Solo Monk - Is it viable and/or fun?
MalacPok
Member Posts: 96
I started one yesterday, but so far it is a big disappointment. The Irenicus dungeon was painful. Probably I've spent at least an hour watching my guy trying in vain to hit those damn mephits. Of course, I knew that monks have a slower start, so I persisted trough that boring dungeon. Progressively other disheartening realizations kept creeping in. For one, the monk cannot be hasted, so he will be slow as a rock and unable to escape tough situations. Uncomfortable, but still within the limits of acceptability.
I read some guide about strategies for solo monks. It recommends spamming cloudkill using wands. Turns out wands are no longer an option. Later another shock: he can't use the amulet of power either. Obviously this won't be a walk in the park. Basically all he can do is to hit stuff. Not exactly the Cornucopia of Tactical Diversity.
So the question is the following: is it at all possible to beat the game with this one, without resorting to so arcanely obscure meta-gaming tactics? I really don't want to struggle trough all of the game, with millions of reloads, only to find out that there's at least one boss a monk cannot handle.
Did someone beat ToB with a monk and how?
I read some guide about strategies for solo monks. It recommends spamming cloudkill using wands. Turns out wands are no longer an option. Later another shock: he can't use the amulet of power either. Obviously this won't be a walk in the park. Basically all he can do is to hit stuff. Not exactly the Cornucopia of Tactical Diversity.
So the question is the following: is it at all possible to beat the game with this one, without resorting to so arcanely obscure meta-gaming tactics? I really don't want to struggle trough all of the game, with millions of reloads, only to find out that there's at least one boss a monk cannot handle.
Did someone beat ToB with a monk and how?
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Comments
Honestly though, Monks do take quite a while to get truly powerful. Once you start hitting things with higher APR and enchantment levels, and get your magic resistance up, it'll be easier. Of course, it's still not as easy as a proper party.
I don't know if it's possible to beat the game with a solo Monk, at least a modded game with SCS/Ascension (vanilla should be easy). Not because the Monk isn't powerful enough, but because there may be some mechanics you can't circumvent; I seem to recall something similar for pure fighters. I'm not much of a solo player though, perhaps a more knowledgeable person can help you out in that respect.
If you need saving throw bonuses, you can drink Potions of Stone Form for +3 a pop. You can buy 10 from Mrs. Cragmoon in the Bridge District and 10 from Adratha in the Druid Grove. They're quite pricy, but a solo Monk will have enough money to spare a few for the difficulty encounters, and if you need a discount, combining the Ring of Human Influence with either the Blade of Roses or the Nymph Cloak, available from Bernard and Gorch in Mae'var guild hall, respectively, will give you 20 CHA, and therefore the maximum Charisma-based discount.
Ilbratha will also give you Mirror Image, and Daystar's Sunray, or a scroll of Protection from Undead, will let you tackle vampires without having to deal with their pesky level drain attacks. Ras, available in Trademeet after you complete the druid and djinni quests, will also give you a nearly invincible summons for 4 rounds.
Remember that your stunning attack will immobilize opponents on a failed save, and this effect bypasses magic resistance. You also can stun more than one enemy per round with it, and you get automatic hits while enemies are stunned. Toss a poisoned throwing dagger, available for sale at the Shadow Thief headquarters, at stunned spellcasters for poison damage, and they won't be casting spells for another 10 seconds.
If you can't hit enemies with your fists, you can buy the Scarlet Ninja-to from Joluv at the Copper Coronet, which will give you 2 APR with a +3 weapon. Or you can use the darts created by the Cloak of the Stars, available off of the Shade Lord (use a Protection from Undead scroll against it if you need to), which strike as +5 weapons, give 3 APR, and can be made permanent by storing them in the Ammo Belt you get from the first level of Watcher's Keep.
Remember to buy the Girdle of Hill Giant Strength early on, as it will give you a major boost to melee damage. Until then, DUHM will give you the STR you need to take down high-HP critters.
