@Mithoron yeah, was doing them in that order.

My only concern is missing out on some misc Baldur's gate quests that involve barging in homes, a thing my character won't do easily (and neither would I)

Actually now I wanna clear out Durlag's tower entirely before going back to Baldur's Gate

@Mithoron Well, the party members in my one encounter were probably weak, not just level-wise. Equipment-wise, I have one Ankheg plate, two full plate armors, robe of the neutral archmagi, Fallorian's plate, some shield+1 stuff, that one large shield that's great against missile attacks, several cloaks

I hadn't tried different strategies. Might have won. Also, I've hoarded almost every potion since early game, and only ever used like 3 or 4 healing potions

So that can be some help too

My characters were level 5 or 6

@M.A.R. Uh, hello who picked thief here? ;) Well, I wasn't too keen on getting into all the locked houses, but there are a few evil mages in there, for example. Also you usually won't even be reported to Fist. Even without lockpicking you could force door open with weapon.

@M.A.R. You were in Candlekeep already?

@M.A.R. You could get another ankheg plate - there's one hidden so I had it very early on. Wait, neutral archmagi? Who's your mage?

@M.A.R. That was sure early. Hmm, I also hoarded potions, but that's not that so good idea.

Do you use wands? You could practically cast all offensive spells from them.

@Mithoron returned there once, it wanted a great tome of something so I assumed it comes up later in the story

@Mithoron well, can't have evil characters in party because reputation is at 20 and constantly lowering it every time it goes up would be a pain in the ass. My mage characters are Neera and Xan sometimes. I only had Neera during that fight because she has free identify spells.

@Mithoron hoarded them, like everything else. But yeah, when I go back to that fight, they're toast

Question, are the expensive wands they sell that don't seem to have charges permanent?

@Mithoron well, I've broken a few laws and promises "for the greater good" but BG has been much tamer than Planescape; most of the time I'm just role-playing, no consequences in-game

@Mithoron I think I agree; no fight will ever require this many potions

@M.A.R. Huh, so you don't have Minsc + Dynaheir. Hmm, Minsc may be best character and they are "canonical" companions, but I guess going with Xan can fun too. He can't fireball, but could just use wand.

@M.A.R. o.0 Don't have charges? Dunno it could be the case, but I didn't buy sth like that.

There's so many wands to find it's kinda silly

@M.A.R. Well, there's consequences if you get rep. real low, you get hunted by Fist. And one easy way to do that is kill their guys. Even one gets your rep. about half down. Kill a few and they'll hunt and hunt.

@M.A.R. There, there, you're N. Good half-orc fighter thief. I don't think stealing a bit from the rich to better help those in need would be all that big issue for such adventurer. And technically you'd be able to defeat all these enemies in non-lethal way. Sleep, fear, hold person, etc. are real deal in such low level thing.

But game doesn't really let you, they will just attack you again later. Still this way of dealing with enemies can be real useful later on...

@M.A.R. Don't hurry too much with Durlag, I still have some of it to do.

It's from the add-on, along with this mage-island and werewolf island.

This stuff is pretty tough.

Oh, I think I get it with buying wands! In shop they just don't show the number of charges. I bought flamestrike wand and turned out to have 20. If it didn't have number after buying... well something like that should still have daily use limit.