Hmmmmm - I'm still playing but for me the Shadow dragon(?), before I found out about the cheesey cloudkill solution, was quite hard and took about 5 reloads.

Personally I found the Mindflayer Lair OK. Took 1 reload but chaos prevention is a fab spell http://www.ironworksforum.com/ubb/no...iles/smile.gif

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Regret nothing.

MY thougest was the shadow dragon I think, since I couldn't cheese with Jaheira's magic resistance.
But I managed to kill him without cheesing http://www.ironworksforum.com/ubb/no...iles/smile.gif

And Unseeing eye was fairly easy for my level 9-12 party (i think).
Man, how frightened I got the first time I encountered a Beholder http://www.ironworksforum.com/ubb/no...iles/smile.gif
So I loaded up with haste, protection spells on my thanks, ect... and then it turned out they were not much thougher than the ghauts http://www.ironworksforum.com/ubb/no...iles/smile.gif

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We call him Bobby Corwen
http://www.finalfantasy.nu/forum/minichoco.gif

yep. imo beholders are far too weak in BG2. They are meant to be monsters that will basically kill you on sight. I think their abilities must have very high saves, because I've never been killed by their death/petrification/etc. rays.

*spoiler*
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Also the unseeing eye itself is a big disappointment. Looks exactly like a normal beholder, and he croaks after you use the rod and hit him *once*. how lame.

For me, the toughest battles (in difficult order) were:
1 - The Twisted Rune (I couldn't even escape the fight because the room was so narrow and small and the door was locked)!
2 - Firkraag. Exactly when I thought Nalia had hilled him with 2 cloudkills and 1 death fog, he cast heal on himself and I had to confront him with non-area effect spells...fire protection spells had a short duration...ans as this wasn't enough, my party had to defend itself from his physical attacks...
3 - Kangaxx the Demi-Lich. Few weapons that could hurt him. Hard to hit and virtually immune to magic...and imprisonment spells http://www.ironworksforum.com/ubb/no.../angryfire.gif
4 - The Mind Flayers'lair in Underdark. As someone has pointed out, it's not a very difficult battle but you have a fight every inch you come across. Just one mistake and you're dead.
5 - And finally, the final battle with Slayer/Irenicus. Not because of the slayer himself, but because of that bunch of demons - protection from evil had no effect!!!

I gotta agree that the green dragon with insect plague fight is very nasty. Your mages can get mauled pretty bad. Overall though twisted rune is probably the hardest fight. Doing that fight straight up is crazy. If you don't try and fight the stuff one at a time its very very hard.
You know its suprising to me to see several people mention the shadow dragon. I found it to be the easiest of all the dragons. I am not sure really why but every time I have played it just seems that I did not have to do reloads like I did on the others.

[This message has been edited by deathknight (edited 09-17-2001).]

I found the 2nd Irenicus battle very tough the 1st time through the game. Had to use high level abilities in TOB to defeat him...

This time, I shall try very hard not to exceed the original 2,950,000 exp cap.

The Twisted Rune fight isn't so bad unless you want to kill all the monsters for the exp. In my case, I just let the remaining monsters fight one another and then I picked up the staff at the end...

Hi again, out of curiousity I decided to try he twisted rune quest to check if it's do-able before you leave for Spellhold. I did it right after I got the amulet of power. Result: success http://www.ironworksforum.com/ubb/no...iles/smile.gif

My party was as follows:

PC kensai 10 - mage 12
Minsc level 12
Keldorn level 11
Anomen fighter 7 - cleric 13
Jaheira fighter 10/druid 12
Jan illusionist 11/thief 12

Is this considered low level or the norm?

Anyway,had to re-load once because the beholder petrified Minsc once and I didn't know how to get him back (not sure if the spell would run out after a while and couldn't be bothered to wait). Also, I didn't kill all the monsters, as I mentioned above; just let them kill one another wherever possible.

Firkraag was much tougher... for me, at least.

Shadow Dragon was much tougher than Firgraag for me.

I did the Firgraag quest very early in my initial run with the game. Party consisted of:
PC: 10th lvl Sorcerer
Minsc: 9th lvl
Korgan: 9th lvl
Aerie: 8th/9th level C/M (I think)
Jahiera: 9th/10th lvl F/D
Yoshi: 9th lvl

First did the "fake talk" strategy and it was a breeze. After reading a post here about the "beauty and honor" of dragons I felt that the big boy deserved a fair fight. Summoned a bunch of stuff and beat him that way with no loss of any NPCs.

Reloaded the game at the beginning of chapter 2 to add Jan and Anomen for Aerie and Yoshi. By the time I got to the Temple Ruins quest I was:
PC: 10th lvl sorcerer
Minsc: 10th lvl
Anomen: 9th lvl Cleric (he had already passed his test)
Jahiera: 9th/11th lvl F/D
Viconia: 9th lvl
Jan: 9th/10th lvl M/T

Not sure if these battles get harder if your party is a higher level... but the Shadow dragon was much tougher. Had to reload a few times before I worked out a winning strategy.

About to do seeing eye quest so I'm sure both of these battles will pale in comparison to what's next...

SPOILING INFO AHEAD

SPOILING INFO AHEAD

SPOILING INFO AHEAD

SPOILING INFO AHEAD gas next exit

SPOILING INFO AHEAD

SPOILING INFO AHEAD

1. Twisted Rune
2. Kangaxx
3. Mind Flayers (both in Temple district sewers and in Underdark)
4. Gangs in Promenade inn, Temple sewer - prob. tuff due to low exp. lvl.
5. [don't know how hard the final battle w/ Mr. I. is yet but I'm scared]

__I killed the dragons (Thaxll'ssilliya, Firkraag) fairly easily using the ol' cast-Magic-Resistance-to-LOWER-their-resistance trick - I guess it's not so studly a way to do it but heck, it's hinted at in the Manual.
__Kangaxx we did kill in a respectable way, wearing him down face-to-face, with my Bard protected by Spell Immunity...don't know how I would fare w/out that.
__I resorted to Limberger-level tactics on the Twisted Rune [see post re finishing BG2 w/out reloads for details] and even that was hard, so to do it the NON-DAIRY way would probably be a supreme test for me.
__I wuz able to block the MindFlayers w/invisibled party members in the hall while we threw a bunch of rocks at them [Camembert?] - it must be murder face-to-face even with Chaotic Commands [ever see that old movie "The Brainiac"?]

QUESTION: IS THE TWISTED RUNE JUST AS HARD IF THEY SPAWN IN THE UMAR HILLS? (if anyone's had that happen to them after saying the wrong things to the guy outside the inn...) 'cos I didn't even bother to fight, just reloaded...

I might have missed it, but why doesn't anyone post about those freakin' Demon Knights in the Underdark??

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