And if you need some easy XP, there are many tiny quests with minimal fighting all over Athkatla. Also, you can sneak past everything in the Druid Grove and talk to Cernd at the north end of the map and have him fight Faldorn for you, allowing you to complete the Druid Grove quest, and therefore finish half of the main Trademeet quest, without fighting a single monster.
The solo monk is viable, yes.
Good luck with ToB, though. I don't see how you could possibly beat Ravager when you can't stack Hardiness. Assuming you get that far.
I was also very keen on a Monk solo playthrough as I love the class, however currently I can only recommend either getting the "vanilla" game (where you - simply put - have more options), or perhaps use this:
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/33618/mod-monk-overhaul#latest
I was wrong about the monk's movement speed. Turns out that boots of speed still work well + the innate speed is also more than decent, so I can move around really fast.
Another question> What about HLAs? Should I focus on Critical strike or Whirlwind?
Hardiness is still more useful overall, I would say. It dramatically improves your lifespan, and in vanilla is stackable.
No stuff, worst stat possible. We made it (soa + tob) with sorcerer, we finished soa with druid. But i guess a full wisdom druid/cleric can solo it without anystuff aswell.
But it's not realistic for ToB, unless you're spamming reload to land a Harm spell on various bosses, and even then I'm not sure. I know you can do an ISP run of ToB with a Wild Mage, if it's created in ToB, and I'm fairly certain you can beat SoA and ToB both with a Cleric/Thief. But a single-classed Druid or Cleric... I'm not sure if it's realistic to do an ISP run of those characters in ToB. I think the only characters that might be able to handle a full trilogy insane solo poverty run are sorcerers and Cleric/Thieves.
Also, thanks on the advises! I suspected Whirlwind to be the better option, but wasn't quite sure. Since there are 19 points to spend on these, and the final battles needs to be considered, I will spend 1 on Whirlwind, 12 on Greater Whirlwind and 6 on Hardiness.
At some point, monks become invincible death-dealing machines but fresh from scratch, they are hard to play. Their fist enchantments kick in pretty late and the damage improves very slowly.
(But heck, what do I know, I don't personally find any solo run an attractive prospect. I like party interactions.)
The one thing I remember clearly from my playthrough all those years ago, was landing quivering palm on the silver dragon in the underdark! Dropping a dragon with a single punch felt pretty badass!
It's quite "amusing" how unversatile the monk can be. Killing enemies with it is either too easy or impossibly hard. Draconis for example falls in the later category. There has to be some kind of secret cheesy tactic to defeat him. It's very discouraging that the monk can't even use the Rod of Reversal to remove those annoying stoneskins. In my previous attempts, this item was absolutely crucial in the final battle. Even if I could somehow defeat Draconis, I have no idea how to win against Melissan.
It's kinda disappointing.
I've heard that people managed to win the game solo with every class. In some cases (like the monk's) I really wonder how they did it, though.
Versatility for me is much more important than power. It's especially vital in no-reload runs where you need enough flexibility to recover when things are going to hell, but more to the point, versatile are just more fun to play. Monks are strong characters, at least at higher levels, but they mostly just hit stuff, and I find it more interesting to have to juggle different priorities and decide between different options.
Got lucky with Draconis and finally Melissan, but it surely took a lot of tries. It was "amusing" how despite my -24 AC she never missed a single hit. At least the other monsters had a difficult time hitting me. Without the Wand of Resurrection this battle would be impossible (or it would take literally hundreds of hour-long sessions of running around in circles).
The Ravager was also difficult since it had the bad habit of knocking me unconscious and casually dispelling my buffs. The key there was to use the genie summoning bottle to distract them while I could retreat in a corner to make a mid-battle quicksave.
No-reload runs are quite insane. So many things can go wrong. One bad roll and tens of hours can go instantly to waste. It most certainly requires a high tolerance for frustration. And we're talking about a game here...
Well, my 13th solo run is finished. Need to try something new.
In BG1 all a monk does is hit things... occasionally.
In SoA all a monk does is hit things.
In ToB all a monk does is hit things really, really hard.
Though if you're soloing then the monk will end up really powerful before ToB. However, it's still boring.
Or is it? I've never played a solo monk, but it seems like you have. So if you found it fun then so be it.