Starting a new solo game

Starting a new solo game where I will take as many NPCs as possible. Probably starting as an Elven Druid, so longbow and longsword are in play, with an animal companion and entangle from the start. I think I'll take Ronald and Elmo to start, with Furnok until I can get Serena. Zaxis if I can find him. Any other must haves, or should I switch out some early ones for later ones?

 

You could turn Ronald into an archer if you want to instead. Meleny's an excellent Druid option, why in the world would you ditch her? Also, get Augmented summoning for the druid, by all means.

Agreed, Zaxis makes a good teammate.

If you're looking for a bit more challenge, trade Elmo for Fruella.

Why would you trade Furnok for Serena??

You need a mage - switch your PC to wiz/sor instead of druid, or take Spugnoir.

You COULD attempt to grab Mother Screng and the gang on this playthrough.

If you go evil, Oolghrist and the Hill Giant dude (3rd floor Temple, forget the name) are great NPCs to be acquired quite early on (right after Moathouse).

Node NPCs are pretty much useless, except maybe Ashrem.



I should do a solo game sometime too, never did it before. I'll probably go with hardcore solo though, without NPCs.

 

I think Serena has a nice voice. Once I took Ed, Edd, and Ted and they did quite well once I leveled them up some. Your right about Melody, but its a hassle to get her. I was thinking of taking Burne's apprentice for wizard.

 

Hi
If you need another reason to get Meleny, she comes with a +1 Holy Longsword, the most powerful weapon you will find until you get into the temple (maybe even the nodes).
The Royal Canadian

 

Hi
While I am thinking about it, what about going with an Elf Rogue / Wizard ? With decent DEX, you really don't need much more than 4 or 5 levels of Rogue, but you DO need a "Face" with the right talking skills, so a Rogue would be a good choice.
The Royal Canadian

 

But what about the crazy sneak attack multipliers? Then again a rogue12/wiz8 would be a pretty damn self-susfficient character given the Greater Invis.

It takes only 3 quests and about 5 minutes to do it now that there's fast travel within Ommleth.

Hmm never tried, actually, will do next playthrough. Spug. makes a decent wiz. eventually, but his horrendous CON score makes him die way too easily.

 

As says The Royal Canadian, ya will need a good faceman most of the time, or ya will lost a lot of fun. Paladins are good facemans, and have a good resistance, too, so, they are my first choice in a solo game.
A Bard is my secound choice, but a Rogue shall be good too. Both have low HP, and this is veeery dangerous in a solo game...
The not-so-perfect choice, but still good, is a Cleric with the Trickery domain, and good Inteligence and Charisma shall make a good faceman, and still be hard to kill.

For NPC, Meleny is a good choice, since she is a Druid, that is an excelent spellcasting class, and the sword he gives to ya is a great bonus! Elmo is a good choice too, best fighter in the game, althought I find him a little annoying to have around. Prishela (or something like that), the Burne's aprentice is much better as a Wizard than Sprognoir, and shall be a sorcerer too - althought the dual inicial class she have is a big penalty.
If ya're not a cleric, get Ronald along, becose a healer is always a good backup. But if ya is using a cleric as the main character, dont bore about him.
For rogues, there are not so much option. Get Furnok, and excange him for Serena soon as possible (and, aye, I agrre with ya about having her around in place of Furnok!). I used to get her sister along too, with a rogue/fighter combination. And she is pretty too!
Of course, in a evil party, Oolgrish and Scorp are a must. I like to Hire Pitark and Tuelk too, and Wonnilon is one of the best hitters of the game, with the good combination of rogue/fighter.

My "perfect" combination for a good party shall be going on with Meleny and Prishela, clear the moathouse just with they two, get Serena and her sister at Nulb and head back to the Moathouse to let Serena open the chests lefted behind.

In a evil party, I'll take Furnok, Rainol and maybe Cavanaugh - or even Zert in a LE campaingn, once ya will not have the ambush encounter anyway... - as cannon meat (this expression does exist in english?) to clear the Moathhouse, then buying Serena from Mona, and taking Tuelk and Pitark as front fighters. In this case, the NPCs will change a lot in the couse of the game, being used just as thugs for the main character! There will have need of a slot for Lareth for sometime, for sure... Tuelk and Pitark will be soon or later "dispensed" to give place in the warband for Oolgrish and Skorpp, maybe even Wicked come across as a temporary thug... And there are the node people, Ashren and Darley mainly, that makes good partners for the Evil!

 

A word of warning against Pishella though - she's wiz1/sor1, so she pretty much has one level wasted.

 

Depending on what 1st level spells she has for Sorceress, (I have not used her, so I do not know) she might be fine. Especially if one is an enlarge grease spell with the multiple castings that Sorcs have.

Shame that TOEE does not have the fuction like NWN had, in that bards and sorcerers could exchange spells at level up. That was nice to make them a little more flexible as you leveled up.

 

It does, but the option is more restricted. You can only exchange spells of certain level and at certain lvl-ups. I don't know the system by which it works, but it's definitely there.

Pishella's sorcerer spells:

Level 0:
Resistance
Ray of Frost
Detect Magic
Daze

Level 1:
Charm Person
Magic Missle

 

One thanks a lot for mentioning that, as I had not seen or realized that TOEE allowed anything like that. Will have to give it a try on a forced level up with a sorcerer to see how it works out.

As for her spells, for a first level one, EH. I will try to check out what her wizard spells are now.

One thing I wondered is why TOEE hides the stats and all on the NPC's. Guess I was spoiled when you could see everything in NWN games. I know that they are two different games, just saying. You can see the stats only on the stat bonus levels I believe.

 

One of them is definitely Sleep. Others were ones I rarely use so I didn't remember them. Overall, not the greatest selection, I'll probably make her into a sorcerer rather than wizard. For Wiz, Spugnoir is probably a better choice.

It's kind of silly now that we have Humble NPC. In vanilla though, that went OK together with the general lack of control over the NPC.

 

I'm wondering what the exact rule is, as I take Zaxis anytime I find him and have leveled him up to 15th level in the past and remember being able to change his spells 3 times, but on my last play through he made it to 13th in a larger party and only got to change spells once.

Zaxis is the man, he has good stats and makes a great back up everything: archer, frontliner, healer, blaster, wand user. Only thing I don't like about him is he starts with archery feats, but only has a 12 DEX, so later on I make him some DEX gloves and give him archery bracers. But he later becomes a great frontliner with elven chain and shield and the +3 longsword, or who couldn't use an extra fireball or chain lightning from a wand! Plus he has the best lines in the game,"We seem to be in a swamp!"

 

And isn't there a hill giant on the last temple level that is actually a druid?? I thought she was good.

But what is the name again... :roll:

 

Yes there is, on level 4 on the west side of the main stairs down. Don't recall her name, but she is good natured and you need to have some connection to recruit her in to the party.