One-PC Parties Rule

[Donald Hebb]

I just replayed Nethergate as a 1PC Roman. I have slain Reptrakos, the Raven, Hagfen, the Faerie Bazaar (by way of hunting everybody in it down like dogs), Vanarium, the Hollow Hills, Selkiehome, and practically every other friendly town in the game. By game's end, Faerie Warriors had a 0% chance to hit me (and once, a Fomorian threw a javelin my way with -90% accuracy!) and Faerie Warriors with the fire scepters did no damage to me.

 

Question, though- is it as easy with Celts?

[Lilith]

You'd virtually have to go through as a druid for Celts. I can see SP being a problem throughout the game.

 

I might try it, though, once I finish MC.

[Sarachim]

I played Nethergate with a singleton once. It was a very long time ago, but I'm pretty sure I did it as a Celt. After the first couple of chapters I pretty much cruised.

[Lord Sylak]

I find 1 PC's a pain in this game, becasue of all teh crap you end up carrying. i tried it once, but then i added anotehr charctor just to carry stuff.

[Arenax]

Mules help in Nethergate.

[Toenail Returns]

Celts are really hard to play as. So what if they get spell bonuses and such. They can't wear armor and get hurt easily. Romans are much better with their chain mail and javelins.

[Kelandon]

I think it'd be easier to be a Roman singleton than a Celt singleton. I've never been terribly good at singletons, but it seems like you'd only need the ability to cast some very basic spells as a Roman, because Romans don't get good high-level spells anyway. Celts kind of do.

 

A Celtic duo works really well, though. That is, a fighter and a magic-user. That was probably my favorite way to beat the game.

[Alorael at Large]

I haven't even tried to play with singletons, but here are my utterly untested thoughts. A Roman singleton warrior with minimal druidic abilities can simply crush, kill, and destroy, as you found. A lone Celt doesn't have the melee power to do that, but since Celts don't really have any armor anyway, a half decent warrior with druid spells is feasible.

 

Basically, one could kill weak or almost dead enemies with a sword or spear and plenty of Battle Rage and use spells to kill things and to stay healthy and buffed. It would be a skill balancing act for a long time and it would require large stocks of potions, but once the character learns Hero of Old it should become a walk in the park.

 

—Alorael, who figures he need not mention the (bug-abusing) method for starting off with Hero of Old. If you do that you really shouldn't have much trouble past the very early parts of the game.

[Lilith]

In the version of Nethergate I've got, you can't start with more than the first 6 spells in a circle even if you start with a higher level than 6 in one of the circles.

[Donald Hebb]

NAME - LEGION

 

HP - 99

 

STR - 30 (28)

DEX - 15 (13)

INT - 3 (2)

END - 15 (12)

 

MW - 20 (9)

SP - 14 (3)

JAV - 13 (8)

SLI - 5 (0)

ARM - 7 (4)

HRD - 28 (23)

DEF - 26 (21)

ROM - 8 (8)

 

DRU - 1 (0)

HS - 0 (0)

WS - 0 (0)

 

AID - 0 (0)

HCR - 0 (0)

TUS - 8 (4)

WCR - 0 (0)

BTR - 1 (0)

LCK - 19 (19)

 

----

 

Truly, a man among armies.

[sheesh]

I did a Celt one-PC playthrough quite a while back, and from what I recall it was pretty easy. I did abuse bugs a bit (the Druid skills character creation one and also the fact that summoned creatures can be killed for free experience), but relying heavily on multi-target magic and Berserk (you have to be very strategic, though, to make sure that you only fight enemies one at a time--staying out of fight mode helps for that sometimes) is very effective. Once you've cleared out the first goblin lair, the rest of the game should not be too difficult.

[TakenName]

wow, Im reviving a dead post here, but...

 

For a solo celt, all you really need is very high defense and 3/5-2/3 your defense in berserker, along with a few points in healing circle for that nice healing spell. Keep this up, and nothing can touch you, while you kill everything in one hit.

[Lord Sylak]

*smacks TakenName for reviving the topic*

[Sarachim]

Sylak: Reviving a dead topic is okay if you've got something worthwhile to contribute. You know, like you didn't.

[Lord Sylak]

i jus5t iek smackign people, and i didn't get my daily fill out of doing it on IRC that day.

[Walter]

I didn't find celts hard to play as at all, I played it as follows: I'd have 2 warriors in the front, followed by 2 druids (give all initial skill points to druid skills for spells learned, with 1 with as high as possible in spirit circle, other with 6 in craft, and add most points to those until you have 8 in all circles. Later on I eventually gave 8 in health and war to the warriors and found them being able to start combat by hasting and blessing themselves was a big help.

[Lilith]

Through a careful reading of the topic title and the content of the discussion, you may notice that this topic is about solo parties -- that is, a party consisting of just one Celt or Roman, rather than four. This makes matters rather more difficult.

[Walter]

Oops, I meant to post that in the "Side of Victory" topic. But I had multiple browser windows open and I guess I got confused.

[Kingy]

All this nethergate talk is really making me want to buy that game. Alas I still have no money. One of these days I will have money to buy something other than the food I need to survive.

[Icshi]

I once started a game as a solo Celt lady, but had pumped up her stats to the max using the character editor. But after a while I couldn't resist adding more female characters, as well as picking up that Brigit woman in Vanarium. And, of course, just to keep things exciting, I pumped all of their stats too.

 

Great kinky fun. I called them "Charlie's Angels."

[Walter]

Well if you pump the stats to the max with the character editor you kind of lose most of the reason for a one PC party (gain experience on that one character very fast).

[Icshi]

I'll have to do a proper one-PC party some day. I've tried it with Nethergate and Avernum 3, but each time I ended up giving them steroids by clicking on the up arrows in the character editor. And it always starts out so innocently. I figure "Well, I keep getting wasted here at the beginning, and I'm too lazy to try to change my strategy, so I'll just add a couple of little stat modifications to make things just that wee bit easier." Before I know it, I've turned my level 1 generic character into an omnipotent wizard/priest/barbarian sword-slinger.

 

I bet this is exactly how Barzahl started out. "Oh, I'll just tinker with this here drayk to make his teeth a little sharper..."

[Mischa]

I've won as a solo Roman and after the first dungeon or two, it got easier than a group adventure. I'm now starting as a solo Celt and have finished the Pits. We'll see how it goes later on with the armor limitation - with a solo Roman you didn't have to worry much about damage.