Most entertaining solo class?
Blackraven
Member Posts: 3,486
In @Helmo1997's Best character for soloing bg+bg2+tob? thread, @Twani commented the following about soloing a Sorcerer through the trilogy.
This made me wonder, what do you consider to be the most versatile and entertaining solo class? A class that could rely on different strategies to tackle the same fight, a class that can adapt well to most circumstances, a class that doesn't become repetitive once you get a good handle on it. I'm not asking about the most powerful class here. I'm interested in the fun factor.
My bet is on a Fighter/Caster or Thief/Caster combination, especially if you allow yourself to kit a multi. Think of a Fighter/Avenger who can fight in melee and ranged thanks to being half Fighter, shapeshift, and cast a varied palette of offensive, disruptive and protetcive spells. Or a personal favorite: a Mage/Swashbuckler who can melee like the best, be a competent ranged attacker (thanks to Thieves' normally high dex and their access to various good ranged weapons), use magic to improve their fighting prowess or to cast debuffs or crowd control spells, and set traps.
I know that there are many diehard soloers out there. I'd be interested to have your views.
Twani said:
I sort of found it tedious, in the end. Every 'big' fight, the same protection spells, the same damage strategy (you basically cast the exact same spells for each fight)... it bored me.
This made me wonder, what do you consider to be the most versatile and entertaining solo class? A class that could rely on different strategies to tackle the same fight, a class that can adapt well to most circumstances, a class that doesn't become repetitive once you get a good handle on it. I'm not asking about the most powerful class here. I'm interested in the fun factor.
My bet is on a Fighter/Caster or Thief/Caster combination, especially if you allow yourself to kit a multi. Think of a Fighter/Avenger who can fight in melee and ranged thanks to being half Fighter, shapeshift, and cast a varied palette of offensive, disruptive and protetcive spells. Or a personal favorite: a Mage/Swashbuckler who can melee like the best, be a competent ranged attacker (thanks to Thieves' normally high dex and their access to various good ranged weapons), use magic to improve their fighting prowess or to cast debuffs or crowd control spells, and set traps.
I know that there are many diehard soloers out there. I'd be interested to have your views.
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I like thief/anything combos, really, dual- or multi-classed. Thief/Mage is obviously powerful and still a lot of fun. Thief/Cleric could be a lot of fun too. I will even add that I have rolled up some very badass Fighter/Mage/Thiefs who are gloriously versatile if a bit hindered on development and HP.
You can use summons, shapechange, contigencies...
For the other classes:
- All fighter types are boring. You click on the monster and wait for it to die.
- cleric types brings buffs to the equation (=boring for me)
- Fighter/mages types have more possibilities but most of the time it will be buff (boring) then hack and slash (boring).
- Thief/mage is better but the problem is that comparatively to the sorceror, the only thing they have fighting wise is traps. And at higher levels traps tend to remove all "challenge" (there is not much left anyway once you get to level 9 spells) from the game.
- A FMT can do everything but will often do buff + hack and slash.
To keep things interesting, I like to be forced to use a class to its full potential.
Something like an assassin : if you just rush in, you will most likely die. But if you make a good use of your skills (backstab, UAI, traps, poison weapon), you can overcome anything.
Anyway at the end of the game, it tends to be boring whatever the class i am using. it's why i rarely finish SOA (i stop in the underdark most of the time, which is when my character becomes a god walking on earth)
He can cast from almost any scroll and can use almost every wand as well, supplementing his "I can be whatever you need me to be" mentality.
Not as good in combat as a fighter or fighter/multiclass, but still better than an arcane caster when the weapons break out, not to mention those 2 extra HP/level until 9 make a difference, especially early.
A great stronghold in BG2. No, the Bard Stronghold is not great, it is awesome!
Bards also get to use all the fun Bard-specific magic items, there is only one in BGEE, but lots more in BG2.
Traps at the later stages.
If your wisdom is above 10, you will most likely never really need more than a few identify spells throughout the entire saga. Of course, it is not game breaking but it just saves some gold and/or rests in the end.
Has pickpocketing: Of course, you don't NEED pickpocketing, but a cloak of Algernon in BG1 and a ring of regeneration in BG2 are two good items to have at least.
A Blade kit adds serious fighting abilities. A Jester kit can also be entertaining, his song is useful even in ToB (you can choose not to change it with a HLA song).
To me, a Blade is even more fun, even more versatile than other Bards.
2. A Mage/thief is pretty entertaining as well. Detect Illusion eliminates the need to memorize divination spells, open lock/disarm traps gives tons of XP and you never need to memorize knock.
Stealth is superior in most cases to basic invisibility and backstab gives you a brutal option vs most enemy mages (Stealth is protected by Cloak of Non-detection, invisibility spells are not).
Traps are nice for back-up vs magic resistant/immune enemies you'd rather not risk/is immune to backstabbing (or backstabbing and then luring the wounded enemy into a trap to finish it off).
3. A F/M/T is also a good choice. Having "low" levels means you should think more on stratagies you use against certain enemies. A fighter part adds some badass-arity to your already versatile character.
And you have lots of tools at your disposal, especially at HLA levels (magic, decent fighting, UAI, traps).
However, you'd better like buffing...
