Soloing Pillars of Eternity (Minimal spoilers, please!)

[Endarire]

Greetings, all!

As a fan of the Infinity Engine games, I generally prefer to play with one character (plus summons) instead of six.  It's easier to manage and I get more EXP for my main character, who is usually my favorite in terms of mechanics.

In Icewind Dale Enhanced Edition (IDEE), I've soloed a lot of the main game (pre-Heart of Winter) expansion starting from level 1 on Heart of Fury mode, where things' HP is 80 + twice that of normal, and foes deal double damage.  When I can reliably do about 10 damage per shot of my bow, that takes a long time to kill even one enemy, though having crowd control abilities and minions helps tremendously, even making the game possible.

I'm curious how readily Pillars of Eternity can be soloed, and what sort of character would be best at it.  Again, I ask for minimal spoilers for why such a character would be great.  System-level stuff, like knowing when to pause; being smart about the auto-save functionality; kiting; buffing; and using summons are pretty typical tactics for soloing games meant to be played as a party.

[White Phoenix]

i think soloying in Pillars of Eternity could be very difficult. Why? Because there is no multiclassing. You have Hall of Adventurers instead. But if I have to choose one class... Hard to say. Fighter is best for long survival, but druid has a spirit form (an animal) which they can use in melee combat, a lot of offensive spells and some healing. I guess your character should be good as a tank and at damage. Finally, I think, more or less, about cipher. It's heavy hitter class. I would build them with high constitution (!), perception and might. Or barbarian (high vitality). Or monk.... (that's really crazy class, the more you are wounded, the more powerful abilities you can use). There is so many options. But if you like archer characters, I guess a ranger will be the best choice. They have animal companion, which fights melee for you in the role of 'tank'. I don't know what playstyle you prefer (melee, magic, healing, distance, mixed), it could help a lot.

[mstark]

Who knows? You can try, the developers aren't going to hinder you from doing it, but it's most certainly going to be a challenge.

 

That is, until someone figures out the broken/cheesy equivalent of some D&D builds.

[Mlatimudan]

I reckon it's going to be possible, just very hard to do, you will probably have to resort to clever tactics such as avoiding combat, sneak attacking, traps, clever effect spells and such, just as I am sure you had to for BG2.

It will probably be easier for a second playthrough or with a guide so you can optimise a character and know where the best items available are.

 

Or you can wait for someone to mod in a machine gun and mow down arcane horrors from the dungeon dimensions with impunity.

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Some developers have made the claim that it is possible, but will be exceedingly difficult. After playing the beta, I disagree entirely. Even with beta release versions that were considered easy, no class has sufficient tools to do anything on their own. They are all a fraction of a whole, and deliberately made so that they cannot operate independently. The frequency and size of the encounters are also going to make soloing prohibitive as well. One may be able to stealth their way through much of the game, but it has already been stated that combat will not be avoidable in many scenarios--particularly with regard to plot significant portions. Never say never, but I imagine that it will take an extreme amount of glaring, buggy, game-breaking exploits to solo PoE.

[Sensuki]

Yeah it's going to be extremely difficult if not impossible. If you were able to do it, you would have to exploit the crap out of the game worse than you did in the IE games to complete it, and there won't be any cloak of algernon to help you etc

 

At the moment I think the most likely class to do it would be the Cipher.

Edited November 9, 2014 by Sensuki

[Doppelschwert]

You should also note that exp is rewarded differently compared to the IE games.

In the IE games, the total exp-per-party-member obtained is overall exp divided through the number of partymembers.

 

In PoE you have a base value of exp that is rewarded to every character in your party, which is increased by some small bonus for every party member missing from the maximum of 6. I don't recall the actual value of this bonus, but I think it's somewhere along 5-10%, meaning you won't even get double the experience for soloing (I'm sure that the maximal bonus is below 100% extra experience).

[Sheikh]

That is, until someone figures out the broken/cheesy equivalent of some D&D builds.

 

And then we need some serious patching work to be done on it 

[Endarire]

Now that the game is out, what's the best build for a solo character for Path of the Damned?

[Phyriel]

Path of the Damned huh... nope, u're supposed to be damned here, not looking for fancy solo adventure, if you ever make it out alive you will be battle scarred, loose a lot of friends and delve into whats left of your sanity for afterall you're lucky to be walking and breathing. But seriously now, I think its kinda sad but you can't possibly solo that game without deep knowledge and finishing the game few times "normal way" first. I know I know I loved to solo bg2 with my sorceress (after getting time stop, spell accelerate and vecna robes it became cheesy to the bone but whatever), doubt its gonna happen here without some mods or such. 

[BrokenMask]

There is achievement for soloing the game after a certain point in the game, so I guess early game might be insanely hard(or even impossible) on solo run

[Endarire]

The game hands you a Human Fighter companion at the start and there's the option to get a Human Rogue companion soon thereafter.  Once the tutorial area ends, then soloing begins.

So far, an Elf Cipher maxing DEX, INT, Might, and Resolve (in that priority order) and dumping CON and PER has gotten me out of the tutorial zones.  Stealth, Mechanics, Whispers of Treason, and bows have done me well to get me this far!

Also, Confusion on the enemies (via Tenuous Grasp) is wonderful!  Eyestrike is also appealing as my first AoE.

[Baron_Bathory]

Sounds cool! I too am huge on soloing. I'd say we should probably wait a few months until the powergamers find every single item and test every single spell. They'll start writing solo guides sooner or later.

[yuenhin]

I think it will be hard to solo in the first playthrough, at least in the first 10 hours of playthrough, for a couple of reasons.

