Solo char?

Remove all ads!

Im planning on soloing the game and would like some input on char creation. How does an evil drow sorcerer maybe MC with fighter or rouge sound to you? Is it at all possible to solo? Maybe I should take along his hired thug the half-orc barbarian? All thoughts and comments are welcome.

 

As most of us agrees,sorcerer or monk is the best solo character.But HoF players say that in HoF sorcerer is better than monk.Try a paladin 1/sorc x character
-IMO Drow Sorcerer and multiclassing with it is not good,because you're going -2 levels,you are a sorcerer so you will learn level 2 spells at lvl 4 which means level 6 for a sorcerer,and since drow's favored class isn't sorcerer when you multiclass you get -%20 experience.So that doesn't sound good to me.I really wish that they made drow wizards good,(like in books)but i think they're not good

[ January 21, 2003, 18:40: Message edited by: Khelben ]

 

I'd go sorcerer with 1 level of cleric to be able to heal yourself. The biggest problem is walking for a million years to find someone to heal you. Or else make it a sorcerer/bard...

Humans won't get the huge xp penalty since it will ignore the highest level.

 

Y'know, somehow I doubt the mc penalty will matter much when you consider the amount of xp a solo character would get.

If you're into spells, do the thing with the sorcerer, or else use a monk of the old order, mc to a painbearer to cast healing spells, kill things, have fun, let us know how it goes.

 

Even the moore if yer consider that the 20% loss is minor in compare to a 2nd char (100% split into 2 thus 50% for you, against the 80% you have with the xp penalty when solo).

 

I'm currently in the process of soloing a drow sorcerer, and I'm level 14 while having barely scratched the surface of the game. You know how cloudkill normally just gets rid of pesky units and does damage to wizards maybe? At the rate of experience and levelling I did, it was ending battles before they started. Oh, and go drow all the way. The spell resistance is by far worth it. After a potion that gave me +2 permanent, a caster of equal level has a 60% chance of his spell failing against my sorcerer. And my sorcerer is about 5 or 6 levels higher than any of the ones I'm fighting right now, making it more like 90%. As for multiclassing, hmm... you can buy a pantload of potions from whatshisface with all of the money you save from not having to buy party members equipment. Oh, you can buy nearly infinite 9 damage healers from that gnome, so I have a bag of holding with about 400 in it. And most the time when I'm injured I just rest anyway. Don't multiclass IMO, just go with it. You'll be amazed at the XP.

[ January 22, 2003, 13:12: Message edited by: Taluntain ]

 

If I were using a drow character, I would go with a wizard/monk class. Therefore eliminating the MC penalty. Just my two cents.

 

Thanks for the input! Hopefuly I will have the time in the weekend to try him out.

 

If you get the paladin 1/sorcerer X, aasimar is better than drow, IMO. Thinking of it again, spell resistance can worth it.
Deep gnome monk, half orc barbarian can be other overpowered builds.
However, I have doubts that any melee character can beat the game by himself.

 

Just one simple question..... HOW THE HELL DO YOU KILL THE PORTAL GUARDIAN IN SOLO PLAY!?

 

be level 30.

 

Ooh hell, the Guardian. Well, a sorcerer will have spells that can take it out, but the panic... Try holding on to the Worg Collar you get at the Targos Palisade. It's supposed to prevent you from panicking. Then 'Lower Resist' and 'Disintegrate' or well... I guess you'd have 'Power Word: Kill' by then. If you go the Sorcerer(ess) route, then you'll have the necessary spells to take it down, I'm sure.

 

I'm gonna take a drow Paladin/Sorcerer through, and see how far I get. My thoughts are that the beginning will be a bit tough, due to low class levels, but once I get those sorcerer's spells going, and those levels pumping, I'll be fine.

Think about it. Added SavingThrows and spellresistance Who cares about a 20% multiclassing penalty anyway when you've got all those monsters walking around like bags of experience on feet!

Edit: Mhmm... So I made a drow Paladin of Mystra and just gave him a level in sorcerer. But I'm not seeing the 20% multiclassing penalty tag in the characterscreen. See here

I went with the 4 leftover points (After maxing CHA and CON) in INT for the extra skillpoints. I do want to be able to get my concentration reasonably high, as well as the conversational skills.

[ January 31, 2003, 09:57: Message edited by: Faragon ]

 

I wouldn't use a paladin as a solo character, he refuses most of the rewards you will get from quests, so you are going to miss a lot of good stuff! But I would take a Drow wizard/fighter becouse that is a flexible combination. you'll have a good charisma (wich you will certainly need for conversation purposes!) becouse of the Drow race, and a Drow has wizard as his favored class so you can multiclass a lot without getting an xp penalty. Just my opinion

Edit: Faragorn you don't see an xp penalty becouse your character levels are balanced. If there isn't a difference of more than 2 levels between your levels you won't get an xp penalty!

