Best class to play solo

Sarius

I want to play the game solo. What class would make it easiest?

TheArtisan

If you know what you're doing? Mage/Thief, Sorcerer, Fighter/Mage/Thief, Fighter/Mage, Blade are good choices.

If you want an easy to play character that just mows down everything? Archer. Dwarven Defender too, I hear, although I've never touched that kit so don't take my word for it.

joluv

Are you just playing BG:EE, or are you playing the saga all the way through?

UnderstandMouseMagic

Swashbuckler.

Thief skills, including traps, armour class bonuses, able to use bows/swords, late saga UAI.

The advantage it has over thief/fighter is you level up quicker which is a big deal early game. Nothing like getting an armour class that means hobgoblins and others can't actually hurt you.
In some ways it's too easy a class, it makes the game trivial.

joluv

UnderstandMouseMagic said:

Swashbuckler.

Thief skills, including traps, armour class bonuses, able to use bows/swords, late saga UAI.

The advantage it has over thief/fighter is you level up quicker which is a big deal early game. Nothing like getting an armour class that means hobgoblins and others can't actually hurt you.
In some ways it's too easy a class, it makes the game trivial.

I don't agree with this comparison at all. Another way to get a good AC is to wear heavy armor, which a F/T can do from the beginning and a Swashbuckler can't do until level 24. The +3 AC bonus a Swashbuckler has at level 10 doesn't make up for not being able to wear full plate or carry a proper shield.

SirBatince

Don't pick anything with 1APR unless it's mage/sorc. it's far from impossible but the constant frustations make it such a chore.

this does not include multi/duals though.

ThacoBell

Berserker is good as well. Their rage ability makes them immune to most disablers.

Grond0

The best class depends on what you like doing. If you like buffing, then an arcane type makes sense. If sneaking, then go for a variety of thief. If just ploughing through your enemies is attractive, then a beserker is hard to beat. It also depends if you're allowing reloads. If you don't mind doing that then you could choose a glass cannon like a half-orc kensai. If you want to keep your options open then go for a multi-class or dual combination.

Skatan

You can solo BG1 with pretty much anything, but the easiest if you have never done it before would probably be a FMT or a T/M. You don't need thief skills, but it's always nice to have it and traps offer huge amount of cheese for you to use on hard encounters and is always the skill I max out first nowadays (trap killing Silke, Elminster, assassins, Drizzt, Sirens etc max out your EXP very early if you like that sort of thing).

Why M in FMT and TM? Wands and web really. Web gets you through every encounter in entire BG1, all the way from when you first get it to the very end. Sure, ppl like sleep and it's good vs gnolls and whatever, but it's often less reliable vs the better baddies. Web and bows/xbows and fire wand is one of the easiest way to mow your way through the sword coast. Sure, beating stuff up with a melee is easy enough as well, but the mage part offers two things; versatility and speed. Web shit from out of their sight, then just flame bomb them all to death. You don't even have to engage in conversations like with the amazons outside of the collapsed nashkel cave exit. Web. Wand. Loot. Move on.

You can play more fairly as well of course, you don't have to meta/cheese your way through it. The fighter part of FMT offers the best opportunities to stack AC of course and can make you immune to anything but crits. The only thing you will lack by going down this route is the stoneskins from level 4 spells, since the third class will make yo max out your mage levels with "only" level 3 spells. You don't need it though, high AC is good enough.

So the easiest would be FMT, the second easiest would be TM or Thief/illusionist gnome (better saves and more spell slots). Another route you could go down is dual classing, but I wouldn't recommend that since the downtime can be rough if you don't have a plan how to quickly surpass your first levels and reactivate your first class. A berzerker to thief/mage/cleric is very, very strong. I recently toyed with a level 6 berzerker to level 10 druid. Why 6 and not 7 you may ask? Well because then I can still reach level 10 druid before the level cap and get those sweet level 5 spells. it's not something I recommend for a first try though.

ThacoBell

Skatan is definitely right, F/M/T is one of the best classes in the game. But I would caution that mages can be very hard to get a handle of for new players, as they level slow and knowing the right spell for the right situation requires a bit of know how.

Raduziel

DoF's Battleguard of Tempus can solo the game.

Cleric spells, high HP, gains APR. Berserker.

RedWizard

The absolute easiest is F/M/T, especially if no reload.
Can detect traps, backstab, hide&scout, cast mage spells and use wands (wand of fireball alone trivializes 99% of BG1's content, while Cloudkill wands do the same for BG2 even with SCS), fight and use op fighter pots.
Thhen at BG2 you get all the ridiculous mage buffs with amazing thief & fighter HLAs to boot.

Elendar

Sorcerer

matrice

if you know the game, sorcerer or fighter-mage. frankly i don't know which one is better, apart from lvl <5 in which case sorcerer has a bit of trouble, they both clean the game sooooo easily, (but getting lvl 6 without even starting a single quest is easy as fuck)

If you know very little (to nothing) about the game, then fighter-thief-mage it is.



The only single class that is better for solo (actually better than any other class for beating the game no matter the size of the party) is wild mage, literally sorcerer on steroid as long as you know how to play it. (wild mage is an horrible class in bad hand though).




Edit: if you plan to clean everything (outside of class related event ofc) and not just win the game, then fighter thief mage it is, there'are places in bg1 where thief are mandatory to have for an easy run (durlag tower for example). in bg2 if you want to clean everything, you can definitly do without a thief and still have an easy run.