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Solo 100% BGEE (and BGEE2)

ShadowBlazeShadowBlaze Member Posts: 41
Hello, I recently finished BG1 EE twice with full parties and was wondering whether soloing was possible. And as it turns out, soloing is actually easier and faster than playing with a party for almost all the classes. But upon further reading of several forums, it seems most of it is just based solely on the main questline like a speedrun and ignores most, if not all of the optional content, TotSC and SoD quests.

I can't even seem to find how to solo the game 100% with a popular class, say Sorcerer, Inquisitor, Fighter/Mage, Fighter/Thief, Cleric/Ranger etc. let alone Monks/Druids/Wizard Slayer etc.

The Fireball necklace alone can carry me in the main quest line. The really hard areas for solo would be the Durlag's tower and Werewolf Island. Is it even possible to solo those areas? If yes, is there somewhere with helpful explanations on setup, gear, strategy and stuff for popular classes?

I primarily looked into Beamdog forums and Reddit, and didn't find anything that fully explains how a solo character completes the entire game with ALL the quests. If anyone can link me to such a post, I would be thankful!

I am also planning on first playing BG2 with a full party once or twice and then soloing. Maybe that can wait a bit.
AerakarFenrirWolfganger

Comments

  • ShadowBlazeShadowBlaze Member Posts: 41
    Glad for the links. Also skimming through a few 100 pages of "The LoB + SCS Solo Challenge vs Bhaal´s Cataclysm" post ;)
    Grond0JuliusBorisov
  • ShadowBlazeShadowBlaze Member Posts: 41
    Definitely not a no-reload run. I neither have the skill nor the patience for such runs! I was just wondering whether there was any solo completionist playthrough for any class and was surprised at the lack of it. The reasons are valid ofcourse, as solo runs tend to max out xp well before TotSC and get all the loot needed to thwart our baddie brother.

    I am not planning on doing that kind of a run right now, yet to even begin BG2! Was just planning ahead a bit when the BG1 experience is still fresh on my mind. I suppose the problematic areas would be the entirety of TotSC and SoD quests, will definitely ask for specific fights help once I start my run. And considering the epicness of BG2, this could be several months later :wink:
    FenrirWolfganger
  • ShadowBlazeShadowBlaze Member Posts: 41
    edited June 2021
    Wow, thank you for the detailed explanation of your playthrough! I was reading this thread a few days ago about how Mage/Thief are slightly underpowered so someone took the time to prove otherwise!

    This looks very promising to me, even more than a Paladin/Sorcerer solo and definitely much more fun with the shenanigans I can pull! Although, is the shorty save much more beneficial than say Skull Traps, Animate Dead and any other strong necro in BG2?

    I guess that avoiding/tanking traps would become easy once I go through the tower a few times and note where the truly terrible traps are. And it seems some monsters in the lower levels can be taken care of using the natural traps. So the real tough parts in DT would be the Warders (Who can be pulled one by one), Chessboard (cheesable with Fireball/Necklace spam) and the DK himself.

    What would you suggest against Karoug and the cultists as a MC M/T.
    FenrirWolfgangerJuliusBorisov
  • jsavingjsaving Member Posts: 1,083
    edited June 2021
    Solo runs typically rely on a combination of high player skill, a powerful and highly versatile CHARNAME, and a high tolerance for cheese. The lower each of these are for you, the harder a solo run will be, especially if you're averse to reloading the game. But some rules like XP acquisition strongly favor solo runs so it's not like you can't complete a solo run without cheese if you so choose.
    Post edited by jsaving on
    FenrirWolfganger
  • VanDerBergVanDerBerg Member Posts: 217
    a high tolerance for cheese.

    Well, some people consider everything which is not going gung ho brute force at enemies a cheese :) But if you go gung ho with M/T, you are going to die within a round, because you can only reach mage level 7, so stoneskin will only protect from 3 hits. So I don't see a conceivable way of beating the game with M/T without reverting to something that someone will consider cheese.
    FenrirWolfganger
  • ShadowBlazeShadowBlaze Member Posts: 41
    edited June 2021
    VanDerBerg wrote: »
    Although, is the shorty save much more beneficial than say Skull Traps, Animate Dead and any other strong necro in BG2?

