My Solo Woes

[Ivelliis]

Some Minor Tactics Spoilers
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Started my first solo with an elven assassin. Lots of mods installed, including tactics, so I thought I'd give it a bash.

The first duegar(sp?) party was fairly easy. Just in the sight of one, I would lure him away and hide, backstab, run, and repeat.
The mages with stoneskin are a bit tricky, but shooting those who don't have Protection from Normal Missles from far away with a bow got rid of that, until the next Contingency brought it back.

The party in between the Library and Reilevs (sp?) room was a bit harder. Two dwarves followed me, so I was relying on shooting from corners, going round the corner and hiding to slowly bring them down to dead.

Then it hit me.

BG suddenly decided to turn itself off. I hadn't saved since I had finished the first party. Man am I annoyed.

I don't know why it happened, I have all the patches/fixpacks.

[Xen]

It happens to me too sometimes. It just crashes to desktop. And I too have all the patches. So does the problem come from the game itself or what?

[Cerek]

I ALWAYS "Save" (or at least QuickSave) after ANY battle or killed opponent (if the game will allow it).

Your tactics sound very similar to mine in dealing with the duergar. I have gotten it down to a very specific routine. I lure the fighters away just as you did. I try my first HiS in the red room with the large "mineral/crystal deposit" in the middle. As soon as I exit the corridor, I duck around the corner and try to hide. In my experience, that area doesn't work very well. I then run around the big mineral/crystal deposit in the middle of the room and head for the room immediately to the South (where you fought the Lightning Mephit at the very beginning). I go around the corner to the left and immediately try to HiS again (had success much more often here). While running from the fighters, I usually pick one and fire arrows at him if I'm far enough ahead. Once my HiS is successful, I naturally target the injured fighter first (if there is more than one). Try to Backstab - then RUN as soon as the attempt is made and I become visible. If you do it quickly enough, neither fighter will get a chance to hit you. From the "Lightning Machine" room, I head for the cells where I first awoke in the Chateau. Run straight for the far end (where Jaheira and Minsc were). You should have a big enough lead to turn and fire a couple of arrows at the injured dwarf before they get too close to you. Make them follow you around the cages so that you can build up your lead on them again, and run back towards the Lighting Machine room. As soon as you turn the corner towards that room (coming from the cells), try to HiS again. This area was almost as successful as the top corner in the Lightning Machine room. If successful, then naturally try to backstab the dwarf that's already injured. After 2-3 backstabs, the first fighter should be dead. Then it is MUCH easier to do the same tactics with the second fighter. I just run in a loop from the Mineral/Crystal Deposit room to the cages and back, trying to HiS whenever I turn a corner and get out of sight for a moment. While running, I fire arrows OR darts (in order to save my arrows) at the duergar chasing me.

I don't know your alignment, but I chose Chaotic Neutral for my solo assassin. This gave him two "Vampiric Touches" in his Bhaalspawn abilities. I use these to kill the mage(s). It ignores their Stoneskin and can potentially kill them with one hit. If you don't kill them with that first attack, you can either try to use sniper attacks on them (and hope you keep making your Saves against thier spells), or just Reload and try the Vampiric Touch again. Yeah, it's cheesy, but so is the spawn rate of the duergar. If you choose to fight past their Contingency:Stoneskin, they will cast the following spells...

1) Confusion
2) Hold Person
3) Web
4) Melf's Acid Arrow
5) Melf's Acid Arrow
6) Magic Missile
7) Magic Missile

The first three spells aren't that bad. I immediately run for the nearest corner as soon as they start casting. That way, even if I fail my Save, I'm out of sight of the caster so he can't continue pounding me with spells while I'm Confused or Held. If he DOES catch up to you while you're are Confused or Held, he will blast you with Melf's Minute Meteors until the duration wears off.

After the first 3 spells, though, you will start taking a LOT of damage (from the Acid Arrows, Magic Missiles and/or Minute Meteors). You will most likely lose at least half of your hit points before you manage to kill him. That simply isn't acceptable to me, so I just reload and try my Vampiric Touch until I kill him.

Of course, if you ever manage to catch the mage alone and WITHOUT a stoneskin, then try to Backstab him before doing anything else - but this doesn't happen very often.

[Ivelliis]

Well, to aid my Solo quest I made myself an item. A hood which doesn't allow the things that end game in Solo. IIRC Charm Person, Dire Charm, Hold, Imprisonment, etc. Just to save me from reloading.
If that is too cheesey for some people, tough, it's my first solo run so I think you can cut me some slack
(Its in the form of a Cowl, the Cowl of Mind Protection IIRC)
The picture was taken from the Thieves Cowl item in ToB.

[Cerek]

Originally posted by Ivelliis: Well, to aid my Solo quest I made myself an item. A hood which doesn't allow the things that end game in Solo. IIRC Charm Person, Dire Charm, Hold, Imprisonment, etc. Just to save me from reloading. If that is too cheesey for some people, tough, it's my first solo run so I think you can cut me some slack (Its in the form of a Cowl, the Cowl of Mind Protection IIRC) The picture was taken from the Thieves Cowl item in ToB.

