Wow K, sounds like fun! lol. Nicely done man. I think I would probably fail miserably using the pre-generated party though it does sound like fun.

Alright I'm still in the Vale of Shadows and everything has been going smooth except for 2 things: I'm almost killed my mage when my gnome used his necklace of fireballs...lol. I also had to kill Oswald Fizzlebender...lol. I tried to pick-pocket him and I failed. So I had to drop him like a bad habit. Ah well. That's the fun thing about no-reloads.

Still no reload but character death 2,3 and 4 happened and this not in battle but by the great dwarven trap.
My paladin stepped on the outer circle and heard a click, then stepped on the middle circle, the absence of the middle click irritated me but I just send her forward to the inner symbol instead of retrying for the click.
A few seconds later my paladin, thief and bard were no more, slain by the lightnings and the other party members were severely damaged.
At least this confirmed my decision to have the cleric memorize "raise dead" as only level 5 spell and the two raise death scrolls I bought after the Dragon's Eye resting incident were brought to good use.

When my paladin reached level 9 I made a big mistake. I forgot that she was only proficient in large swords and specialized her in maces instead, now although pale justice is close she'll have to do the rest of Lower Dorn's Deep and the beginning of Burial Isle before she reaches level 12 (I hope I won't mess up this level up too) with the axe +4.

The lich was easy, the game lagged in the Hall of Heroes (maybe I should have saved, restarted the PC and reloaded) and my thief didn't even have to bring the urn into the right tomb (wouldn't have been difficult) for destroying it.

In Wyrm's Tooth trolls had to be fought, since my thief gets only one attack per round and often missed the snow trolls lying on the ground with his flaming long sword +2 because of bad thac0 it took a few seconds longer to finish them, but they weren't dangerous.

When my party tried to enter Lower Dorn's Deep the game crashed, after the second failed attempt I rebooted the PC and reinstalled the UK fix (the pre-owned version I bought on ebay turned out to be the UK version with the corrupted disc), now it works again.

I rushed to chapter 6 to get Dirty Llew and Nym start making and enchant the rhino beetle shield for my druid, in my previous games before the 20 days were over, but I don't want to start Burial Isle and the other expansion areas with only a buckler in my druid's left hand.

With hardly any spells left my party fought their way to the well, the fire salamanders weren't difficult but the hard hitting tarnished sentries with their damage resistance were a pain for my party (even two summoned water elementals didn't last more than a few seconds) although I was able to lure them away and fight them one by one.
Down the well it turned out that you can't find the hidden city of gnomes without doing a quest for them first, but my party definitely doesn't feel strong enough to invade the thieves' domain without resting first.
Maybe that's a good thing considering how the few umber hulks I found there managed to confuse my party.

So I decided to do a few rewarding things which don't involve fighting in chapter 5 and rest afterwards. I tricked Kerish into giving me the key to free the slaves and got the engineering manual to repair the bridge.

I wondered why the slaves just gathered in front of the exit instead of leaving, when I got out I knew why. I didn't expect the ambushing trolls and salamanders, this was the first time in the game the winter wolf form proved useful. I first transformed the injured druid into polar bear form too late, he was too injured to continue fighting for long, so in the next round he became a winter wolf and ran away, 3 monsters chasing after him so the rest of the party could finish off the others.

Epic K! Who would you say is the most worthless of your group? I don't mean entirely worthless, just mostly...lol. For me its been my single class mage. I guess that will change once she learns some more spells. Ok, my update:

My group finally made it to Kresselack's Tomb. Here's a quick glance so far at each character...

-My Gnome Fighter/Mage finally got blur and mirror image so I was able to start tanking with him a bit and it works great. Your right K, mirror image in this game isn't as cheesy as in BG. But overall it worked nicely. Hoping to get him some elven chain at some point.

-My Cleric got her Ranger levels back. 3rd really is a nice level to dual in my opinion. Getting to level 4 in your new class is fast so you don't have to wait long. She's been my primary tank and one of my main damage dealers. She's using a single mace+1 or crooked flail for the extra attack. With the Vale of Shadows being so full of undead, she cut through their ranks like butter. Really enjoying her.

My 3rd character is my fighter/thief. He's been basically just using a composite longbow and has been just devastating from afar. Since his backstab multiplier has only been x2, I've only really used backstab effectively twice: Against Mytos and Murkel's Sending. I'll try to use it more later as my multiplier goes up. But he's been a beast with the bow. Has the most kills of my party.

My soon-to-be druid is a level 5 fighter currently. Following master K's advice, I'm going to dual her over at level 7. So right now she's just using a scimitar/shield and sling. Good tank and damage dealer for the party.

