It's been a while since I've done this, so I had to ask.

1) Is there a difference in experience between infiltrating the bandit's camp stakeout-style vs invading it directly? Also thought I heard you could be feign surrender and be taken prisoner. Don't know which would result in the most experience. All my party members (Cavalier hero, Khalid, Minsc, Jaheira, Imoen and Dynaheir) are level 5 as of this post. I'm pretty sure they're powerful enough to take them all on with little difficulty. As the Hobgoblins in this game say, "SPARE NO ONE!"

2) One of my biggest beefs in the original were the Blacktalon brigands with the Ice Arrows. If I equip one of my characters (likely my hero) with the Belt of the Antipode and the Boots of Avoidance as well as the suit of Full Plate Armor from Thunderhammer Smithy and a +1 Large Shield, has 17 Dexterity as well (18 once he gets the tome later on) on top of having 19 Constitution (got the tome out of that cave in the Lighthouse area), that should make him beefy enough to withstand at least a few of those shots so my buddies can snipe them down until my main can close the gap, right? Maybe also add one of the Rings of Protection that I found and utilize the Shield Amulet I got from the Carnival?

1. the ranger Kivan will not allow any but a dirrect attack... without him in your party you can try the other two options but it may not work out if they see your pally + there is not difference in exp for how you kill the bad guys, however there is a small subquest with the Gnols in the cave

2 yes high defence is one option, Jaheira can turn into a winter wolf is another or you tell Imoen and Dynaheir to fireball them after Minsc does some scouting

My apologies for the strange whitespace below. The obvious way of writing this post caused the url tags to randomly fail to be recognized. Adding spurious blank lines makes them all work properly.

According to the Wiki, a Blacktalon Elite has a THAC0 of 14. Full Plate Armor will give you an AC of -2 vs. missile attacks. Your Large Shield +1 will give you an additional 3 vs. missile attacks, for a running total of -5, which should mean that a THAC0 14 archer needs to roll 19 or better to hit you. (Reminder: 20 is always a hit, so if we can improve your AC vs. missiles by 1 more point, you are optimal.)

Your dexterity of 17 will give you a bonus of -3 AC, for a running total of -8 vs. missiles.
This should mean that a THAC0 14 archer can only hit you on a critical hit or a roll of 22 (out of a max 20, so non-critical hits are impossible). Blacktalon Elite also carry Arrow +1, which would bring their required roll down to 21.

They use a Longbow, which grants a +1 bonus.

Assuming the THAC0 shown on the Wiki is the creature's base (which the THAC0 article seems to state is the case), that brings their required roll down to 20. Their dexterity of 16 gives them another -1 THAC0, so now they are back to being able to hit you on a roll of 19. Fortunately, the running total did not yet factor in your Boots of Avoidance, Ring of Protection +1, or Shield Amulet. Any of those would move you back into the critical-hits-only level of AC vs a Blacktalon Elite in archery mode. I would recommend the Ring of Protection +1, since it is exactly sufficient, freeing the Boots of Avoidance for another character. Also, the Ring of Protection +1 is not charge-based, so you would not need to worry about when to use it.

Decided to go in guns blazing, with my hero and Khalid at level 6, the rest at level 5. Ardenor Crush and Taugoz Khozann dropped like flies. Still have yet to run across the Blacktalon Elite here, but I encountered some in Larswood. My hero now has both points in Sword and Shield Style and is practically immune to Arrows of Ice, between the belt and his shield alone. HO-LEE CRAP.

And to think, I tore through several games on varying systems this year. :D

Pretty sure you could join bandits with Kivan in the original BG1.

Did they change it in EE? I know EE added a timed trigger to Kivan's quest for revenge so I would not be surprised if they made this change as well.

spoilers

in original you could take Kivan because the quest was buggy but the actual files where there

in the old NPC mod they changed the Kivan files to be about Shar-teel i.e, having her in your party made you fight

reguardless the 3 basic ways to enter the badit camp are;
1, just wander in = attacked on sight
2, recruited by Raiken or by Teven = questioned and perhaps fight... the answers are different
3, taken prisoner = fight or allowed to join



Tazok raped and killed his wife before you meet Kivan and EE adds that he has her ears around his neck from when they were prisoners... another old mod allows you to bring her back to life and join your party in hell which is easy to get working in EE because again the base files are there

p.s, the timmer was always there as well but didn't work before EE

Update #2: Took me about 3-4 nights, but as of Monday night, Chapter 4 is in the hat. That chapter's boss (trying to minimize spoilers since they can't be covered up on this board [which is idiotic], unlike others) also went down like a sack of manure, surprisingly, but I remember him having a considerable amount of backup. Originally, I remember needing to use a bit more strategy and a bit less brute force to take out. I like to utilize crowd control spells (Grease, Web, and Stinking Cloud from Dynaheir, Entangle from Jaheira) as well as AoE spells like Fireball and single-target spells like Magic Missile and Melf's Acid Arrow from Dynaheir. Only backup they had was a single Helmed Horror or something like that.

The backup was a hint of a challenge, but I don't know why this normal/medium difficulty seems so easy. I swear this version of the game is dumbed down, to some extent. I like some challenge, but not having it (close to) impossible. Granted, I've played this game a few times before, so it's not my first rodeo.

