Different idea for a party and I need to know a little solo info (Chap 1 spoiler)

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Okay, here's a tiny plan floating in my head: I was thinking of playing a solo Fighter through the Prologue (on Insane mode). I would dual this character to Thief while in the Vale of Shadows, the first place you really need one. The thinking is that my character will join the party of adventurers leaving Easthaven, but he'd be the sole survivor of the avalanche. I'd add a proper party after arriving in Kuldahar.

Anyway, if I were to follow this plan, about what level Fighter do you think I'd reach (again, on Insane mode). I'd LOOOOVE to reach level 13, but I think that's completely impossible (even with respawning monsters before actually entering the main tomb in the Vale of Shadows.

 

I think that you would probably find this extremely difficult. It would be close to impossible to clear out the orc cave near Easthaven like this, and you will be healing for literally hundreds of days at a time. I also doubt that you would get to level 13 as a fighter by this time, but why level 13? That means you need to get level 14 as a thief to be a fighter again, so that would be late in the game with a party. Also you don't need a thief in the game at all. You need a buff or arcane spell caster. Anyway...

 

I know you don't need any particular character, but a Thief makes it much easier.

The reason I want to do this is that I have this urge to build the "ultimate" tank, and I think with HOW installed, this is a Fighter 13/Thief X.

My reasoning is that Evasion and Sneak Attack both work with heavy armor, and those are two skills that get better and better as a thief advances. My character will have ***** in longsword (with his eye on the longsword of action +4), and *** in bow (to cut down most baddies before they even get close). The Thief class advances the quickest, which will help a lot with recovering after losing a 13th level Fighter.

He'd be replacing the Gnome I have in that slot of my party (detailed in another thread), which will look like this:

Human Paladin
Human Fighter 9/Cleric
Human Fighter 9/Mage
Half-Elf Fighter/Druid
Half-Elf Bard

 

A thief can be totally dispensed with in order to finish the game, whereas a caster is something you will need. I didn't mean to be picky. Sorry if it appeared to be so.

Your idea of the ultimate tank is quite intriguing. I think that I may try it sometime myself, however I have always found that the higher the level of fighter the better the tank. I have not compared the THACO of a maxed level fighter with the character you propose, but if the straight fighter is better with the THACO then for me that is enough to not bother with multi or dual classes. 5 stars in the weapon of choice and a really high enchantment with the bard song and other buffs will get an amazingly good THACO.

Evasion. hmmm. I can't think of many situations in which he would find it overly useful. There are not that many spellcasters that chuck evasive stuff and even so, I think there are many items out there that would make many spells a joke.

Anyway, my experience has shown that a normal straight fighter does well enough, though after you have played it through then you can tell me and we can compare notes. I think that your character sounds quite good.

I truly don't think that you will want to solo a fighter through prologue and chapter 1 anyway, it would be too frustrating. At least my view.

A final thought is that the sneak attack won't be very effective if he is tanking since he can't sneak attack the victim unless its held or something. Perhaps...

I really wouldn't bother with the bow too much. The "magic bow of uberdeath" is such a good weapon it makes stars placed in bows irrelevant.

Keep us posted.

 

My guess:

You will be level5 when you leave Easthaven (you don't have to enter the orc caves).

You'll have to run through kuldahar pass without gaining XP because the goblins aren't as stupid as the VoS inhabitants.

You can reach level 6 outside in the vale of shadows. Then you can clear the southeastern tomb and kill respawning skeletons one by one endlessly for 130 XP each or you can kill the reappearing lesser shadows north of it.

 

Re: Khazraj: Sneak attack works as long as you're flanking an enemy (once).

 

Another option:
Start HoW with your new character. You'll gain more and faster XP this way and you can even kill Emmerich for the best longbow or pickpocket some other things.
Your character just travelled from Lonelywood to Easthaven or Kuldahar ...

 

Klorox, that the sneak attack works only with flanking makes it hard to "tank" and "flank" right?

 

Hmm, not really. You just need to have more than one character/summoned creature in melee with you, and the enemy needs to be facing the other character.

Anyway, I couldn't get the guy to a satifactory level, so I went back to my game I've been working on, which just got to Dorn's Deep. IMHO, the game is so much better once you reach the Hand that I really don't want to start again anyway.