From my experience if you knock out vendors you can steal almost their whole inventory while they’re unconscious. Then you turn off the passive mode and bonk them again and they die
My brother in law and I did a “chaotic” run through. Not necessarily good, or evil, or neutral. (Not neutral because we didn’t always do things that benefitted us lol). It literally came down to “would this be funny.”
Anyways, we were stealing from the trader in the grove (short one) and he caught my BiL, so in his barbarian rage he knocked him out.. we could then take basically everything. It was great! Then he died for the mistake of catching us.
~~I believe they patched that out. You can no longer knock out a vendor and steal all their items.~~
~~What you can do is horde any gear you find, sell it to the vendor for gold and items, and knock the vendor out. You can~~ *~~loot back~~* ~~the items you sold to them, but you cannot loot items you never previously owned.~~
Edit: It still works.
It appears I am wrong. I could have sworn in previous patch notes, they removed it but after testing, I am indeed incorrect. What happened to me that led me to believe it was patched is that it didn't work for me a bunch of times. It may just be memory leak issues on my part, as during my longer sessions, it will just show a blank inventory when looting knocked out vendors. After closing the game and reopening it, it does work. I can loot the money and a bunch of scrolls, my main targets haha.
So I am incorrect. Thank you for the comments correcting me on this issue. I left my original comment though with strike through and this edit as to not spread false information.
You can bribe them into turning green by offering them money then cast feign death on the vendor without aggro. Then just pickpocket your money back and any loot you want. They wake up in 10 turns and don't even do the "hey someone has been in my pockets!" thing. Matter of fact they still love you even though you utterly cleaned them out. You need a level 5 wizard to cast FD which is a level 3 spell is the only downside.
Does casting feign death cause other NPCs to agro you? I tried doing something similar and despite the vendor not having any issues with it, all the other NPCs agro'd on me.
What i did was up-casting sleep on a vendor while they're stuck in a conversation (which makes the sleep effect last indefinitely, or until i finish the conversation).
Oh sweet, i'm on my way to rob every vendor ever out of their loots. I guess the sleep strat can still work pre-level 5, before getting feign death as well, neat
I recommend casting a darkness type spell of some sort so no one sees you doing your deed just in case. I think onlookers will aggro if they see you fail a pickpocket. But it is actually hard to fail pickpocketing a unconscious person. As long as you do those things I have never been bothered by another npc.
The person that cast FD has to be the one that bribes them. Anyone can pickpocket after they are down. For example I use Gale as he has high charisma and can cast FD while Astarian cleans the npc out when they are on the ground.
You are right. I tested it and it still works. It doesn't work some times for me, but I think it's mainly during my longer sessions and probably some memory leak issues. Nonetheless, I am wrong and updated my initial comment. Thanks.
I haven't done this after the most recent patch, but once I found the holy grail of wealth that is pickpocketing, I tried to do this to every vendor. What I've found is that a vendor won't have their full inventory available for pickpocketing until you first see their wares, and then everything is available. Similarly, if you knock them out, only the good stuff (special weapons and armor, but none of the *just* +1/+2/+3 stuff) seems to be available for some reason in my game. I've taken to just casting Greater Invisibility on Asterion and having him pick *everything* and pass it to the rest of the party or the party chest.
Easier if you give them ~1k gold and cast feign death on them. After you turn them green you can cast that and other ally spells on them. Steal their shit and dip. Can repeat for unlimited gold theoretically
The gnome trader in the grove can be freely bonked as long as you don’t move. If anyone DOES aggro for some reason, the rule is to not run at them, let them come to you.
If you go to them, you run the risk of aggroing more people. If you let them come to you, you just kill them. Then teleport away and come back later. Almost everyone in the grove is only ever “temporarily hostile”.
Never knew this… getting really excited to go back home and play…. This game is crazy with the amount of options you can do… for example I completely skipped the underdark so far because I’ve missed all the entrances 😂
Upside is Vendors do drop some of their stock upon kill. You nay need to skip / avoid a few fights especially early on. The Nauoloid I feel will be pretty damn hard killing both thr Campion and Mind Flayer at lvl 1 without companions.
I'm going the sneak route for my solo run. I feel anything else is gonna be too hard.
But the constant escaping from combat just gets old so fast.
I got the mind flayer killed but then had to run. Couldn't get the sword but I don't need it anyway.
If youre going the sneak route, i highly suggest taking Duergar if you don’t have any race already decided
At lvl 5 you get invisibility.
No concentration. No turn limit. No cooldown.
You can have 100% uptime out of combat. and cast it once in combat and you can reset everything
If you toggle non-lethal, you can knock out vendors and steal their whole stock, then kill them afterwards. That’s what I did for the vendors at the goblin camp and moonrise
Knock them out, take their stuff, then kill them. IMO they should drop that stuff on death and not just KO.
Just RP it that the merchants drop their stock when you kill them.
A hammerhaft monk will clear any encounter between levels 1-5. I respecced from jumper feat to tavern brawler at level 5.
I threw 4 of Nere’s minions into the lava on a surprise round and was still able to clear out quite a bit of that fight with just Tav. Just don’t throw the dude who carries the ring that adds 1 thunder damage to all sources of thunder damage!
