklace of missiles to fireball the battle horrors to death and then had the ghasts surround Davaeorn while I pelted him with the sling. The only useful spell he got off before he went down was a fireball but that didn't touch Willow or take down any of the ghasts.
Two downsides to this playthrough: (1) Willow hit the 161K cap before the mines so the fun of leveling up is gone even though she is quite close to hitting level 7 in all three classes (I removed the cap but just won't level her up) and (2) it has become very difficult to manage items. Willlow typically has one open spot in her inventory at any time and I have to be very choosy about which items are worth carrying. Thank goodness for the potion case.
Now...on to the city of Baldur's Gate!
The keys to successful solo runs are:
1. Know the game well enough that you know what is coming: metagaming is essential.
2. Decline or run away from any fight you aren't at least 99% certain you will win. Probability is not on your side.
3. Know which fights are worthwhile. Fighting bandits is almost never worthwhile: they are far more dangerous than their gold and XP value warrants.
4. Cheese!
Spoilers (if I remember them correctly):
In particular, I would want to get Algernon's cloak as soon as posible (once you reach Beregost). From Candlekeep, head south to High Hedge and then to Beregost and the area south. Make sure you get the ankheg plate and the ring of wizardry (but don't go to the FAI itself until you are 100% sure you can beat Tarnesh). There is a wand of fire in the Ankheg pits, and I think one of lightning in the Beregost manor. the necklace of missiles in high hedge is an excellent purchase. Sell the ankheg plate and/or ring of wizardry if you can't use them to buy it. A bow and the necklace in the area with all the ogres and ogrillions can get you a lot of XP. If you are level 5 or so when you do the Nashkel mines, you should be well on your way to finishing the game solo.
First, Willow took on the werewolves. The ghasts hit their first major stumbling block there. The siren was easy, but they couldn't hurt or stun any of the werewolves. Fortunately, they still made for fine fodder and a web spell pretty much incapacitates the wolves. The difficulty came when facing the greater werewolf. Bi-tee blocked the greater werewolf from joining the fight while Willow ran around spamming webs and then killing the rest of the werewolves at the top. Unfortunately, the greater werewolf's regenetation was such that magic missiles and lightning bolts etc. were all too slow even with the werewolf held. (Not sure why, but the lightning bolts hurt him the first time they passed through and then didn't hurt him again even though they passed through like a dozen times). The greater werewolf is also immune to melf's meteors (which means immune to +5 weapons). Since the game lacks a single weapon usable by a cleric against a greater werewolf and he was unharmed after regenerating each round, I was forced to do something other than man up and try to take him down.
Willow resorted to going invisible and running away from the fight and then spending a day building up skull traps. A dozen or so of those translates into a dead greater werewolf. Cheesy but effective. I didn't feel bad about the cheese since the game writers made it pretty much impossible for a cleric to take him down without some cheddar.
That left the part of the game I feared the most - Durlag's Tower. Using find traps, Willow could avoid many of the death traps. I followed that up by spamming potions of absorbtion (and/or the boots + a scroll) along with the ring of fire protection and the 3rd level protection from fire spell whenever I had to travel over the traps. That protected her from the recurring traps (the other damage ones are one time and gone which means that the tons of healing potions plus resting, etc. could clear those out). I made liberal use of the wands throughout (burned through two wands of paralyzation and one fireball wand). Ironically, the early levels of the tower (heading down) were actually much tougher than the last few levels.
The demon knight was also a bit harder than I remembered. Despite wearing a ring of free action, the demon knight used remove magic (dropped the 100+ fire resistance to 40 with the other ring) and then combo'd a fireball and powerword stun. Not sure why the powerword stun was effective with the free action but it was. Bi-tee again saved the day with an invisibility 10' radius and we ran away, refreshed spells and came back...to be instantly blinded by a powerword blind. Invisible again and waited it out. After that, pelting him with multiple melf's meteors was quite effective (my usual technique of using the wand of paralyzation didn't pan out this time).
After returning to the Baldur's Gate and taking the 16 hour trip to Ulgoth's Beard (meaning we arrived invisible), Willow walked to the north of the board out of sight of the cultist sneak attack and then buffed up, summoned the ghast horde, dropped multiple stinking clouds and send the horde in to eliminate the cultists. Not a problem. I had saved the potions of magic blocking for Aec Letec but they turned out to be unnecessary. A few fireballs from the wand combined with melf's attacks in between eliminated most of his supporting crew. Willow lured the demon to the top of the screen, went invisible and ran to the bottom where she used the scroll of cloudkill from Durlag's Tower to eliminate the rest of the supporting cultists. She then lured Aec Letec into the cloud where she figured on running around the perimeter of the cloud and pelting him with spells and wands but he died almost instantly from the cloudkill spell.
Kind of anti-climactic.
Last up...the final run to Sarevok.
I ran into this issue in the past vs the GWW on the island. I had a solo Cleric (so, no skull traps) and never managed to find a way to bring him down. Wand of Fire was not doing enough damage. My no-reload solo run back then ended right there (which was a pity because after the island the plan was to go in the final battle and finish the game...). I am interested to know if anyone managed to beat the GWW with a solo Cleric; not sure it is possible.
Impressed that you made it through DT without disarming any traps and without dying ! I thought there were quite a few insta-kills traps in there... also, did you visit the Pirates' Cave by the Ligthhouse?
I was doing a no-reload solo with a Halfling Cleric these last few days, got him to lvl.8 and past Cloakwood and it was all very comfortable (the ghasts make this really easy). I then decided I wanted to visit all TotSC areas and face all tough fights, so went to pick-up Imoen (who was still lvl.1) and now it is just the 2 of us rolling through the Sword Coast. They're quite a formidable pair and I am having good fun.
