Just wondering what everyone thinks is the worst character to make your PC, especially as a solo player, i feel like a challenge these holidays so i mite make it hard on myself. Any suggestion?

Beastmaster or diviner.

- Beastmaster
Can't use metal weapons. Almost all of better weapons are made of metal. And animal summoning spells aren't very good at all (the good thing is that beastmasters can have familiar)

- Pure druid
Since you are playing Shadows of Amn, the max level is 14, and you get only one 7th level spell. In addition, you have very limited selection of armor and weapons you can use.

- Pure bard
Jack of all trades, but master of none. What else can I say?

- Invoker
In my opinion this is the worst special mage, because invokers lose both conjuration and enchantment spells.

Of course, human is the hardert race to play, when you aren't multiclassing.

Or you could try some multiclasses, like
- Cleric/thief
Must be gnome. You can use only staffs to backstab, because you are limited to cleric weapons. Actually this can be quite good class, if you know how to use it.

- Fighter/mage/cleric
Must be half-elf. You can cast many different spells, but you get new spells at slow rate. You can use only cleric weapons and can't wear any armor at all, if you want to use mage spells.

Edit: These multiclass characters are much more powerful when soloing, than with party

[ November 26, 2003, 19:39: Message edited by: Harkle ]

I know people seem to like Avengers but I think solo early on is pretty tough due to max 16 strength ,+ weak early offensive spells.

If you are going solo, then I would say a standard fighter would be pretty hard to play - try halfling for the lower strength.

Any class with thief skills, or some sort of arcane or divine spells will always help, so you need to rule these out.

Standard fighter, would not be able to find/disarm any traps, and would have no mass destruction spells or buffing or healing spells, etc, etc.

also, a plain grunt wouldnt have a cat in hells chance against most mages who are buffed to ****.

bards
they are not special in any one thing
they are just a mage/thief with a battlesong

true class druid

boy this guy takes forever to level up, especially the jump from level 13 to 14

low HP, high THAC0, poor selection of weapons and armour, a small selection of high level spells (compared with say, a cleric)

Vanilla fighter, Vanilla Druid, Vanilla Bard.

A bard could be good actually, but I really don't want to get into that **** again.

A plain 'ol fighter would be absolute hell. Until you get the cloak of mirroring and the Helm of Brilliance. Come to think of it, you don't fight any really brutal mages that you can't avoid until you get some good stuff, so a fighter wouldn't be that hard.

Now, a swash-****er is a totally different story. Good luck with no backstab.

- Invoker
In my opinion this is the worst special mage, because invokers lose both conjuration and enchantment spells.
Invokers do not lose conjuration. Try it and see.

You want something tough to solo with?

Beastmaster
You can't use much in the way of weapons or armor, and your special abilities suck.

Stalkers might be tough to solo, not sure though.

Transmuter
All you've got to protect yourself are summons, which are worthless against half-decent mages anyway.

Skald
Anyone ever successfully soloed one? Ever?

I'm soloing a Fighter/Assassin (brought to you by Shadow Keeper®) and that'll be easy later on, but how do I kill Rayic when I'm only 8/9 and have +1 armour, and +2 sword and nothing else.

A Beastmaster could still use Blackblood, which is a decent weapon, and if you downloaded the Item Upgrade mod then you could get Pitchwife, a +5 club.

As for a druid, any character is hard if you keep the XP cap on. A druid would be fairly good because of the few spells that only they have. Nature's Beauty is a killer spell. Everyone is blind - no save. Call Lighting is a cool spell if you're outside, and you've got some really good summoning spells.

Worst to solo would be a Wizardslayer. How the hell you gonna heal yourself unless you dual class?

I found kensai the most difficult in a solo situation, especially because at low level they are so easy to kill. They have high AC and no missile weapons, so they are always in melee situations getting hit all the time. Of course, I always play on insane, so that may have a lot to do with why melee and high AC spelled disaster for me. They have no spell abilities, no way to avoid traps, and nothing to summon for help. For me, the offensive melee bonuses do not offset the defensive penalties and ranged offensive inabilities, making the kensai harder to play than a stock fighter.

Invokers do not lose conjuration. Try it and see. Well, then they have changed it after BG1. I trust manuals and walkthroughs too blindly.

Wizardslayer sounds very difficult to solo, but they have nice advantage: cause spell failure by hit (ignores all protection spells). And you can also heal him/her in temple (ok, that doesn't help in dungeon)

All other fighter kits than berserker seem to be hard to solo.

Sorcerer can be really difficult if you choose 'bad' spells or decide that you don't use direct-damage spells.

I forget if a Kensai can use thrown weapons like the Firetooth Dagger.

Kai would really help to get enemies dead quicker and move on to the next one.

Skald
Anyone ever successfully soloed one? Ever? Yes. There used to be a very long and very good post on another site about it and if I can find it I'll PM you the link since I don't think I can link it here.

This is a SOA forum. So, there is no improved bard song. The skald was taken way back because he had a better bard song. The tactic included summons + mirror image + bard song IIRC. Then lob some mage spells and tensers only to mop up.

The guy was a really good player it sounded like but it was very easy actually once he got skeleton warriors combined with his nice skald bard song. Then, when TOB came out, it became easier but that's another forum.

Oh, and I agree with Rastor, the Invoker is very good and in my opinion is the best specialist mage to solo losing only a few eventually obsolete spells.