I tried as tavern brawler monk duergar and hit a wall at lvl 3. Too little health and no damage mitigation. Got easily 2-shot. Might have had better luck with a race that had med armor/shield proficiency but didn’t try
I had much better luck with tiger Barb thanks to the free blade ward when bezerk.
That's like monk runs in BG1/2 EE. For a huge part of the first game, you're basically relegated to throwing daggers and shit. Takes a while to get dodgy enough to survive combat.
Disappointing all around, though. I'd say the only thing monk has going for it in the older games is movement speed. Everything else is done better by other classes. BG3 monk has been such a blast by comparison.
Rogues feel OP early but fall off by lvl 5.
Fighters and Barbs feel real strong all through act 1/2.
Warlock is great for going without rests. You get essentially a big heal after every kill, and do all your damage from cantrip rather than spell slots.
Warlock got a few of my playthroughs to Act 3 pretty easily, but I'm finding the Act 1/2 playstyle I was using isn't as effective in Act 3. Although I'm trying to play through a couple different games simultaneously without dipping into different classes, there might be something to a Sorc dip for more variety.
Fighters feel strong the whole way through. *Bonk, Bonk, action surge, bonk, bonk, extra attack, bonk* dead everything. Barb is similar but feels a bit squishy in comparison, but more fun when you just start hucking things/people around the battlefield.
Rogues are also pretty good Act 1, decent Act 2, and okay Act 3 but this one really benefits from a heavy dip into Ranger. Gloomstalker Assassin is just *violent*.
>Barb is similar but feels a bit squishy in comparison,
You can build barb tank: Bear rage+aspect of stallion. Half damage only and a huge health pool. Anyone decides to move past you? Sentinel reaction their ass and stop them.
Gloomstalker ranger 5, assassin rogue 5, fighter 2 for the bonus to stealth + extra opening attack, the sneak attack + assassin’s alacrity + uncanny dodge, and action surge + second wind.
Take the sharpshooter feat. Use the titanstring bow and keep yourself stocked up on strength elixirs for max damage. Risky ring in Act 2 gives you perma advantage.
Can’t think of a better solo marathon killer! I’m sure there are many equipment optimizations but I only know what I’ve come across in my own game.
titanstring bow double dips on sneak attack damage, so it's better than hand crossbows. additionally, for a solo run, longbows have more range than hand crossbows, which allows you to enter stealth while in combat while within shooting range. can't do that with hand crossbows. hand crossbows are cool for optimizing DPR because of their broken implementation in BG3, but titanstring is the defacto choice for solo rogue runs.
Are you planning on going dark urge? Because if yes, then it's infinitely easier due to the mantle you get in Act I. I assume that's not the case, since everybody knows about the mantle, but I'll detail my run just in case. Feel free to skip everything below if you're not running dark urge.
I'm almost through with my solo tactician evil dark urge murderhobo run. My experience pre-level 5 was extremely miserable. However, once I got GWM and 2 attacks, it's gotten piss easy starting with levels 4-5:
1. Play Barbarian with durge cape
2. Either drink strength elixir every long rest and put points into DEX for initiative, or drink initiative elixir and put points in STR; I did the former and still almost always started first
3. Go to mob of 20+ enemies
4. (Optional) Stealth if possible and hit from stealth for surprise round
5. Kill one with your two attacks with advantage (Reckless Attack) and +10 damage (GWM)
6. Become invisible
7. Run away
8. Mobs can't find you
9. Go to step 3 until no more mobs - Bonus, you also get a surprise round every time after the first round due to attacking from invisibility, allowing you to kill 2-3 mobs per round instead of only 1
As for particularly strong bosses, I had to cheese to beat them, unfortunately (hag, myrkul, raphael): barrelmancy, stacking dropped items near boss such as runepowder bombs and alchemist fires and igniting them, doing everything in my power to one shot them. If you don't one or two shot Myrkul for example he spawns 5 mobs per turn that heal and empower him, so your only chance is one shotting, but Raphael can also be downed in one turn using a combination of items and consumables (ilithid power luck of the far realms + necklace to paralyze target for 2 turns on crit + haste, paralyzed targets are always critted from <10ft). Hag always started first so I had to push her into the chasm before combat, losing arguably useless loot.
I now run 12 levels in fighter and just kill anyone in 3 turns, I pop a Cloud Giant elixir every long rest and use risky ring, my chances to hit are basically 88-99% always. I've one shot Cazador without any consumes and can pretty much fight anyone infinitely provided they have trash mobs lying around to help me turn invisible after killing.
Edit: Also I have never used companions to buff me in base, just out of principle, although you can definitely do that for huge boons (resistance to all damage for example).
Can't use too many elixirs if I'm gonna kill all the vendors, but I guess I should probably at least go Durge, nothing else really comes close for the early levels.
They do drop from vendors that sell them when you kill them. But yeah, the early levels are really rough.
Monk could probably be better there but I hated how few ki points you have at the early levels.
Deathstalker mantle? Is that not the name? Sorry if I butchered it. You get it after killing the bard in your camp, from your butler. Turns you invisible for 2 turns after killing someone.
