GameBanshee Forums

I'm soloing a halfling thief through BG1 right now, and to make it especially tough I'm trying to kill as few opponents as possible. That makes it a little rough on the XP side - BG1 awards most experience for kills, not quests like BG2.

I'm at 3 kills now and 2 were not necessary (doh!) The only required kill so far was Mulahey. I've gone through Basillus and Daevorn and the guy with the boots of speed without killing them myself (cloak of Algernon is WAY too powerful!) and I'm running around the big city now trying to do the non-lethal quests so I can top out in levels before I hit the storyline again.

What I need you guys for is advice - how am I gonna save the dukes? And are there any other major obstacles in store for me that I haven't thought of? I've finished the game before, but it was a year or two ago and the memories are kinda fuzzy.

I'm also curious as to whether or not any of you have tried the non-violent approach to BG, and how well did it work?

Thanks!

Let me get this straight... You consider charming people and have them kill their friends to be "non-violent"?

Algernon's Cloak tends to drop in efficiency rather heavily towards the end of the game. Still good, but not the true killer it was in the beginning.

Originally posted by Xyx:
<STRONG>Let me get this straight... You consider charming people and have them kill their friends to be "non-violent"? </STRONG>

Call it the Charlie Manson approach.

Charly is back!

Yeah, it's cheesy and manipulative, but its the path of least resistance which is appropriate for a Neutral Evil thief. Skippy the Halfling thief just finished BG with 6 kills, only 2 of which were required and one of those (Sarevok) might not have been required. I don't think it very likely that I could have killed him through charmed minions - he is immune to the mages and much tougher than Tazok.

The cloak does wane in efficiency, but it has the advantage of having unlimited uses. Someone makes a save? Try again! Cheesy - certainly. I'm not denying that. It was mainly an exercise in whats possible - trying to squeeze a little more out of this game. I had never solo'd the game before, so I wanted to try it and make it interesting.

The main downside to this method is the lack of experience points. Most of your experience comes from killing monsters, so not getting your hands dirty cuts you out of the lions share of XP. When a charmed "comrade" gets a kill, you do get a portion of the XP and that is how I gained my last few levels.

Maybe I should change my name to Puppet Master.....?

Heh, fun!

What level did you end at?

I think I was 8th level (max) but it was a backstab on Tamoko that pushed me over - right before you step into Sarevok's final battle. I didn't need to kill her but I had run out of people to charm and I just needed a few more XP - so I went against my "minimum kills" method and poked a dagger into her backside.

I have not installed ToSC.

Sarevok was fairly easy. I wiped out his companions by charming Semaj and blasting them, then pulled the hide-stab-run-repeat routine on Sarevok for a while. That 'run" part is very important - he hits hard!

The only hard part was the Duchal Palace - the fight against the greater dopplegangers was wicked hard. I read out here that someone else used a wand of sleep to even out the odds, so I tried that method. I must have reloaded 40 times - the damn dukes you have to save jump right into melee - even the damn sorceress! I had to charm her just to move her out of harm's way.

[ 10-29-2001: Message edited by: smaug chow ]

Funny

@ smaug chow,

this is one of the best accounts of any one going through one of the BG/IWD games. Outstanding work!!!

A Pacifist in a hack and slash game. I know, I know, it's not all hack and slash.

smaug chow: You are one patient mother. Impressive sh1t.

We look upon on you in awe.

[ 11-03-2001: Message edited by: Moleman ]

Allright - y'all are blowing smoke up my tuchas.

This was actually realy easy - I ran a thief and put lots of points in stealth so I could just hide and run. I just bypassed all opposition - it went very quickly and required very little patience. I did very few quests in Baldur's Gate itself - t'weren't nuthin.