Just a note - this would be considered "spoilers".

Anyway, on level 3 of the Silver Tower, you run into a female spirit who teleports in two Beholders and they are really nasty. After dying a couple of times, I went to the clue book to see if I was missing something I should be doing and it specifically said that you should save just before facing them because it will probably take you several attempts to defeat them. However, I also noticed that the far end of the room they're in contained a pedestal which would teleport the party away to continue on to the next step, so I decided to try to just run past the beholders and skip the whole fight.

Well, it worked, but did I miss out on anything (other than XP) by doing that? Even if I didn't miss out, I kind of feel like I cheated a bit - I never would have known that I could have skipped the whole encounter if I hadn't gone to the clue book to check on that fight.

Have you obtained a crystal hammer?

Going over the cluebook I'm not seeing anything else on this level that's vital elsewhere (though there's a couple of really sweet pieces of loot, such as a +3 shield and a +4 armour, to be found).

Yes, I have a crystal hammer, so I didn't miss out on that. I'm sure I'm probably fine skipping that battle - I'll miss out on experience, but ultimately it looks like the purpose of the fight is to be able to get to that pedestal and I was able to do that without engaging them.

OK, good to know. Thanks! It's a fun game, but getting to skip a beholder fight or two isn't a bad thing - they can be brutal!

Fun fact: you CAN come back to this level later, so if you forgot to get the green hammer, you still can (screw you, data card, for misleading players).

On the flying snakes level, one of the "Mouths" can re-open the door Dran closed behind you.

You can revisit everywhere on the level EXCEPT that 2 beholder area, obviously.