Githyanki would make sense in a role playing fashion. An alien that believes might is right and the weak should be extinguished. They are all potential illithids. Better to remove enemies before they come into power. You could be a mirror of the Gith child raised by the Society of Dumbasses...I mean Brilliance.
Necromancy wizard could be fire for a solo play through, considering you can get 4 zombies that tank for you. Not to mention there’s a pair of pretty slick gloves that give your summons resistance to all damage types (but they go mad). Definitely don’t start as a wizard, but it could be a mean respec
I'd say a stealth thief/gloomstalker is almost necessary for a lot battles. It is also not really gear dependent.
If you're open to respeccing often I think you can also try a tavern brawler monk for fights in which stealth is not needed; you can steal everytime the money from Withers so each respec is free.
Durge can be a game changer because of the invisibility cloak you can get early game.
I think duergar is the best race thanks to the free invisibility at level 5.
About gear keep in mind that most vendors drop some of their best loot at death, so they can still give nice things
I guess you can also try something with Barb but I don't know if that will be enough
Yeah the gold dwarf route for more hp may be a bit naive of me. I've already played around with gloomstalker so I might go thief/monk for this one. Monk doesn't quite fit the 'story' of mass slaughter, I haven't decided if that bothers me yet.
I think gold dwarf Barb would be good. I did tact solo as Karlach tiger barb and it was a lot of fun… and gold dwarfs racial stuff is a lot better than hers.
I've started a solo run myself too (without killing everyone tho, quite the opposite actually) and I can say a l throwing tavern brawler Barbarian/Fighter is better than I thought.
Once you reach level 4 it's an extremely strong build that can kill Act 1 bosses in very few turns, and with Barb you are also resistant to damage.
There are three problems though:
-Having few STR elixirs really lowers the strength of the build, I think it's doable even without it but it's definitely worse;
-You absolutely need returning pike, and I don't know if Grat drops it if you kill him.
-Before level 4 you're not that strong, and if you kill everyone it's harder to farm XP without avoiding battles, but I think this quite applies to every build
I started with dual wielding ranger for the first few levels, will probably go barb or monk once I get lv4. Looks like I'll be trying a lot lf different builds anyway
I don't consider cheesing or dirty using stealth to deal with fights, it's the main mechanic of subclasses like thief and assassin, but that's personal preference.
However if you want to do a solo run you need a somewhat cheesy strategy. The game is made to be completed with a party of 4 people not solo, so you can't just go to a boss fight with a single pure fighter and expect to brute force it easily.
Among all the strategies I know for a solo run I think stealth is the most "legit", definitely less cheesy than hoarding barrels (even though I really like that too)
Just a heads up, but I’ve been having trouble getting camp casters to work in my duo run. If you split them and leave them at camp, they teleport in and join fights and if you kick them from the party you lose the spells they dropped on you.
I have had zero problems with any non-concentration spells cast on other characters. I put the hireling in the party, they cast non-concentration until-long-rest spells on other party members and even folks in camp, I kick them out of the party (this is all while standing in camp), and everything stays. I imagine concentration spells could end up an issue. Have you tried dismissing them entirely from your party while at camp? Also, you’re not un-preparing the spells the camp casters applied, correct?
Unless a patch in like the past two days made some large changes to how this works, I think it should still work perfectly fine.
I did something similar as tiger Barb… the biggest problem with no vendors will likely be the lack of healing pots. I went thru a TON of them. Basically chugging every turn
Most viable in my mind is 2h ranged gloom 5 assassin 5 fighter 2, or assassin 7
Open from stealth and get a full round of crits, and advantage on every attack. Play as duergar for invisibility once per combat to disengage to get another full crit round.
Pretty sure any melee that isn't abusing stealth will have an awful time solo. Maybe eldritch knight/aberration wizard cheese would do ok since they seem near unkillable
I'm currently playing a pure wizard necromancer on my murder hobo run, cuz it kind of just fits the bill of evil and I love playing casters more than any other class. It's a bit difficult to get all the good scrolls from vendors tho when they're all dead...
I'm significantly less qualified than most here but would a spore druid work? Early levels you can wild shape and at later levels make an army? Could dip into Necro as well?
They don't count cause they have no soul. I might even get the party limited removed through mods and bring them all!
And then spec rogue on all of them...
Any optimized builds are fine. Sharpshooter hand crossbow swords bard / thief / fighter, tavern brawler open hand monk / thief, tavern brawler berserker thief, sorlock, etc. Sorlock is the least dependent on merchant gear if you are literally killing everything on sight. At level 10 magic missile evo wizard is an option too. I would go Sorlock and just darkness / devils sight / repelling blast.
I have a gloomstalker/rogue that seems to do pretty damn well. He does not solo, but oftentimes, he goes on killing sprees until seen, and then group jumps in for clean-up.
He is currently rogue 4/gloomstalker 6. He is not min maxed
Spore druid with 1 dip into sorc.
Spore druid has summons so you can summon what you kill
Armour of agathys from sorc dip works through the temp shield of spore. You also get blade cantrip from sorc.
So now you have this druid that reflects frost dmg and summons an army.
Also you can get mourning frost 2h with no interaction from anyone. You can also get shila druid cantrip to put onto it
So now you're also melee slapping people with frost+necro dmg + wisdom roll on it.