The Bard is NEVER the worst class. EVER.
Not the vanilla bard, not the Jester, not the Blade or even the Skald.
I too don't want to go over all of this all over again, so if you want proof go here. (http://www.sorcerers.net/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=10;t=002384)
85% percent of those tactics are applicable to all Bard-types.

Btw, some content will refer to ToB, but I've divided the guide so that there's a distinct SoA section.

Regarding the solo skald I mentioned above, I found the thread and it's even more impressive than I had remembered. The guy used the skald in an "iron man"/ "hardcore" manner (no deaths). Or at least he claimed. It seems feasible.

Now, I'm not sure if I'm allowed to link and at the same time it is interesting enough to share so.... I'll quote and give credit to a poster called 'two':

First, general tactics:
Actually -- a Skald beleive it or not. I have my reasons...I know it seems silly to play the Skald without a party, because the Bard song doesn't last more than 2 rounds on yourself (for example, as a Skald, sing your song then step into melee. You get the bonuses but just for 2 rounds, which isn't that useful).

My plan is to help keep myself safe by going through big battles with 4 skeleton warriors (hasted) with me singing my bard song in the background. I've tried it some before and they are deadly. I think the Skald song maxes out at something like +6 to hit, -6 on AC, making summoned allies very useful. Even at +4/-4 it's great....
Then, how it progressed:

Well, if anyone cares, my solo, no-reload Skald is doing fine. If anyone wants to try it themselves, go slowly, and get every drop of experience you can. I was level 10 leavning the prison, level 11 after scribing all the scrolls I found/bought. After getting a 25 intelligence, of course, from the potion of genius...

Levels 12-14 are somewhat slow. Kill pebblecrusher & co. with some webs and other goodies. Run in and cast knock, grab Daystar, run away from lich. Go to graveyard do all the easy stuff there, littleman, copper coronet stuff, lilcator. Slavers, be careful. By level 15 you are save, more or less. DO the Animate Dead+Haste+Skald song. You can clear out levels with 2 skeletons, 3 is very very safe. Levels 15-20 fly, I did the unseeing eye quest very very safely using summoned monsters and singing (and the occasional Skull Trap).

Remember, blur is your friend. Cast 4 on yourself to subtract 8 from your AC and 4 from your saving throws. Then cast draw upon holy might, haste, and wade into battle if necessary. You spell save is around 1 after the blurs+ring of protection.

Actually, playing with no reloads/no dying is a lot of fun and very very do-able. Makes my other games where I re-loaded as much as I wanted seem...totally lame by comparison.

Currently level 20, got Celestial Fury. 4 skeleton warriors hasted killed all the second level of the guarded compound. NO casualties.

More later...

Hmmm, actually the rest includes TOB references. Oh well, I should be in and out and if anyone wants the rest in the TOB forum just ask.

ive never played jester, but he seems more of a in the back, sing and forget bard. it would be hard to solo him...unless you did greater malison and sang, then when their confused you hit them....hmm...

I've soloed all the Bards in SoA, and the Jester is the most interesting solo of them all. (Though not the strongest.)

By just casting invisibility + Spell Immunity:Divination (or klling any mage who can cast a divining spell beforehand) my song was enough to kill just about every enemy group I came up against. (Confusion = enemies kill themselves. If a confused creature hits an ally, his ally - confused or no - will retaliate and will kill the confused creature even when its no longer confused.)
I think it's because I noticed one thing about the song - it seems to pierce magic resistance. (Yes, it works wonderfully against everything that can't see invisible characters. Greater Malison isn't needed too much - you can sing enough for three days under invisibility, and surely your quarry has already failed their saves far more than once by then.)

I contrast to the post above, my Jester (or all my other solo Bards, for that matter) was already strong enough to potentially take out Firkraag a few hours after he got out of Irenicus dungeon - see link above for reasons why.

To take out more powerful creatures, I do routine - Tenser's Transformation = Fighter of the same level, and other buff spells, a few clicks on an item and a few summons.

If you think the Bards aren't worth much, know at least that a level 20 Bard can transform himself into a level 20 fighter - so you have a fighter+Bard(who can use and do just about anything) package all in one.

Alright thanks everyone, i think beastmaster or true druid seems to be the way to go, ill let you all know how its going.

Swashbucklers on their own suck but they have very good ac and hit bonus then other theives, and there very good dual classed into a fighter

Druids ! they suck big time imo

I'm not sure about that, i've played with an avenger before, and that was fairly easy, why are pure druids so much worse?

Any character class can be the worst depending on how you play it. But being a Beastmaster is TRULY a challenge,you better die in despair than completing the game!

Beastmaster can only use club (so much for your dual-wielding options), staff, crossbow, longbow, shortbow, and sling, and can only wear leather armor. This is bad enough in a party, has got to suck rocks solo! The familiar is a plus, but it hardly outweighs the minuses. The earlier Animal Summoning spells are useless, IMHO -- you are still getting them later than a druid, which means they will always be outclassed by your opposition. Even if you use them as meatshields, well, since you get no wisdom bonuses, I hope you like cheese and resting a lot....

Wizardslayers can only use magic weapons, magic armor, and healing potions, which means besides your Bhaalspawn powers, you're SOL! Being able to stop spellcasters -- assuming you can close with them fast enough -- won't help much if you're soloing against opposition that does its damage without casting spells. Even a vanilla fighter would still be able to use other magic items and potions to even the odds -- but not you....

I used to think less of Jesters, but I've had some fun with one in my evil multiplayer party, and I haven't even had to use cheese! :D But even solo, I think he'd have a better shot than the beastmaster or wizardslayer....