Level up and weapon skills

[Xavier]

You know, you are all making a great forum here!!

I've never played pnp (I think I know what that means now), my only experience with roleplaying games are Ultima V and Ultima UW2. They were great games some 10-15 years ago. Right on to the questions.

1.
I've been wondering, when I level up there is obviously some rules of what you can spend your fighting skill points on.

My Fighter/thief is skilled in Longsword, long bow and single weapon style.
Sometimes I have no choise in what profency to raise even if the profencies are higlighted. Are there rules for which order you have to raise skills in?

2.
I've just a few hours left of the game, at least I think so, and I've struggled to come that far. With a FULL party.
So when I see you other adventurers talking about soloing the game, is it really possible without cheating?

[Suzaku]

Some classes like theives can only be proficient or specialized in their weapon slots. Read your kit description. Yes, you struggle to beat the game the first couple of times, and I did it without cheating!!!! I'm so proud. My mage from BG1 took forever to get all his nice items, then continue in BG2. Soloing is only after you beat the game atleast once, and XP cap removers are nice, but only truly worth the challenge if you don't hack all the XP. I'm running at level 27 Invoker, no hack!

[Foo]

So when I see you other adventurers talking about soloing the game, is it really possible without cheating

Like most things in life, the more you do something, generally the better you get. This is certainly true of computer role playing games!!

Seriously, though, once you get a strong grasp for the magic system, how to best use various items, weapons etc, strenghts/weaknesses of all of the monsters, and after playing through the game several times so you know what quests/rewards to expect, you can solo it with no cheats. Also, you don't have to share any of the cool items, so an individual (say, a kensai/mage) can equip the Robe of Vecna, Amulet of Power, Ring of Gaxx, Cloak of Sewers, Ring of Prot +2 and choose from weapons such as Staff of Magi, Celestial Fury, Angurvadal, Gram the Sword of Grief, Crom Faeyr, dual wielding as necessary. It is very challenging, especially at the beginning when you are so weak, but after a while, it actually gets easier, as your single char is MUCH higher level than any individual would be in a group of 6, as you do not divide XP by 6 all the time. My solo char is way past the ToB xp cap of 8mill, and i haven't finished SoA yet.

[waverider]

well you can download something that gives XP to one person only kinda a cheat ...

but it is usefull if you want your party to grow slower but one person at the time gets better

i dont remeber were i downloaded it ...

[fable]

Soloing does require a cheat, in a sense. It requires strong prior knowledge of the game, usually gained by playing it repeatedly with a larger party. I've seen two players boast in the last year that they won solo without ever playing the game before, but one let slip through comments on another board that he was very familiar with different party configurations, and recommended a particular walkthrough--so he clearly had a prior source of knowledge.

I'd recommend playing the game once or twice with a full party and different party NPCs, to see how unique each game really is. You may also want to up the difficulty level if you begin to find it too easy. [img]smile.gif[/img]