[AboveTheRimYo]

Hey guys, first letme say ive read some posts here & many are entertaining & imformative - keep up good work all.


Now to my little "strategy":

After playing through SoA a few times & recently getting ToB (not to mention being a big Diablo2 fan) - I decided to try something VERY different before working my way through ToB, as i'm only up to Watcher's Keep at this point.

My strategy came from this idea i had playing a "normal" game:
Once a mage has learned time stop & improved alacrity, almost any monster/s become fodder pretty easily, especially with the robe of vecna. If a mage was strong enough (Irenicus pefect example) surely he/she could take out entire armies without the aid of any companions....

So here's what i did:
I created a pure fighter with 18 con/str/dex/int who i immediately dualed to a pure mage once the game started. I *gifted* this char (using shadowkeeper) with 15 innate cure light wounds (for healing while resting) and 15 innate detect traps (combined with knock spells for thief duties) and then completed the first dungeon of SoA, importantantly- without any cheating of any kind.

which means this:
Since then, ive been roaming round Athkatla as usual with this char, the difference from normal being : I HAVE NO PARTY - JUST ME!
Frankly the first dungeon (core-rules difficulty as usual) was AMAZINGLY hard with just one guy who didn't even have access to his fighter skills yet, but somehow i made it through. By the time i saw daylight however, i already had about 130,000 exp in the mage class (enough to get back fighter skills) and i then proceeded to sell everything i owned to buy scrolls in the promenarde, to memorise for early exp (which i needed quite frankly).

To say that this is an easy strategy would be a lie, it isn't. Many early battles with only one char (eg. umberhulks in nalia's keep) required a large part of luck, AND great strategy & knowledge of most mage spells. This said, now that i'm about ready to tackle the underdark with this guy i can honestly say that it isn't as hard as you might think, and it is DEFINATLY worth trying for anyone who has completed the game at least once.

A few things ive noticed:
Firstly, spells such as confusion, domination & maze become your most deadly enemies- since all can/will end the game on the spot. HOWEVER, most other foes you'd normally find tough actually become quite easy in a sense. My char for example (with familiar) had around 100 hp when first entering Athkatla, so combined with stoneskin & mirror image melee isn't that difficult unless your facing a bone golem or something very melee intensive. next, playing solo you gain SIX TIMES the experience you normally would in a party (no people to share xp with) so you levelup like CRAZY. This means your saving throws will be MUCH better than the game "expects" at whatever stage your at (making spells aimed at you often little concern), and assuming you find the scrolls- you have higher level spells than the game "expects you to have" at a certain stage.

For example: in a normal party game, id normally arrive in atkatla & do the copper coronet slave quest first, then the circus quest, nalia keep quest, then the shade lord quest. By the time my party is in the shade lord dungeon, my mages (jan, nalia, etc.) will likely have flame arrow as their most powerfull offensive spell, which is lame at low levels. Solo, my mage was hurling chain lightnings in the same area, & casting monster summoning 3s at will. This said, the game seems to have some sort of random moster AI in place dependent on the level of your highest char, so i had to kill 3 bone golems (believe it or not) in the shade dungeon instead of one.

Another important thing playing solo, is that every item you find will always be used on the same char, and all your gold will be spent to improve them. For example, i purchased both the robe of vecna (essential for a solo game) and the staff of Rynn (worth 50k combined) before stepping inside the planar sphere, a few quests after the shade dungeon, so money has never been an obstacle so far.

At the moment, my dual class fighter/mage is level 17 with 2.79 million xp, 136hp -6 AC and has 2 level 8 spell slots, and is about to voyage over to brynnlaw after meeting bohdi for the first time.


Now on to some other thoughts:
Has anyone else tried this kind of game yet, or am i the only one crazy enough to try? If so, i'd be keen to hear about how others have fared. Personally I wouldn't consider soloing with anything but a mage or mage combo(summoning monsters to help is crucial for big battles), but maybe other classes are possible also. Kensai/mage perhaps. Actually I'm really looking forward to going one-on-one with irenicus at the end of SoA, ill try a timestop/multiple pit fiend summoning combo & see who's demon pals are stronger! After that however, ToB may get a bit tough with all the imprisonment & maze casters (from what ive heard) though ill have have the spell trap ability from the staff of magi i expect.

Anyway, look forward to hearing what everyone thinks of all this, & id encourage everyone to give it a go for themselves - it really does make playing the game a whole new experience.


*** insert witty remark to impress people here ***