I just registered and this is my very first post (have been reading for a month or so). I have to say I'm damn impressed with this board. The SoA board, particularly, is the best by far I've come across. Nowhere else (usenet, some boards in other sites) is such in-game content or such expert gamers to answer your every question to be found (okay, there are members who reply without knowing the answers but you're able to disregard false info after completing the game once. that applies to BG, SoA and propably ToB as well (haven't played it)).
Enough the praise and on to the topic. I'm planning to solo the same character through BG, SoA and ToB. Using the hardest difficulty possible for a given game. Preferably not dying or reloading once. (this was already ruined, I guess that two is just a damn lot better player) Decided that a mage type (in SoA,ToB) was just far too cheesy and easy to pull off. Reading the SoA forum I noted no one was talking about soloing clerics. So I decided to give it a try. To have the most powerful cleric possible, the following things should be considered (IMO)
1) Stats. To get 21 WIS and 19 in all physical stats, the cleric should read all the tomes in BG1/TotSC. I decided to solo through that, too.
2) Hit points. To have maximum balance between clerical power and HP, A cleric should be dualled from warrior when hitting lvl 9. After that, a warrior gets 1hp/level more than a cleric (note: Holy Power negates this). Before lvl 9, a cleric of Con 16+ gets d8+2 hp/lvl (6.5 on average). Warrior of con 19 gets d10+5 hp/lvl (average 10.5). That's 4 hp difference gaining each level 2-9. On character creation in BG1, the warrior gets 15hp while the cleric gets 10. Adding these up, the warrior/cleric will end up having 5+8*4=37 more hp than a pure cleric in exchange of 250-300k exp (= 1 cleric level later on). Well worth the trade.
3) Weapon skill and THAC0. A warrior/cleric can specialise in weapons. A pure cleric can't. Dualing on lvl 9 will get you 3 proficincy *:s (the last on gaining lvl 9). You will also get a base THAC0 of 12 (big deal, I'll use Holy Power in most melee situations).
4) Spells. In order to get druidic spells, I shall start as a ranger. I believe druid spells are more useful than the +1 hit and dam fighters get from grandmastery.
5) Alignment. As a ranger, I must be good. In order to have even a slight chance to get Horror(very useful in BG1) as a Bhaal power, I'll be chaotic good. The point of reputation costs 100gp in BG1.
I shall be using the following rules:
- No reloading unless I die
- No quick-saving except in inns or places auto-saves will occur
- No NPC:s should be allowed to join in any circumstances. Dump Imoen in BG1 immediately (after taking her stuff).
- Use the hardest difficulty possible.
Until I have slain my megalomanic brother, I shall be describing my adventures in the BG1 forum.
tram
Soloing a ranger/cleric through the series
You ever get around to importing this guy
into SoA? I'm on about my tenth try of a
no deaths/no reloads game, but apparently
I suck (at least Two is infinitely better).
The farthest I've gotten is the Sahaugin
city, when my berserker forgot to berserk
before walking over the maze trap. I'm
thinking of trying a R/C multi next.
into SoA? I'm on about my tenth try of a
no deaths/no reloads game, but apparently
I suck (at least Two is infinitely better).
The farthest I've gotten is the Sahaugin
city, when my berserker forgot to berserk
before walking over the maze trap. I'm
thinking of trying a R/C multi next.
I didn't build that ship for nothing!
Hi there , just wanted to say that ive been soloing a ranger(8)/Cleric through BG2 and TOB, ive made it all the way without with just a few spots that were so tough i had to try numerous times. One spot was in watchers keep in the maze level , to get to the end you have to go through a few "dead magic" zones , they wipe all your buffs and prevent you from buffing further. Then you have to enter a room full of monsters that "can" attack on site (alignment dependant).
Ive made it all the way through but am stuck on Melissan, ive forced her away once but now im out of summoning spells and low on Iron skins , so its not looking good :/
I must say the ranger/cleric is an extremely powerful class , with lots of neat tricks for handling tons of monsters. Like the darro cave , there were so many things attacking me that my iron skins were going in about 3 secs. So i cast Sanctuary then wandered offscreen and dropped a firestorm on them , that spell kicks alot of ass.
Creeping doom was also invaluable throughout my travels, the fact that a save only cuts the duration in half means it always hits unless magic resistant. Turn undead at lvl 39 is extremly powerful , too powerful IMO, even the last lich faced was turned to death nearly instantly. Shield of archons was handy also. One of the most helpful abilities was hideing in shadows after casting a firestorm , the monsters dont chase you if you get hide on, they just stand in the firestorm. The skeleton warrior summons are extremely effective also , i think they are 100% magic resistant , and seem to hit well and take hits well. They also have no limit on how long they will stick around.
