Is it still possible to solo a sorc after patch 2.01?

MasterDarkNinja · Post by **MasterDarkNinja** » Mon May 14, 2007 7:07 pm

A few months ago I was trying to solo as a sorcerer, and found things were pretty easy with spells like improved invisibility and animate dead.

I kept on having trouble with a bug though that would make the game crash at times when I entered the inventory screen, so then I found out about the official version 2.01 patch to fix that bug and other stuff, and installed it. The bug was solved, but my sorceress was ruined because of the changes it did to some spells.

Improved invisibility no longer stopped the enemies from finding and attacking me even after I cast spells and made my presense known, and I hadn't given myself many defensive spells since I was so used to all the enemies ignoring my invisible sorceress.

Animate dead used to summon a much stronger beast (stronger then even the monsters brought forth by monster summoning level 9), so I had barely given myself any other summons outside of animate dead and monster summoning level 9, which was no longer enough after the patch.

I tried to undo the part of the patch that changed those spells by deleting certain files in the override file, but that didn't work, so I gave up on saving my sorceress and started a new game and new character.

Now I'm starting to think about trying to solo as a sorceress again, so I'd like an opinion, is it still possible to successfully solo as a sorcerer even after the patch 2.01 really decreased the power of some of the more useful mage spells?

Claudius · Post by **Claudius** » Mon May 14, 2007 7:13 pm

I've read about sorcerors in HOF so I assume that means they beat normal. I would think you could. But maybe some reloads. Some high level shades and nukes and you are in business. Maybe take 1 level of fighter for some weapons feats? And raise to 4 at sorc 20.

kmonster · Post by **kmonster** » Tue May 15, 2007 9:06 am

I'm quite sure that you can even finish the game with your sorceress.
If you tell your sorceress' level and other stats, spell selection and where in the game you are stuck you'll get surely enough advice to take her through the game.

silverdragon72 · Post by **silverdragon72** » Tue May 15, 2007 1:25 pm

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...you shouldn't have to much problems, if you survive the first levels the rest should be quite easy...

...to make things even more easy (especially in the beginning and against all these golems, not to mention the very usefull Paladin quest) I would recommend to start with 2 Paladin levels and then switch to Sorc.

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MasterDarkNinja · Post by **MasterDarkNinja** » Tue May 15, 2007 2:00 pm

Alright thanks guys, I think I will try to start up another solo sorceress soon enough.

I'm quite sure that you can even finish the game with your sorceress.
If you tell your sorceress' level and other stats, spell selection and where in the game you are stuck you'll get surely enough advice to take her through the game.

Yeah, I wasn't really 'stuck' with my sorcerer in dragon eye and could probably have gotten a lot farther if I tried, but at the time I was just so frustrated by all the spell changes from the patch that I just gave up. Now it's been so long since I played that game that I might as well start it all over again.

...to make things even more easy (especially in the beginning and against all these golems, not to mention the very usefull Paladin quest) I would recommend to start with 2 Paladin levels and then switch to Sorc.

I think that's what I will do, I've read up on that combo and it seems like a great idea.

Is it possible to have more then a 20% XP penalty? I'm debating what race to pick for my sorceress, I've narrowed it down to two choices.

If I picked Aasimar (favored class Paladin), then I'd get some nice resistances and +2 to charisma and wisdom. I was also thinking of maybe picking a drow (with a favored class that I won't be using) for immunity to charm and spell resistance as well as the +2 charisma, int, and dex bonus. I'm worried that for a drow though that I might get a 40% XP penalty because of their favored class not being either paladin or sorcerer.

Klorox · Post by **Klorox** » Tue May 15, 2007 3:34 pm

MasterDarkNinja wrote: Is it possible to have more then a 20% XP penalty? I'm debating what race to pick for my sorceress, I've narrowed it down to two choices.

If I picked Aasimar (favored class Paladin), then I'd get some nice resistances and +2 to charisma and wisdom. I was also thinking of maybe picking a drow (with a favored class that I won't be using) for immunity to charm and spell resistance as well as the +2 charisma, int, and dex bonus. I'm worried that for a drow though that I might get a 40% XP penalty because of their favored class not being either paladin or sorcerer.

It's possible to get more than a 20% penalty. A Drow Paladin/Sorcerer will only get 20% though (an Aasimar wouldn't get any penalty).

If I were to solo a Pal/Sorc, I'd definitely take Drow. Since you're soloing, the XP penalty won't affect you. You might even want a bit more Paladin, as 27 and 28 levels of Sorcerer don't make much of a difference, and Paladin 3/Sorcerer 4 is a very powerful level to stop levelling at (I'd suggest Mirror Image as your 4th level spell there). You could choose to squat for quite a long time at Pal3/Sorc4.

silverdragon72 · Post by **silverdragon72** » Wed May 16, 2007 9:36 am

Klorox wrote:and Paladin 3/Sorcerer 4 is a very powerful level to stop levelling at (I'd suggest Mirror Image as your 4th level spell there). You could choose to squat for quite a long time at Pal3/Sorc4.

...what is so great about the 3rd Pal level when soloing?

...remove disease is quite useless, as your Pal is immune to disease anyway...

...turn undead depends on CHA *AND* your *PAL*-level, so you won't turn much undead, especially not in HOF!

...but clorox is right, 25 sorc level are quite enough, but 2 PAL levels also,...

...if you don't mind the 40% EXP penalty there are a few classes you could add very late in the game:

- monk: as you won't have any armour anyway you can benefit from the monk special abilities (especially evasion), but the monk won't give that much, as you won't have that much WIS, but it could give access to some usefull monk-only items...

- rogue: for a good rogue-only item and evasion

- ranger: as you won't use shields, and cera sumat is one handed, you might find a nice dagger for your off-hand...

- fighter: a few extra feats are always welcome...

and one more thing: don't take your levels to fast, soloing you will other wise end very fast at a point, where you don't get any EXP at all, as experience is calculated on the *average* party level and your party size is *ONE*...

...so take 2 PAL levels and then swith to sorc and go for MI, blur, Fireball, haste, stoneskin, afterwards stop levelling until you get in real trouble...

...at least if you have squatted enough levels to get access to 2 or 3 L9 spells, level up but be aware that you won't get anymore EXP from combat until end of the normal game after that point...

...the next jump should be dircetly to pal2/sorc25 and very few points left to level up to L28!

afterwars add one of the classes listed above

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Klorox · Post by **Klorox** » Wed May 16, 2007 4:35 pm

silverdragon72 wrote:...what is so great about the 3rd Pal level when soloing?

Read my last sentence.

Pal3/Sorc4 is a very good level to squat at for a while. You have pretty good HP, can melee everything for a few chapters with Mirror Image as your only 2nd level spell, and can squat for a long time because of this. With no XP penalty (yet), it's a great place to squat.

silverdragon72 · Post by **silverdragon72** » Wed May 16, 2007 5:34 pm

Klorox wrote:Read my last sentence.

Pal3/Sorc4 is a very good level to squat at for a while. You have pretty good HP, can melee everything for a few chapters with Mirror Image as your only 2nd level spell, and can squat for a long time because of this. With no XP penalty (yet), it's a great place to squat.

...I would just ignore the EXP-penalty, and for squattting I would stop levelling reaching Pal2/Sorc8 as you can stay on this level much longer having enough fireballs and stoneskin (the ice-temple shouldn't be a problem with this build)...

- btw. I would make the first little stop on Pal2/Sorc3
- the 3rd (and last stop in normal mode) would be somewhere at Pal2/Sorc18-20, with access to WOB finishing the normal game should be quite easy)
- the 4th at Pal2/Sorc25

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