Only for me, BG/IWD is funnier playing SOLO??
SorcererV1ct0r
Member Posts: 2,176
I prefer to play solo. Mainly because i don't like micro manage many party members and they usually have poor IA and prevent me from using my best spells without dealing friendly fire(i can use an cold spell with cold immune summons for eg). Last time, i tried to complete Shadows of Amn with an full party, but i honestly don't know how to defeat mindflayers without undeads and slayer form, that if i use too often, they leave... Was frustrating to fight then with an party, but solo, they become much easier TBH. Yes, i end up resting a lot, and abusing summons, since you can have 5 summons, 5 summons can be 1 planetar and 4 Efreets for eg.
I don't know how summons work on 2e, but on 3.5e, you can control up to your CL * 2 HD worth of creatures, so in order to controll 5 Efreets(each one with 8hd), you need to be at least lv 20. And use BBoD and Haste + Tenser's Tranformation against enemies with a lot of magical resist(IMO 3.5e has an better spell resistance system where it works more similarly to AC)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzIAV6NS6Vw
I don't know how summons work on 2e, but on 3.5e, you can control up to your CL * 2 HD worth of creatures, so in order to controll 5 Efreets(each one with 8hd), you need to be at least lv 20. And use BBoD and Haste + Tenser's Tranformation against enemies with a lot of magical resist(IMO 3.5e has an better spell resistance system where it works more similarly to AC)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzIAV6NS6Vw 2
Comments
IWD? Definitely no.
IWD solo breaks the game into two separate parts: when you are too weak to have fun in any battle, when you are too strong to have fun in any battle.
I have a no-reload solo run with a bard going on but I've shelved it because the game got absolutely boring - and IWD is my favorite IE game.
On IWD expansion, you fight more powerful enemies(din't played yet TBH) but if you don't use +xp per difficulty, reach near lv cap is almost impossible. And on IWD2 soloing is amazing too.
Solo can be strong, if you use an arcane caster even more, but with a modded game and with some classes can be very hard and can need a lot of skill and knowledge.
There are many ways to deal with psyonics, the risk of going solo every time with easy classes is that you can stick to few recipes that work, never really progressing from that plateau.
Only putting ouselves in unconfortable situations, playing classes that we are not proficient in and party compositions that we normally dont usemakes us improve fast.
I like to micro manage, and do it a lot, but it is not really needed, is possible to run a full party with very limited imput.
Give a try with small, versatile parties, a good example is charname, jan and aerie for bg2, and your gameplay will have a lot more options.
That told there are very strong players that play mostly if not only solo, it is a personal thing, related to taste and play style. But there is a difference between style and still ignoring how to run a party in a proper way.
Only when you can beat the flyers with a party as easy as while soloing you can really know which style suit you better.
I personally like small parties but i can have fun also solo and with full parties.
Since I really enjoy the micro-management aspect of the game, both are equally enjoyable for me, but I tend to find solo to be a bit more frustrating since you're more likely to run into things you can't do (chests you can't open, lots of items you can use, loot you can't carry, battles you loose because of inability to prepare against them). There's also the thing that having played so many solo runs in the past makes me want to play with a party now, that might happen to you someday as well.
I've reached XP Cap a little before reaching Lower Dorn's Deep.
I won't even play HoW or TotLM.
With knock, you can open most things. But i partially agree with some points. The game was designed with full party. Playing solo will result on unbalances aka on IWD, you at beginning run from goblins that succeed on their charm save and on end game is a demigod with an efreeti army nuking explosion on everything and if iron golems appear, black blade of disaster + stop time + tenser's transformation and GG izi
Bg? nope, you will miss all the party banters of the game and some character classes or skill/spell combinations that you do not use in solo.
It depends on the class one plays as. I did a solo assassin playthrough once. He got pretty far (up to the beginning of to Chapter 6), but then he had to fight Tarnished Sentries and the Voice of Durdel Anatha, which could see him while he was stealthed. He was level 30 by that point and could defeat the Voice in melee combat, but doing so left him badly wounded, and if he then rested, the Voice would be back.
It also depends on whether one plays Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition or the original game. There were fewer good high-level mage spells in the original game. I once did a solo playthrough of the original Icewind Dale with a necromancer. In order to defeat iron golems (and Belhifet), he had to put on a lot of buffs and stab them to death with a Mage Dagger +4.
In original games, i think that IWD2 is far more soloable than IWD1.
But Pathfinder Kingmaker due the resting system is the hardest one to solo(i know, not IE game)