Solo Adventures Are The Best Thing To Ever Happen To This Game!

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I just finished playing BG I through with TotSC installed and it was great fun. After reading some of the posts on this forum I decided to try my hand at takingmy character into BG II and soloing the game. I used to be able to play this game in my sleep I knew it so well but have forgotten most everything since I last played it about three years ago. But the idea appealed to me because of the increased challenge factor and it seemed like the ideal way to finally have a wizard come into their own. Wizards in my parties always get shortchanged. Once my fighters blow through everybody with Crom Faeyr, Carsomyr, and whatever Saervok happens to be holding, my mage(s) will be lucky to get a magic missile off before everybody is dead. Maybe I just didn’t have the patience to fully utilize the full potential of mages (and thieves) of my parties. It’s probably been because my protagonist have been fighter types: paladin, fighter-cleric, kensai. The items in the game just make it too fun to play as such. For me, the game had just stopped being fun. By the time I decided to play through as a sorcerer, well, I quite in the Underdark and had lost interest well before that.

Soloing has revitalized this game for me in a lot of ways. Yes, it is more challenging to play alone. I am playing as a dual classed mage(21)/thief(14). I SK’ed her up to 14th level as a thief in Château Irenicus and then dual classed her out after that. Fighting my way past the 14th level has been tough, but that’s what I asked for. Trying to remember quests that involved little-to-no combat but yielded money and experience was tough since I haven’t playing the game in so long. I love backstabbing my enemies, something I rarely did before because thieves were there really only to find and disarm traps. I rarely even pick-pocketed because I always had so much gold! All of the NPC thieves are multi-class with the exception of Yoshimo, and I never took him with me after my first play through because I didn’t want to invest in someone who would leave my party part way through. As a mage, I utilize so many more spells than I ever have and am having a great time. Thanks to various people on this forum who have pointed out the usefulness of many spells that I wrote off as useless. Playing alone forces me to utilize all of my arsenal of tricks, both as a thief and a mage.

From a role-playing standpoint, this game has taken off for me. It just makes so much more sense to me for my character to be finding her way though this mess on her own. She has learned that because of her nature/ancestry, the people she travels with come to harm and usually die (liberal use of the Sunfire spell helps with that, but that’s another story). I don’t feel the game ever made it quite compelling enough as to why some of the characters accompany you all the way like they do. As such, I pick up characters temporarily and complete their quests and then send them on their way. Yes, I took Jarheira, Minsk, and Yoshi with me out of the Dungeon but that had role-playing as well as survival implications. As a neutral-good character, I couldn’t just let them remain in their cages! Anyway, enough of my rambling. I just want to say that if anyone out there is considering soloing, do it! It will make an old game brand new!

Comments, thoughts welcome.

 

Cool, soloing can be fun but I prefer the party strategies and interactions way too much.

I use new mods to enhance this old game, with the newest and coolest mods around, the game still manages to be my favourite...

Have you tried mods? Try Sikret's IA mod for example if you think you are an experienced player, it is a lot of fun and makes the game a new and challenging experience!

EDIT:Heeey, I now have King's Tears, coooool!

 

Yeah, I kinda miss some of the party-related aspacts of the game. There are so many cool items in the game that one person can't use them all. At least not all of the time. I might have to SK myself the "Use all items" special ability... nah... Traveling alone makes ordinary encounters less mundane- a pro and a con. Sometimes you want to blow through them, sometimes it's great fun pick all of your opponents off 1 by 1 with backstab after backstab (as time consuming as it is).

Having to place my own foot in the backside of every single evil-doer out there is an onerous task and I do miss Boo and Minsk's help. I do not miss having to raise or ressurect my characters, however. Now that I can summon Planetars, I have a great wingman. Me + 1 Planetar= Dead Shadowdragon in 1 round (I honestly don't know what happened, but *BOOM* Ixtylsupercalifragelisticexpialadocious was dead!) Additionally, like I said before, I never found the reasons for your party staying together to be compelling. Most of them bicker and argue (not always about who killed who) anyway. Get some good and evil characters together and they *will* kill each other. Almost all of their reasons for joining with you is because they have nothing better to do. Minsc, Imoen, and Jaheira- okay, I'll grant that they have a beef to pick with Irenicus, plus Minsc just wants to fight evil and you're probably the best vehicle that he's found for that end in his whole life. But none of the new crop seem to do it for me (granted I've never played with Anomen).

As far as your question about mods goes, I am toying with installing Ascension because the added storyline/ending sounds cool. Plus, the fact that it was made by one of the programmers of the original game (or whatever they are/were) is a bonus. It leads me to believe that the mod would be well done and professional. I have tried some others that were not so much. What I would like is better descriptions of the mods before I try them out. The descriptions that I see here I think forsake enticement in the name of secrecy and surprise. Just saying that "I added some new stuff and and made it harder and there's someone new to fall in love with, yadda, yadda, yadda" doesn't make me want to play a mod. NPC mods really don't interest me. From what I've read (I've been a silent observer for a long time), most NPC mods give you a character that is over powered and outshines the protagonist.

Another obstacle that I have is that I've got a lot of other games that I want to play and the que is getting pretty long, so spending a lot of time playing through any particular game is a big thinig for me. Playing computer games has become more of a luxury of time in recent years.

