First time soloing.
agentmulder
Member Posts: 114
I will try to solo for the first time. Can someone give me some tips on classes/races or general tips on how to proceed?
Edit: I made a mistake. I intend to solo BGII EE, I should have said that.
Edit: I made a mistake. I intend to solo BGII EE, I should have said that.
Post edited by agentmulder on
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EDIT: Post directed towards BGEE. Disregard
** in bows
** in long swords, blindness and sleep as starting spells
IMO the real trick to soloing is how you gain your first 3 or so levels. Go for quests and experience that require little (or no) actual combat (like talking down marl, firebead's book), then when you have a couple more levels under your belt, doing the anghek farm (sleep spell makes it pretty easy to clear). then you can do the basilisk map with Korax
As an Elven Archer you will have ludicrously low Thac0 and will kill most mobs before they ever reach you. With boots of speed and arrows of detonation you can solo Drizzt, if that gives you any indication for how powerful this build really is.
I've not actually gone into soloing BG2 yet, but for BG at least, a few good ones are....
Ranger/Cleric - Minor issue in that it has little ability to handle locks and traps, but with Summons and defensive buffs, you can handle most things you come across.
Fighter/Mage/Thief - Obvious advantages are obvious.
Cleric/Thief - Stealth, buffs and incredible, incredible backstabs.
Mage/Cleric - Magical domination.
Mage/Thief - Mages are amazing. Thieves are amazing. Mage/Thieves are more amazing and my personal favourite. But if you hate multiclassing and being awesome, try a bard instead.
Fighter/Mage - Dualled or otherwise, Fighter/Mages are incredibly survivable, versatile pugilists.
Fighter/Thief - Berserker/Thief is a classic, and far outstrips Kensai/Thief dual, since you're immune to so many things, but all Fighter/Thieves are pretty great.
Generally you need a Thief or Mage component to deal with every day adventuring activities.
General tips:
Unless you're planning on an even bigger challenge that just plain soloing, be competent in your core abilities, your strength, your intelligence, your constitution, and your dexterity should all be as high as possible. If you're a caster, 18 Wisdom is nice as well, pretty much mandatory for a divine caster.
Do not attempt to do everything and get everything. You will have more stuff than you need, and stuff you cannot use. You will potentially have encounters you cannot deal with (here's looking at you Karoug Cleric-slayer), and stuff that's not worth your time, particularly when you've hit the Exp cap.
Do not take chances. You do not like randomness. If there is a chance you can be charmed, dominated, paralysed, stunned or otherwise taken out, it will eventually happen. Be immune to whatever you expect to face, at least for as long as you expect to face it.
Wear a damn helmet.
Do not allow the game to dictate terms to you, backstab before the forced dialogue, kill people at range. Your new Bhaalspawn power as a soloer is that you are an oracle, and you know the future.
Do not kiss Sirines.
Do not kiss Succubi.
In fact, no kissing at all. It just leads to trouble.
If you're starting in BG1, hit and run ranged weapons are king. If you're a fighty/stealthy type then consider slings instead of bows. One hit with a sling and 19+ Strength is massively better than one hit with a bow. Do quests with little to no fighting for early Exp, a level 3 character is vastly more survivable than a level 1 character.
Even if you're not a mage, you want your intelligence to be decent, if only so Mindflayer crits don't end you.
Always have a source of Fire or Acid damage.
Scrolls, potions and wands. Use them liberally, especially for the aforementioned immunities. A fully potion'd CHARNAME can wipe the floor with enemies that unbuffed parties have trouble with.
Depending on your particular moral focus, take other characters on for their gear and then boot them, or kill them and loot them.
Take your time.
Mages: Invisibility before rest is great. Find Familiar is great, especially if you happen to have Imp available. Polymorph Self is incredible against other mages. Contingency for being helpless, even if it's just Invisibility and non-detection. Sleep everything for the first half of BG1, risk free kills are unbeatable.
Clerics: Cast Sanctuary before you rest. Unless you're in an inn, Sanctuary-Rest is basically immunity to random enemy spawns while you're sleeping. Command is great for so many reasons.
Thieves: Learn to get cover between you and enemies. You only need a second of cover to hide. Traps are awesome (and against Cowled Wizards, hilarious!). Save Carsomyr, it doesn't really matter if you're proficient or not, 90% MR without potions is worth it once you get HLAs. If you're not doing a hardcore run, pick pockets and rob shops remorselessly.
Mages & Clerics: Summon. Summon all over the place. In BG1 Animate Dead for a cleric is level 3, and makes Sirines, Basilisks and even some mage fights a breeze.
Slayer change makes you immune to a whole lot of things, and you'll have gold out the Wazoo to bring your rep back up, so... Yeah, might want to go for that.
More later if I can think of any.
Ranger/Clerics will naturally need true seeing, free action (can get a ring for this), negative plane protection (can just wear an amulet for this), Insect Plague (good offensive spell with crowd control and anti-mage pestering), and any forms of cleric buffs like Draw Upon Holy Might, Righteous Magic, and Protection from Evil.
Only real weakness to the Ranger/Cleric is disarming traps are a general "no" and removing protections on mages will be harder without the precious Breach.
Assassins - Effective killers. Bane of casters due to the ability of poison weapon(if the backstab does not kill the opponent first), bane of anything else that walks due to backstabs.
Fighter/Thief - a Backstabbing trap finder that can hit hard and has good HP, also able to "cheat" by hiding in the shadows, throwing full plate on, and backstabbing the strongest opponent before a fight.
Thief/Mage - A versatile class that can be made into either ranged fighting or melee fighting with the spells put in the inventory. (invisibility casting mage versus fireball casting mage)
I was using Celestial Fury and Belm, with Flail of Ages as a backup for golems and trolls and Daystar for dealing with vampires, lots of fire wands and cloudkill wands, web spells, draw upon holy might and vampiric touch (I usually play as chaotic neutral) after drinking an invisibility potion...and who knows what else, but it was a truly unstoppable character. I've never had Firkraag go down so easily. Plus, with spell immunity: abjuration, it was very easy to summon the occasional demon from a scroll without worrying about it attacking me.
To answer the OP's original question, I'd think that a thief or a illusionist/thief would be the most powerful. I know that traps become ridiculously powerful and the ability to stealth into any situation helps bunches. Plus the ability to use wants and the like are quite powerful (summons and pacification type wands in particular).
As far as traps in BG2, at this point in my Soloing as a DD, I have found no traps that really even phase my Charname with him having mega high magic resistance. However, disarming traps, especially high level traps, makes for good XP!
Been playing a little BG2 with him also but been more into another save.
Ive also soloed most of BG2 with Sorc, which is fantastic if you know your spells.
I soloed BG with a Bounty Hunter and it was one of the most awesome playthroughs ever.
Cleric/ranger is also a good choice for solo. Numerous ways to dispatch enemies, great healing abilities and has enough versatility to keep the game interesting.