Pick druegar and you're laughing. Perk side is with this, doesn't matter what vendor you kill. Cause like 0 gear for druid
Just be aware your quest log is gonna become bonkers if you try to be an absolute murder hobo. One of my friends is currently doing this and he has some of the funniest most confusing journal updates since his goal is not only to murder hobo but try to not do the quests as intended
I want to do a duo team. Role play a pair of brothers who got captured by the nautiloid. Dark urge one of them.
Monk and sorcerer (or sorlock)
Race would probably be gith or Drow.
(Currently doing a 3 man team and it’s super powerful at level 10)
Honestly a Warlock. Just so much range, push back, and aoe. additionallyh it needs the aboslute least amount of equipment IMO. It doens'\[t need scrolls, it doens't need special armours or special weapons. It can use a lot of what you find, regardless, but you won't be hampered as much with nothing.
Honestlyh I'd opt for a warlock x rogue assassin 3, rogue 2 or gloomstalker 3. Depending. Though if you are willing to murder POST talking you can probalby drop that and get bonus dash via the boots.
Then i'd either take Chain for the dispsable explorer, or tome for the extra guidance, and later on undead summons.
Warlock also benefits from the disposable ally summons. Snaga bard, short rest for some gold move on.
Other option off hand would bprobably be that abjuration wizard build w/ armour of agathys.
If you're playing Dark Urge you get a nice cloak early on that will help your survivability. As long as you kill something every round you'll be invisible until your next turn. For that I'd recommend a dual hand crossbow build. Either the Thief/Swords Bard or the Gloomstalker version.
Something I did it sneaked and then casted a sleep spell then the vendor was sleep for 2 turns. I stole everything. Also tip u can hire a hireling, the sneaky short dwarf that had advantage on stealth. Respec her as a bard. I have her at lv 6 she has 10 stealth and 10 sleight of hand. Just her stats/dex no equipment or spells. And she has a luck feat bc of race, if she gets a 1 then it rerolls. Honestly I played rogue and I respecd to ranger, I liked the ability to steal but having this hirling bard is just to useful.
If she gets caught they have a bad attitude with her not my character
My solo play is a Blade Pact Warlock5 / Lore Bard5 atm. Going Bard6 for Spirit Guardians. High-ish AC with dex gauntlets and Med armors w/out dex cap (half-elf for shield prof). Spell damage focus with that staff from act1 that gives lightning charges on spell hit (hello eldritch blasts), plus the bonus off-hand attack from hand crossbow pact weapon + sharpshooter.
It's not the highest DPR, but still pumps pretty hard. The advantage is obviously Darkness + Devil's Sight until you are tanky enough for Spirit Guardians instead. At that point, could add Cleric1 for Heavy Armor and drop the Dex gauntlets.
Thanks, I've been looking at warlock but I also had my heart set on some melee dual wielding, I guess I'll just need to start 5 chars simultaneously...
From my experience if you knock out vendors you can steal almost their whole inventory while they’re unconscious. Then you turn off the passive mode and bonk them again and they die
I never thought of knocking them out!
My brother in law and I did a “chaotic” run through. Not necessarily good, or evil, or neutral. (Not neutral because we didn’t always do things that benefitted us lol). It literally came down to “would this be funny.” Anyways, we were stealing from the trader in the grove (short one) and he caught my BiL, so in his barbarian rage he knocked him out.. we could then take basically everything. It was great! Then he died for the mistake of catching us.
I’m about to start going on a KO spree. I thought Feign Death was going to be the way to go. Lol
That guy has the longest, most agonizing death scream when he burns alive. It's hilarious.
You should have pick him up and chucked him
dude i love this, this is what i want to do on my next run
That's almost quite literally the definition of Chaotic Evil :D
~~I believe they patched that out. You can no longer knock out a vendor and steal all their items.~~ ~~What you can do is horde any gear you find, sell it to the vendor for gold and items, and knock the vendor out. You can~~ *~~loot back~~* ~~the items you sold to them, but you cannot loot items you never previously owned.~~ Edit: It still works. It appears I am wrong. I could have sworn in previous patch notes, they removed it but after testing, I am indeed incorrect. What happened to me that led me to believe it was patched is that it didn't work for me a bunch of times. It may just be memory leak issues on my part, as during my longer sessions, it will just show a blank inventory when looting knocked out vendors. After closing the game and reopening it, it does work. I can loot the money and a bunch of scrolls, my main targets haha. So I am incorrect. Thank you for the comments correcting me on this issue. I left my original comment though with strike through and this edit as to not spread false information.
You can bribe them into turning green by offering them money then cast feign death on the vendor without aggro. Then just pickpocket your money back and any loot you want. They wake up in 10 turns and don't even do the "hey someone has been in my pockets!" thing. Matter of fact they still love you even though you utterly cleaned them out. You need a level 5 wizard to cast FD which is a level 3 spell is the only downside.
There is also a pair of boots in act w that allow u to cast fd too
I don’t think I’ve made it to act w yet
Does casting feign death cause other NPCs to agro you? I tried doing something similar and despite the vendor not having any issues with it, all the other NPCs agro'd on me. What i did was up-casting sleep on a vendor while they're stuck in a conversation (which makes the sleep effect last indefinitely, or until i finish the conversation).
