solo?

[Odd Gamer]

don't plan on doing this, but this raised a idea i had before for BGII.
This would be a solo character (thus the title of the thread) but would be sorc class has to have every summoning spell in the game offered to him. Now he may have magic missles or identify for lower level spells, but any time he is offered a summon monster or summon elemental (ext) the player has to take those spells. Wounder how that would go for a solo character?

[Saros]

Originally Posted by Odd Gamer

don't plan on doing this, but this raised a idea i had before for BGII.
This would be a solo character (thus the title of the thread) but would be sorc class has to have every summoning spell in the game offered to him. Now he may have magic missles or identify for lower level spells, but any time he is offered a summon monster or summon elemental (ext) the player has to take those spells. Wounder how that would go for a solo character?

Summoned monsters do indeed have some annoying drawbacks:

1. You cannot summon(and control) more than five at a time unless you deploy the PI/Simulacrum summoning bug.
2. They tend to die easily because of enemy Death Spells and Death Rays which kill them without any checks.
3. Summons do tend to turn on you when you use Area of Effect spells like Cloudkill, Death Fog, Incendiary cloud, Meteor Swarm and so on.
4. Summons are usually weak. With few exceptions. For instance, Skeleton Warriors are valuable, because of their high Magic Resistance, good combat abilities and their immunity to Normal Weapons. Mordenkainen Swords are immune to most type of damage , have excellent THAC0 and are considered +4 weapons, which makes them a great assault weapon and also barrier for damage absorbtion. Nishruus and Harkeashars are great versus Mages and Liches of all kinds. The other summons may have its uses to a vanilla Mage, but to a Sorcerer they are quite useless because of the few new spell choices the Sorcerer has in general. For instance, there are usually much more important spells on lvl 5,6 and 7 rather than to waste them on choices like Animate dead or Summon Nishruu. On lvl 5, your essential, life-saving choices are Breach, Spell Immunity, Sunfire, Spell Shield and Lower Resistance. On lvl 6, ProMW, True Sight, Contingency, Death Fog and Improved haste are essential for a soloer. On Lvl 7, there are simply no slots for Djinni/Efreeti/Harkeashar. Well, maybe one, but then again, I prefer Spell Turning/Protection from Elements/Limited Wish/Ruby Ray as my fifth spell pick(previous four being Projected Image, Mordenkainen's Sword, Spell Sequencer and Delayed Blast Fireball). So, your sorcerer is best limited to Summon Planetar and Mordenkainen Sword summons, any more will be waste of valuable spell picks.

[Odd Gamer]

the point was that it was suppose to be difficult....

[Deadalready]

I think it's worth a go and it'd be interesting to see the results. I do agree that most of the summons are kind of weak compared to real magic firepower or real fighters, through SOA that's not necessarily a big problem. Watchers keep or TOB the summons just won't cut it and many of the summoning spells are incredibly weak and just wastes of spell slots.

The idea of being level XX and having dozens of useless spells in the repetiore isn't particularly encouraging. There is of course the summoning class specialist mage, he'd be pretty good as a substitute.

[Silvanerian]

So basically, Odd Gamer is asking if it is possible to solo with a Sorceror without level 5, 6 and 7 spells along with half of level 4 and 8 spells and the first level 9 slot 'wasted'.

I'd say that anything is possible - especially with a ton of scrolls, staff of the magi and other legendary items. However, I think ToB might become a reload hell in order to finish.

[Thrifalas]

Originally Posted by Odd Gamer

the point was that it was suppose to be difficult....

It won't be. A planetar accompanied by four Mordenkainen's Sword are pretty much unbeatable except by death spell and top-notch bosses. Mordies are all immune to physical damage and a lot of spells while the Planetar is like a frenzied fighter/mage with tons of nasty abilities and 6 lives. ^^

I used this tactic pretty much all the way through ToB and Watcher's Keep, you'd be amazed how badass this tactic is. Elemental princes, Ulitharids, Hordes of Fire Giants, they don't even make a dent.

[Deadalready]

Mordenkainen's Swords and Planatar are completely awesome spells, as nice as they were my ones seemed to die really fast in Watchers Keep and TOB.

[Aran Linvail]

Originally Posted by Saros

Summoned monsters do indeed have some annoying drawbacks:

1. You cannot summon(and control) more than five at a time unless you deploy the PI/Simulacrum summoning bug.
2. They tend to die easily because of enemy Death Spells and Death Rays which kill them without any checks.
3. Summons do tend to turn on you when you use Area of Effect spells like Cloudkill, Death Fog, Incendiary cloud, Meteor Swarm and so on.
4. Summons are usually weak. With few exceptions. For instance, Skeleton Warriors are valuable, because of their high Magic Resistance, good combat abilities and their immunity to Normal Weapons. Mordenkainen Swords are immune to most type of damage , have excellent THAC0 and are considered +4 weapons, which makes them a great assault weapon and also barrier for damage absorbtion. Nishruus and Harkeashars are great versus Mages and Liches of all kinds. The other summons may have its uses to a vanilla Mage, but to a Sorcerer they are quite useless because of the few new spell choices the Sorcerer has in general. For instance, there are usually much more important spells on lvl 5,6 and 7 rather than to waste them on choices like Animate dead or Summon Nishruu. On lvl 5, your essential, life-saving choices are Breach, Spell Immunity, Sunfire, Spell Shield and Lower Resistance. On lvl 6, ProMW, True Sight, Contingency, Death Fog and Improved haste are essential for a soloer. On Lvl 7, there are simply no slots for Djinni/Efreeti/Harkeashar. Well, maybe one, but then again, I prefer Spell Turning/Protection from Elements/Limited Wish/Ruby Ray as my fifth spell pick(previous four being Projected Image, Mordenkainen's Sword, Spell Sequencer and Delayed Blast Fireball). So, your sorcerer is best limited to Summon Planetar and Mordenkainen Sword summons, any more will be waste of valuable spell picks.

I have to say that i have played a couple of times a solo sorc, and i didn't pick Sunfire, Contingency (normal, i did pick chain), death fog, delayed fireball, or proyected image. I don't remember the exact speels i chose, but i do remember i din't pick those, and still the game got way too easy after picking horrid wilting (or something like that). It just sucks everything in it's way.
For summons, i used skeletons almost all the time, later when i got mordekainen swords i used them too, but the back up summon (sk warrior) always made up for the quick vanish of the swords, and of course, one you get to have high lvl spells, planetar is a must (although in ToB they sometimes lasted less than sk warriors because planetaries can be turned against you should the save vs mind control (of the sort spells) fail, and trust me: having a planetar for an enemy is something not good.

Cheers!!!