So I keep starting new solo campaigns...

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It's a long post, so here's a formal warning for you.

I've run through SoA a few times, once with a party, and once with a solo sorcerer. I've never quite beaten ToB yet. I got as far as defeating Sendai with my sorcerer, and then I was forced to format when my computer got a virus.

anyway, I started reading these forums a week or so ago and I was very impressed with some of the achievements some of you guys have made. Especially thetruth. Just seeing the screenshots and reading about how he survived soloing his cleric (not to mention his fighter) through all that. It inspired me to try out new classes on solo runs. I'm not going to attempt it heavily modded like thetruth (actually, i installed mods he had with his cleric solo, and i'm sad to say i could barely get through the first batch of dwarves with a party, let alone solo).

It seems I have alt-syndrome, as I've heard it called in World of Warcraft. Everytime I make a character and play for a while, I start to get bored, get a new idea, and make a new character. So far, I have a fighter/illusionist, a blade, a ranger/cleric, and an inquisitor.

I suppose I might as well give you the run down on them, so here goes.

Fighter/illusionist level 11/12
18/90
18
18
19
9
3

Obviously, with 9 wisdom, I'm not planning on using wish. That may be a huge mistake, but I figure I can probably deal with it. I just got to the shadow dragon with her. She's probably the easiest of the lot, with the blade in a close second (thanks to scythesong's guide). With the few attempts at the shadow dragon I've made, it seems to me she can take it down, if it wasnt for the damn level drain. My first attempt nearly even got it down to badly injured before I got hit with the level drain. I'm thinking of going to get the amulet of power and them coming back.

Quick question: Does the shadow dragon dissapear after I kill the shade lord? Or will I have to wait on that one, too?

Blade level 17
3
18
18
18
18
17

Yeah, I bet you're wondering why the hell I bothered with 3 strength. I compensated with the Strength spell until I was able to steal the belt of hill giants. This solo has been great fun so far. It's scary how strong the blade is after following scythesong's guide. And I just got the melodic chain! I also just got mislead. I wouldnt recommend casting it and then going through the portal to rescue that tiefling guy. Yeah, it wasn't one of my better ideas.

Ranger/cleric level 11/10
18/90
18
18
10
18
7

I've never been that familiar with divine magic and I've always sucked horribly with druids and clerics, so I wanted something that would help me familiarize myself with it. What better class than a ranger/cleric? I have to admit, I was having a bit of a tough time with it at first. Torgal was a pain in the neck, but after a number of attempts, and numerous strategies, that was over with. I was stuck at that party with the kensai using celestial fury for a while. But after taking a break and playing other classes for a while, I came back to him last night. I breezed through that party and The Cult of the Eyeless quest like they were nothing! I never realised how AWESOME Holy Smite is!. And I love how just taking a break from a game and coming back can make a huge difference.

Inquisitor level 14
18/93
18
18
3
13
18

So far, this one is a lot of fun. I mow through mages like grass, and I can tank thruogh most enemies. I took on the shadow dragon as practice for Firkraag, but I was forced to use cheesy tactics ( that term amuses me to no end). I'm not satisfied with that, so I'm not going to do that against Firkraag. I'm just not sure how I'm going to pull it off. On another note, I just did the kill Mae'Var quest, and there's a shadow thief in the first floor that can hit me every time and instantly kill me, even if he attacks and I'm actually on the other side of the screen. Interesting bug. Fortunately, I already finished the quest by using an oil of speed to rush downstairs, without him following me.

 

Nope, he'll just sit there like the dumb sh*t he is all the way through SoA. You can come back to finish him any time.

Anyway, it's good to hear you're enjoying the game. Don't take ToB too seriously; it's full of BS that doesn't fit with the actual 2e basis it's supposed to have. Good luck, and if you have any more problems or questions, just let us know. We're here to help.

 

First of all welcome to SP

Don't worry,after finishing the game some times this is quite normal

Well I have to say that you are soloing some of the best/most powerful characters in the game.Especially the first 3 will not have any problems at all to finish the game.

Just have always with you some potions of insight.

No he doesn't.You can always come back later to kill him.As for the level drain,yes amulet of power will help.

What cheesy tactic did you use with him ?
Dragons are very difficult for a solo fighter.

Some tips:

- I would fight him with some HLAs (GWW attacks)
- Use the Ibratha sh.sword (Umar Hills) for the mirror image.
- Protection scrolls for the dragon's breath weapon
- Use your inquisitor's dispel magic (or arrows of dispelling for a fighter) to get rid of the dragon's stoneskins
- Against the sh.dragon use many scrolls of restoration (don't worry for the fatigue)

Irenicus' dungeon with Improved Ilyich installed is one of the most difficult battles in the modded BG even for a party.So don't worry about it.I wouldn't recommend it for your first solo run through the game with mods.

