i'm currently soloing a jester on insane with ascension installed. Just cannot defeat the final battle with melissan, the five and sarevok together. Tried everything but max i can take down is 3 of them before i get squished. If anyone has any suggestions please let me know, cos i've been trying it for the past 2 days.

I never did understand how people could solo the tougher fights. With so many bad guys running around your spell casting would suffer so much just from being hit all the time.

Sure you can juice up your protections, but they can be removed. And even then, it takes so long to cast them all that the ones you cast early on start wearing off by the time you cast the later ones.

I'm very impressed by people who solo.

How DO you get around the problems I described?

well, i've played through bg many times now, so i roughly know what to expect on any map. before any major battle i'm on a lot of protections, staff of the magi really helps (spell trap and lightning-fireball), cos max a jester can cast is 2 lvl 8 spells. at lvl 40 a 1 round/lvl spell protection lasts a fairly long time anyway.

with stoneskin, spirit armor, mirror image, blur, improved invis, improved haste on you can effectively wear robe of vecna and amulet of power, ring of gaxx etc... and still have a decent ac, it will last you long enough to either run out of enemy sight or summon distractions. A combination of 5 hasted skeleton warriors/mordaikainens swords is my main form of offense, while i hurl disabling spells from behind, followed by flame arrows and magic missiles. In desperation i will dual wield celestial fury and crom, under improved haste i can still get 4 attacks per round.

Items with abilities, e.g. daystar, staff of air, vhailors helm really help during soloing with weak classes. Soloing with a F/M/T is a breeze, didn't try it with ascension though.

If you've played bg multiple times and are getting bored, you should try soloing with a weak class for fun. The excitement was really there taking down the dragons, the five etc using a jester and not using any traps. My favourite was taking down firkraag and his pet mage together, it just felt great.

The main challenge (and thrill) of doing this is you really have to maximize all items you have. If you have an item that can do this, don't memorize the spell. e.g, with magic flute (bard ability) i don't need to memorize resist fear, globe of invulnerability and delayed blast fireball. Spells are restricted for bards so for each boss battle i have to use most of my spell slots for lower resistance and disabling spells, which depletes my summon creature slots. Thus a lot of thought has to go into each battle. Especially with sendai where you have to fight her 7 times, had to ration my spells and take her down multiple times, that was a real pain. But going mano to erm... draco? and hearing the boss music really gets your blood racing again. Brought BG back to life for me.

Sorry to babble on =)

I was looking forward to play the Ascension only to find out it was totally impossible to finish! I can't even survive long enough to kill Irenicus. Everytime I try to cast a spell it gets disrupted or they are immune to the spells. Imoen was my best mage but she turns into a slayer and attacks my party. A few times I survived long enough for Imoen to turn normal, but then somebody cast Miscast magic on her directly, so she has to act like a fighter the rest of the battle. If the creator had removed the unlegal spelltriggers for the enemies, then it might have been fun to play, but this is crazy. My characters get stunned, charmed, my summoned monsters get charmed, and no chance to dispel it. BAH!! What a dissapointment!

I wanted to see the ending!! *sob*sob*

[ September 04, 2002, 13:04: Message edited by: Theodorus ]

use shadowkeeper and get yourself an imones belt, that'll teach 'em ;)

What does that belt do anyway???
Ive heard it makes you immortal as is imoen in chapter 2 :eek: But IIRC she can normaly die in later chapters :p

Whats the real trick?

you cant go below 1 hp if you wear it

And irenicus gave her the belt to prevent her making suicide ;)
But she CAN die later when you get her in Spellhold right??

She no longer has the belt when you rescue her.