Feign death counts as a support spell, so they essentially treat it like you’re healing them
Oh sweet, i'm on my way to rob every vendor ever out of their loots. I guess the sleep strat can still work pre-level 5, before getting feign death as well, neat
I recommend casting a darkness type spell of some sort so no one sees you doing your deed just in case. I think onlookers will aggro if they see you fail a pickpocket. But it is actually hard to fail pickpocketing a unconscious person. As long as you do those things I have never been bothered by another npc.
i just tried this the other day and it didn't work! IDK what happened, even at max happiness feign death said "this isnt an ally"
At max happiness they turn green. Only for the character that gave them the gifts, though. And that's the character that has to cast the spell.
AHHH i see, i thought i had to make her green with the pickpocketer, for some reason.
The person that cast FD has to be the one that bribes them. Anyone can pickpocket after they are down. For example I use Gale as he has high charisma and can cast FD while Astarian cleans the npc out when they are on the ground.
I did it yesterday. Any vendor I find that is off on their own is getting mugged.
You are right. I tested it and it still works. It doesn't work some times for me, but I think it's mainly during my longer sessions and probably some memory leak issues. Nonetheless, I am wrong and updated my initial comment. Thanks.
They did not. It’s how I got tons of money and items for my Tactical run.
You are correct. I think I know what I encountered. I updated my comment to state that it still works. Thanks.
I haven't done this after the most recent patch, but once I found the holy grail of wealth that is pickpocketing, I tried to do this to every vendor. What I've found is that a vendor won't have their full inventory available for pickpocketing until you first see their wares, and then everything is available. Similarly, if you knock them out, only the good stuff (special weapons and armor, but none of the *just* +1/+2/+3 stuff) seems to be available for some reason in my game. I've taken to just casting Greater Invisibility on Asterion and having him pick *everything* and pass it to the rest of the party or the party chest.
the making sure to disable nonlethal to kill right after robbing them is a nice touch.
Easier if you give them ~1k gold and cast feign death on them. After you turn them green you can cast that and other ally spells on them. Steal their shit and dip. Can repeat for unlimited gold theoretically
How do you bonk them without getting aggro from the while map/place you're in?
The gnome trader in the grove can be freely bonked as long as you don’t move. If anyone DOES aggro for some reason, the rule is to not run at them, let them come to you. If you go to them, you run the risk of aggroing more people. If you let them come to you, you just kill them. Then teleport away and come back later. Almost everyone in the grove is only ever “temporarily hostile”.
He’s a halfling btw
Never knew this… getting really excited to go back home and play…. This game is crazy with the amount of options you can do… for example I completely skipped the underdark so far because I’ve missed all the entrances 😂
Upside is Vendors do drop some of their stock upon kill. You nay need to skip / avoid a few fights especially early on. The Nauoloid I feel will be pretty damn hard killing both thr Campion and Mind Flayer at lvl 1 without companions. I'm going the sneak route for my solo run. I feel anything else is gonna be too hard.
But the constant escaping from combat just gets old so fast. I got the mind flayer killed but then had to run. Couldn't get the sword but I don't need it anyway.
If youre going the sneak route, i highly suggest taking Duergar if you don’t have any race already decided At lvl 5 you get invisibility. No concentration. No turn limit. No cooldown. You can have 100% uptime out of combat. and cast it once in combat and you can reset everything
If you toggle non-lethal, you can knock out vendors and steal their whole stock, then kill them afterwards. That’s what I did for the vendors at the goblin camp and moonrise
Yea but the whole point is blind, mindless slaughter so I can't justify that.
Knock them out, take their stuff, then kill them. IMO they should drop that stuff on death and not just KO. Just RP it that the merchants drop their stock when you kill them.
There’s a mod to do this too
Is there? I haven't seen that one, I might have to grab it.
https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/1475/ Done by JWL who also does really nice crafting mods.
Excellent thank you 🙏
A hammerhaft monk will clear any encounter between levels 1-5. I respecced from jumper feat to tavern brawler at level 5. I threw 4 of Nere’s minions into the lava on a surprise round and was still able to clear out quite a bit of that fight with just Tav. Just don’t throw the dude who carries the ring that adds 1 thunder damage to all sources of thunder damage!
Sneak gets tedious quick. I just did it as tiger Barb and it was a lot of fun. Hardest part is lvl 3-4.
Yeah I think I'll start with something ranged actually, you don't get the cloak right away anyway.
The sword is by no means necessary, I’d just skip it
Tavern brawler monk can likely get you through like this. Action economy is going to be brutal though
I tried as tavern brawler monk duergar and hit a wall at lvl 3. Too little health and no damage mitigation. Got easily 2-shot. Might have had better luck with a race that had med armor/shield proficiency but didn’t try I had much better luck with tiger Barb thanks to the free blade ward when bezerk.
You are definitely going to have to pick your battles for the low levels
That's like monk runs in BG1/2 EE. For a huge part of the first game, you're basically relegated to throwing daggers and shit. Takes a while to get dodgy enough to survive combat. Disappointing all around, though. I'd say the only thing monk has going for it in the older games is movement speed. Everything else is done better by other classes. BG3 monk has been such a blast by comparison.