I settled on the flail of ages and Storm star in the main hand , flail for most stuff but the storm star is great for large group assaults. Crom Faer in the offhand. I used Valygars armour almost the whole way through , it offers very nice resistances (esp when used with the belt of inertial barriar)and immunity to charm which allows some of the better helms to be worn. Later in TOB i started useing some plate (forget the name) for "melee heavy" opposition. I played on "core" rules with maxed HPs on my character (188).
Best of luck to you , you will need it of your playing on "insane".
-Lykwid
Ive made it all the way through but am stuck on Melissan, ive forced her away once but now im out of summoning spells and low on Iron skins , so its not looking good :/
I must say the ranger/cleric is an extremely powerful class , with lots of neat tricks for handling tons of monsters. Like the darro cave , there were so many things attacking me that my iron skins were going in about 3 secs. So i cast Sanctuary then wandered offscreen and dropped a firestorm on them , that spell kicks alot of ass.
Creeping doom was also invaluable throughout my travels, the fact that a save only cuts the duration in half means it always hits unless magic resistant. Turn undead at lvl 39 is extremly powerful , too powerful IMO, even the last lich faced was turned to death nearly instantly. Shield of archons was handy also. One of the most helpful abilities was hideing in shadows after casting a firestorm , the monsters dont chase you if you get hide on, they just stand in the firestorm. The skeleton warrior summons are extremely effective also , i think they are 100% magic resistant , and seem to hit well and take hits well. They also have no limit on how long they will stick around.
I settled on the flail of ages and Storm star in the main hand , flail for most stuff but the storm star is great for large group assaults. Crom Faer in the offhand. I used Valygars armour almost the whole way through , it offers very nice resistances (esp when used with the belt of inertial barriar)and immunity to charm which allows some of the better helms to be worn. Later in TOB i started useing some plate (forget the name) for "melee heavy" opposition. I played on "core" rules with maxed HPs on my character (188).
Best of luck to you , you will need it of your playing on "insane".
-Lykwid
Hmm, interesting, I'm impressed that there are other no death/no reloaders out there! (on insane diff no less). Sweet.
The only peice of advice I can give you: paranoia. Never walk around without protections up. This is rendered much much easier after TOB when you get Use Any Item and the Staff of Magi's 1/ce day spell trap. Just rest, pop it off after waking up, and it can handle a lot of bad spells. You won't ever be taken by surprise.
SOA -- cleric/ranger type -- should be do-able. OK defensive spells, good cleric weapons, and ironskins... but what about the odd charm spell? Or domination? Better use defensive shields or charm protection helms. Mage/bard have better spell defenses I believe -- well good luck!
What can ranger/cleric's do vs. insta-kill charms/hold (low level) things? Early in the game? Just thinking, I guess you have to depend on equipment... but hold person? Steal Keldorn's armor? hm... tricky. How are you keeping from being "hold person" -ed?
The only peice of advice I can give you: paranoia. Never walk around without protections up. This is rendered much much easier after TOB when you get Use Any Item and the Staff of Magi's 1/ce day spell trap. Just rest, pop it off after waking up, and it can handle a lot of bad spells. You won't ever be taken by surprise.
SOA -- cleric/ranger type -- should be do-able. OK defensive spells, good cleric weapons, and ironskins... but what about the odd charm spell? Or domination? Better use defensive shields or charm protection helms. Mage/bard have better spell defenses I believe -- well good luck!
What can ranger/cleric's do vs. insta-kill charms/hold (low level) things? Early in the game? Just thinking, I guess you have to depend on equipment... but hold person? Steal Keldorn's armor? hm... tricky. How are you keeping from being "hold person" -ed?
Add Remove Fear to that list. 
Lasts for an hour, and if you panic, you usually die. Mages have it much tougher, since about half of the nasty hold/confusion spells are area spells, against which no Spell Turning or Trap protects.
I liked the Iron Skins so much that I cleared out all my level 6 slots and memorized Wondrous Recalls for the sole purpose of retrieving Iron Skins.
Lasts for an hour, and if you panic, you usually die. Mages have it much tougher, since about half of the nasty hold/confusion spells are area spells, against which no Spell Turning or Trap protects.I liked the Iron Skins so much that I cleared out all my level 6 slots and memorized Wondrous Recalls for the sole purpose of retrieving Iron Skins.
[url="http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/BG2/SpellsReference/Main.htm"]Baldur's Gate 2 Spells Reference[/url]: Strategy, tips, tricks, bugs, cheese and corrections to the manual.