And the character lacked raw power because she wasn't a Fighter so I couldn't hack&slash my way which prevented it from becoming boring in my opinion, it was great fun !
Blades look entertaining but also weak, I'm actually playing one in multiplayer with an IRL friend who is playing a Gnome Fighter/Illusionist, we're gonna see how it work.
And I think playing a solo Wild Mage (with reload of course for this one) could be a real lot of fun !
So many ways to get through fights and very many options as well.
1.) Great divine spells.
2.) Backstab with club and quarter staff.
3.) Good in melee with 19/20 STR.
4.) Summons to help you.
5.) Sanctuary for invisibility.
6.) Can use Full plate, Large shield and Helm.
7.) Can use traps.
8.) High lore with Thief as your class and 21 Wisdom.
9.) Use any item.
10.) Cleric ring at level 25 that increases your strength by 1.
Would be fun if you made him a Half-Orc Lathander/Talos/Helm - Thief.
I've soloed a Half-Orc Cleric/Thief through the trilogy in a no-reload game. He was one of the most fun characters i've played because he had so many options.
If you start him in BG1 and grab the tomes you're looking at something like.
STR - 20 /21 (With Symbol)
DEX - 19
CON - 20
INT - XX
WIS - 21
CHA - XX
Which is very impressive. You might not gain more HP from your high constitution, but once it reaches 20 you'll be able to regenerate which will be helpful. It also lets you reach 25 with DuHM in both STR and CON.
When you're done with Watcher's keep (if you do it) you'll sit on.
STR - 21 /22 (With Symbol)
DEX - 20
CON - 21
INT - XX
WIS - 23
CHA - XX
You'll be able to pick up another 2 wisdom in hell trials to have 25 wisdom in ToB. So that's a legit 25 score.
@SionIV, my experience with a Cleric/Thief in BG1 and part of SoA (where his no-reload run ended), is that he kind of functioned as a superthief with summons. Very interesting, this makes a lot of sense. Versality can be one key to a fun playthrough, but playing a character with less options serious and serious weaknesses can be just as interesting.
I know BG1 well enough to solo the game with other classes, but for SoA and ToB purposes my solo SCS no-reload efforts have so far been gnome Illusionist/Thief (game lost due to crash), Mage/Swashbuckler multi (one died in Cloakwood, other in Hell against Irenicus even though I had a party for that encounter), Bounty Hunter (died in Gullylkin to Jenkal's backstab), Cleric/Thief (one got charmed in Cloakwood, other go stunned and killed by Rayic Gethras). @Gotural showed me that a Mage/Assassin multi is awesome. Bounty Hunter/Mage sounds less interesting to me from an RP perspective.
With the Divine Remix installed the vanilla and mod cleric kits get different spell selections in line with their deity. This means that some of the kits have a mix of cleric and druid spells (but lose access to spells that don't go with their deity). This could make for a nice Cleric/Thief/Druid hybrid. Hmm, interesting.
* Starts game to roll one. *
I have fun playing the game with any class, I have played with a Cleric solo a while ago and really liked it, then dual-class to mage because levels 6 & 7 from Priest spells aren't so good while Mage spells are all awesome.
The issue for solo character is that they will reach HLA level very early (can be done in chapter 2).
With HLA, whatever the class, SOA becomes a joke. My advice to keep things interesting is to stop leveling at 2.950M, as it was orginally intended.
When you reach TOB, you can get your levels normally
I think for me, personally, as much as I love spellcasters (sorcerer, wizard, druid, cleric, bard), I would probably have the most fun playing a class with less casting powers- a ranger or paladin, or a thief (I don't enjoy playing straight fingers that much, but maybe a monk? Hm). A ranger or paladin doesn't have the grandmastery of the fighter (unless you play archer, anyway, but bows aren't as good as BGII, and definitely aren't as good in TOB) to rely on, making them more difficult, but they can use some scrolls...
Huh. Now I want to try and archer solo playthrough, but there are so many other playthroughs I want to play already. I need more time!
I can't speak for Baldur's Gate, but in Icewind Dale I had way too much fun soloing as a Fighter/Magic-User/Thief. I want to say that it all ultimately depends on playing style*. I liked being able to do "most everything" - notice and then wipe the poison off the door-handle, pick the lock, and come in blasting magic at the monsters you heard conversing on the other side and swinging your weapons!
* - My sister and I swear by this. If there was an "unacceptable" Talent Tree for a class in World of WarCraft, we probably played it. :'D!
In bg1 it was a blast but in bg2 it's really too weak for mundane fighting. When you use traps/poison weapon everything (even normally challenging fights) becomes quite easy but if you don't, due to 1 apr and crappy thaco, you just cannot kill anything.
Hell, i nearly died in the graveyard against 2 sword spiders.
So i end up having to rest every other fight, which i really hate.
I'm going to roll a Thief for a no reload thieves-only run, am still pondering over backstory/personality and class/kit.
Once you get into baldur's gate, you can buy arrows of detonation which makes poison weapon an AoE skill.
The coronation fight is actually quite simple :
- arrows of dispel + poison weapon will kill them very quickly and prevent them from doing too much damage (start with the ones attacking the dukes)
Thank you good man, you have changed my life for the better!