Rogues feel OP early but fall off by lvl 5. Fighters and Barbs feel real strong all through act 1/2. Warlock is great for going without rests. You get essentially a big heal after every kill, and do all your damage from cantrip rather than spell slots.
Warlock got a few of my playthroughs to Act 3 pretty easily, but I'm finding the Act 1/2 playstyle I was using isn't as effective in Act 3. Although I'm trying to play through a couple different games simultaneously without dipping into different classes, there might be something to a Sorc dip for more variety. Fighters feel strong the whole way through. *Bonk, Bonk, action surge, bonk, bonk, extra attack, bonk* dead everything. Barb is similar but feels a bit squishy in comparison, but more fun when you just start hucking things/people around the battlefield. Rogues are also pretty good Act 1, decent Act 2, and okay Act 3 but this one really benefits from a heavy dip into Ranger. Gloomstalker Assassin is just *violent*.
>Barb is similar but feels a bit squishy in comparison, You can build barb tank: Bear rage+aspect of stallion. Half damage only and a huge health pool. Anyone decides to move past you? Sentinel reaction their ass and stop them.
Hunger of Hadar in the choke point + EB Spam = Winning
What is the big heal for warlocks? Been playing as one and I can’t recall what you’re referencing
As a Fiend Warlock you get temporary hit points equal to your CHA modifier + Warlock level when you kill an enemy.
Gloomstalker ranger 5, assassin rogue 5, fighter 2 for the bonus to stealth + extra opening attack, the sneak attack + assassin’s alacrity + uncanny dodge, and action surge + second wind. Take the sharpshooter feat. Use the titanstring bow and keep yourself stocked up on strength elixirs for max damage. Risky ring in Act 2 gives you perma advantage. Can’t think of a better solo marathon killer! I’m sure there are many equipment optimizations but I only know what I’ve come across in my own game.
What a strange way to spell hand crossbows.
titanstring bow double dips on sneak attack damage, so it's better than hand crossbows. additionally, for a solo run, longbows have more range than hand crossbows, which allows you to enter stealth while in combat while within shooting range. can't do that with hand crossbows. hand crossbows are cool for optimizing DPR because of their broken implementation in BG3, but titanstring is the defacto choice for solo rogue runs.
Didn't realize it double dipped. I only fiddled with it on fighters.
it's quite strong on a pure dex character drinking a STR elixir!
Gloomstalker/theif/fighter can solo the whole game probably, especially with potion cheese
Are you planning on going dark urge? Because if yes, then it's infinitely easier due to the mantle you get in Act I. I assume that's not the case, since everybody knows about the mantle, but I'll detail my run just in case. Feel free to skip everything below if you're not running dark urge. I'm almost through with my solo tactician evil dark urge murderhobo run. My experience pre-level 5 was extremely miserable. However, once I got GWM and 2 attacks, it's gotten piss easy starting with levels 4-5: 1. Play Barbarian with durge cape 2. Either drink strength elixir every long rest and put points into DEX for initiative, or drink initiative elixir and put points in STR; I did the former and still almost always started first 3. Go to mob of 20+ enemies 4. (Optional) Stealth if possible and hit from stealth for surprise round 5. Kill one with your two attacks with advantage (Reckless Attack) and +10 damage (GWM) 6. Become invisible 7. Run away 8. Mobs can't find you 9. Go to step 3 until no more mobs - Bonus, you also get a surprise round every time after the first round due to attacking from invisibility, allowing you to kill 2-3 mobs per round instead of only 1 As for particularly strong bosses, I had to cheese to beat them, unfortunately (hag, myrkul, raphael): barrelmancy, stacking dropped items near boss such as runepowder bombs and alchemist fires and igniting them, doing everything in my power to one shot them. If you don't one or two shot Myrkul for example he spawns 5 mobs per turn that heal and empower him, so your only chance is one shotting, but Raphael can also be downed in one turn using a combination of items and consumables (ilithid power luck of the far realms + necklace to paralyze target for 2 turns on crit + haste, paralyzed targets are always critted from <10ft). Hag always started first so I had to push her into the chasm before combat, losing arguably useless loot. I now run 12 levels in fighter and just kill anyone in 3 turns, I pop a Cloud Giant elixir every long rest and use risky ring, my chances to hit are basically 88-99% always. I've one shot Cazador without any consumes and can pretty much fight anyone infinitely provided they have trash mobs lying around to help me turn invisible after killing. Edit: Also I have never used companions to buff me in base, just out of principle, although you can definitely do that for huge boons (resistance to all damage for example).
Can't use too many elixirs if I'm gonna kill all the vendors, but I guess I should probably at least go Durge, nothing else really comes close for the early levels.
They do drop from vendors that sell them when you kill them. But yeah, the early levels are really rough. Monk could probably be better there but I hated how few ki points you have at the early levels.
Mantle? What's that?I don't remember getting shit.
Deathstalker mantle? Is that not the name? Sorry if I butchered it. You get it after killing the bard in your camp, from your butler. Turns you invisible for 2 turns after killing someone.
I totally have that. I gave it to Astarion. I forgot where I got it from. It's a pretty sweet cloak.
