Enkephalin

Agent with magic concentration was my favorite on GF1&2. On this, I was having more fun with the shaper, though I played him agent-style: created lots of ranged critters and backed them up with my own magic. Searing artillas and gazers can tear up a map.

Personality-wise, they're both dogmatic ideologues. I'd rather they just shut up and do their jobs. Every time they seem to be developing as characters, they go right back onto their original tracks. The world changes around them, but they refuse to see the big picture. For practical combat, I like them both. Greta gives good fire support, Alwan makes a better tank. I prefered Greta as an Agent; both chars can weave in an out for an effective tag-team-hit-and-run style. I preferred Alwan with a Shaper; he's hardy enough to draw fire while I deploy my critters, and you pretty much need a Shaper's healcraft to maintain him.

I don't have potions that high, but my luck is high enough to give me practical invincibility, which is much better to have than healing in too many situations. As a solo, you often have a lot of attacks concentrated on your one char, and too few action points to respond. The higher priest levels are great for resistances and spell points, but I find it much more useful to carry on eliminating enemies than to stop to heal. So I agree with Toasty Warm on the 6 mage/12 priest levels, but leave potions relatively low and spend on luck instead. You can still find a use for herbs you come across without putting too much reliance on finding those herbs.

Any natural resistances you can get won't be wasted; SPs and APs are too precious to rely on Radiant Shield too heavily. In fact for ranged attacks, I agree missiles are a much better investment of AP's than magic, and saves those SP's. I built a melee-priest for the challenge, but a more effective solo fighter would go with missile, and train just enough melee to get the quick action skill.

Quote: Originally written by VCH: If you have any archer ability, spell-casters can be shot down in short order. Exactly; spellcasters make me wish I'd spent more in ranged attacks, which are not a bad investment for singletons. With a warrior-priest singleton the tactics I have to use are pretty chancy: At least lvl 3 war blessing adds some resistance to their magic, wait to let everyone else move and see if you have enough AP to reach a spellcaster and still cast enough healing to counter the magic, then hit the caster with whatever AP you can get. If they're accompanied by melee fighters it's rough as hell, because you have to let everyone have a whack at you while you race to snuff the caster. If you have your defensive skills up to advisable levels, they'll mostly miss or leave you with scratches, but one dervish-caliber fighter can make a formidable match with any caster. It's worse if the caster summons; they can build a wall of critters that costs much AP and SP to cut through while they fling magic attacks at you. And many times I've been able to dispatch the caster and found myself half-depleted and swamped by his companions and summonings.

Divinely Touched does give some cool abilities but I haven't found them that useful after the first couple levels. Strong Will is more useful for party fighters than singletons -- it keeps your melee specialists from becoming a threat to your spellcasters. If you get controlled or possessed as a solo, you're essentially invulnerable until the effect passes, sometimes leaving you in a better strategic position and sometimes worse. Mind control has saved my solo chars' lives a couple times. Fast on Feet is a necessity for a solo. Toughness is very helpful. Elite Warrior or Natural Mage, depending on whether you want to emphasize melee or magic, also help make a commando char. None of these advantages are really necessary to make a solo char; for more challenge, you could make a character with only vulnerabilities, level fast and still pull it off at torment level. Even the skill concentrations are less important than how you use them. What really matters is tactics.

That's the most survivable combo for a singleton, and makes a strong party leader, too. I do that if I'm going to start solo and pick up chars on the way. In my most effective parties, everyone trains at least 3 in mage and priest. Everyone can bless, haste, heal and cure themselves early on. Four chars casting repel spirit each round can melt through undead and demons with ease. If I do develop any specialist spellcasters, this takes a lot of pressure off them, since the mana and AP costs are spread around.