    I haven't soloed BG2 yet, I am currently at that terrible SoD, but will start it in a few days :) I prefer fireball to skull trap anyway for BG1 and SoD because fire resistance isn't all that common and you can easily protect yourself from fire and throw fireballs in reckless abandon. Which is crucial to me, because if you are soloing, your character is going to end up in close combat lots of time and skull trap would damage you as much as your enemies. Until you get a minor globe, of course, but even then there are too many good level 4 spells for soloing that I never have space to memorise minor globe. Losing Animate Dead and Horrid WIlting is a bummer, but I don't think it as an irrepairable loss.

    As for the tough fights in the ToSC part...

    - Warders I have beaten by running around, hiding in shadows and hitting them hard. Depending on whether you play with SCS or not, you may run into problems with Avarice, who with SCS have unlimited supply of invisibility and cloudkill spells and is really really tough to beat. But you don't necessarily have to beat him, the only one you have to beat is love who holds the wardstone and he is probably the easiest of them all.

    - For chessboard I did backstab plus two oils of fiery burning. You only need to kill the king, so you can safely ignore the others and oil of fiery burning counts as level 0 spell and goes through minor globe of invulnerability that he is very fond of.

    - For DK, I have crushed the mirror and the minor fiend took more than half of HP of DK. For the rest, you just need to survive his assault of spells, which is relatively easy with protection from fire and potions of healing. He has power word: blind, which is nasty, but other spells are mostly just fire damage. Oh, and also you don't buff too much, because he will immediately do Remove Magic and strip all your buffs. Once he runs out of spells, he is dead, because he is very slow, so you can easily kite him and kill him with arrows +2.

    - For Karoug, what I did was basically...Greater Malision, then running around and firing wand of paralisation at him. Which should paralise him in a few rounds, because his saving throws aren't spectacular and GM + wand carry -8 penalty combined. Once he is paralised, you have one turn to beat his regeneration. I did it by buffing myself, going invisible, backstabbing for triple damage and firing minor sequencer with two magic missiles at him. That killed him. As others here have pointed out, you can also dual wield and gulp potion of speed for 3 APR and then his regeneration should be doable with just melee attacks. If you don't play with SCS, you can also hit him with Slow, which halves his regeneration rate from 30 HP/round to 15 HP/round, which is easily beatable.

    - Cultists are very tough, far tougher than Aec'letec. That part I had to cheese and run out of the house. They all followed, but in open space I could do hit & run + hide in shadows and beat them. The biggest problem are assassins with SCS, because they backstab and then immediately gulp the potion of invisibility. Which is why Detect Illusion was crucial for that run and I put lots of points in it.

    Thanks for the detailed step by step explanation of each of the major combat fights in TotSC. Was exactly looking for this kind of insight. Hopefully once I do this with a Thief/Mage I might be able to find a way for other classes too, in one way or the other.

    I am open to all sorts of cheese while solo barring mods/EEkeeper/expcap remover or exploits that break the game!

    All the best with your SoD solo, and lemme know how it went once you are done!
    FenrirWolfganger
  • VanDerBergVanDerBerg Member Posts: 217
    I do use mod cheats, namely botomless bags of holding. Makes life so much easier, not having to fiddle with containers and play inventory tetris.
    ShadowBlazeFenrirWolfganger
  • ShadowBlazeShadowBlaze Member Posts: 41
    edited June 2021
    Hmm, Bag of Holding does seem more of a necessity in Solo. Well, I guess since we can carry 100s of pounds of inventory, space can be made for RP wise.
  • VanDerBergVanDerBerg Member Posts: 217
    edited June 2021
    So, nearing the end of SoD, it is going expectedly easy with illusionist/thief, at least until the final battle. There isn't anything particularly nasty before and the battles are mostly boring, but that's because of the design of the whole campaign, which is basically "there is a horde of weak enemies, then a few steps later another horde of weak enemies, then another and another and another...". Due to sheer number of enemies, the fact that there is quite a few of them who are immune to backstab and/or can see through invisibility, my illusionist/thief plays more like illusionist who can disarm traps, has a bit less crappy thac0 so can hit enemies and has access to larger variety of good weapons. Backstabbing is useful so I can sneak to the back of a large group of enemies, backstab the annoying shadowed souls who drain your HP to heal themselves (which, as far as I can see, does not allow a saving throw and goes through MR) and mostly one-shot them. For other parts, a simple web + cloudkill or fireballs tactics does the trick.

