It seems to me from reading the threads on these forums that solo no-reload play (aka hardcore) is an increasingly popular occupation for many players. There are many threads where people ask for advice on some aspect or another, as well as many stories (including the no-reload thread) chronicling people’s attempts to succeed.
I thought it might be worthwhile to start a thread for people to chip in with their tips, tricks and strategies for this style of play, so we can accumulate our collective wisdom in one place and help each other as well as people who are thinking of trying this for the first time.
I’ll kick off with a few (primarily focused on SCS games).
1) Defence >>>> Offence. Throughout the game you face hundreds, if not thousands, of opponents that you have to kill. And they are all trying to kill you. The one constant in that? You. You have to stay alive throughout all those fights, so the most important thing you have to focus on is your defence, i.e. making sure your character does not die. Therefore making sure your defence is up to scratch is way more important than maximising how much damage you do.
Consider this: let’s say you cast a Finger of Death at an opponent (let’s say it is a yuan-ti mage). How important is it that the Finger of Death succeeds? I would say “Not very.” Sure, it would be nice if it did and you could move on to the next fight, but even if it doesn’t, the yuan-ti mage represents one out of hundreds of enemies you have to kill, and you probably have numerous other ways of killing him even if this spell does not succeed.
Now let’s switch it around and say the yuan-ti mage casts the Finger of Death at you. Now how important is it whether the spell succeeds? Pretty flipping crucial.
2) Saving throws are vital. No matter how much you prep, it is a cast iron certainty that you will have to make crucial saving throws along the way. So if and when you do, make sure you have done everything you can to boost your saves as much as possible.
The most important save is vs spells (most common), followed by vs death (also common). The other saving throws are tested only occasionally.
There are broadly speaking 3 types of saving throws:
i) Save or die (unsurprisingly you have to make these)
ii) Save or nasty effect (operate on the assumption that you almost certainly have to make these as well)
iii) Save or suffer extra damage (while it is still better to make these rather than fail them, and over the course of the game they add up to a lot of saved damage, in isolation these are not that important and you can get away with failing some of these)
3) Certain races and classes are more suited to solo no reload play than others. I won’t go through them all but here are a few pointers.
Races
i) Human: Unless you a) plan to dual class or b) want to play a class that is human only, you should never choose human (zero advantages).
ii) Dwarf and Elf: these are the top races. Dwarves have superb saving throw bonuses and are your go-to choice for any fighter, thief or cleric type builds that don’t involve dual classing. Elves have 90% resistance to charm and are the top dog for mage builds or for triple multiclasses.
iii) Half Orc and Half Elf: bad choices as Dwarf and Elf respectively are superior in the vast majority of cases.
iv) Gnome: only if you want a Fighter/Illusionist or Thief/Illusionist. Save bonuses vs wand and spell but not vs death.
v) Halfling: Dwarf is nearly always superior since -1 STR is very hard to stomach.
Classes
i) Kensai are usually a bad choice. You might have grand visions of a Kensai (13)/ Mage but the reality of achieving that is something else because of the sheer lack of survivability of a low to mid level Kensai (no armour, no helmets is asking for serious trouble in the early game). Try taking your level 8 Kensai with AC 4 through the duergar in Irenicus’ Dungeon and you’ll quickly get a feel for what you’re up against when those lowly level 5 fighters cut you into ribbons.
ii) Berserkers are conversely very good (the rage is the best single defensive resource in the game).
iii) Pure warriors (with no thief or spellcasting capability) will have a very hard time in the mid to end game.
iv) Spellcasters will ultimately have more power at their disposal (particularly arcane casters) but survivability can be an issue – if something goes wrong and your defences fail, low HPs do not provide much of a buffer to rectify things before it is too late.
v) Some form of fighter/mage is probably the best overall combination to maximise survival chances.
4) The following spells are notorious solo-killers. Make sure you are protected against these whenever facing an opponent capable of casting them.
i) Charm Person / Dire Charm / Domination: these are all save-or-die spells for solo play and SCS mages love casting these at you (sometimes in sequencers!) if you’re not protected against them.
ii) Power Word Stun: this is a death sentence and there is no saving throw. Keep your HPs above 90 or have free action in place.
iii) Maze: another death sentence and this one is pretty hard to defend against. There is no saving throw, the only defences are magic resistance, SI Conjuration (? Can’t remember if this is a Conjuration or Enchantment spell), Spell Deflection/Spell Turning/Spell Trap (note the minor versions won’t help you), Chaotic Commands or Enrage.
That’s enough for now, I will add more later
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