I guess I'm just picky on all accounts. I don't want to take the leap and try and mod that will suck or ruin my install (installing them so taht they don't conflict seems to be a nightmare unto itself). If anyone out there has any good suggestions I'm open.

 

Planetars are equipped with a silver sword. I am guessing the shadow dragon failed his save and got gibbed.


As for mods that don't conflict with anything: Rogue Rebalancing (new version just came out that fixes a lot of compatability bugs) and expanded thief stronghold (wont take effect until you start a new game) are perfect and place a heavy focus on rogues (mostly thieves). Also, most kit mods won't have any compatability issues as long as you don't tyr anbd install too many kits of a single class.

 

There are a few that do go a bit OTT, but don't let that put you off all of them. There's some good NPCs out there. As an example, I would reccommend Fade. She's a single class thief, so rather unlikely to outshine your character any time soon. She's got a high Dexterity, but no higher than would be possible to create with Charname and her other stats are believable. Added to that, she has what is possibly my favourite romance so far.

I would be happy to recommend that you do this (I can't remember the last time that I played without Ascension). It is significantly better than the original ending. Unfortunately, it does make Sendai rather weak in comparison to the other Five and I'm hesitant to suggest using Oversight to rectify this.

Yeah, I get the same feeling from quite a few of them. Aside from the three you mentioned, there are some with reasons for joining:

• Sarevok- states his reasons rather explicitly as soon as you return him to life.
  
  Anomen- needs to fight evil to gain his knighthood. After that, he probably feels rather loyal to you and so sticks around.
  
  Nalia- first to try and get you to go to her keep faster and afterwards to avoid an arranged marriage.
  
  Yoshimo- well, his intentions aren't quite as pure as some of the others...

 

Ha! finally a pure thief is around somewhere. I'll have to give her a try.


Aerie joins you basically to grow up and get some real life experience. Pushed into it by Quayle. If you play her romance long enough to get past the whining she does actually grow up quite a bit as well.

Viconia believe it or not goes along out of loyalty. You do make a point of saving her life 2 or 3 times. Very Strange for a Drow in some ways but she is a person that could find better things to do with her time easily enough. She's had lots of practice.

Keldorn's all father figure. For good or bad. Which has always made me think he could make a bit of a creepy romance idea for those of a darker mindset.

Those three to me have some justification. Though not necessarily enough to let them continue with you if they don't fit the party.

Cernd, Haer Dalis', Jan Jansen, Edwin... These 4 are the ones that puzzle me the most why they would bother to tag along.


Jan Jansen can't turn a profit and pull his tricks traveling with you. just not the time to ply his trade.

Cernd and Haer Dalis' while interesting in their own ways just don't seem to have any reason to bother sticking around at all. They don't even seem to have reason to bother to take interest in the Protagonist or the party long enough to bother even just tagging along.

Edwin. I love him to death but given his personality and everything. yes he does love Power but I can't believe he hasn't taken advantage of certain weak points of the PC to try and take over in some way. Or just outright decide that there are easier ways to attain power than dealing with the party and particularly the continued problems surrounding the Protagonist.

It's always seemed to me that of the 10 without at least a flimsy reason to stick with the party these 4 would be the types most likely to run like hell after meeting it and dealing with it even though we can all find plenty of reasons to justify them being in the party if we really want one or more of them.

 

I just went through the Planar Sphere last night with Valygar and- ugh- I now remember why I never chose to keep him in my party. Everything the guy says is in this horrid monotone that gets on my nerves. Plus, I never understood the point of the Stalker kit. Seems more like a fighter-mage than any sort fo protector of the wild. From a role playing perspective it made sense to keep him because since my character is good, I couldn't exactly kill him. Ditching him after I got in the front door didn't make too much sense either. Plus, NPC quests tend to work better if you keep them with you.

Keldorn's story and motivation is pretty compelling as far as why he adventures on with you, I agree with that. In fact, I had him go with my lady to the Windspear hills out of chivalry. But I figured that after defeating a red dragon and recovering a holy Paladin artifact, he could retire.

As far as Ascension goes, I have an old save game from right before I go to where ever Balthazar is. If I were to install the mod, would it work for this old save game, or do you have to have start from scratch with it installed? Also, as far as making the ending better, does that mean more battles, more intense/harder battles, or does it change/ add to the events of the ending, thereby making it better?

P.S. does hearing Jan Jansen talk make anybody else want to go out a buy a Nissan?

 

It should work from the old save, although you will obviously have missed parts of it.

Not really.

Yep.

Again, yep.

Here's a link that should help you with any other questions you may have about it, as well as allowing you to download.

 

Alright. I will try Ascension out. From reading the readme on that link you posted, Decados, it looks like I shouldn't miss any Saervok or Imoen dialogue if I just chill for a bit. If I remember right, my save has me chillin' with Saemon Havarian in some sort of cave. Anyway, I'll see how it is. Plus, my soloist will get there eventually, sans party, of course. Or maybe I'll pick up a few friends in TOB. We'll see.

 

Soloing nearly ruined this game for me, as I completely lost out on the party banter aspect of the game, which is at least half the fun, and all the fun got sucked out once my monk hit level 21 by the time I was finished with Chapter 2 and was essentially invincible.