it's my first playthrough and i made the choice of taking care the Expansion Pack before Baldur's Gate(chapter 5) and man was I surprised. The Ice Prison wasnt much but Werewolf Isle and Durlag's Tower was AMAZING. Werewolf Isle was a very tragic story that left me looking at the screen at the end very pissed with Mendas over a a lie that let to so much death. Durlag's Tower/Aec'Letec story aka the 10 lvl of hell was one of the more chilling moments in gaming for me.I have would not have been the shocked to see Pinhead at the bottom. It took me a few days to get through the tower itself. I died more times aka I died ALOT. If anyone reading this that has not played games like Arcanum(My top 5 CRPG of all time) Icewind Dale(top 10 CRPG) you should play these games. At least try it.

PS i HATE AEC'LETEC BURN IN HELL you rat bastard!!!!!!!!

Yeah, I think Aec'Letec is possibly the worst battle (in terms of cheese) in the game; that Ghoulification ability is BS. That said, if you get BG2, the potential final boss of the expansion's bonus dungeon is possibly worse..... Have fun. :)

IMO Li'l Dem isn't anywhere near as irritating as Draconis. With a Chain Contingency of 3x Pierce Shield, good AC for all your party members, and some quality weapons, he actually goes down pretty quick (though you NEED to put him down quick or the summons will swarm you). Draconis, on the other hand, has so many scripted spells that he's quite annoying. Plus you have to kill him twice, so you can't use triggers and contingencies as effectively to get a head-start for the second half of the fight. Li'l Dem is the harder fight for sure, but Draconis is a LOT cheesier.

Completely agree with the OP: Durlag's tower is ROUGH. But also great fun. Each level is different, the story is great, and I had a great time there (although I too died a lot).

That room with fire? Holy crap. But then I stuck both fire rings and so forth on the main character and tried to lure people in there. That seemed to work out okay, if I managed to keep running around in there without getting hit too often. The flames would actually heal me, but the others were not so lucky ;)

Very, very tough place overall, not least the last fight.

Never used a contingency either in BG or BG2, but I hear they're supposed to be good. I just preferred to have high-level skills instead and try to whack people with that. It was also less metagamey that way, as I didn't know what I would face anyway, so a pack of breach and various spells of that sort, plus the good damage dealers, was crucial.


BG2 is a different beast entirely though. As much as I loved BG1 and Durlag's Tower, the Tower in BG2 beats it hands down. One of the fights in there is arguably the toughest in the entire game, maybe even including final boss fights. Rarely felt so good after winning that fight, virtually completely empty of spells (and we had 3 spellcasters).

FANTASTIC GAMES!!

Bought BG2 a while ago but I got the BGT mod. And i want to got through the series with my character. I cant wait for for BG2

"Yeah, I think Aec'Letec is possibly the worst battle (in terms of cheese) in the game; that Ghoulification ability is BS."

You can counter the ghoulification if you cast a dispel magic in time. It took me a long time to discover that.

Huh. I never knew that, so thanks! (Sucks that it would remove all of your buff spells, though.)

You can also use Gaze Protection. If you buff all your characters either with mirror eye spells or potions you will be safe from the ghoulification.

Also cloud kill is quite effective I think. Taunting Aec'Letec and then running around the cloud (with him in it) was quite effective for me.

I tried using potions of mirrored eyes and such; they didn't work. Dispel magic was the only way I found to save party members from turning into ghouls.

Durlag's Tower is my favourite part of BG1, and I even prefer it to Watcher's Keep just because the story behind it is a lot more chilling (and somewhat more plausible as well).

Aec'Letec, on the other hand just drives me up the wall with the ghoulification ability, so I usually just skip that part of the quest and never visit Ulgoth's Beard after I'm finished at Durlag's. The last time I defeated him I decided to fight cheese with cheese and kept backstabbing him with a dual-classed Shar-Teel while the others (and some summons) tried to keep the demon occupied.