IMHO you should finish soloing BG2 at least once with the character you like most (your fighter/illusionist is the easiest) and then play it again with some mods (Tactics,Ascension etc...).
These mods will make the game very hard and challenging but SP is always here for any problem

 

I did the whole force talk and then attacked with arrows of piercing and acid until it died. Rather anticlimatic, eh?

 

Improved Ilych is just too much for a solo, but with a party it is doable. With luck and skill. It is one of the most fun battles ever!

Ehh, force-talk is evil, do not corrupt your game! If you need tactics for particular hard bosses, just ask, there are a lot of guys here to help you!

 

Yeah, that's why I'm not going to resort to that against firkraag. It's completely unsatisfying. I messed around with a wild mage a bit today and discovered that i could cast spells that i cant even memorize yet with reckless dwemmer just because they're in my library. I was casting level 7 and 8 spells at when i was level 10. Though, most of my spell casting with that didnt go well, successfully summoning a nishruu when fighting a mage that was giving me a bit of trouble was absolutely awesome. I think I might give a wild mage a serious go after i get through with at least some of these solos.

 

We all know how wild-mages can be powerful, from recent experiences. But only if you are lucky, so beware!

 

And that's the fun! Nowt like NRD'ing an Imprisonment spell to get the pulse racing, eh?

 

hahaha Yeah, I can only imagine.

[Edit]:

Well, I pretty much played my ranger/cleric all day today. I finally got my first three HLAs! I'm planning on taking on my first dragon tomorrow. I figure I'll cast gate to get a pit fiend to distract it while I cast Doom and then get it with Harm. How does that sound?

I think I'll go after the shadow dragon and the shade lord first, again. And after that, hopefully, I'll be able to just use turn undead on the vampires when i go after firkraag. I'm a level 15 cleric / 13 ranger right now, and I think I'll level up once, maybe twice if i'm lucky, in the ruined temple. Is that enough to make those vampires explode?

[ April 15, 2006, 10:47: Message edited by: Ariyn ]

 

So, Is it worth it to turn evil when I'm in hell so that I can use the Human Flesh Armor (I cant remember what the actual name is) for the extra save throws and such? And how would becomming a fallen ranger affect me with this multiclass state?

 

Note that Doom and Harm do not ignore Magic Resistance
And Dragons usually have high MR.Not that it's impossible but probably you will need some reloads.Also Harm pass through stoneskin so only the Dragon's MR can stop it.

And you don't need Doom at all if you want to Harm someone.Harm does not allow a saving throw.
Also if your R/C has not good enough THACO with the Harm activated you can always cast Holy Power before Harm.

Also :

- Have always many Ironskins for the fights against Dragons.

- Amulet of Power for the Level Drain and scrolls for the Dragon's Breath weapon.

- Use the Flail of the Ages (best weapon in the game IMHO) in your main hand and the Flail Defender (bought from Joluv in the Copper Coronet) in the off hand (I hope you have 3* in dual wielding).
With an oil of speed you will have 4,5 attacks/round and you can beat a Dragon in melee.

- Don't forget that you can always use the Rod of Resurrection for full-healing.

I think yes although I am not sure about the level required to turn the vampires.For the other undeads look at my cleric's thread for the Turn Undead table.

 

Bad idea. An R/C becoming fallen gets referred to by the engine as a Fallen Ranger/Fighter instead of any cleric mentions, so you quite simply cannot fall. RPwise, it's also a bad idea. Powergaming-wise... no reason why not.

 

If the issue is just that you can't stick with a single CHARNAME PC because other classes are appealing to you, remember that you can create a multiplayer session with 1-6 player-created PCs from whatever kits you want. The ability to start a new game with a R/C, blade, and fighter/illusionist all in the same party might help you mitigate the need to keep starting over. Just a thought.

The easiest way to do this is to start a multiplayer session and choose "pre-generate characters" to make as many PCs as you want (up to 6 per party), then start a new multiplayer game and add those characters to your party. If you don't like using the multiplayer interface, you can actually copy the whole save file folder from mpsave to save, and play the game as a single-player session.

 

Whoa, the shadow thieves dont seem to like my inquisitor. After I finished the quest to kill Mae'Var, I went back to Bloodscalp to get my reward and low and behold, everything there was hostile to me. This was a huge surprise to me. I suppose it might be because I didn't kill everyone at Mae'Var's guild (there was one shadow theif that kept killing me in a single hit, so i just said screw those guys). Oh well, if they're going to be that way, then I'll play that game. I easily slaughtered everyone there. I found some handy boots of speed (havent done the planar sphere quest yet, so this is pretty cool), some shadow armor, and of course, the shortsword +3 he gives you as the quest reward. I should have taken note on how much exp he's worth, but it slipped my mind at the time.

