Beating the game with a party of 1

Has anyone tried to go all the way with a single character? I started out with a Ranger named Lord FrostBane and dual-classed him to a cleric at level 9 (so he gets 8 proficiency stars in all, additional attacks per turn, 5 charm animals, and maximum hitpoints).

It got kind of tough once a 1st level cleric found himself stuck in Dragon's eye all by himself. But with alot of potions and funny strategies I made it through okay (I beat the snake queen with a lvl 7 cleric... I made myself invisible w/ sanctuary while her own poison gas killed all her minions, and then I used oil of speed + lots of "commands" to hack her to bits).

Now I'm a level 9/12 ranger/cleric and I'm just starting Dorn's Deep. It's really starting to get easy! He just blasts his way through everything, since he gets 3 attacks/turn and with all his spells on his THACO is 0 and armor class -11 It's almost getting boring now it's so easy. And since he soaks up all the exp himself, he will probably hit the exp cap soon too...

Just wanted to know if I'm the only one who's tried this By the way, I already beat the game with a normal party of 6.

I tried it with a tank dwarf. My first time through the game, I discovered that the tank dwarf in the party could generally clear a level all by himself. Boots of Speed and the Throwing Axe +2 (speed 3) are the key idea. So I tried a single-character party with just a tank dwarf. Didn't really work though. I stopped (although I still have the saved game) after Severed Hand. The dwarf has no good way to finish off trolls. He never found any weapon that does fire or acid damage, has used up most of the fire potions (even all the ones from the dealer in Kuldahar), and has no bow skill so it takes many Arrows of Fire for each troll. There are lots of trolls in the next map, and I didn't know what to do with them, so I stopped. It was also getting annoying how much damage he was taking, with no effective way to heal other than resting. He's over 950 days.

Hmm, I never had a problem with killing trolls. Here is the trick: You get 2 or 3 trolls to surround you in melee combat, then quickly dispatch them all. Now, when they're all sitting together unconsious, throw a single fire potion in the middle. One potion will kill them all! That way you'll have more than enough potions.

Like I said, new strategies are called for when playing with a single char, you can't use the same plan as you did with a full party

I was going to play my next time through with an evil party of less than 6... but perhaps I'll change this, and try playing through with a single character... a Human dual-classed Fighter/Druid. This probably wouldn't be quite as effective as the Ranger/Cleric, since there would be fewer weapons for him to make use of once he dual-classed, and he won't have both Cleric AND Druid spells... but I think it'd be alot've fun nonetheless.

Incidentally, sibley... you could probably rock the game if you simply added a 2nd character, a Cleric (or Fighter/Cleric), who could heal your dwarf (and greatly reduce rest times), and also provide support for the trolls with the Pillar of Flame spell.

Well, I did think about a cleric as a second character. But clerics are pretty useless early on -- except for healing, of course. I think it would be a mistake to add a second character with so little combat ability. I'd be losing a lot of experience from the fighter and would probably not get enough help from the cleric in combat to compensate for the exp loss. Also, a single character gets all the best gear. With two he'd have to share.

I did run a tank dwarf cleric one time in BG. He worked fine to stand out front of the party and attract all the attacks, but even with the nice magic hammer (was it +2 plus electrical damage?) he seldom hit anything. Just couldn't do much damage. A cleric's THAC0 is just pitiful. Of course, the point of this character was to get room for one more archer in the party by combining the tank character and the cleric.

I've never run a fighter/cleric, but my experience with other multiclasses is that THAC0 and such things are midway between the two classes. Clerics are so bad that I think a fighter/cleric would still not be good enough as a second character in a two-character party. Same weapon restrictions as a cleric, too, so no useful ranged weapon.

Dunno about Pillar of Flame. I don't remember my cleric getting that spell even at level 14 or whatever. Is it maybe a druid spell?

How about creating a triple-class multi-class fighter-thief-cleric?

I wouldn't underestimate the fighting prowess of a cleric, as my esteemed colleague, Wretched pointed out to me a while back. Plus there's some really cool weapons available for the cleric, Misery's Herald comes to mind, plus an orcish mace that's like +5 against elves. The best though is a magic war hammer that I just found by picking the lock on Conlon the smithy's chest in his room. I can't remember the particulars on it, but it's a +5 something or other and it's just plain bad!

