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Well here's a little bit of info. I am in BG2, and in the City of Athkatla. I have done a few quests in the city and the hills I posted about earlier. I decided to give the "Twisted Rune" a try. For those that do not remember this area is accessed in the Bridge district and requires a "Rogue's Stone" to enter. Exit can only be achieved by killing one of the 5 enemies that spawn after you "disturb" them. The baddies are a Beholder, Vampire, Ravenak, Wizard and a Lich. Also the wizard summons a demon. This is a very tough fight when you are level 10-13 which I am now.
Well that was before the mod. Now, the same party except I did not see a summoned demon. I was unable to even take out 1 of the 5! So I did a little test. Saved the game outside as is recommended. Used Shadow Keeper to level up my party, now my avg xp level is something just north of 1,000,000 xp, Minsc was level 11, my paladin was also 11 and I had a fighter, cleric, archer and my main pc a mage/thief. My mage can cast level7 spells but no higher. Now with Keeper I just changed the 1 to a 3 for all party members so this gave them 2,000,000 more xp. I did not change any of my items,which are pretty standard for this point in the game though I have done one level of Watcher's Keep which netted me some cash.
This put me at around level 17 or so. Result was I was able to kill the Beholder and really weaken the Vampire and Ravenak but never made to the wizard or lich. It was a very quick fight and lost 3 party members before my main went down. But most importantly I got a really good look at the AI and what was able to put together a plan. But knew I did not have the hitpoints or the spells to win. So...
I then added 5,000,000 more xp to each character which put me at level 32 for my fighter and archer classes, level 40 for the cleric and my main pc was level 19/26 mage/thief! Agin, no added items or even spells as I have memorized spells from scrolls way beyond my casting ability. However by reaching these higher level you gain added abilities, for mages this mean 10th level spells. The battle was now very long but it ended in death at least 4 times! Even on the final time where I won I lost 2 members but was able to raise them with a rod of resurrection. This battle was intense I summoned multiple high level allies to act as canon fodder. I dispelled uncounted deadly gaseous clouds with "gust of wind" and still only brought the wizard and lich when they failed a saving throw vs a weapon that had a low chance to kill on hit, one vs undead and another that turned living creatures to stone. I had only seen these weapons do this one other time and that was another huge battle against trolls.
Anyway I credit simply the AI in making this battle so difficult, though the lich seemed to have an unfair number of "meteor" spells, 2 hits from this spell would kill my paly which had 152 hp. But this seems extreme since I am only in the early parts of SoA and had to reach levels that you would reach at the end of ToB! That said I did not have high level items, we're talking mostly +2 and +3 stuff but some, like I said , had unique qualities that allowed for a kill. I also was lacking my own single class mage and some very important spells to remove protections and lower resistance. I had only "Warding Whip" and "Breach" and then was only able to cast WW twice.
I really like what the mod did to make the battle tougher but what I didn't like was that it did not add any more reward in either loot or gold or even XP. Even in this mod I fought much lesser battles and received 3 times the xp. The reward in this is just surviving.
I do think that I will be able to succeed in this before ToB, but not for quite some time. With better weapons, armor and spells I should be able to do this at level 25 +/- 3 levels. I really think I want a single class mage as well. I enjoy my multi-class now and have not needed a single thief so far, my skills have been dedicated to "find traps" and "open locks" only in BG1 I was open locks only and Imoen was the trap girl. Now that she is gone I had to take on both jobs. When she comes back she's dual with only 5 or 6 level of thief...useless really but not a bad mage.
I have since reloaded a previous save and am now going about my business and will return at a later date to visit the Twisted Rune.
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