Cool idea, Ivellis. I am envious that you are able to create your own items. I was able to do it with the NWN engine, but never have mastered the BG2 software enough.

Having said that, I've frequently given my PC's (both solo and party leaders) "non-standard" items that were either created for the PC or that I found on another site. And I honostly don't care what ANYBODY thinks of my playing style. It's MY game - and as long as I'M happy with it, I couldn't care less about what some cyber-member I'll most likely never even meet thinks about it. No offense to anyone here, just stating a fact.

I gave my solo bard a Bag of Holding to help with his inventory items, but I've really tried to resist the temptation to give my solo assassin anything not provided by the game. I most likely WILL give him a Bag of Holding also - simply because it is almost impossible to carry the items you need in addition to the ones you find any other way.

So carry on, keep us posted, and don't worry about what others may or may not think of your style.

[Ivelliis]

Well now that you mention it I gave my assassin a bag of holding also [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img]

Well I spent an hour cleaning out the duergar from the Chataeu. Their spawn rate is ridiculous! I shot a War Dog (the ones in the Library with Illyich) and a mage and two fighters spawned behind me. I ran all the way to the lightning room and round the corner to hide *mutters*.

All that is left (so far) is Illyich, his cronies, and everything after the library, and the great oytugh and everything past him.

How could an assassin defeat the Otyugh. Arrows don't seem to affect him, and backstab takes him down to injured, but then I'm not quick enough before he hits me with decay.

[Xen]

Originally posted by Ivelliis: How could an assassin defeat the Otyugh. Arrows don't seem to affect him, and backstab takes him down to injured, but then I'm not quick enough before he hits me with decay.

Greater Otyugh is immune to missile damage. That's the reason why arrows didn't affect him. Backstab him and run away. Then his regeneration will kick in. I think that he regenerates only once. Anyway backstab him again and cast Vampiric Touch as soon as possible. That should take him down. (It worked in my game)

[Ivelliis]

Originally posted by Xen: Greater Otyugh is immune to missile damage. That's the reason why arrows didn't affect him. Backstab him and run away. Then his regeneration will kick in. I think that he regenerates only once. Anyway backstab him again and cast Vampiric Touch as soon as possible. That should take him down. (It worked in my game)

Cool, thanks Xen [img]smile.gif[/img]

[JayS]

Horror (innate ability) also makes the Otyugh easy to defeat. I'm not sure if you have it.

[Cerek]

I just kept using Backstab attacks on the Otyugh. After the first hit, I ran into the corridor leading to the library, did another HiS and came back for another Backstab attack.

It took MANY reloads for this strategy to finally work. If I failed my save vs the poison, I would reload, because the poison would take me down to about 1/3 of my hitpoints. The disease affect wasn't as bad, but if I was able to save against BOTH of those effects, my assassin felt a LOT better. I figured it would take about 3 backstab attacks to kill the otyugh. His regeneration rate does slow down dramatically after the initial attack. But I finally got lucky and managed to do 80pts of damage with my 2nd Backstab attack. That took the Otyugh from "Barely Injured" to "Dead as a Doornail". Of course, then I had to put up with the insect swarm he spawned. I was caught completely by surprise because I did NOT expect to kill him on that attack, so I had no chance to even TRY to run away before the swarm spawned.

Good luck. It just takes patience and LOTS of reloads.

BTW, I have managed to kill almost ALL of Illyich and his crew now. Only Karamov is left. I set up 4 traps of my own to start with and that killed the Glabrezu. Then I recruited Yoshimo (and his special snares) to try to take out Illyich. I still had a hard time killing him (and getting credit for it) because Yoshimo's traps were the ones dealing the death blow. Since I hadn't set the trap, I didn't get the XP for the kill. So I rested and set one more trap of my own. Not only did that kill Illyich EVERY time (a total of 7 traps), but it also gave me the XP since it was my last trap that killed him.

After that, I tried something different. Instead of setting the ambush in the corridor and trying to lure the foes towards the ambush, I rested and set my traps in the bottom right corner of the library itself. This is the corner Illych and company go to on their regular patrol. I then hid between the last two bookcases on the right of the library instead of hiding at the beginning of the corridor. While this put me closer to the Illych crew, it also allowed me to run behind Zhivago and/or Karamazov as soon as the traps hit them and attempt a backstab on them. I managed to kill Zhivago this way (backstabbing him right after the traps went off). The Jailkeep Golem chased me to the Sewer Room and I tried to use the Nymphs and Moose against him (that I looted off Illyich). But I finally just had to stand and fight him because he ignored everybody but me. I discovered that the JailKeep Golem is actually the EASIEST member to kill. Using Illyich's club, it only took about 5 hits to kill him. I took some heavy damage from his attacks, but I've gotten plent of potions of extra healing and it only took 2 to restore me to full health. Now I just have that Wizard Slayer and her nasty crossbow to deal with.