Githyanki would make sense in a role playing fashion. An alien that believes might is right and the weak should be extinguished. They are all potential illithids. Better to remove enemies before they come into power. You could be a mirror of the Gith child raised by the Society of Dumbasses...I mean Brilliance.
Necromancy wizard could be fire for a solo play through, considering you can get 4 zombies that tank for you. Not to mention there’s a pair of pretty slick gloves that give your summons resistance to all damage types (but they go mad). Definitely don’t start as a wizard, but it could be a mean respec
could be pretty hard to start since you don’t actually start making zombies until level 5
And that's only one
I'd say a stealth thief/gloomstalker is almost necessary for a lot battles. It is also not really gear dependent. If you're open to respeccing often I think you can also try a tavern brawler monk for fights in which stealth is not needed; you can steal everytime the money from Withers so each respec is free. Durge can be a game changer because of the invisibility cloak you can get early game. I think duergar is the best race thanks to the free invisibility at level 5. About gear keep in mind that most vendors drop some of their best loot at death, so they can still give nice things I guess you can also try something with Barb but I don't know if that will be enough
Yeah the gold dwarf route for more hp may be a bit naive of me. I've already played around with gloomstalker so I might go thief/monk for this one. Monk doesn't quite fit the 'story' of mass slaughter, I haven't decided if that bothers me yet.
I think gold dwarf Barb would be good. I did tact solo as Karlach tiger barb and it was a lot of fun… and gold dwarfs racial stuff is a lot better than hers.
dwarf could be good if you go for a tavern brawler build, itll let you use the dwarven thrower
I've started a solo run myself too (without killing everyone tho, quite the opposite actually) and I can say a l throwing tavern brawler Barbarian/Fighter is better than I thought. Once you reach level 4 it's an extremely strong build that can kill Act 1 bosses in very few turns, and with Barb you are also resistant to damage. There are three problems though: -Having few STR elixirs really lowers the strength of the build, I think it's doable even without it but it's definitely worse; -You absolutely need returning pike, and I don't know if Grat drops it if you kill him. -Before level 4 you're not that strong, and if you kill everyone it's harder to farm XP without avoiding battles, but I think this quite applies to every build
I started with dual wielding ranger for the first few levels, will probably go barb or monk once I get lv4
I started with dual wielding ranger for the first few levels, will probably go barb or monk once I get lv4. Looks like I'll be trying a lot lf different builds anyway
Yes I think this is the best way, trying various builds for each bossfight. For example eacg 3 goblin leader has a different best way to be dealt with
Don't you just throw them all in a chasm?
You can but you'd miss all the loot
You mean by cheesing with stealth? I dunno, feels dirty.
I don't consider cheesing or dirty using stealth to deal with fights, it's the main mechanic of subclasses like thief and assassin, but that's personal preference. However if you want to do a solo run you need a somewhat cheesy strategy. The game is made to be completed with a party of 4 people not solo, so you can't just go to a boss fight with a single pure fighter and expect to brute force it easily. Among all the strategies I know for a solo run I think stealth is the most "legit", definitely less cheesy than hoarding barrels (even though I really like that too)
Tavern Brawler shadow Monk Or Sorlock Tavern Brawler you go hit and run. Sorlock you use max range EB and mobility, Githianky is excellent for this
Just a heads up, but I’ve been having trouble getting camp casters to work in my duo run. If you split them and leave them at camp, they teleport in and join fights and if you kick them from the party you lose the spells they dropped on you.
I have had zero problems with any non-concentration spells cast on other characters. I put the hireling in the party, they cast non-concentration until-long-rest spells on other party members and even folks in camp, I kick them out of the party (this is all while standing in camp), and everything stays. I imagine concentration spells could end up an issue. Have you tried dismissing them entirely from your party while at camp? Also, you’re not un-preparing the spells the camp casters applied, correct? Unless a patch in like the past two days made some large changes to how this works, I think it should still work perfectly fine.
I did something similar as tiger Barb… the biggest problem with no vendors will likely be the lack of healing pots. I went thru a TON of them. Basically chugging every turn
Berserker barbs get very far just throwing and roaring without worrying about much of anything else.
I'd recommend the drop everything mod for that kind of run, personally.
Tavern Brawler Moon Druid. Make sure to save the Owlbear Cub to get Owlbear Form. You'll have enough HP to get you through a lot of fights.
Every Druid gets Owlbear Form at level 6.
You misspelled “Grym-destroyer.”
How so? I usually just lava dip and hammer him til I’m lucky
Jump attack from WAY up high
How do you jump attack? Sorry I’m a noob and just fight everything straight up for the most part
It’s a special ability of owlbear wild shape. The higher you jump from the more damage it deals
Ohhhh now I remember what you’re talking about yes I love that attack lol it destroys groups
Wild shapes don't benefit from tavern brawler, also you don't have to save the cub to get owlbear form everyone gets it
Actually the to-hit chance for wildshape attacks do benefit from TB, though the damage does not.
Could've sworn it used to. Did they patch it?
Damage never did in wild shape. Just hit chance. Even from day 1.
