Soloing - How do you cope with locks?

[Solusek]

Hey guys,

I'm just starting another solo run through BG2 + ToB with a mage and it comes to my mind how annoying all the locked chests and doors are. You know, I'm the type of player who rests as little as possible, so I'm really feeling uncomfortable with using "knock" all the time, as there are areas in the game where virtually everything is locked.

How do you guys cope with locks when soloing as a spellcaster?

Using the girdle of hill giant strength and forcing them open seems like a good idea to me, but I'm not sure how high the success chances actually are.

What about mods removing all locks from the game? Is there something like that? If so, do you use it?

Please tell me your ideas and habits


So long,
Sol

[Crenshinibon]

I use absolutely no mods.

At the start, if you have high strength and get the Draw Upon Holy Might ability, you could use that. Generally I do use knock, but I take only what I need as there isn't much to do with gold once you solo. Especially for a sorcerer. What do you need to buy? A Robe of Vecna, a few Rods of Resurrection and that's it. At MOST it's 40k.

Anyway, I just unlock the ones I need since at this point I already know what things I need and in which containers they lie. Although more often than not, I tend to force the locks.

[Deadalready]

There's a mod which removes all locks in the game, no idea the name or where it is.

Also buy or save all the "Knock" scrolls found.

[Rhûn]

The necessary ones can be forced with pretty much anyone bashing it, e.g. the locked door in Nalia's Keep. As for loot, you're pretty much stuck with Knock spells and occasionally using giant strength potions to bash. There is a mod that takes away all the locks, I believe it's Ease-of-Use, or it might be one of the tweak packs on gibberlings3.net.

[Saros]

Hey guys,

I'm just starting another solo run through BG2 + ToB with a mage and it comes to my mind how annoying all the locked chests and doors are.

You don't know the half of it. If you really want to, try soloing SoA and ToB with a solo-warrior-type character(Barbarian, Ranger, Fighter). Then you will be denied the spell protections(which allow you to bypass the trap damage/effects) and there will be no Knock spell. And, mind you, there are doors which are not opened even with strength of 25.

In the Darkest Day mod, there is a special item created for a solo-anyclass , sold by Marina the Black Market thief in the basement of the Shadow Guild hideout. This item seems fair enough, since it casts Detect Trap and Knock 3 times/day and each one of the uses can cause farigue in the caster.

For a solo Mage(or Sorcerer), there will be a lot of resting and Knocking. Yet your main concern will be the traps, not locks.

[Solusek]

You know, I already soloed the game a few times Traps never really were much of a problem. When you play a fighter class you can force all the locks that are unavoidable, as someone mentioned above I believe. But depending on your weapon choices, etc. you might have to take a thief along for some areas.

Apart from that, I can't imagine why someone would want to solo the game with a pure warrior class. Seems kind of boring to me, as you can't really do anything but hit and run :>

Yes, I know that I will be resting and knocking quite often. At least if I want to open everything. That was the point of this whole thread As I said, traps aren't much of a problem for me. There are many ways to deal with them.



So long,
Sol

[VonDondu]

The Girdle of Hill Giant Strength only gives you a bashing percentage of 50%. For the sake of comparison, Strength 25 gives you a bashing percentage of 80%. You can give yourself Strength 25 by using the Slayer form. The 9th level spell Shapechange will let you take the form of an iron golem with Strength 24. But there are many containers and doors in the game that cannot be opened by bashing because the requirement is just too high.

When it comes to traps, I'd just like to point out that Rangers (one of the previously mentioned "warrior types") can cast low level Druid spells, including the second level spell Find Traps. And if you don't mind abusing summoned creatures, there are several items that can summon a creature that you can send over the traps if you want to avoid taking any damage yourself (although I've had mixed results with that). So even a Ranger can deal with traps in a limited fashion.

[wise grimwald]

I can see that it is the "In a limited fashion" which is the problem, as you cannot get summoned monsters to set off the traps on chests unless I am missing something. I have always had a thief so far, so I haven't got around thinking of other methods.

[VonDondu]

I can see that it is the "In a limited fashion" which is the problem, as you cannot get summoned monsters to set off the traps on chests unless I am missing something.

I was referring to the kind of traps you step on, not trapped containers. Even then, summoned monsters don't always set them off. I'm not sure if that is due to a variation between various versions of the game (patches and mods might make a difference) or whether it's due to some sort of safeguard that prevents enemy monsters from setting off traps.

In any case, summoned monsters can't open chests. But temporarily recruited NPCs can.

The problem with trapped chests is that they're also locked most of the time. A Ranger isn't equipped to handle them by any other method besides using brute force and, er, taking it like a man.

I think I need to make an item called a "crowbar" which raises your bashing percentage by, say, 50%. [EDIT: By the way, that was a joke, because I have no idea how to add an "equipping effect" like that, and I don't know how the game handles bashing in the first place.]

[MasterDarkNinja]

I've found that often the chests which are locked and can't be forced open don't seem to contain much useful loot. I'm used to soloing as a warrior type class and taking the damage from traps as I open chests and running over traps.

For a sorcerer solo when I did it I had a belt of giant strength, and when that failed to open a lock I did have knock to help me out to. I found early on in the game that I needed to rest often as a spell caster. As a mage I'm sure opening locks with knock will be a bit more annoying if you have to unlock a lot of chests that way, but if you want the loot then you have to rest to cast knock again.

[Crenshinibon]

But if you're soloing as a caster, especially a sorcerer, you really don't need that much loot, especially if you're going to sell it. You'd probably only spend the gold on your contact and the Robe of Vecna if you have the merchants. The gold is easy to get anyway. You should have a bit over 15k by the time you leave Waukeen's Promenade.