I did visit the Pirate's Cave for the Constitution tome - very important to surviving those traps! At the level Willow did it, she used the Ghasts for protection and attacked with magic sling bullets from a safe distance.
In Durlag's Tower, the only trap that was truly instant death that she didn't avoid was one that either almost killed her or should have killed her. On the final level of the Tower, there is a large trap that has the walls crush you and kill you regardless of HP. Willow was fully buffed so I wasn't really thinking about it and when she shot past it with the boots of speed. It actually triggered after Willow had already passed through. (It would have been a crushing way to go after that long in every sense of the word).
The main key to survival without a thief was being patient - rest and rebuff if you are at any kind of risk. You can't gamble in that area because a fireball that gets through combined with a critical hit by a skeletal warrior, etc. can be deadly. Invisibility was key for safe resting (I saved Bi-tee's 10' spell either for resting or for when Willow was otherwise going to bite it). Much of the combat was done with +2 bullets and boots of speed to avoid melee. It was probably easier doing solo than with a party because Willow could carry around a ton of potions for buffing and didn't have to share. That sounds excellent!
You might want to check out my videos. Total run time 02:06 (critical path), one save at each chapter's end allowed (mostly for convenience's sake -- BG:EE is not a paragon of stability, to put it mildly).
Warning! Some heavy meta-gaming and definite cheese is going on, but no cheating involved:
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/12027/solo-hardcore-blackguard-run
So have you won the game now?
The final run through was alternately easy and challenging. Running through the Iron Throne, helping the Duke, etc. was easy for Willow as the ghasts pretty much tore all the opposition apart. Once in the palace, the fight against the dopplegangers was actually fairly tough. Willow set up the ghasts at the far end of the room and then webbed all the guests. The web let Willow destroy a couple of the dopplegangers and those that gave chase get let into the ghast fodder zone. However, only the wand of paralyzation picked up in the eastern district of BG allowed her to stop having all the nobles killed.
After that, the charge through the maze wasn't too bad since everything is preset and manageable. A scroll of protection against undead allowed for the safe elimination of the skeletal warriors in and beyond the maze while a couple webs combined with some fireballs to eliminate the opposing party before Willow got into visual range. The traps followed the Tower formula of potion of absorption + fire resistance = not much damage gets through (and the couple fireball traps actually heal with the ring + spell) for the ones that can't be avoided (the magic missile ones near the end in particular).
The final faceoff against Sarevok was at hand. Bi-Tee was on the alert, invisible in a remote corner of the room, but not needed in this battle. Willow went through all the pre-buffing that she had left with spells, potions, etc. Several potions of invisibility were on hand but not ultimately needed. A web scroll was fired off near the stairs and then both second level spells were fired as cloudkills so they extended further over the middle of the room (where the ghasts were stationed), followed by a fireball wand and a scroll of greater malison (each time running back to the entry to room as the spell moved towards Sarevok and his buddies). When Sarevok's minions started emerging (after the greater malison), they targeted the ghasts with their spells (preserving Willow's buffing and presenting zero risk to the ghasts of being confused, etc.) and were pretty much chewed apart by the ghasts and a nice dosage of melf's meteors (3 sets with one pre-cast and two as her 3rd level spells).
By the time the ghasts were dead, Angelo and Semaj were both down, Tazok was badly injured, and Sarevok was untouched. It was time for the wand of monster summoning to keep Sarevok occupied. The sling took down Tazok while Sarevok battled the first two packs of wolves appearing at his feet and then it was a matter of just firing the sling into Sarevok while the summons were chewed down and then using the summoning wand again. This process was sped up by the fact that I decided to fire the wand of paralyzation somewhat on a lark between bullets, and it actually held Sarevok. Willow then pelted him with bullets (along with the help of the last hobgoblin archer in the summoned group who could now hit the stunned Sarevok) until it was obvious that he was only still standing because he was still stunned. Willow then just simply waited for the stun to wear off and received the sad news that her half-brother was no longer with us.
It was a gratifying feeling making it through without a reload. I then immediately violated the 'no reload' challenge by reloading the auto-save file following Sarevok's defeat, so I could level Willow up since I had removed the cap but left her at levels 6 / 6 / 6 and she went to level 9 fighter / 10 mage / 9 cleric (with 301+K experience in each category). I may import her like this for a solo run at the Black Pits at some point in the future.
Offtopic - Since this was the first time I had run through BG:EE, I am going to add an editorial comment that the final movie redo was the only cinematic that I felt really was a let down as compared to the original. A lot of the detail was taken out (both out of the tunnel transition and more importantly from the part where all the statutes are being shown) and it just really lacked the same impressive feeling that you just went from a fight against the "big bad" in Sarevok to suddenly realizing that you and Sarevok are just two of many, many players in a much bigger narrative. It was the panning over multiple and varied statutues and panning out to the larger image that made that scene really successful and the cut from the Sarevok statue crumbling to the final shot is too abrupt for me.
I was so pissed because I've never played BG before and was learning the ropes with each new char, then finally got a relatively strong one who was doing well.
Cast Invisibility before you travel. If you get a random encounter while invisible you can just walk away.
If you pick chaotic good and find familiar as one of your spells for your F/M/T your familiar can cast invisible on both of you. Do this every time before you travel.
It autopaused enemy sighted, and there was a loup garu standing where khalim just was. I couldn't even damage it so it wiped my group.