    Mages also present no problem at all, because with spell breaker and good constitution, my save vs. spell is -1. Throwing in improved invisibility, blur and emotion: hope (from IWD spells), save vs. spell goes to -8 and there isn't almost anything, even with save penalty and greater malision, that can break through that. So you are perfectly safe from most mage disablers SoD mages can throw. Adding protection from fire and shield, pretty much the only thing that is consistently hurting is that annoying melf's acid arrow and an occasional lightning bolt. SCS mages aren't terribly fond of cloudkill and cold-based spells, for some reason. So, to cut it short, mage battles aren't terribly hard (including my favorite and about the only good part of Sod, Kanaglym).

    Anyway, sorrt for long post, but you may find it interesting for a future mage/thief solo.
    ShadowBlazeFenrirWolfgangerJuliusBorisov
  • VanDerBergVanDerBerg Member Posts: 217
    As expected, SoD was very easy right until Belhifet with solo mage/thief. That battle is very tough. Well, not so much if you do it with Caelar, since she can almost solo Belhifet, but doing it alone... I find it extremely hard to deal with him using magic due to his 80% magic resistance and seemingly at-will improved invisibility power. I guess you could possibly use a few lower resistences, greater malision and then, with a lucky shot, in that tiny window in between him casting improved invisibility (or when his invisibility is dispelled with detect illusion, but for my thief this somehow never worked once, despite DI being at 75) hit him with hold monster, but that relies purely on luck.

    On the other hand, his AC is -12, which with improved invisibility becomes -16, so meleeing him is as hard. Luckily he is not immune to backstab, so what I did was use Caelar as decoy and then backstab him. With potion of power, all the buffs and -4 THAC0 from invisibility, I managed to lower my THAC0 to around -4 or so, so could usually hit him every other time, and had around 20 potions of invisibility. Without quadruple damage, he wouldn't have died from the expected 10 hits or so that I landed with these, so I would have needed to kite him and shoot him with arrows, which is very tedious, but doable...Without Caelar, I would use summons to act as decoys with hope they can survive a few rounds for me to go invisible and hit him from behind.
    FenrirWolfgangerShadowBlazeJuliusBorisov
  • ShadowBlazeShadowBlaze Member Posts: 41
    How did you deal with the Temple of Sarevok area? And the large number of mobs in general. I play on core and I find my 4 man team to be hard even against trash mobs due to the sheer size!

    And how does one begin a fresh game of SoD with no imports and play the game past core difficulty? Money is extremely tight and the gear is very varied/restrictive (eg. Dwarf only, Halfling only, Bard only etc) to be able to use by any 1 or 2 characters.
  • VanDerBergVanDerBerg Member Posts: 217
    How did you deal with the Temple of Sarevok area?

    Temple of Bhaal wasn't a problem at all, really. It is quite similar to BG1 dungeons in that it doesn't have huge mobs. Of the possibly problematic things there...There are five of them, I don't know their names. The first demon that calls the guards to help her is quite easy to deal with. You first kill the guards in the room before that, which is quite easy as there aren't many of them, they aren't fire resistant, so you can fireball & backstab them easily. The demon itself is even easier, especially without support of guards - not fire resistant and doesn't hit particularly hard, so you can one-on-one him even without backstabbing. The second problematic thing is the nasty tentacle-like monster. You just keep away from him due to his very nasty poison attack and bow shoot him. He doesn't have a lot of HP. Fighting him with magic I found quite hard. Not so much because of his magic resistance (that can be dealt with Lower Resistance which you will have at that point), but because he changes position too often so it is hard to target him. Then there is the mad cleric which, as any cleric, is trivial to deal with by either using magic or backstabbing. The bigger problem are aerial servants there, which hit quite hard (especially the first time, since they attack from invisibility). Mind flayer and his mob are easy to kill, same recipe as guards. Backstab, fireball/sunfire, then run around and hide in shadows. Finally, the shadow from Sarevok's quest died to a single backstab (probably was a lucky roll).
    And the large number of mobs in general. I play on core and I find my 4 man team to be hard even against trash mobs due to the sheer size!