 

First, there are combat mechanics:

• There is a minor debuff called flanked that gives -10 deflection. It is a big deal when a couple spiders are beating on you and you are -10 to each.
• Then, there is disengagement penalty that gives enemy an auto hit/crit on you if you try to run after being 'engaged'. 
• You can't run away and zone to a different area to quit combat.
• A lot of the skills have a limited number of uses 'per rest'; resting either takes money (camping) or take time (run back to town), or both eventually. 
• When you are in a dungeon questline, there are no combat experience and you only get a lum of experience at the end of the quest. So, if you have to consume every charges/consumable to get though one type of encounter in a dungeon, you will probably need to rest/get back to town to resupply throughout the entire dungeon. 

Then, you need to have good knowledge of character builds, and how well the class is to face different encounters

• It just take good knowledge of all the skills to know what skills to take for a solo playthrough
• Most classes have specific roles to fill in combat. There is no class that is excel in both defense and offense. Any middle of the road build is hurt more by the mediocrity than helped by it. 
• There are variations in combat situations that render some aspect of combat impossible. For example, there are some encounters when the mobs just stand there and blast you with insane amount of ranged damages, and hell they are not going to move onto the traps. 

[Noer]

Greetings, all!

 

As a fan of the Infinity Engine games, I generally prefer to play with one character (plus summons) instead of six.  It's easier to manage and I get more EXP for my main character, who is usually my favorite in terms of mechanics.

 

In Icewind Dale Enhanced Edition (IDEE), I've soloed a lot of the main game (pre-Heart of Winter) expansion starting from level 1 on Heart of Fury mode, where things' HP is 80 + twice that of normal, and foes deal double damage.  When I can reliably do about 10 damage per shot of my bow, that takes a long time to kill even one enemy, though having crowd control abilities and minions helps tremendously, even making the game possible.

 

I'm curious how readily Pillars of Eternity can be soloed, and what sort of character would be best at it.  Again, I ask for minimal spoilers for why such a character would be great.  System-level stuff, like knowing when to pause; being smart about the auto-save functionality; kiting; buffing; and using summons are pretty typical tactics for soloing games meant to be played as a party.

You soloed Icewind dale? Wow... i wanna see it

Same with bg/bg 2 or nwn?

Let me know :D

 

But Poe??

This game isnt 100% polished... combat is ekhm - if u try to run away because u just got hit and u have 1 health then enemy get an additional attack and u have 100% of dying... not even funny.

[Bazy]

There is achievement for soloing the game after a certain point in the game, so I guess early game might be insanely hard(or even impossible) on solo run

Ummm or you are given mandatory party members...

[Endarire]

Remember, you still get EXP when killing creatures to a point.  After your beastiary is 100% full, I assume you don't get EXP for their kills.

[shimoda]

Sorry for my bad English. I am finished the game solo. Playing for monk. How very hard, so very fun  ) I take talents for defence, and skills for attack speed.

[Noer]

Sorry for my bad English. I am finished the game solo. Playing for monk. How very hard, so very fun  ) I take talents for defence, and skills for attack speed.

please record and put on youtube :D

[drunetovich]

It is possible to sneak past most encounters and skip like 95% of game content.

[shimoda]

 

Sorry for my bad English. I am finished the game solo. Playing for monk. How very hard, so very fun  ) I take talents for defence, and skills for attack speed.

please record and put on youtube :D

 

 

 

I think i can create videos with my progress and final battle, but no audio comment. I speak only through Google Translate))

[shimoda]

It is possible to sneak past most encounters and skip like 95% of game content.

 

I finished almost all quests and parallel playing with party.

[Noer]

 

It is possible to sneak past most encounters and skip like 95% of game content.

 

I finished almost all quests and parallel playing with party.

 

Lol in 6 days u finished all content + you soled game with a monk? Do you leave computer sometimes? :D

[Sugam]

Well, I made an account cuz I figure I would respond to this. I am Currently Solo in path of the damned, Iron man, no tips or assist off. I have started over a few times tell I was happy with how I started (starting is everything). Not too far though yet, it is a little tuff.

 

The largest issue is the sizes of your encounters. Don't matter what class you are (in these kind of situations), you are not killing 9 wolves at level 3...probably not level 4 or 5 ether. There are small encounters, so knowing them is huge. Stealth is Huge. So is Mechanics. You need them both. Its been really fun for me so far though, I like challenges and if the devs have it as an option, then there must be a way.

 

As a tip, as most probably already know, buy that horn in the blacksmith shop in the first town (I hope that's not too much of a spoiler for the sensitive)..

 

Also, I play as a Mage. Mage can fill just about any role, not saying its easy for Mages for its not.

 

 The other real issue is EXP. I thought you would get way more of it, but you don't. So, you need to be creative and that in its self to me is fun. 

 

As for the poster "shimoda". What mode, what class? Yes it does matter. 

 

As a thought, I love challenges and I like talking with people who do it to, legally. In a few weeks, everybody will be claiming to be "triple crown solo". Its sad, but people will mod and CHEAT the game. Which is why, if I ever do compete is solo, I not gonna say anything anyways. There is no way to prove it and I promise you, 99.9% of the triple crowns, will be cheats. Its really hard, coming from some one who thinks almost all games are too easy these days. Don't mean to step on any moders toes. Good job on your modding efforts. But its still cheating, if you can be honest like that, then that's something I personally respect. I don't care if anyone cheats, I do care when they cheat and claim they didn't. Most claim they don't. 

 

I will share more of my experiences if you guys want me to. Otherwise GL with Solo, its fun

[shimoda]

As I promised