OK, let's get some discussion going here. What was your toughest battle in BG2. You should state your experience levels at the time of the battle so that we can keep things in perspective.

For me, the battle with the Twisted Rune guys in the Bridge District. My party was roughly level 11/12 at the time, I was actually doing the Buried Man quest and in chasing the man in red stumbled into the Twisted Rune guys by accident. I had a rogue stone and ended up entering this building with this lich Shangalar. Didn't know who the f**k he was or what he was babbling about. Then him, another mage, an elder orb, a vampire, and some other guy all started attacking me at once. The lich gated in this pit fiend who thankfully started to attack the other enemy mage but since I was obviously unprepared for the fight and had NO Cloak of Mirrors at the time I pretty much got chunked in about 30 seconds. Try fighting two mages who can both cast time stop and gate (one of whom had a Staff of the Magi), a vampire using domination and level drain, and a beholder using panic and fear etc plus a fighter wailing on you. And since i was trying to complete the Buried Man quest I was expecting *ahem* easier opposition than that. Took me a few reloads, eventually used divide and conquer to beat them but I never had a battle tougher than that.

Heh, I remember that battle. First time I wandered in like a fool and got well and truly smashed. Second time I put all my spellcasters in that non-stairway, tippy-toed in with my fighter, set off the lich-guy, then ran back into the lobby. I managed to take care of them one on one, with exception to the start; had to take the lich and the assassin at the same time. Fortunately the assassin stank, and I always carry those neat green scrolls for things like liches, dragons, Elminster, etc. The others fell easily enough when I took them on one at a time. Anyway, enough ranting. The hardest battle in the game for me was the illithid lair, where I was made a meal of many a time. Levels didn't really matter, I could have been level 50 and I still would have died many times. Next to illithid battles, which don't really count (stupid brain sucking bastards), was a vampire I was unfortunate enough to face at level 8 a short while after I left Irenicus' dungeon. Heh. And then, of course, that group of pricks in the sewers, especially that mage and the little lawn ornament with the neverending throwing axe. That's about it.

Illithids were tough for sure. But I wonder how many people did the Firkraag quest and just blindly walked into that room full of vampires and mummies? I was level 9 at the time and didn't even know what Negative Plane Protection was.

I think that Kangaxx rates high, until you see the easy way(s) to beat him. I haven't finished yet, but this battle took me the longest to crack, as I didn't realize protection from magic/undead would make it so much easier. Those gits in the sewers were absolute swines but I definitely think that any mind controlling enemies are the worst! There is nothing more frightening than watching your hasted and magically protected tanks turn on you! I hate mindflayers! I was disappointed with the Dragons as I beat both Firkraag and the Shadow dragon first time, without casting magic resistance(I guess I like doing things the hard way). However, the toughest battle I have had was when I fought the Golems in the keep, as my party was very low level and I had forgotten that clay golems could only be hit by blunt weapons! Duh! Generally it seems that most battles are easy,... in hindsight. There is usually an approach that will minimize the risk and often eliminate it all together. The fun part is finding it. As a bit of a completist, I like to finish all sub-quests before moving on along the main path, so although I have only just reached Spellhold, I have only the Twisted Rune and the last part of my mage stronghold to complete in the quests journal. Consequently, my party is probably at a higher level than most at this stage, so battles are generally easy eg I killed the mind-controlled mage in Brynnlaw with one blow from my thief/mage, before his contingency spells had finished. However I am sure there will be quite a few shocks yet...

During my first run of the game,(right after exiting from the Irenicus' dungeon)the temptation to edit my party into walking Gods (thru Shadowkeeper) was the biggest battle that I have to fight.Sorry guys.... nothing personal to those "edit-lovers".
I just hope that even with great editors, like the one mentioned, true gamers should at least have a run through the game without such aid.Trust me, there's a hell lot of difference in terms of fun and gaming spirit.