Well i have just finished the game with a party of one. I used a warrior/thief/mage half-elf. With the thief part, you can hide in the dark and sneak past monsters or backstab them. The warrior part allows you to use all the weapons you can find. And some mage's spells help a lot to solo all the creatures you can find.
When you max your exp, you get a level 10 warrior,11 mage and 12 thief. I must have around 100HP, Ac -with a very nice mage robe that i got from one of the last chapter "boss", deep in the dwarf town), TACO 4 (with a +3 scimitar).

By the way i'm french and i have the french version of the game, so i'm sorry if don't know the english name of the spells i use.
So for level one spells, i use a direct damage spell (mainly the one that throw red balls .. sorry I dont even remember it's name in french)because it is very fast to cast and can interrupt casters, and one or two identify spells.
For level two spells, i only use the spells that makes duplicate images of you so the creature must first "kill" them before they can touch you. A very useful spell, as it can also protect you from spells...
For level three spells, i only use "haste", makes you run and hit faster, very useful also if you have several creatures to kill.
For level 4 and up, the spells I choose depend on the situation. Greater invisibility can be useful if you dont want to hide in the dark all the time. Area spells like "death cloud" can be useful if you want to clean a room full of nasty little critters (especially archers). I didnt find a lot of use for the invocation spells, too few creatures and sometimes to weak to really help in the later stages. Strong damage spells can also be useful.

Useally i cast haste, image reflection(?), hide and go explore the zone. I try to backstab a creature when i can. By the way, i always use a very fast weapon (0 to 2 for speed). As long as i dont get surrounded too much, no problem, i usually can solo a monster easily.
The most annoying creatures are archers, as they can dispell my reflections while i fight another creature. I usually go for them first, either with haste (and with my boot of speed later on) or with spells.

In Icewind Dale, i found the used the thief part a little less useful than in Baldur's gate (i also finished baldur's gate with only a war/mag/thief). In Baldur's gate, i think i needed more detect trap and hide in shadows, as i think there were more traps on the ground. I'm not sure i could have finished BG with only a warrior/mage player (or it would have been much harder). In Icewind Dale, i think a warrior/mage can make it easier. I used less backstab in Icewind Dale and never looked for traps on the ground, only on a few chests when i remembered to do it...Anyway spells protect me.
And in BG, i used a lot of summuning creatures staffs. I really needed them to survive and kill all the monsters (like with the dopplegangers episode in Baldur's gate when you must protect two people from being killed by them). For the final boss in BG, i drowned him and his friends under creatures and i just delivered the killing blow with a nice backstab.
Well i have never used a single summoning creature staff in Icewind Dale... for the good reason that i didn't find one... Well i didn't need it anyway, i just cast a few summoning spells one or two times, but i didn't really feel the need for it.
The only "hard" part was with the final "boss", i summoned some creatures to distract it a little while i attacked him "hand to hand". By the way, i managed to kill it with the help of a "thunderbold staff", because i was a bit short on spells and without the help of haste and image reflection, i can't hope to win in close combat against him.

Well, anyway i think it is a nice challenge to try to beat the game with only a party of one. And it can even easier in a certain kind of way, as you only have one player to command...
Ah, by the way, maybe the biggest problem you will face is with what you can carry... You can't get all the nice items you will find with only one player... Either throw them or make a lot of trips to sell them.

One last point on my equipment... I only used mage's robe as i didn't wait to start pausing the game to cast my spells, change armor to fight and so on. I found a ring that double the number of level 1 and 2 spells i can memorize. Another ring gives +1 in stenght (doesnt work by the way, it changes my 18/85 to 18/91) and another attack to a thief only. I have a pair of boot of speed. Either a +3 ice scimitar or a +2 scimitar with another attack. My bracers give my -1 to TACO. And i dont remember the rest, it is the pretty classical magical stuff you wil find.

Good luck to you

Sibley, the Pilar of Fire spell wretched referred to is actualy FlameStrike.

I just remembered. The War Hammer I got from Conlon is +5 vs. Iron Golems. Comes oin extremely handy later in the game!