Funny you should post this as I also just completed this in chapter 2 just last night. My strategy was a little different than yours. I read some advice recently saying to take out the vampire first cuz of the 4 level drains and someone else next etc and I tried that a few times with limited success. Then I decided to go back to my initial strategy to take out the main bad guy first (shangalar is his name?) anyways he went down in 1 run with this strategy so I was pretty amazed.
I buffed up of course and summoned 2 elementals,2 aerial servants and an invisible stalker.
I sent in someone to trigger him and when he teleported ran back in the room. I had my kensai/mage with the daystar trigger its sunray effect and at the same time I had anomen cast sunray. This coupled with the couple of melfs minute meteor shots my mages got off on him before his defenses were up killed him on that first round(I was using sunray to take out the vampire and when I saw shangalar damaged by it it occured to me that he must be a lich). Now my buffed party and group of 5 summoned creatures stormed the room. Shield of balduran like the poster said works awesome on the beholder and I sent alot of my elementals at the vamp to avoid the level drains on my chars. Then I proceded to take out the other mage since she is pretty damn nasty herself. Not so hard when you can take here without worrying about the beholder or shangalar.

pretty simply really 2 sunrays was the key for me. The other guys are not so hard really.

Just out of curiosity, how did you manage to save during this fight?...I was never able to.

------------------
"I am death come for thee. Surrender and thy passage shall be...swifter"

"Kneel before the cow god!"

My paladin(L15)wipped out the intire twisted rune single handed and withoud taking much damage so its not that hard.
Then again my sorcerer(l12) and his party got slaughterd, luckily i was playing a multiplayer game so i exported my sorcerer, imported my pally etc.

------------------
http://www.ranchoweb.com/images/bg2guy/drow2.gif

Those who watch their backs meet death from the front- Dreamer128 paladin of the order of the holy flame.

How nice! Well done. I always do the Twisted Rune in Chapter 2. But I use another strategy.

I take the whole party to the bottom right corner in the room with the big table. You know, where Shandalar is summoned. There the Beholder won't cast any rays on you, and the Pit Fiend which is always summoned always kills the beholder and also draws the attention of the female mage. So you just have to fight the Vamp. and the fighter in the beginning. Not to hard. Now, the Pit Fiend kills the beholder, but the Mage is not dead, so you have to kill her. Not to hard either since she is now alone. maybe you also have to kill the Fiend here. But fiends are like...I don't know. Something small and pathetic.
Anyway, with the mage and Fiend gone, you can now save, since Shandalar is in the room where you were summoned. Last time I was kind of lucky with Anomen killing him with one hit with Mace of Disrution +2. Ahh...collect the treasure and laugh hard at the enemy. Laugh even harder if you also have the cloak of non-detection.

Hmmm...I did it in chapter 2 with a relatively low level main character mage and party...well the mage was around level 14 or 15 or 16, but the REST of the party was low level. I don't really know how that happened...I guess from switching up NPCs, oh well. Anyway, I used the staff of fire elementals or something like that, and had a fighter with those boots of speed or whatever running around so I could see everything, and he hit stuff once in a while, and a bunch of casters with summon spells. Started with five asorted summoned creatures, and kept them coming by throwing out fire elementals whenever one died. I used up most of the staffs charges, but hey, I never used it again after I got the Staff of the Magi

question, where and how do you get the shield of Balduran?

Shield of balduran is for sale by someone in the back of the adventurers mart in waukeens promonade. you need download the bonus pack to get that item in the shop though.

I just did it last night, on my *first* serious attempt... http://www.tgeweb.com/cgi-bin/ubb/no...es/biggrin.gif
After I completed the fight (and saved, fortunately) I reloaded and tried twice more... and got my butt kicked, lol.
The funny thing is the first time I did it, I did not use many of the traditional protection spells like bless, chant, defensive harmony, etc. Just good ol' hack & slash, with liberal doses of magic missiles, dispel magic (esp on the lich) and assorted other spells. I *did* have good weapons though, namely Celestial Fury and the Holy Avenger.
The beholder too did not seem to have much affect on my party, and no, I did NOT use the Shield of Balduran.
Oh well, I suppose I was lucky with some of the dice rolls, lol.

------------------
"Butt-kicking for goodness!" - Minsc
"Cities always teem with evil and decay. Let's give it a good shake and SEE WHAT FALLS OUT!!" - Minsc
http://www.dabros.net/images/tcampbell/hadb6copy.jpg

I think all of us who've done the Twisted Rune can agree that it's one hell of a good fight http://www.tgeweb.com/cgi-bin/ubb/no...iles/smile.gif

------------------
"I am death come for thee. Surrender and thy passage shall be...swifter"

"Kneel before the cow god!"

Sounds like a good time. I'll try it tonight...