Which is the best race and class that can successfully finish the game solo? Did anyone accomlish this feat? What did you use then?

Beats me, but I'd recommend a good character editor, and a few cheat codes....

Seriously, is it even possible with any single character? Do the fights scale down a bit if you have fewer party members? Because I don't see how one character could possibly survive a fight against, say, 20 Highwaymen and 10 Venom Crabs when first hitting the open road! I, too, am curious to know if anyone has tried this.

Faerie Ninja is the easiest solo. All you need to do is train his stealth skill up to 100 before exiting the monastery. you'll notice many critters simply ignore you while you hack them down to pieces.

Hey Kakero, your red undies are showing.
Cool Harper logo by the way!

Well I did have a fairy Bishop that went ninja for 5 levels and trained stealth then switched to Bishop (Currently level 27) and is going to switch back to Ninja once all 7th level spells are taken.

I took the fairy for the Cane Of Corpus but found that the extended range of the Staff Of Doom was great and the damage was excellent for the bishop.

However I cannot wear an infinity helm or robes of regen so I parked that character at Ferro and thought of a character build that could make use of the best equipment and class skills.

SO I chose a Human.

Why? Because as a solo character you need stealth and the easiest way to do that is one level of rogue. With the rogues starting stats, and a humans scores you will find that he has the least points to spend to reach bishop, and as a solo character you will get very high levels, so I plan opn maxing at least four abilities, Int, Pie, str, and dex. I found that a fairy was severly lacking in str and vit, so the human was better.

I plan on switching to Sam for one level to train critical strike after I max the bishops spells and then go fighter after that.

This allows me a character that can, cast all spells, wear all armour and make use of the SP regen of the infinity helm and critical hit whilst dual wielding diamond eyes and a light sword.

Currently she (for the stamina regen amulets) is level 15, I trained stelth at level 1 by killing all but 1 crab on near the starter chest, then just defend. At first its hard but by getting a higher stealth you can walk away whilst your character trains the skill.

By level 20 I should have access to all spells, (you save ALL your spell picks for level 6 and 7 spells, just get all the books)and then I'll switch to sam for a level and train critical strike. After that I'll change lastly to fighter for beserk.

Currently she uses diamond eyes, and a shield giving her a 31 armour class (with buffs) and great damage output. Iam pretty much training spells tho at the moment, and all realms are around 50 (earth is 98 due to knock knock) and Wizardry, Divinity and Psionics are sitting at about 60 with Alchemy on 70 (again due to knock knock).

Solo is the way to go and nearly every one trys a fairy ninja, but for pure destruction and amazing damage output a bishop, switched to a fighter (with 1 level of stealth character) can't be beat, and the best race for it funnily enough is the very average Human.

I have a solo game using a Female Elf (only for the resistances), but i would imagine a human would be a little better (more extra points at creation). I started as a ninja then switched to Bishop at level 2 and am planning to switch to a fighter when i get all the important 7th level spells. I got fed up with the all the training involved so have pretty much stopped for the time being. Still once a week i load the saved game and do some training for an hour or so. IMO a solo game is quite possible but takes a tremendous amount of time.

I managed to make it with a bishop and fighter, but not a solo. It was hard to get out of the monastery, and the random encounters were brutal for a while. How do you manage to make it past the idol part with 1 character?

Whatever class you want, start with it and change to rogue on second level (low requirements).
Then train stealth. Fights are easier and you can backstab.
Don't use you're level-ups.
In Arnika use your level-ups and change back to the profession you want.

Bard is easy, fairy ninja is easy
Alchimist, bishop is tough
Fighter is almost impossible (no defence against magic, only at level 34 I stopped getting beaten up while paralysed)

bowman, to answer you question...

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i have only played as small as 2 and 3 person parties, but it is my understanding that if you are solo, when you grab the idol you are knocked out and when you wake nothing has happened. ie - the plot line involving the kidnap rescue does not happen

spoiler
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actually... if you play solo, you have to kill Crock before grabbing the idol!