I'm not going to get into the "This is a roleplay-oriented server" part of this topic; thats a whole different, incredibly long and nuanced discussion.
As a long time player who mainly ran as a solo player, heres my input from the last...jesus, 15+ years I've dabbled on Arelith.
The big thing to keep in mind when trying to solo is that not all classes are equal.
I absolutely despise the "Meta" push that has become more prevalent over the years, as it means very specific playstyles and builds excel consistently while builds that don't adhere to the general meta template loose steam -very- quickly both in pve and pvp. While I appreciate that this means some solo-friendly tricks have remained relatively unnerfed over the years as they've likely gone unnoticed, it makes it very, very difficult for newer players to find "creative" means of playing.
I can't speak on how things are now, given my sketchy playtime, but for a point it seemed new npcs were being balanced around the average theoretical meta builds of the time, and not what most of the server was running with. Which created a death spiral of meta building and rebalancing. I think its around this time I kinda checked out of Arelith for a while.
Arelith is not solo friendly if you aren't familiar with NWN mechanics, Arelith's custom mechanics, and the server layout and hostile npcs. Even with this knowledge, certain classes have far more solo potential than others. Spellcasters typically are poor choices for solo builds, as spell slots are a finite resource that aren't easy to replenish without a risky rest attempt. Most spells target a saving throw as well, and once you start hitting high levels, you don't really have much of a chance of breaching an enemies saves. Assuming the enemies don't have some weird, unexplained immunity or resistance (ex: fire giants being immune to fear. Is that still a thing?) The most success I had with a solo caster involved the usage of stealth, summons, and AoE crowd control, which at the end of the day, was basically playing with the discount Temu version of a PC party. This style was completely nonviable upon hitting the lower high levels.
There are some exceptions to this, like some of the warlock variants (not all of these are equal in terms of power), which have a combination of powerful summons and infinite casting
Even at low levels, some enemies had ridiculous defenses against spells. Quaagoth Elders having something like a save of 17 vs spells, or things like -deer- having improved evasion. Undead are fairly common enemies, meaning mind affecting spells aren't going to help you much for a very large chunk of the server.
Ranged builds typically don't deal enough damage, and shooting one enemy as the potential for the entire mob to descend on you. They're also incredibly resource intensive, requiring ammunition and ranged templates (and the items needed to buff said templates) along with your usual slew of items and consumables.
Melee builds are the most viable solo archtype, but require the player have some ability to buff themselves. Melee builds have the advantage of having higher HP (typically) and having their main means of attacking not being a finite resource (spell slots or ammunition).
Builds that rely on saving throws to disable and kill enemies start off strong at low levels, but get progressively less effective the higher level you are, to the point where save-heavy builds become more of a gimmick that an actual effective strategy (ex; swashbuckler-heavy builds). The exception to this being Terrifying Rage Barbarians, but thats probably a different discussion.
The Build Compendium on the wiki reflects this somewhat, as most of the builds listed are melee oriented, with a few ranged and -very- few spellcasting builds.
ON THE POSITIVE NOTE:
Soloing can be wildly profitable once you figure out how to make the most of your build in are profitable area. Skills like appriase, pickpocketing, search/open locks/disable traps, and sailing can dramatically boost your profit intakes by insane margins. My last character was making 10k-20k per solo run (after selling all the loot) before he hit level 10. And since you aren't running with a party, you don't have to split the loot!
No matter what though, after a certain point, soloing just isn't going to be viable. I can't imagine doing things like the Maurs (high damage, high HP mobs that can dispel) as a solo being worthwhile. Even if you're capable of fighting solo on that level, the resources spell vs rewards gained are typically not worth the effort.
If you're interested in soloing -and- new to Arelith, Cordor is probably your best bet, as the variety of writs, locations, and resources make it a bit easier to deal with that say, the Underdark (fewer settlement options, terrain hazards, difficulty spikes) or Skal, which is like "Arelith - Hard Mode" if you aren't familiar with Arelith and NWN mechanics.
Edit: wow that sounded a lot more negative than I meant.
So. You're probably saying "wow, that sounds salty. Why did you bother playing as a solo?" I'm partially a masochist, but mostly because I enjoy finding creative solutions to problems, and I find more satisfaction coming up with solutions I can use myself, rather than gathering a part and letting them brute-force the problem. These workarounds become harder to do later on, and eventually soloing just isn't viable, but I enjoy it still. Even if in 15 years I've never seen things like Paush, the beholder, or mindflayers
) Yea, you just need to buy a single each and off you go, you should be able to complete 3 writs with those buff, getting back more than 2,000gp to continue the cycle of replenishment.