Well, to be honest, all of the major battles have been tough for me. I opened the game the day I got it, designed a pretty decent fighter that uses two weapon fighting style, and jumped in. Like an idiot, the first quest I took was Nalia's stronghold. Trolls are NOT fun to fight when your party has all of about 3 magical weapons between the six of them. I found the umber hulks and the main group of trolls particularly difficult. After that, I went on my mary little way to the Windspear Hills and took a horrific pounding at the hands of Ruk the Transmuter. After about five reloads, I gave up on that one. Next in the line of quests at the absolute wrong time for my low level party, I decided to help out Haer Dalis and ventured into the sewers seeking him. That stinking party of spell casters and dwarfs really started to get my goat but I finally took them with a LOT of creative spell casting and the juicing up of my party prior to encountering them. After licking that little encounter and freeing Haer Dalis I found myself in the extra planer prison. That one didn't give me as much trouble as I thought it would. I then found myself on another quest in which both Nalia was kidnapped and Jaheira was cursed. Fighting those stinking mages in the derelict house of the slums with no offensive mage firepower was not fun. After that, I ended up on the Cult of the Unseeing Eye quest at which point I quickly developed an extreme dislike for gualls.

But since the Unseeing Eye, everything's been a little easier. I've done all of the quests save the planar sphere and the Windspear Hills and I just entered into Chapter 3.

Well, obviously everyone now knows I had a horrifying time with Kangaxx by now! Definitely the toughest strategy battle of the game in my opinion.

The other trully tough battles are all of them with Illithids, dang mind sucking vermin! The Illithids in the sewer, and the Illithid cave in the Underdark esp come to mind.

But one that sticks out in my mind the most as being the one I was least prepared for was right after stumbling out of Irenicus' dungeon in the beginnig of the game my first time through, with not a clue or a prayer, I walked upstairs above the Den of Seven Vales and got a true and thorough humbling from that group! Ended up giving up and coming back to it later- good loot though!

Actually Tara you're right, I didn't think about those adventurers. I thought I was tough at the time too. The dwarf has 200 hp by the way, that's why it takes so long to kill him.

Kangaxx was frustrating more than anything, because until you worked out the strategy he was pretty much impossible. I encountered him really early before all these strategies started popping up and i was scratching my head all night. Anybody who says they didn't get at least one character imprisoned by him is full of shit.

Well i haven't got much time to play so i'm in chapter 2 atm, but the hardest battles fought so far have been those guy in the Inn at the Promenade, Tanova (spell-casting vamp under graveyard district), the guys in the sewers, and any lich (seeing as they all cast imprisonment for some reason )

i wasnt imprisoned ny kanggax due to the fact that i have never faced this guy yet... hahaha! i don't know bout the twisted runes... what're those? well, the battle i hate the most are mind flayers dominating you and suckin your brains out!!! it sux... im playin kensai now... i like the no armor and im gonna kick your ass feel better than the paladin! and i ove editin my characters!!! im a cheater!!! hehe makes me feel better and flys my problems away (real-life) im very problematic...

who can ever beat a kensai who wields a celestial fury on his right hand and a blackrazor on his left!

Well, the difficulty depends on what level you hit each section...

For me, I tried to beat the Adventurere's Mart Inn party early (lvl , and got clobbered (10 reloads?). I had to wait until I got higher in level.

Without reading the boards, the demi-lich was tough. If you read the boards, it was EZ. I did it on my own and reloaded about 15 times before I got the right combo. But I also stay off the boards until I am almost done so I don't have the whole game ruined.

I'm sure the beholders in the Underdark would have been hard if I didn't have the reflecting cloak. Once I had that, I never had any problems with any battle again. That item should never have been put in this game, it is WAY imbalanced.

In the end, the "fear" beholders were a pain if you didn't take the nymph cloak.

The rogue stone dudes were also tough, but I was pretty powerful when I faced them.

For me, the demi-lich gets the nod.

Kangaxx was by far the toughest battle I had to deal with. I never figured out the stratagey, I just kept reloading and trying again, everytime getting offed. I ended up using the Ctrl-Y cheat to terminate his rotten existance so I could get his ring. : (

The next toughtest battle was during the Unseeing Eye quest, when you go into the Rift dungeon. After the bridge puzzle, there's a large group of beholders hanging out waiting for you. I hate loosing characters, and I hated this battle. Usually the first few spells the beholders would get in would be petrification, and in the ensuing battle, the statues were constatnly getting smashed.