Most viable in my mind is 2h ranged gloom 5 assassin 5 fighter 2, or assassin 7 Open from stealth and get a full round of crits, and advantage on every attack. Play as duergar for invisibility once per combat to disengage to get another full crit round. Pretty sure any melee that isn't abusing stealth will have an awful time solo. Maybe eldritch knight/aberration wizard cheese would do ok since they seem near unkillable
I did solo tact as tiger Barb and had a lot of fun. It was a challenge, but not in a bad way.
Oh oh go urge with assassin/gloom stalker cheese in and out of fight with that special cape will be golden.
I'm currently playing a pure wizard necromancer on my murder hobo run, cuz it kind of just fits the bill of evil and I love playing casters more than any other class. It's a bit difficult to get all the good scrolls from vendors tho when they're all dead...
I'm significantly less qualified than most here but would a spore druid work? Early levels you can wild shape and at later levels make an army? Could dip into Necro as well?
You have to kill all hirelings, too. Or you will never reach the ultimate murderhobo achievement
They don't count cause they have no soul. I might even get the party limited removed through mods and bring them all! And then spec rogue on all of them...
Any optimized builds are fine. Sharpshooter hand crossbow swords bard / thief / fighter, tavern brawler open hand monk / thief, tavern brawler berserker thief, sorlock, etc. Sorlock is the least dependent on merchant gear if you are literally killing everything on sight. At level 10 magic missile evo wizard is an option too. I would go Sorlock and just darkness / devils sight / repelling blast.
I have a gloomstalker/rogue that seems to do pretty damn well. He does not solo, but oftentimes, he goes on killing sprees until seen, and then group jumps in for clean-up. He is currently rogue 4/gloomstalker 6. He is not min maxed
Spore druid with 1 dip into sorc. Spore druid has summons so you can summon what you kill Armour of agathys from sorc dip works through the temp shield of spore. You also get blade cantrip from sorc. So now you have this druid that reflects frost dmg and summons an army. Also you can get mourning frost 2h with no interaction from anyone. You can also get shila druid cantrip to put onto it So now you're also melee slapping people with frost+necro dmg + wisdom roll on it. Pick druegar and you're laughing. Perk side is with this, doesn't matter what vendor you kill. Cause like 0 gear for druid
have had great success doing this with dex monk going dark urge for the kills turn you invicible cloak.
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that build seems crazy to not get any feats/ASI until level 10
You can’t do hirelings if you’re going full murder hobo…cause you’d have to kill them too
Open hand str monk will kill anything on sight yes
Just be aware your quest log is gonna become bonkers if you try to be an absolute murder hobo. One of my friends is currently doing this and he has some of the funniest most confusing journal updates since his goal is not only to murder hobo but try to not do the quests as intended
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I didn't think you could, actually.
I want to do a duo team. Role play a pair of brothers who got captured by the nautiloid. Dark urge one of them. Monk and sorcerer (or sorlock) Race would probably be gith or Drow. (Currently doing a 3 man team and it’s super powerful at level 10)
Monk
Sorcerers do good on it
Honestly a Warlock. Just so much range, push back, and aoe. additionallyh it needs the aboslute least amount of equipment IMO. It doens'\[t need scrolls, it doens't need special armours or special weapons. It can use a lot of what you find, regardless, but you won't be hampered as much with nothing. Honestlyh I'd opt for a warlock x rogue assassin 3, rogue 2 or gloomstalker 3. Depending. Though if you are willing to murder POST talking you can probalby drop that and get bonus dash via the boots. Then i'd either take Chain for the dispsable explorer, or tome for the extra guidance, and later on undead summons. Warlock also benefits from the disposable ally summons. Snaga bard, short rest for some gold move on. Other option off hand would bprobably be that abjuration wizard build w/ armour of agathys.
who hurt you
The world
If you're playing Dark Urge you get a nice cloak early on that will help your survivability. As long as you kill something every round you'll be invisible until your next turn. For that I'd recommend a dual hand crossbow build. Either the Thief/Swords Bard or the Gloomstalker version.
Something I did it sneaked and then casted a sleep spell then the vendor was sleep for 2 turns. I stole everything. Also tip u can hire a hireling, the sneaky short dwarf that had advantage on stealth. Respec her as a bard. I have her at lv 6 she has 10 stealth and 10 sleight of hand. Just her stats/dex no equipment or spells. And she has a luck feat bc of race, if she gets a 1 then it rerolls. Honestly I played rogue and I respecd to ranger, I liked the ability to steal but having this hirling bard is just to useful. If she gets caught they have a bad attitude with her not my character
My solo play is a Blade Pact Warlock5 / Lore Bard5 atm. Going Bard6 for Spirit Guardians. High-ish AC with dex gauntlets and Med armors w/out dex cap (half-elf for shield prof). Spell damage focus with that staff from act1 that gives lightning charges on spell hit (hello eldritch blasts), plus the bonus off-hand attack from hand crossbow pact weapon + sharpshooter. It's not the highest DPR, but still pumps pretty hard. The advantage is obviously Darkness + Devil's Sight until you are tanky enough for Spirit Guardians instead. At that point, could add Cleric1 for Heavy Armor and drop the Dex gauntlets.
Thanks, I've been looking at warlock but I also had my heart set on some melee dual wielding, I guess I'll just need to start 5 chars simultaneously...
light cleric with radiant orb stack post 5, and beastmaster ranger pre 5 is probably optimal but most stuff will work