Level 39 and counting! I've missed a few points, but not many. I didn't finish the book quest, and I forgot to go back and finish off all of the enemies in the Nostradamus quest, but basically I've killed everything that moves and done all the quests I could find. Now at One-handed 230 points and fire magic at 140, I can deal out some real damage, although I'm not sure my character really qualifies as a thief any more. In fact I've ended up with the dreaded generalist character. We'll see when we get to that final battle, which is probably coming up pretty soon, as I am now slaughtering Scorcpions in the desert.

Hagatha, you are nearing the end but still have a boss battle and then the whole of Alamut to go through (including the dreaded Acid Wash level).

I am on the last level before the final battle and just so tired. I don't know if my fighter will survive the final fight, I may have to cheat or just quit at that point.

there is some great info in this thread thanks to Hagatha, Schwab and Debra. I am going to have to read all these great tips before i start.

Schwab, if you are that close to the end and if your fighter can't handle it, i would think that cheating would be better than quitting. At least than you can say you completed it. after all this you should see the end.

I'm at that last fight and I have to turn around and go back because I didn't do something that will make it easier. Even cheating that last battle is a doozy.
SPOILER NEXT BEWARE!!


You have to keep 2 people and
yourself alive while you beat off hoards and a big boss. What a fair and balanced game.

I finished - cheating all the way. I have played all the Diablos and Icewind Dale 1 and 2 with one
mod and never have I had such hard combat. The setting of the game was interesting, but the rest of it was too hard and pretty boring. Oh, and the ending was the pits. I've already uninstalled the stinker. I have my fingers crossed for The Temple of Elemental Evil.

debra, so if you had to rate the game on a score of 1-100 what would you give it.

I'd say about a 40. It really had promise, but
talk about failing in execution. Sheesh!

Drat
Ingie

Ingie, it may be something that you would like.
You know different strokes for different folks.

It will be interesting to see at what point my character fails me...each new type of enemy gives me that "oh-oh" feeling, but then I figure something out. I have reserved 25 Fire Barrels and will go back for more before I leave the desert. Those are pretty handy in a bad fight. Drop five of those and most enemies are at least badly wounded. Sure gets their attention, though. However, I am now putting all of my skill points into Fire Magic and one-handed, so at least I have some fire power. For some reason my Sneak skill seems to be working for me again.

Huh? I tried the Dragon in the Desert first by using my 23 skill points to raise my Speech to 85 and adding 15 more Speech and and a couple of Charisma points with armour and stuff, and was able to talk my way through; then I thought I'd try to see how many speech points you REALLY need to get past him so I didn't have to spend those valuable skill points all on Speech.

Well, you need more than 85 total skill points in Speech, it seems, but in the process of finding that out I found that the dragon is...really easy to kill. Using my Fire Sword (whatever it's called) that I bought from the desert merchant, I just pounded away at that dragon, and I guess the only thing he has going for him offense-wise is bad breath, because he didn't make a dent in my little weeny thief wearing her leather armour and no Fire Protection potions, while she bashed him into the ground with no magic at all. Curious.

I'm not sure about this reputed Acid stuff, though - I've never found anything that gives acid protection other than potions.

My fighter's speech skill was a whopping 17 so no sweet talk would work.
I noticed that fire sword, Hagatha, but I had all my points in two-handed so I didn't get it.
It really sounds like one-handed is much more effective, especially since (I assume) you were using a shield. My two-handed fighter kept getting knocked down by that big lizard and it was my helper, the Saladin from the desert, who managed to somehow get underneath the dragon and never got hit. Weird.

Wow debra a 40 is really low. But i stil intend to see for myself how it is. I just won't have high expectations any more.

I would give it a lot more than 40, myself. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'll be playing this again -I'm thinking unarmed combat/high evasion, which sounds like it can be deadly. My character seems to have all the skills necessary to deal with whatever comes my way without much difificulty. We shall, however, see if that holds true to the end. At the moment I'm gleefully emptying the Assassin's Lair.

The second part of the game is non-stop combat, but I can excuse that, as I was able to play IWD2 and still enjoy it.