[ January 31, 2003, 10:02: Message edited by: Ancalìmon The Wise ]

 

Thanx for the heads up on the experience penalty thing.

Drow Wizard/Fighter? Sorry, but I don't think that'd be wise for soloing. Statwise you'd be medium, because you'd have to divide your stats between STR, CON and INT. Now if you also want CHA for conversational skills, you'd either have to min/max a lot, or half halfway stats for all.

With Drow Pal/Sorc you can have the stats I have in the link above (10,10,16,14,10,20) and you've got all you need. With Fighter/Wizard I'd get: 14,10,16,16,10,14. (Not min/maxing) Nice, but fit for solo? I don't know. Now of course you can draw points from WIS and DEX, but then you'd be wrecking those stats and iirc getting penalties on your savingthrows.

What makes the Pal/Sorc such a good combination is that it draws the two biggest advantages (namely spellpower/number and bonus savingthrows) out of one stat, namely CHA.

Another advantage of the Pal/Sorc (over the Fighter/Wizard) is that you take only one level of Paladin, purely for the SavingThrow bonus. After that you only pump the Sorcererclass. The disadvantage of having a Wizard/Fighter, is that in order to have both classes good, they require levels. If you don't level the fighterclass, you won't be able to hit a damn thing later on, and if you don't level the wizard, you won't have high level spells.

I'm not sure if some of the rewards are that important, but to me it seems the Pal/Sorc is a lot more practical for soloing than the Fighter/Wizard. And like I said before, a 20% penalty isn't very painfull I think, because you will get loads of EXP anyway.

 

OK, I'd have to agree partially that a paladin/sorcerer is a good choice, especially becouse of the charisma, wich i hadn't thought about. But still I find a 20% xp penalty and not much rewards very bad. A paladin/sorcerer will work in the earlier chapters, but at some point in the game, you're going to be underpowered (20% penalty!) and your hp and fighting skills will really be too low! There are creatures you can onlydefeat with melee attacks and not with sorcery. You should bear that in mind when starting your game. Also, I do not think it is worth it to get an 20% xp penalty just becouse you want a bit stronger saving throws. I change my opinion: A fighter/sorcerer is the best for me becouse you need high charisma anyway for converational purposes. The saving throw bonuses are nice, but in the end they wont really help you much.

 

what about soloing with a deep gnome monkx/clericx?

yes, there will be an exp penalty, and the race is ECL, but I would think with all of the exp you get playing solo, and you wont really notice it...

I know there is at least one monk order that allows you to multiclass freely back and forth with a specific cleric domain...

and since Wis is important for the monk, and also has the cleric's spells based off of Wis, with the +2 Wis bonus of the deep gnome, you could start out at 20 Wis. add in the natural spell resistance of the deep gnome (and possibly the eventual spell resistance of the monk levels), innate spellcasting (mirror image, invisibility, blur), saving throw bonuses, and other minor benefits, and you have a lot of additional bonuses/abilities that the deep gnome gives you that may be very useful as a solo char.

thoughts?

 

You're forgetting some serious disadvantages:
-The monk needs a pretty high strength if he hopes to survive and deal some damage, and a deep gnome gets a -2 to strength
-If you play solo, you can't play without a reasonable to high charisma. A deep gnome gets a -4 to charisma! You'll miss a lot of dialogue options and quests and their rewards this way.
-Your character will level up very slow (deep gnomes' levels are considered 3 levels higher when the exp for advancing levels is determined)wich means you will soon be seriously underpowered!
-And finally, who wants to play through the game with nothing but a little twerp?? (just joking!)

 

I wasnt sure about Str with a monk... I figured the char would only get enough monk levels to get whatever useful benefits there are... melee would be in the begining game only, anyway, correct?

I thought there would easily be enough exp around without all of the dialog options available for a solo char...

I figured that the spell resistance, bonuses to saving throws, and innate spell ability would really help this character get thru the game, and would be worth the tradeoff of ECL.

what about a solo deep gnome cleric only?

or solo deep gnome druid?

I thought that the major exp awards were due to completing certain tasks and such, and that the huge exp gained from battles with a solo char would more than make up the difference to the minor exp losses due to some dialog options not being available...

 

You really like gnomes don't you? The defences of your character are certainly ok, but the offence is more important. The faster you bring 'em down, the less damage they do. And don't underestimate how much exp you can get with extra dialogue options! A druid would be a good idea, becouse he can wild shape into powerful melee creatures as well as some strong offensive spells. But you need to balance your stats with a deep gnome druid and I also advise you multiclass the Druid to a cleric for healing and defensive spells. The main problem with a druid is that he can't cast spells if you want a decent attack power(wild shape!)he can cast spells, but then he is a poor melee fighter. You can solve that problem by increasing strength, but then again, like I said, you will have to balance your stats.