solo cleric of Ilmater? (spoilers)

Lemernis

In a thread on life lessons from Baldur's Gate, MonaCanalla posted

MonoCanalla said:

-Capitalism wins. The more you adventure out there, the more coins you posses. Also, the game is full of beggars and other people with the same miniature that obviusly aren`t strong enough to get their own coin in the Realms.

This made me think of the challenge of the opposing vision: soloing as a cleric of Ilmater who eschews personal accumulation of wealth. He or she would never even touch a coin, or any sort of treasure. The character wouldn't gather any loot drops, and would use only a wooden staff and mundane sling/bullets. In order to survive such a character would have to rely on spells anyway.

I'm wondering how feasible this character would actually be early on... I guess he or she could side-quest a lot and level prior to taking on the Nashkel mines. But even then I'm thinking this is going to be next to impossible just to get to chapter 3. Making it to chapter 4 would also be very tough.

Can one just grab Mulahey's Holy symbol and the letters in the chest in his lair without fighting him? Sanctuary would work for that.

Anyway, thoughts?

Blackraven

I've been entertaining the thought of playing a pacifist hippie druid, and see how far he/she gets with as few kills as possible. Your idea sounds as something similar. An intirguing concept Lemernis, and a playthrough I'd follow with great interest.
I think more 'technical' non-violent playthroughs have been done before, but I don't know how much they were metagamed vs. roleplayed.

Lemernis

Mmm, not sure I would actually want to play this one, lol. Doesn't seem like it would be very fun (though your pacifist idea might be). (I wouldn't have time for it either.) But then again, followers of Ilmater are into martyrdom and suffering, so that would be appropriate, I guess. ;-)

Just curious if anyone thinks this is even feasible. If it was RPed/non-meta-gamed, especially, it just seems nearly impossible. Sanctuary would be crucial. But in the beginning the character has only so many memorizations of a spell; and there's a need to rest, risking spawns, etc.

I definitely don't think this could be done non-metagamed/RPed and no-reload.

Blackraven

I also think it would be very difficult if not impossible. Many fights can be avoided (or fled from) with summons as distractions, boots of speed, and sanctuary among other things, but some kills are necessary though to advance the plot.
As to rules, I would try to roleplay and opt for minimal reload rather than no-reload.

CrevsDaak

Sounds like a Poverty run but with RP sense = much cooler.
If you have Divine Remix you can be a Painbearer of Ilmater. Soloing BG1 with a Cleric is easy, at very early game it's a little difficult, but nothing complicated, then by middle game you get very OP. Another use for the Relair's Mistake Cloak is to make a BG1 cleric a good frontliner, I could tank Battle Horrors at level 7 with DUHM and Wolf-form.
You only have to kill 3 or 4 enemies in the game, because you can use pickpocketing, Mulahey has some letters you need, plus, he is an evil cleric so maybe you can RP-justify that.
@JLee‌ did a run trying to kill the minimum enemies in the game, there is a thread about that here.

Lemernis

@CrevsDaak But bear in mind for this particular concept the character refuses to touch any treasure or loot drops (and as such makes no transactions at stores). So basically the character would have only his or her spells, a plain staff, and mundane sling and bullets for the entire game. And a priest doesn't get a summoning spell until the third level spell Animate Dead.

Wandering_Minstrel

CrevsDaak said:

Sounds like a Poverty run but with RP sense = much cooler.
If you have Divine Remix you can be a Painbearer of Ilmater. Soloing BG1 with a Cleric is easy, at very early game it's a little difficult, but nothing complicated, then by middle game you get very OP. Another use for the Relair's Mistake Cloak is to make a BG1 cleric a good frontliner, I could tank Battle Horrors at level 7 with DUHM and Wolf-form.
You only have to kill 3 or 4 enemies in the game, because you can use pickpocketing, Mulahey has some letters you need, plus, he is an evil cleric so maybe you can RP-justify that.
@JLee‌ did a run trying to kill the minimum enemies in the game, there is a thread about that here.

Does Divine Remix work for 1 / 2 EE yet?

CrevsDaak

@KeaponLaffin5‌ sadly no.

JLee

Unfortunately, afaik, you cannot get through to chapter 3 without killing Mulahey.

I am interested to hear your progress on this playthrough.

As an aside, the hardest part of my whole game was not killing a skeleton or kobold in the battle with mulahey. I must have reloaded 20 times!

Lemernis

@JLee For me it's really just a thought experiment. At least for the next few years I won't have to time to actually try it. I was just thinking, though, that I don't see how such a character could even get past Mulahey.