The mindflayers in the Underdark were a mess too. I never really did figure out how to defend against the brain suck ability, it just took multiple reloads and retrys to get through it.

the mind flayers of underdark? Kangaxx? (ok, the demi-lich is hard) What about the beholder lair if the underdark. At one point, six or seven of the things plus a handful of gauth attack you, even flanking you! Some of them are elder orbs too, all three and four attacks at once. I know they really dislike fire and always tried to soften up a bit first but could only get two or three fireballs off before the killing came. It took many reloads to finish battle w/ as few fataliteis as acceptable.

Mine was a room full of vampires. Back then I didn't know how to level up so my main charecter was level 7. Imangine the results. Thankfully I got lucky and summened tons of Monsters. Also I hate level drain so I picked the Vampires later.

Funny. No-one mentioned Irenicus yet.

That's because when you get up to him you're expecting an impossible battle, but he's actually very easy. I had Jaheira use Creeping Doom on him and the ensuing fight was just pathetic.

I agree, Irenicus is a wus. I haven't finished yet, but the battle in Spellhold was so easy only Aerie was scratched. Lower resistance and insect plague left him wide open and chaos plus plague routed the clones(clowns?)

What are your npcs? they are CRAP!!! I had to reload about 6 times in the final battle. Everybody kept dying save my protagonist. In the end i just sent them to the end off the map and killed irenicus and his feinds with main character. He took a battering yes, but he didnt die constantly. Now i just walk around with main character and whack everything. You dont need npcs. (Most of the time anyway.....) But dual wilding celestial fury and defender +5 helps!

I had plenty of difficult battles the first time as did everyone. The good thing about the game is the freedom of movement you have. Everyone seems to have horror stories of how they visited areas way too early. I had a tough dwarf fighter from BG1 and was used to creaming everything with him, so I got more than a few big shocks. The first was stumbling in on those adventurers in the seventh veil just after escaping Irenicus' dungeon. I went to the veil to rest and decided to explore the place, as you do. Remember I only had the four characters. Then I foolishly charged into the middle of them. Did everyone do that with most fights the first time through, just do an all or nothing charge to see how tough they are. The next place I went was D'arnise keep where I got past the trolls fine, thanks to grandmaster axe with stonefire, but then I decided to grab all the golems treasure at once. Woops! The hardest fights for me now are the mind flayers I think. I can still have whole parties wiped out by them unless I bait them one at a time. I find most of the wizards tougher than the actual big creatures. ie I can fight other hand to hand combat creatures a lot easier than spellcasters. I think the first battle with Irenicus is harder the second for this reason.

Just had a new one today. Fighting the Glabrezu in the slave lord compound with level 9 and 10 characters. Haven't been game to go back for his bosses yet.

NPCs, crap? Uh, okay.
I usually get creamed first time I go into a battle. Second time I know what they can do, so I counter accordingly.

Good thread....

My toughest had to be that dern Shadow Dragon. It must have taken me 3 hours to kill that SOB! I was only level 8-10 at the time, which probably explains it...and i did not know about the magic resistance 'exploit'. I tried to take him on like any other fight. The Demi Lich was tough as well, and the first time taking on a large group of beholders ranks up there.

Just thought of one. The Rune assassins in the tanner murder quest. Definitely not the toughest battle in the game, but if the AI had been better they would have mopped the floor with me every time.

I think I must agree with the shadowdragon being one of the hardest monsters to beat. When I got there I already had done most of the side quests, so thought I were pretty tough already, but it also took me about an hour to kill the freak...but that fight I couldn't have won without a few air elementals, fire elementals and a djinnji.
The twisted rune place....well, when I entered it for the first time I got wacked...and wacked...and wacked. So I left to do many other things first.
When I returned from the underdark I attempted the fight more prepared, and it was no longer impossible. I still wholeheartilly believe that Minsc and Boo who went berserk had personally soloed the second mage, the beholder, and the vampire (Minsc and Boo walked berserk out of my screen and I didn't see the actions of the two). Offcourse there is also a slight possibility that the pit fiend had been helpful a bit.
The third really tough fight was with those beholders in Hell (the Fear place) because I didn't accept the cloak.

If you WEREN'T prepared and you party was all in a bunch in the middle of the room, those demon knights that appear when you try to summon Demogorgon in the Underdark are pretty damn tough. First time i had no idea what was going to happen so my group was all clustered together, and we all had to go toe to toe, half my party got shredded. Took a few reloads.