Either way, now I'm starting my favorite part of the game, which is due to the nifty items you get. :D

cool... say g'day to Scar

I did. He asked me to look into recent happenings, which I will after all else is said and done. ;)

Gotten a slew of nifty items so far, namely the Gauntlets of Ogre Power, which I gave to Khalid, and the Gauntlets of Weapon Skill, which I gave to Minsc. Planning on giving the Helm of Glory and the Nymph Cloak (so I can turn in Algernon's Cloak) to my hero, the Boots of Stealth to Imoen, and the Amulet of Metaspell Influence to Dynaheir. What I can give to Jaheira remains to be seen, but she's rather decked out ATM.

1) No, my hero is my tank. Not planning on the Claw of Kazgoroth. Also, he's going to have 18 Dex soon enough and Dynaheir is using the Dex gauntlets anyway. He's wearing the Helm of Glory ATM, so Balduran helmet is redundant for him. The cloak, maybe. Where'd you assume I was using Jaheira, for that matter?

2) Why bother kicking her? If my recent research from other people's posts on Reddit is correct, her items will transfer into a container and all, so it's not like everything gets messed up. And besides, I have yet to get a valid answer in my other thread as to how much of an issue traps and locks are in SoD. I also haven't heard if her levels and such in BG2EE would be affected. Are you ABSOLUTELY SURE about what you're telling me? As in you would bet your life savings on it?

1 because J has iron skins and you don't but thats not a deal killer... she is just the better tank
2 why = becaue she doesn't fight at the start of Sod
2 yes her items come in... apart from any bags not dropped on the floor
2 the issue with traps depends on your settings i.e, on easy you may get 1 goblin and a small trap but on Bhal you get 10 wizards and death traps + summons come in 5 levels bigger
2 no nothing carries into BG2 apart from a few listed items that you must carry at the end of Sod to count

1) I'm not sure what spell level that is in this game. I recall in IWD2 (which is 3rd Edition) was 4th level. Jaheira can only cast 3rd-level Druid spells ATM, and I am using her slots almost exclusively for healing (and one casting of Entangle for crowd control). Besides, my hero has -7 AC, so he doesn't take tons of damage already.
2) Well, I'm play I'm playing on normal/medium difficulty, so I don't know how bad that would be as far as traps, in that case.

With the caveat that I do not have Siege of Dragonspear, and so I transferred directly from the BG1EE "Final Save" after Sarevok into BG2EE Shadows of Amn, my experience was that the game would only permit the importing of "custom" characters (and the sidebar text agrees with that). Therefore, you cannot import Imoen into BG2EE at all. In BG2EE, you will meet a new creature, named Imoen, and configured according to the developer's default statistics. Nothing you did for your Imoen will benefit this new Imoen in any way. Therefore, there is no value to teaching her useful spells, to improving her level, or her skills, etc. Similar caveats apply to the other pre-placed companions.

Also, as ussnorway noted, your ability to import items into BG2EE is very limited. At the start of the game, your inventory will be inspected by a script and a few select items, if you have them, will be flagged to be found at various points in the game, and then your inventory is cleared. You will need to equip your BG2EE party using what you can scavenge or buy in Amn. None of your gold will transfer over. Most of your items are lost outright, and those that are not lost will need to be found at various places in BG2.
Iron Skins is a level 5 spell.

Druid spell progression allows memorizing level 5 spells at character level 9, which will come at experience 90,000. Since that is for a pure class Druid, and Jaheira is a Fighter/Druid multi-class, her experience is split between her Fighter and Druid classes, so she will need character experience of 180,000 to get her Druid class to 90,000.

A Druid gains 4th-level spells at level 7, so if your Jaheira can only do 3rd-level, she can be no higher than level 6. Assuming she is on the verge of reaching level 7, that would put her Druid experience no higher than 34999 (character experience of 69998), in which case the Druid experience of 90000 (character experience of 180000) is quite a ways off. She could be as low as level 5, with a Druid experience of as little as 12500 and still have one 3rd-level spell.

So I heard on Reddit. I played the original BG2 after beating the original BG1 before, so I knew how that went. It's just trying to find which items to take through to BG2EE from BG1 and SoD that concerns me. My intended SoA main party (barring side quests that require certain party members) is the following:
Hero
Minsc
Jaheira
Anomen (who will eventually pass his test)
Yoshimo (replaced from Chapter 4 onwards by Imoen)
Aerie (also my character's romance)

For ToB, I intend to replace Jaheira with Sarevok. This is what I made it through SoA and ToB (up until the final battle, where I got stuck) with when I originally played it. Still, SoD I have yet to play, so that is something I need more insight for, namely how important a Thief is on normal difficulty.

You are correct in that. Hence, no chance of Jaheira really tanking and my hero being my go-to tank. He's not invincible, but he's still a relatively tough nut to crack. Trying to see if I can get his AC down to -10 and from there focus on mitigating all types of physical damage somewhat (ie: slashing, piercing, missile and bludgeoning). Most (if not all) ordinary missile attacks don't seem to hurt him, so I can at least use him to draw fire from archers if possible. Since he's a Cavalier, he's also been able to tank creatures like Sirines who abuse Dire Charm to no effect on him. Made getting the Constitution tome out of that coastal cave a breeze.