Is the game actually beatable as solo character?

[rughar]

Hello.

I tried some variants of how to solo the whole game (ToB included) on current Easy difficulty. I figured that one of these three

cavalier, mage, monk

has a potential. I honestly never found that OP when mage starts as some another class and dual spec later becouse if you cannot beat your enemy with your spell pool, there is no way that some 13 level background kensai will do any difference in that fight. So better to use some specialisation for your mage to have your spell combo best as possible. Note: I dont care about making most of encounters faster. I do care about the hardest fights making possible to go through.

I "almost" beat the game with all three classes I mentioned above except the final Melissan fight. I am simply wondering if anyone found a strategy to this final battle as a solo character of any kind.

And yes, I am using some maybe questionable tactics. Like kill one enemy from the group. Run away, sleep, continue etc. Or try to outsmart the enemy of using his spell pool by running from him. I usually save one Protection From Magic scroll from SoA for the Melissan fight.

I never tryhard rogue yet. I already beat SoA with rogue but never progressed ToB. The trap strategy seems to be solid but I never believed it could stand against Mellisan. Well, maybe I am wrong.

[Brevan]

I prefer to play the game solo (no pathing frustrations (like when one character takes a weird path and wakes up hostiles), fewer deaths (someone always has the poorest saving throws and gets 1-shot by a Beholder or something)). With one character, they have the best gear, and you only have to protect one target (so just an invisibility potion "affects the whole party"). A single character also levels super fast, so I enjoyed min-maxing Dual Class combinations to see how they played (usually unlocking the first class (even if it took 7M XP) before Underdark). For a weaker class, I'll be forced to seek out the best sources of XP, or put off some areas (maybe until I know they'll spawn with an Adamant Golem that can be cheesed with the Crimson Dart (+3, returns to sender) and a doorway). I don't mind save-scumming, that helps in some cases, but it's usually just a means of finding a reliable solution.

Some of the best strategies don't rely on character class, so just about anyone can win:
- Magic a problem? Scroll of Protection from Magic (use via a clone from Vhailor's Helm or Projected Image).
- Many challenging fights are vs Undead so Scroll of Protection Undead (might not bother with a clone since these scrolls are plentiful at Temples).
- Use the Boots of Speed and maybe Potion of Speed to just get out of there (or Invisibility potions).

Many exploits can be opened up by starting with Thief class until Use any Item and a Spike Trap are unlocked (about 3.3M XP) then dualing to whatever you want. You keep the Thief's High Level Abilities while playing the new class, so you'll always be able to equip great gear, attack 4 times per round with dual-weapons (your THAC0 will suck, but it improves fast and with that many attacks will probably be effortless). I kept 2-3 Scroll Boxes around to manage my "Spell Book" and kinda enjoyed knowing that every spell could be used only once.

Whether your using a high-level Thief or Mage, a solid end-game strategy is to make a clone that stops time repeatedly (there are 5-6 scrolls) and uses Black Blade of Disaster (might need a potion of speed if you're not a Fighter), or Spike Traps (you might need to Wish-Rest so save a potion of Insight, but most bosses die from 2-3 Spike Traps).

I've only made about 4 runs in BG2:EE with these types of characters, and there are some important differences in EE that make things harder.
- Assassin Kit's poison doesn't seem nearly as effective (I stopped (but didn't quit) this play through since so much was immune to the poison, and it was her main feature). The
- Dead-Magic zones in Watcher's Keep were changed so that they can linger for a round (sometimes seems like two) after you've entered a new area, which means when you talk to the Demon groups, you could be relatively defenceless for quite a while).

[Wicket W. Warrick]

The game is beatable with many other classes, the point is how much do you enjoy doing it.

Between all, I found that for solo the mage/thief (or mage/illusionist) combo at some point become really overpowered. Anyway in the long run any rogue, with spiked traps and use any items can beat the game. Mellisande fight is hard in the first attack, in the others you have time to prepare the field.

[Sstavix]

Every class can solo it if you have story mode on. 😉 it just might take a while to wait for your wizard to stab everything to death.

[Kusarigama]

Every class can beat it even on LoB difficulty. There is so much cheese in the base game it’s not even funny. I think someone even made it a point to do it without leveling up as a plain Fighter no kit so he did not have access to wands, scrolls, etc.

[wendigo211]

Easiest solo for BG2 is a Fighter/Mage. Ideally, Berserker 13 dual classed to mage, because of the Rage immunities and, against enemies like the Demilich, being able to use a weapon competently has its advantages. Honestly, Fighter/Mage with improved haste, dual wielding Black Blade of Disaster and Crom Faeyr at 9 APR, doesn't really need any magic other than defensive spells for about 90% of the game. That class combo can probably solo the game without using consumables.

Otherwise, you really need to know the mechanics and how to exploit them (like Melissan can be dispelled when she does her invulnerability regen thing, making that fight pretty easy if you have good DPS). Soloing with something like pure Beastmaster is going to be a lot harder, but still possible if you know how to exploit the mechanics with the available gear.

[Centurion]

Just a comment in passing, as I have no interest in doing this (the NPCs are too much fun.) I just noticed that the Flying Solo achievement has only been done by less than 1% of all players. (0.7% to be exact.) Now, all these percentages have a big consideration: some people buy a game and have not yet played it or abandoned it. I am very guilty of this with some other games. Still, this is one of the rarest achievements because it is hard and I am not sure how fun it is. (No Edwina! No romances?)