    There are huge mobs, but individually none of the enemies in these mobs is particularly hard nor resistant nor does it have good saving throws. So, either sneak up to their priest/mage, backstab them, then throw sunfire. That usually takes care of half of the mob, after which you can run around and backstab them or run around and throw more fireballs. The other method is just to throw web, followed by cloudkill and then melee whatever survives that (which usually aren't many). I find it easier to deal with these solo than using a team, because there is much more micromanagement involved in running a team and, for example, someone from your team inevitably gets tangled in a web and dies because enemies like to target them.
    And how does one begin a fresh game of SoD with no imports and play the game past core difficulty?

    If you start a fresh game of SoD, you get a party with very solid starting gear. And the money isn't terribly sparse - in Korlacz's tomb alone you can get gems worth 20,000 gp, which gives you a very decent start.
    ShadowBlazeGrond0
  • Grond0Grond0 Member Posts: 7,305
    And how does one begin a fresh game of SoD with no imports and play the game past core difficulty? Money is extremely tight and the gear is very varied/restrictive (eg. Dwarf only, Halfling only, Bard only etc) to be able to use by any 1 or 2 characters.

    There's a lot of valuable equipment on the NPCs in Baldur's Gate. I don't allow recruiting them in solo games - but do allow killing them >:). You may of course feel differently about that ...
    ShadowBlaze
  • VanDerBergVanDerBerg Member Posts: 217
    There's a lot of valuable equipment on the NPCs in Baldur's Gate. I don't allow recruiting them in solo games - but do allow killing them >:). You may of course feel differently about that ...

    How about recruiting them and then immediately changing your mind and firing them, right after their belongings are somehow magically transferred to you? Some may call this "stealing", but it is completely unintentional and accidental.
    ShadowBlaze
  • ShadowBlazeShadowBlaze Member Posts: 41
    edited June 2021
    VanDerBerg wrote: »
    There's a lot of valuable equipment on the NPCs in Baldur's Gate. I don't allow recruiting them in solo games - but do allow killing them >:). You may of course feel differently about that ...

    How about recruiting them and then immediately changing your mind and firing them, right after their belongings are somehow magically transferred to you? Some may call this "stealing", but it is completely unintentional and accidental.

    I definitely plan to do stuff like that on solo. Need that early Oils of speed, Invis pots etc right outta Candlekeep!
    VanDerBerg wrote: »
    And the large number of mobs in general. I play on core and I find my 4 man team to be hard even against trash mobs due to the sheer size!

    There are huge mobs, but individually none of the enemies in these mobs is particularly hard nor resistant nor does it have good saving throws. So, either sneak up to their priest/mage, backstab them, then throw sunfire. That usually takes care of half of the mob, after which you can run around and backstab them or run around and throw more fireballs. The other method is just to throw web, followed by cloudkill and then melee whatever survives that (which usually aren't many). I find it easier to deal with these solo than using a team, because there is much more micromanagement involved in running a team and, for example, someone from your team inevitably gets tangled in a web and dies because enemies like to target them.

    And how does one begin a fresh game of SoD with no imports and play the game past core difficulty?

    If you start a fresh game of SoD, you get a party with very solid starting gear. And the money isn't terribly sparse - in Korlacz's tomb alone you can get gems worth 20,000 gp, which gives you a very decent start.

    Unfortunately, I have become accustomed to either buffing up with Haste, DuHM, Bless/Chant etc before every fight, and using Slow/Chaos on the mobs to start the fight and then resting after every fight or resorting to nuclear spam. I wonder how am I going to do that as a solo Paladin or something.

    Money was tight early but I had planned ahead and bought a couple High-value items such as the Archmagi robes, recharged everything rechargeable in BG and kept them in the inventory. I was just wondering if in a fresh game could buy everything starting with 0 gold in Ducal palace.

    Also, once we reach the main coalition camp, any item can be sold at almost the base price to the genie spectacle there, then can be stolen from and the same item can be resold to Wazihab? So money is aplenty late game-wise.