Hmm, I didn't know all that, my clerical knowleadge is pretty weak.
I WOULD miss improved invis + Immunity to Divination, I have to say, or heck just improved invis...
Well it sounds like a Ranger/Cleric should eat the game up pretty well. Great armor, great weapons (crom), great spells (ironskin, X plague, etc.) and your thac0 is better than a bard's. Then throw in the defensive spells y'all have named above, mix and serve.
But no improved haste? Wahh.... must use the bracers, I supposed...
Isn't there a Clerical spell that increases attacks/round and deals maximum damage per hit? That would be just disgusting with Crom, one supposes.
I WOULD miss improved invis + Immunity to Divination, I have to say, or heck just improved invis...
Well it sounds like a Ranger/Cleric should eat the game up pretty well. Great armor, great weapons (crom), great spells (ironskin, X plague, etc.) and your thac0 is better than a bard's. Then throw in the defensive spells y'all have named above, mix and serve.
But no improved haste? Wahh.... must use the bracers, I supposed...
Isn't there a Clerical spell that increases attacks/round and deals maximum damage per hit? That would be just disgusting with Crom, one supposes.
-
Dimensional
- Posts: 104
- Joined: Mon Apr 09, 2001 10:00 pm
- Location: The Death Pit's Of Larrg
- Contact:
Two Said
also sanctuarys a life saver.
Can't comment if it's better or worse than a mage type character as i am pathalogicaly unable to take them as protagonists.
Ok I when I soloed Ranger/cleric (not no deaths/no realoads - must try that after i finish wiz 8) i utilized the hide in shadows a lot (using cloak of non-detection which even true sight can not dispell) of course i planned on this and duel at 12 to get greater Hide in shadows. so a Ranger cleric can be nondetectable(and with no spells to!!)I WOULD miss improved invis + Immunity to Divination, I have to say, or heck just improved invis...
also sanctuarys a life saver.
Can't comment if it's better or worse than a mage type character as i am pathalogicaly unable to take them as protagonists.
They say to truly understand reality one must learn to think in Seven Dimensions
Understand there is no chaos - Only a pattern to large for your mind to grasp
Understand there is no chaos - Only a pattern to large for your mind to grasp
Thinking about it a bit - I can't imagine
how the Ranger/Cleric would get around the
maze-trap problem. He can "detect traps",
but there are still many traps that just
have to be opened. I guess he can always
have a simulacrum (assuming he can use
Vailor's Helm) open it, or Shield or Archons,
but it seems to really slow down progress if you have to use 1 or 2/day abilities to open every trapped chest.
I guess part of the problem is that I don't know the traps well enough - I know where they are, but usually a thief disarms them, so I have no clue what 80% of them do. Maybe I gotta create Dwarven grunt boy to take it on the chin and map out the trap types (lotta reloads there). Too much work. Are there any lists of exactly what is trapped with what type of affect/spell anywhere?
how the Ranger/Cleric would get around the
maze-trap problem. He can "detect traps",
but there are still many traps that just
have to be opened. I guess he can always
have a simulacrum (assuming he can use
Vailor's Helm) open it, or Shield or Archons,
but it seems to really slow down progress if you have to use 1 or 2/day abilities to open every trapped chest.
I guess part of the problem is that I don't know the traps well enough - I know where they are, but usually a thief disarms them, so I have no clue what 80% of them do. Maybe I gotta create Dwarven grunt boy to take it on the chin and map out the trap types (lotta reloads there). Too much work. Are there any lists of exactly what is trapped with what type of affect/spell anywhere?
I didn't build that ship for nothing!
I just finished soloing a ranger cleric (well i cant kill melissan damnit) , anyways i really didnt have much problem with traps , i think 2 times the whole game i had to reload and walk around a trap. Soloing gets you to a very high lvl fast, my saves were all very good and i had up to 40% magic resistance from items. I never used find traps , though i have run through the game numerous times. I usually run around with death ward, caotic commands and Prot from evil on , really never had problems with traps. Also quite early you can get the belt of inertial barrier and Valygars armor which together confer 75% resist to magic damage, that lessened the damage from traps as well.
-Lykwid
-Lykwid
In the manual that came with baldur's gate 2 , it says :
Chaotic commands renders a creature immune to magical commands . Suggestion, charm, domination, command, sleep and confusion are all spells that fit into this category. This spell affects only one creature and lasts for the duration or until dispelled.
*shrug*
-Lykwid
Chaotic commands renders a creature immune to magical commands . Suggestion, charm, domination, command, sleep and confusion are all spells that fit into this category. This spell affects only one creature and lasts for the duration or until dispelled.
*shrug*
-Lykwid