Since solo does not much interest me, I will not venture a full opinion here. But even in group games I would mention that by Watcher's Keep and the rest of ToB, the Spike Trap rules over everything! There is no save and no resistance. No need to cast prep spells, reduce the enemy's defenses, hope powerful foes actually fail a saving throw. Just an insta-kill of everything. (Except for her first appearance, this deals with Mellissan the rest of the time with ease. Just trap the spot she always appears at.)

[Kusarigama]

Originally posted by Centurion:

Still, this is one of the rarest achievements because it is hard and I am not sure how fun it is. (No Edwina! No romances?)

I would not say its hard(er) because you over level so easy and you do not need to micro as hard. You deal with one character instead of 6. You hit level cap WAY earlier which makes encounters almost trivial. I solo quite a bit then take NPCs because EE gives your companions xp up to a certain point (sometimes I do solo the whole game on SCS I do find it less stressful.) The XP for BG1EE is 32,000 and BG2EE:SOA is 1.25m for FIRST joining NPCs.

[Sstavix]

Originally posted by Centurion:

Just a comment in passing, as I have no interest in doing this (the NPCs are too much fun.) I just noticed that the Flying Solo achievement has only been done by less than 1% of all players. (0.7% to be exact.) Now, all these percentages have a big consideration: some people buy a game and have not yet played it or abandoned it. I am very guilty of this with some other games. Still, this is one of the rarest achievements because it is hard and I am not sure how fun it is. (No Edwina! No romances?)

Since solo does not much interest me, I will not venture a full opinion here. But even in group games I would mention that by Watcher's Keep and the rest of ToB, the Spike Trap rules over everything! There is no save and no resistance. No need to cast prep spells, reduce the enemy's defenses, hope powerful foes actually fail a saving throw. Just an insta-kill of everything. (Except for her first appearance, this deals with Mellissan the rest of the time with ease. Just trap the spot she always appears at.)

I actually did enjoy my solo run (F/M/T), but I did it on Easy. I also avoided things like Watcher's Keep - if there were areas that I didn't think I'd be able to handle without a group, I avoided it. I also didn't continue my game after I defeated Irenicus - once he was dead, I exported Solo and kept him in a folder for my Lord of Murder run.

[wendigo211]

Watcher's keep wasn't bad except for the wild magic level. That was pure hell, because you can't have buffs up before fighting the groups of high level demons. Everything else there is quite manageable solo.

[rughar]

Ok. I just did it :D. But i didnt get the flying solo achievement, damn... That was one of the point to get that. Seems I need to investiagate further if some iteraction was bad. Maybe some Imoen annoying thing or somethink like that.

I just finally beat Melissan and the winner class is monk :)

Watcher's Keep was quite important btw. I needed that +3 protection ring from there to boost my saving throws as much as possible. Not to mention Lum machine for boosting stats. And +5 magic resistance which is more important than it looks like (together with 78 percent from monk leveling, 10 percent from finishing SoA and another 10 percent from the Ring of Gaxx it sums up into 103 magic resistance).

Also part of my strategy was to keep Protection from Magic scroll to the very last round. I used Protection from Cold on previous one since that was the weak spot for fighters in this particular fight.

[wendigo211]

The good news is, for the Flying solo achievement you only need to beat SoA (i.e. Irenicus), you don't need to do the ToB content.

[rughar]

Originally posted by wendigo211:

The good news is, for the Flying solo achievement you only need to beat SoA (i.e. Irenicus), you don't need to do the ToB content.

Damn really? O my... So it seems I screw that somehow during the SoA itself.

[Brevan]

I can confirm that you just need to beat SoA for the achievement. It's okay that Imoen joins (no choice), but remove her immediately and never let anyone else join. If you still have trouble with the achievement, then it's probably game mods in the way.

[Virgil]

I only tried to solo once, and it was a F/M/T who started from Candlekeep and got stuck on The Ravager at the end of ToB. I never made it past that fight and retired the character after a number of attempts. It was years ago on vanilla, Core difficulty.

I found that you go through periods of power spike where you are absolutely mopping the floor with everything around you because you are so much higher level than you typically would be, but anything that can one-shot you like some of the more dangerous traps or enemy spells can really ruin your day if you fail a save or lack immunity. I definitely died a lot more on that run than I did on most others that had 4-6 person parties.

My compliments to anyone who beats the saga solo. I doubt I will make that attempt again personally. Four person parties seem to be ideal and can still get you to the EXP cap by the end of ToB if you're thorough.

[6h0$t942]

I dont know why people do it but yes. If you concentrate the game's demigod magical items on one person and know which potions to buy---and have played the game before--- you can.
A berserker/mage with the protection from magic cloak and a slew of other sht.

Or--this wasnt a solo run i never do that--my assassin/fighter abusing vhailors helm and time stop scrolls to absolutely idiotically broken results.

However 33% of the game's attraction is based on companions.

Also since all the xp will be going to one character you will have tools available to you you normally wouldnt.

Typically ide imagine it would be some mage variant but im sure theres some masochistic dude out there who did a "no damage taken no missed attacks shaman fist only modded 1000% dmg run"