  • VanDerBergVanDerBerg Member Posts: 217
    edited June 2021
    Unfortunately, I have become accustomed to either buffing up with Haste, DuHM, Bless/Chant etc before every fight, and using Slow/Chaos on the mobs to start the fight and then resting after every fight or resorting to nuclear spam. I wonder how am I going to do that as a solo Paladin or something.

    Most of these buffs you can achieve with potions with far longer lasting effect. And since you will play solo, you will have an abundance of them. For example, I ended my run with 12 unused potions of speed and 20 unused invisibility potions and that is without buying any potion from merchants. As a paladin, you have DuHM which, combined with strength potions which are a-plenty, can give you 25 strength in a blink. Potions of invulnerability/stone form can further reduce your already good saving throws and AC, there is plenty of magic protection potions and even more damage dealing ones (fire breath, explosion etc etc).

    Even if you start with 0 gold in Korlacz's tomb, you have a container with 20 ruby rings and many other gems, which when sold in BG town will give you 20,000 gold instantly. Since you won't need spells as a paladin and you will get good gear from dead enemies, you can pretty much spend all your money on potions.
    ShadowBlaze
  • ShadowBlazeShadowBlaze Member Posts: 41
    Really thankful for the insights! Looking forward to soloing from Candlekeep to ToB once I finish my first BG2 playthrough! So it seems potions are king for solo. Even with a full party in BG1 I had around 3-4 potions of each kind lying around except the super rare magic blocking/shielding potions. Guess I should start using them from next time (even as a hoarder)
  • RaviolaRaviola Member Posts: 2
    I am also planning on first playing BG2 with a full party once or twice and then soloing. Maybe that can wait a bit.

    Best class for solo (and for whole play) is human berserk, dual right after start to cleric. Here is guide:

    Create human berserk with minimum 86 stats (str18, dex18, con18, int12!!, wis17, cha3). Int12 is important because you lose 1 stat from demon and 11 int is still good for fighting mind flayers.
    Aligment good or neutral, NEVER EVIL because of turn undead and holy smite.
    Weapon prof choose 4 stars in flail and 2 stars in dual wield.

    After you start you will be lvl 7, immediately dual to cleric. Cleric weapon prof choose hammer and sling. Your first spell is sanctuary, sanctuary is goos friend. Now go to no fight quest first. Release jaheria and minsc, turn button, speak with djin, speak with man in the bottle, activate golem, give bottle to djin.... Your goal is gain cleric lvl 3 spells. After lvl 3 spell you able to summon skeletons. Skeletons help you clear all dungeon. If you play right, after you escape irenicus dungeon you will be cleric lvl 8.
    Berserker will be activated->weapon prof gain to flail/hammer (on lvl 12 you be able put five star to flail). You want flail because flail of ages +3 early (one of best weapon in no moded game) and hammer for crom faeyr later.

    Spell using is summon 5 skeletons, use some buffs especially draw upon holy might and righteous magic (or holy power for thac0). And with it you have character with 180+- hp, 3 apr, 25str give you dmg about 20-30 per hit and thanks to righteous magic you be able hitting only higest number (like kensais kai, but better). Potion of speed using for hard fights. Berserker rage using for mage fights.
    If you need more thac0 (and hp), use this spells order -> Holy Power, righteous magic and then draw upon holy might (holy power is first because spell set str to 18/00, then you rise str with other str).

    NOW go to Den of the Seven Vales inn (in wauken promenade) to second floor, kill dwarf for full plate armor, then go to de'arnise keep and with sanctuary and skeletons take flail of ages +3 (bye bye mages), join to shadow thiefs for amulet (bye bye undead) and ring +2 and you can buy defender of easthaven from Joluv little later (little later in solo means 1-2 quests later.. :D).

    From my experience this build is little better than similar fighter/mage build.

    Now enjoy your master of death character.

    P. S. Best part of all is exp cap. In SoA is originally 2 950 000 (you can have more, because ToB cap, but come on, its SoA...) and pure cleric in SoA is able to be max lvl 21. Berserk 7/ cleric is able to lvl 20. There is no much difference betwen 20 and 21 (21 have one spell lvl 5 and 6 more).


    FenrirWolfganger
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