[mad=dog]

Well, I know that the benevolent drow is supposed to be good and all. It seems clearer in BG2 than in BG1. In BG1 he seemed like Chaotic Neutral to me. Selfish, arrogant and with little concern towards other travellers. "Hello there. Please lick my boots while I shower you with gnoll bits" style. So he died.
In any event I am now through the game. There were a few hard encounters, but my main problem was Maze spells. Even through they ought to be rather harmless they treat you like you are dead. Someone should make a fix for this problem. There is no saving throw. It's a garantied reload.
Cloak of mirroring is a winner. I went through the beholder lair twice just for laughs. Oh the joy of watching them kill themselves. It also reflects death spells. No more Horrid Wilting for me.
The bracers of blinding strike is nice for lengthy battles. Used it to wipe out the demons in the end battle combined with defensive spin. And I found the Weapon Expertise ones. I had two pairs in BG1 though. I guess gauntlets have been toned down a bit.
My trusty Melodic Chain was finally replaced with Bladesinger, but it has a special place in my trophy room. A really nice piece of armor available at a reasonably early stage. Any bard should go for it. I am still puzzled and annoyed with the Jesters Chain. It's far too difficult to obtain to be so useless. Briefly after you get it you can get Adamantium +5, which does allow casting and that will last you until Crimson is in your hards. Jesters ought to allow casting to be worth.., well anything.
I killed for 4.8 million XP worth of monsters and if you consider all the XP awards along the way I recon I earned between 7 and 8 million XP. Shame with the XP cap, but I suspect that Bards have been nerfed at high levels anyhow. I was close to getting the maximum number of spells already. Unless the ToB high level powers include something like "increased spell mastery" which allows spell progression in level 7 and 8 spells I fear that the illusion of an arbitrary balance between classes have been broken. Regardless I happen to like Bards. After all this is a roleplaying game. I took me 28 game days to complete the game.

I must thank you all for your help and pointers. I would surely have missed quite a few items that eventually saved me if it was not for the friendly advice.

I do not wish to boast, but I will gladly answer any questions. Soloing a blade is a lot of fun and I highly recommend it. I only had serious problems with two types of monsters - Adamantium Golems and Greater Mummies[1]. Both hit like a ton of bricks and doesn't take much damage. You'll have plenty in your arsenal for anything else.

[1] They are slow so Gesen Bow works IIRC. This is a late acquisition though. +2 arrows doesn't bite on them. They have formidable saving throws so the only was to pass them is to burn off a defensive spin and take the pain until mace of disruption works.

[ 04-23-2004, 05:17 PM: Message edited by: mad=dog ]