Oh, and I came across a kamikaze lich while playing my ranger/cleric. He was getting pretty desperate after I cast false dawn, so he decided to cast sunfire, with these results.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v337/Ariyn/kamikazelich.jpg


MUAHAHAHA I am the amazing dragon slayer!

So when I got to the shadow dragon, I buffed up on my usual spells when dealing with something that uses magic (stoneskin, armor of faith, aid, shield of archons, remove fear) and then cast Holy Power and then Harm. Before attempting to use the Harm, I cast magic resist on the dragon to give myself a better change of having harm go through. So then I go in....and miss. I wanted to see if I could take her on, so I didnt bother to reload, and just sat ther smacking her with FoA. After a few swings and an Iron Skin later, I decided to retreat and cast Holy Smite on her. It hit for 23 damage! Much more than what I was doing to her previously, due to her stoneskin. So I kept retreating and casting holy smite. It hit 3, maybe 4 times out of 5, each doing 17-23 damage. She was down to Badly Hurt. So then I remember that I actually have another Harm. So I cast that and take a swing at her. Miss again. Damn. I'm running pretty low on things to do. Holy Smite and Harm were pretty much my only offensive spells memorized. Then I remembered that I had Vhailor's Helm! Geez, this could have been much easier if I remembered this stuff in the first place. So I put on vhailor's helm and brought out my siraculum. He didnt have more holy smites and stuff, since I already used mine up, so we went and attacked the dragon together.
Eventually we brought her stoneskin down, but my siraculum was slaughtered and I was at half life. Ouch. So I cast ironskin and used a resurrect rod to heal up. I remembered I had HLAs! So I used GWW and attacked the dragon, getting her down to Near Death. Bam, She took out my last ironskin and I was at half life again. I retreated and used the Resurrect Rod to heal up again. I retreated for a while, trying to think of what to do next. Then it hit me. I had just gotten the Ring of the Ram on my last quest. So I used that. Bam, 15 damage. But it wasnt enough. So, for my last desperate act, I charged. Hit, 13 damage. She died.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v337/Ariyn/dragonslaying.jpg

In retrospect, it would have gone a lot smoother if I had a backup plan if harm failed, and actually reviewed what items I had at my disposal, but I didn't actually make the decision to go for it until it was too late.

[ April 17, 2006, 19:28: Message edited by: Ariyn ]

 

Really well done. Well, harm is kinda hard to succeed, just buff yourself to max, with Holy Power, Draw Upon Holy Might, and other buffs, use an oil of speed, dual-wield, and even use GWW to bash things! This works %90 of the time! Summon elementals and Simulacrum when needed.

 

Forget that, it was an RPing kill! This kind of last-minute heroics is exactly what should be happening, and the difficulty of defeating the dragon sounds about right. Congrats on killing the dragon how dragons are meant to be killed, through very hard work and a lot of "oh, sh*t!"

 

@Ariyn

Very well done !

As for the liches don't forget that you can use the axe Azuredge (instakills them if they fail their save vs. Death)

 

@thetruth
Thanks! I'm going to have to wait for the mace of disruption for me ranger/cleric though. I dont seem to have much problem with taking them out as long as I cast remove fear, shield of archons, and false dawn. At least, those two in the ruined temple fell simply enough. The only thing that actually hurt me was when they cast sunfire, but that seems to hurt them more than it does me, even though I'm usually about half dead when it happens. I didnt have any fire resistance, though.

@Silverstar
Thanks again! Yeah, that's roughly what I do with most everything I've encountered so far. It works well against most anything but magic users, and even then I can usually afford to just bash at them with FoA for a while to disrupt their spellcasting.

@Felinoid
Yeah, doing it spur of the moment made it probably the most enjoyable fight I've had. I've killed dragons with a full party without any cheesy tactics and whatnot, but it definitely wasnt the kind of desperate struggle this was.

I'm wondering how I'm going to take out the elemental lich, though. All those other guys were a pain in the neck when I fought them with my sorcerer, though they fell simply enough once I found the right strategy. My ranger/cleric wont be nearly so powerful, though.

[ April 17, 2006, 19:27: Message edited by: Ariyn ]

 

Why do the liches you face die when they cast Sunfire? It sounds buggy to me. Sunfire should make the caster immune to fire damage for a few seconds, to ensure he is not damaged by his own fiery blast. (blame the game-mechanic) But they kill themselves when they cast it (as seen in the Screen Shot, or did he kill his Mislead/Simmy whatever?) Why? Most weird. And good for you too!

 

No, what Sunfire does is makes a fireball blast with a hole in the center. This hole is supposed to contain the caster, but sometimes it is incorrectly scripted for a bad guy to cast the spell on an enemy, when it's supposed to be cast on the caster. If the enemy stops then, the enemy will take no damage (being in the eye of the Sunfire), while the caster takes damage. It's really an amusing quirk.