Which is the most difficult solo single class (kit or no kit) for BG Saga?

bbear

Consider BG1, BG2 SoA and ToB

bbear

Fighter has the equipments, GWW and Hardiness. Mage has spells and wands. Thief has traps. Paladin, Ranger and Monk have similar equipments and abilities as the Fighter. Cleric has spells and most Fighter equipments.

I think Druid is the hardest solo single class. I cant imagine how he can go up against a dragon. Sure he has Ironskin and Elemental Prince, but a dragon can tear the summon into pieces.

Aristillius

Monk will get superpowerful in the late game, but so will most other classes too due to access to great gear, but Monk will be probably be hardest in the early game.

Illustair

I was supposed to say Monk but since @bbear said Druid, then Druid it is. The king of metagaming is infallible.

Kaltzor

I'm gonna have to go with Druid... And more speficially one of it's kits... The Shapeshifter...

Necomancer

I voted thief because I forgot that traps were a thing.

Kamigoroshi

No one expects the Amnish Inquisition!

Skaffen

Druid - lack of damage output. Priest at least has better personal buff spells.

Rewolf

Mages - I dont't like to play with them,so it would be difficult to do a solo run with them for me

CrevsDaak

Druids can get very powerful in a solo run, I don't think that they are difficult for this.
I don't think I can vote, it might be difficult, but they are all possible, with a druid it could be the most difficult, but it depends on how you build your PC.
In SoA, with a druid it's going to get complicated.

elminster

If its a group I would have said monk, because a lot of the druids spells work best in a group environment, but given its a solo playthrough this is probably the most difficult.

elminster

bbear said:

Fighter has the equipments, GWW and Hardiness. Mage has spells and wands. Thief has traps. Paladin, Ranger and Monk have similar equipments and abilities as the Fighter. Cleric has spells and most Fighter equipments.

I think Druid is the hardest solo single class. I cant imagine how he can go up against a dragon. Sure he has Ironskin and Elemental Prince, but a dragon can tear the summon into pieces.

Totally depends on the dragon. There aren't many required dragon fights in the series and thankfully from what I can see only two of them has any degree of fire resistance (Nizidramanii'yt has 20% and Draconis has 50%).

Its going to require a bunch of reloads but your best bet is probably going to be getting off Nature's Beauty against it. Abazigal for instance is immune to a lot of things but apparently blindness isn't one of them. Same with all the other dragon's I've looked at. With 65% magic resistance it would be really tricky but doable. Once he's blind you can take a couple of approaches. Firestorm would work well against him. 4-5 of those should be enough to take him down. Draconis will be tougher in that regard since he has 50% fire resistance. I'd probably use a bunch of energy blades in that case (and probably some summons).

Melissan on the otherhand. Now there is a challenge!

KidCarnival

Monk starts out pretty weak and can't rely on much gear to improve AC, has no spells and can't set traps or summon cannon fodder. Gets powerful later, sure, but you first have to get to the "later".

Demonoid_Limewire

I was torn between thief and druid... But i chose thief. If not played right, you are pretty much screwed. Especially if he is not a fighter thief, a thief mage or a powerful kit, such as bounty hunter...

Druids are pretty weak, especially in comparison to icewind dale counterpart druids (there they can be elves even, too, besides their stronger spell and transformations pool). But if you play a kit druid in BG saga, they are way more powerful than our humble thieves...

bbear

@Aristillius & @KidCarnival: I agree that Monk is pretty rough in BG1 due to poor AC and THACO. Monk is like a crappy version of the Thief who cant disarm trap and backstab. On the other hand, the Druid is easier in the beginning because he levels up pretty quickly and can at least transform to a powerful fighter and has access to healing and buff spells. But taking BG1, SoA and ToB as 3 separate cases, I think the Druid is difficult in 2/3 cases and Monk is 1/3 cases.

@elminster: Casting Nature's Beauty on a Dragon is tricky. The area of effect is very short (5ft-Radius?) and the casting time is somewhat long. Even if the spell is cast successfully (Dragon's Breath or Wing Buffet), I'm not sure the area of effect radius can hit the dragon's big circle. Not to mention that the Dragon has solid MR (neighborhood of 40-65 MR).

@Illustair and others: Dont let my opinions change your thoughts. You should vote based on reason and experience.

elminster

bbear said:

@Aristillius & @KidCarnival: Monk is pretty rough in BG1 due to poor AC and THACO. Monk is like a crappy version of the Thief who cant disarm trap and backstab. The Druid is easier in the beginning because he levels up pretty quickly and can at least transform to a powerful fighter and has access to healing and buff spells.

@elminster: Casting Nature's Beauty on a Dragon is tricky. The area of effect is very short (5ft-Radius?) and the casting time is somewhat long. Even if the spell is cast successfully (Dragon's Breath or Wing Buffet), I'm not sure the area of effect radius can hit the dragon's big circle.

@Illustair and others: Dont let my opinions change your thoughts. You should vote based on reason and experience.

Yea you really have to time it (and get lucky) and have a few summons to distract them. I've done it before with Cernd but its not going to be easy. Still probably your best shot though since Earthquake won't work (at least its sleep effect won't work)

Twani

Monk's going to be harder in BG1, but druid will be harder in SOA and ToB, so I went with druid.

