Solo Sorcerer includes spoilers!

Wilko

Hi all, I'm thinking of doing a solo sorcerer through the saga (never tried one before). Now, I just need some guidance on character creation please? Now, since I'm solo I was thinking the following : strength 18 for carrying, dexterity 18 for AC, 16 con, int 14 or 15- mind flayers... I know about the wish spell- my question is, I once did solo with a mage and in the final battle in tob I used wish to remember all spells, what is the minimum wisdom needed to achieve this, I realise I can bump it up in bg1 by 3 so I just need the minimum wis in character creation to be able to do this spell later on. I'm assuming maybe starting it 15 in wisdom? And charisma I'm not fussed about. (don't want to rely on potions for stat bumps). Lastly, what level 1 spells do you recommend for solo? I'm thinking chromatic orb, magic missle, sleep and armour for a selection of level 1? Thanks

lunar

18 wisdom is enough for the best possible wish option, so starting with 15 wis is okay. With 3 wisdom tomes you can get 18 wis in bg1. In bg2 you can get +2 wisdom from some quests, as well.

For spells, pick shield instead of armor:armor is useless once you have bracers of ac 6 or arch magi robes, shield still has missile adjustment and immunity to magic missile. Omit sleep spell and buy sleep wands instead, learn blindness:a powerful save or suck for its humble level.

mumumomo

Stats are not really significant apart from dex and con which help a lot at lower level.

- carrying capacity is a non issue (you will anyway swim in gold when playing solo. No need to carry the heavy items)
- int is useless. You will never get hit by mindflayers
- wisdom can be raised to 18 using common potions.


Regarding early spell picks:
Level 1 :nothing really great there.
shield, magic missile, chromatic orb stand out. The rest is up to you (i take sleep and Spook)
Level 2 : invisibility is very good in solo.
web is completely op : scout with invisibility, spam 1-2 web and kill everything with wands, MMM or spiderspawn. Web+spiderspawn will carry you until quite late in bg2.
Mirror image is a good defensive pick

OurQuestIsVain

You can get the roll you are shooting for more easily if you aim for getting the ability tomes in BG1. I recommend -

18 STR (not really important but nice to have)
18 DEX
15 CON (you'll get 16 with the tome, max HP for wizards)
9 INT (could go 8 because all you need is 9 INT to cast from wands but with 9 INT you will have 10 with the tome and that way you won't get a lore penalty and can use wands earlier in the game)
15 WIS (there are 3 tomes for wisdom bringing you up to 18 which is all you need for wish)
X CHR (whatever is left, if it isn't important to you just use it as a dump stat)

With this setup you will need a roll of mid to high eighties which should only take 5 minutes or so of rolling.

lunar

18 str is essential because if you get the strength tome you will have 19 str, which boosts your melee and sling damage significantly. You are a caster allright, but it will be very useful throughout the entire saga. Since you solo you will get your hands and weapons dirty at some point.

Golem summoning tome in bg2 requires high intelligence to use, if you plan to use that item you need 16 or more int. If not, 10 int is good, with the tome it will be 11=you can survive more than two hits from a mind flayer.

You can aim for 18 con, with tome and bg2 boost you can have 20, which gives a small regeneration rate. But at that point you will have a lot of regenerating items and potions of extra healing enough to heal an army, so it may not be that useful.

mumumomo

If you still attack with weapons after chapter 6 in bg (where you find the tome of str) you are doing it wrong : you have summons, direct damage spells, wands, MMM.

Before that, slings are anyway a bad choice : darts are much better thanks to a great selection of magical darts.

lunar

mumumomo said:

If you still attack with weapons after chapter 6 in bg (where you find the tome of str) you are doing it wrong : you have summons, direct damage spells, wands, MMM.

Before that, slings are anyway a bad choice : darts are much better thanks to a great selection of magical darts.

High Hedge sells magical bullets as well, and magical slings add their enchantment bonus to attack and damage, on top of magical bullet bonuses. Slings have better range too. But are forever locked to 1 attack/round which sucks when compared to darts awesome 3.

domeplsffs

***SPOILERS***
Including anything being said so farm i'd like to throw in my two cents as well : Wands are your best friend for a solo-sorc. Also, in both games it's important to get your hands on the Boots of Speed asap. In BG1 there is no need to clear all areas (especially of the Cloakwood) before getting them. Do sidequests until you feel comfortable with your level and gear (something around lvl 7 and a fully charged Wand of Monster Summoning and fire for me) and then take the short routes through cloakwood (after doing the mines and camp ofc but at around lvl 6-7 it should be not much of a problem) to get to the mines, off the group of Mercs there get your Boots and afterwards you can do basically any quests besides the ones from ToSC due to the amazing kiting abilities from the boots.(leave Duerlags Tower and the Wolfs for until you're at the XP-Cap. of if you play ithout until you have at least some Level 5 Spells, else both Areas will be immensly hard) For BG 2 it'S mostly the same, do easy quests until you get a comfortable lvl and afterwards try to get into the planar prison and get them boots! Afterwards you can cheese through all the quests in CH.2 get all the best items (like the Staff of Uberchees and the Ring of Imbaness =P ) The rest of the game should be a cakewalk afterwards. Have Fun! (i'd really remove the XP-Cap for a solo run though)