Currently I'm at level 9-10 and have no intention to enter Watcher's Keep. I also heard that if you enter the Keep at lower level some of the more difficult monsters won't show up. So I'm wondering what is the lowest level to spawn ALL monsters? Thanks!

Also, may I ask if there is any website listing all the experience you can get from the game? For example you gain XXXX exp by finishing this quest.

I'd kinda like to know the answer to this question too...

And hopefully OP won't mind if I'd like to add an aside to the question.

At what stage will going there make most sense from a Role-play perspective? I have just made it out of the Underdark and I find myself pretty close to the Keep, but I don't wanna metagame it and explore only specific areas that my party (around level 13) can handle. So is there a natural point when it was intended that you explore the Keep? Where perhaps somebody in Athkatla tells you to go there like Ulgoth's Beard and Durlag's Tower?

I think from the designer's perspective they expected you to enter after emerging victoriously from the first major encounter with another Bhaalspawn in ToB as you cannot leave the battle ground before that.

Number one: you will not get in if your level is too low. The warder will say that you are not ready, and refuse to accept your 'help'.

Number two: you are going to need every trick you can muster to get all of the way through -- you can come back once you have cleared each level, but the sense of achievement in doing it all at once is much greater. That means coming back when you feel you can face 'anything'! My strategy is never to go in before chapter 6, when Imoen usually re-joins my team -- you need a better thief than Nalia, and Yoshimo is a non-option at that point. That leaves only Jan, who I do not like, and his stats are inferior to Imoen's. By chapter 6 you should be of a sufficient level to spawn everything there is, assuming you have accrued enough XP from completing other quests.

Lastly, there are tons of guides and walkthroughs out there, but I don't know of a site that tabulates experience for it's own sake.

Thanks!

DSimpson's FAQ can tell you pretty much anything you want to know about any given quest/area in the game; you can find it on Gamefaqs.

Watcher's Keep was a ToB addition so if you go by that you should do it after SoA. RP-wise it makes more sense too, since after rescuing Imoen it would be kinda odd to take a break from reclaiming your soul (which supposedly have limited time to do) and go for the scenic route all of a sudden.
If it was possible to do it before meeting Illasera would make the most sense, you have taken care of anything that you know of, but you can't.
Note: There is a tweak that allows to, I don't like that much though since you don't have a base by then (for stored items) and you can't change party members. And in case you are starting a new ToB game good luck soloing WK with the default gear. :D

Personally I find it more convenient to visit it after fighting Gromnir, but it still doesn't make too much sense to leave a besieged Saradush ready to fall for the noble quest of treasure hunting. On that regard bioware did a really poor job of integrating WK to the game. It's too much of a bonus super-dungeon and they don't care to hide it. Oh well... the whole of ToB is the weakest part of the saga story -wise, so focus on fights and it's a blast.

I refuse to play ToB after my first two 'experiences' with it, and it's atrociously abysmal 'writing', if it can even be classified as that!

Well, it is rather weak, but.for all it's shortcomings BG saga was consistent enough to be considered enjoyable. From that point on though Bioware has steadily declined in quality with every new game they made. For me DA2 was the point where I would claim atrociously abysmal writing and even that has a few ok moments. Or at least not cringe inducing.

The only good thing out of ToB is Watcher's Keep and it's a pity that in NWN/NWN2 there is no such splendid dungeon. ToB as a whole is more like high-level IWD...which I despise.

My beef with ToB was the dialog rather than story/plotline. The dialog in ToB is puke-inducing. I mean, the player has just been slammed into a city siege (Saradush), just met some creepy woman professing to be the 'saviour' of all Bhaalspawn, and dialog choices go somewhere along the lines of:

[Mellisan]
* "But Gromnir is mad. He has barricaded himself in the castle throne room, and his troops run amok through the town with no regard for the lives and rights of the citizens of Saradush."

[Player]
* "Such a betrayal is worthy of death!"
* "I should break down the castle walls and slay this Gromnir for his cowardice!"
* "I like this Gromnir's style!"

I mean... please! *puke!*

I don't understand why DA is called the spiritual son of BG as I believe they have no common... I played a few hours of DA and finally realized that those games are more hybrid and more "modern", which is equivalent to "worse". Every major title made after the year 2000 seems to be infected with this disease. For example I'm a huge fan of FPS games but there are few modern FPS games that I find worth playing. NWN series were released after 2000 but they are the sole RPG games that I find interesting (although still not as interesting as BG, but the toolset is a huge improvement over BG series).

I feel the biggest factors to consider are whether you want to use Imoen or Sarevok. If you intend for one or the other to be in your party, then completing the Watcher's Keep before you recruit them means they will lag behind the other party members by a very significant margin. This goes double if you intend to dual-class Sarevok (the only way to get a Fighter/Mage or Fighter/Thief NPC) since he just won't have enough XP to catch up to the party without the adventuring detour of the Watcher's Keep.

Unfortunately, waiting to the start of ToB can be rather late


Shoe-horned conversation paths are sadly quite common throughout the genre.

Baldur's Gate 2 avoided a lot of this by forcing conflict. Irenicus was out to get you, and was an enemy whether you liked it or not, so the only motivation it needed to force on you was the "get into spellhold" part. Few other games manage to string themselves together so flawlessly.

lol thanks for the laugh. You are right, in ToB the problem is more pronounced than the rest of the trilogy. Personally I'm enjoying the high level battles enough to look the other way on the matter.
Truth be told though the best of both worlds, combat and dialog/story, is seen on the SoA portion, so it's quite understandable for someone to completely skip the last part.

I agree. I only mentioned DA 2 as a Bioware game on regard of its writing quality. I was tempted to say ME3, but the latter has many more tolerable moments than DA2.