Hmm I would consider the twisted rune to be the toughest fight. As for the beholders in hell I just had someone cast remove fear on the party before going in and getting the gem.

No one in my group was imprisoned by Kangaxx, I used two protection from magic scrolls
and he didn't stand a chance.

Because each hit drains 4 pts of intelligence i think and minsc doesn't have a lot of intelligence to begin with . I remember getting creamed by these guys even though some of my guys had AC of -5 at least with all the drow armor. I basically took them down one room at a time, usually casting cloudkill spells which were the best AOE spells against them and making sure the caster was invisible and had Chaotic Commands cast on him/her. Once you close in melee with them you better kill them quick or they will smash your ass, so try and do as much damage as you can before you have to melee them.

Why is no one meantioning the Mind Flayer dungeon? I have got My Ass killed by them! I really nead help. Why does it only take two hits from them to kill minsc?
HHHEEEEEELPP1

Hehe who is Kangaxx?!? And what Adventurer's Mart party are you talking about? IMHO Firkaag the dragon was the hardest. I mean what a biotch! Stuns every other cast! Ahhh!! I'm up to lvl 6 now but Firkaag was still the easiest. Did anyone do the Kuo-Toa Dungeon while in the Underdark? There were beholders and gauths in there!

Have any of you guys done the planar sphere quest? Maybe I'm just being totally dense in my approach to the battle but the fight against the demons at the end of this quest is the toughest thing I've come up against. (Any pointers appreciated).
Have fun,
EB

The toughest battle in my earlier days was in that bloody beholder cult place. You know that bit where you had to get the second rift part in the beholder's lair, past those mummies and ghouls.

Well I was happily walking along that horrible flesh-wall dungeon (having just killed a Gauth), when a group of bloody blind priests stopped me, held me and killed me!!!
I mean, how on earth did they see me in the first place!!!

It took me 5 reloads to get them all dead and that was all thanks to some aerial servants that took most of the spells and whacked about 30 - 40 damage each time.

Thank God that's was over.

Ok, my toughest battle had to be the last one (in the 9 hells). Durring the last fight with Irenicus, most of my characters died. When we were telleported into hell, they were resurected but they had none of their gear. It was hard to go through the final fight of the game with essentually naked characters.

The toughest battle in my earlier days was in that bloody beholder cult place. You know that bit where you had to get the second rift part in the beholder's lair, past those mummies and ghouls.

Well I was happily walking along that horrible flesh-wall dungeon (having just killed a Gauth), when a group of bloody blind priests stopped me, held me and killed me!!!
I mean, how on earth did they see me in the first place!!!

It took me 5 reloads to get them all dead and that was all thanks to some aerial servants that took most of the spells and whacked about 30 - 40 damage each time.

Thank God that's was over.

What was your easiest battle?Mine was with the pet of irenicus (his big dragon at the elvencity)I let nalia and imoen cast finger of death on him and he collapsed!

Well to date, im just finishing up some quests before i hit spellhold, im redoing the early parts of the game after having a tough time with my initial party, so i made a new party and started over, no NPC's, screw that crap
Anyways, the toughest battle i have completed so far was the elemental lich, took me like 5 reload, i just kept hitting him with pierce magic and breach to keep his defenses down and then i jsut wailed on him with my kickass goons (half orc fighter/cleric 19 str, human fighter/cleric 18/00 str) in fact the weakest member of my party has like an 18/56 str or something, anyways, the toughest battle im on now is in the sewers with those damn mind flayers and illithids, those guys annhilate me. lil help??

the most ive done so far is litter the room with cloudkill and take off while some of em take some damage from that and the umberhulks die, then i get a few of the flayers killed by wailing on em but i still get killed, no matter what i do (

Best thing to do is to just persevere with the cloudkill tactic to get rid of the umber hulks and hopefully some of the flayers. If there's a door try and slam the door shut when you cloudkill the room so they don't go chasing after you. If you can repeat this over and over you can kill them (kinda cheesy but if you're desperate...)
Then use some summoned fodder as a buffer to prevent the flayers from engaging you in melee and try and pick them off with ranged weapons. If you have to close with them, make sure your guys are buffed up with haste etc because you need to kill them quickly - usually you will die in between three to four hits because they drain 4 pts of intelligence each time they hit.