Schneidend

No contest. Fighters can do absolutely nothing about traps, locks, PFMW/Mantle, and will quickly blow through all available resistance/save potions/scrolls trying to protect themselves from enemy spells. Unless you're cheesing, you'd have to get extraordinarily lucky in some fights.

Tome

Wild Mages, to be specific (this is assuming a low/no reload playthrough naturally). While I firmly believe Wild Mages are probably the best casters in ToB, I can't say the same for a lone level 1 Wild Mage at the beginning of the saga. Not only does being a mage already make them a rather squishy target, you're basically gambling with fate every time you cast a spell-and seeing as a mage without spells is hardly a very good idea, that means you'll be doing an awful lot of gambling.

That said, I'd definitely agree that Druids are as a class the most difficult solo class-but if we're talking individual kits, Wild Mage seems like the most hassle.

ZaknafeinBaenre

I think it comes down to either monk or bard for me. I disagree about druid, I feel they have the ultimate crowd-control spell with insect plague, and their summonings are quite strong with elementals. A solo bard in BG...who's he going to sing to? It's useless as he can't sing and fight at the same time (though I think he should be able to). He's got fairly low combat roles, and he's not going to have high combat stats (strength, constitution, dexterity) unless you don't believe in role-playing at all, and can only put one proficiency point in any weapon.

He'll be better in BGII, but I can't imagine playing a bard solo in BG1. I'd rather take a druid.

abacus

But only if Kitted & Fallen... Probably still doable though.

booinyoureyes

tbh, I kinda wished I had a "just show me the results" button since I've never tried to solo the game (nor would ever wish to).
I put druid because I can't see how they would do a very good job doing the most basic job of doing damage later on in the game when shapeshifting becomes irrelevant.

I think a lot of people who admire being subtle and having all these crazy strategies overlook just how important it is to do the not-so-simple job of just hitting things in the face until they die. Crowd control is nice and all, but if I was soloing with a druid I dunno how I would kill even the most debilitated Yaga Shura imaginable.

CrevsDaak

There's a video on youtube of a Totemic Druid solo against Draconis... That changed my mind about druids so I wasn't sure what to vote here.

Lemernis

I chose Monk because it would be so rough till the character came into his or her own.

bbear

CrevsDaak said:

There's a video on youtube of a Totemic Druid solo against Draconis... That changed my mind about druids so I wasn't sure what to vote here.

Is this the video that you were talking about? In that video, the player spent immense amount of effort in killing Draconis. A great length of the video has been edited out.

elminster

CrevsDaak said:

There's a video on youtube of a Totemic Druid solo against Draconis... That changed my mind about druids so I wasn't sure what to vote here.

Yea I don't buy it. So many edits and the dragon just happened to fall dead without any damage listed on the combat log (though the invisibility stalkers from the looks of things took a pounding).

MERLANCE

Monk. You are going to suuuuuck for a long time.

Quartz

Schneidend said:

No contest. Fighters can do absolutely nothing about traps, locks, PFMW/Mantle, and will quickly blow through all available resistance/save potions/scrolls trying to protect themselves from enemy spells. Unless you're cheesing, you'd have to get extraordinarily lucky in some fights.

I dunno, I got through almost all of SoA with a solo Fighter, and I'm, to put it in Halo terms, a bad kid.

mumumomo

BGEE is very easy to solo with every class, the only difficulty being the duchal palace fight.

It's just a matter of knowing when to use potions. Also, Anything that can use wands will have a VERY easy time since Given they are completely OP in BGEE. Therefore bards are very strong soloers in BGEE.

Monks are harders but defintely not hard. Just use kiting a lot and hit, run and hide tactics with the dagger of venom. for the record, using a potion of defense gives you -12 ac.

Personnaly, i would say the wizard slayer is the hardest. The kensai is not great either.


For soa,

It is very easy with every class because of the 8mxp cap. That game was not designed for hla!
Also, keep in mind that there is a handful of quest which involve no danger at all for a solo char (circus, copper coronet, free market, thieves guild, umar hills, d'arnise). These quests gives you roughly 1.5mxp and decent/good items.

Once you are there you are ready for the hardest ones (astral prison, fierkraag, planar sphere)
Planning that way it is quite easy to reach 3mxp before going for the asylum. And with hla you will fly yhrough the rest of the game.

For tob, i lack experience on that one and therefore will not comment.

Overall,if you are not willing to cheese, you have to be able to deal with traps and powerful insta-death spells.
Sole Fighter types (plain, kensai, wizard slayer) cannot do that reliably and have to rely on luck. For that reason, they cannot be considered good soloer. Good = good in a low/no-reload environment. Beating demogorgon "easily" because you have reloaded 10 times until getting lucky on some criticals or saving throw is not good.

As for the best, sorceror by far (NO danger involved at all once you reach 3mxp which can be done almost risk free in chapter 2) if you know what your are doing, FM or FMT are also very strong and need less skills, being able to do every thing from the start of the game.

JuliusBorisov

This thread has officially led to my new playthrough - a no/minimum-reload run with the Totemic Druid starting in BG:EE. I'm going to write about it. I don't have a chance to play as much as @bbear does but nevertheless will try to test the druid.

I've never played the Totemic Druid before so it would be interesting to know whether the spirit animals are the real deal or not.

P.S. And finally I've managed to upload a screenshot.

Gotural

Against PfMW just switch to a normal weapon and you're fine. Equip a +6 weapon and you can bypass Absolute Immunity.