Okay, my single class mage. So far hasn't done that much simply because she doesn't know a ton of spells. I'm hoping she will get better cause she hasn't been too effective yet.

Alright, Kresselack's Tomb has been a breeze up until the 3rd level. In one of the side rooms, my ranger/cleric tripped a trap that my thief somehow missed. It nearly killed her and I had to pull her back. I didn't expect this happen so I didn't really buff much cause up till now I've been tanking with her while the rest of the group uses ranged weapons and this has been working fantastic. So I quickly had Beanbag(my gnome) cast Blur and Mirror Image on himself and wade into the fray along with my Fighter. The room was full of mummies and ghasts who are just nasty at this level. The enemies eventually pummeled through my Gnome's illusions and damaged him pretty bad so I had to pull him back. So it was up to my fighter, my thief, and my, mostly worthless, mage. Luckily we sent the undead back to their graves...barely.
The other close encounter was the room right before you meet Kresselack where you have all those skeleton archers, and skeleton mage along with the armored looking dudes. I can't remember what they're called. Once again, I haven't played in a while and I thought this room was Kresselack so I was surprised AGAIN!!! I pulled back and had my mage quickly cast grease which slowed down the impending onslaught as those juggernaut undead came piling towards us. I sent my ranger/cleric up there and she had to go through 5 potions of healing. With a combination of magic missles and melf's acid arrows, we finally won though it was a close call. Everybody was hurt pretty bad except for my cowering mage. I need to be more careful, even at this level...lol. Lesson learned. Well I just talked with Kresselack and now I have to go and kill the priestess of Auril. Destiny awaits!

EDIT: Priestess was taken out by a backstab! Party heads back to Kuldahar for some brew hahas.

Hey K, what do you suggest for a party of single classes? It does sound like a fun and I may try it later on. The only difference is I will definitely try to optimized their stats. What single class would you say performs poorly regardless of stats? The thief? I was just reading from your post that his THACO isn't too good. Anyways, just curious.

For a single class party of 6 I'd suggest paladin/fighter/ranger, druid, cleric, bard, thief, illusionist.

My mage is ok, but more spells per day would be more fun, therefore I'd prefer an illusionist.

Playing without someone to handle traps is annoying, so a thief must be in the party for me. I used him mainly as archer, he's the only one proficient with bows in the party. It's a pity that he can't use something better than shortbow+1 before TotL.
He never tried backstabbing (so I guess there's a lot of unused potential left) and only meleed if the monsters were immune to normal arrows or just too weak to bother so I enabled 3E sneak attacks, it was nice getting a crippling strike message sometimes even without trying.

The bard is fantastic with her songs, especially the level 11 one which eliminates the need for healing spells.

The druid has powerful offensive spells like sunscorch (instant disabling spell which nearly always worked) or static charge and the cleric is nice for tanking in heavy armor, buffing, healing and summoning undead.

Is a pure thief's THACO adequate enough you think? Or is it so bad that by towards the middle and end of the game you won't hit jack squat.

I think the thac0 will be sufficient. A level 21 thief with 2,420,000 XP has the same base thac0 as a level 11 fighter, with the same XP you have a fighter12/thief15 who doesn't have much better base thac0.

Yea K, that's basically the issue with my mage...not many spells. Maybe I should've gone with a specialty mage. What's consider the best specialty or does such a thing even exist?

DRAGON'S EYE: Alright there's a fight here as soon as you enter. Overall not too serious but I forgot to buff again and everyone took a bit of a pounding. After the dust settled, my gang decided to rest before exploring this dangerous network of caves. I sent my Fighter/Thief south to explore a bit and had him take out spiders, boring beetles, and lizard men that weren't wandering around. He basically just backstabbed everything. Thankfully these groups didn't automatically go in search of the rest of my party once my thief restealthed. Okay, it was time to clear out the lizard king. I once again used my thief to clear out some of their ranks around the bridge and prisoner area. Alright, I was ready to assault the Lizard King's chamber.
Again I used my thief to backstab and take out his shamans. I was using oil of speed to quickly get away and restealth. They didn't follow. I was starting to think that I would be able to clear out this whole group with just my thief. I went back in and backstabbed the Lizard King. All of sudden he gathered what was left of his troops and made a B-line to the rest of my party. I was ready this time! I had my druid in boring beetle form for the damage resistance. She was in the front ready to tank. My Gnome was next to her blurred with his mirror images up. Ranger/Cleric was right there as well with my mage taking up the rear. A huge group of them came forward with the Lizard King leading the way. He intercepted my boring beetle druid and my thief swooped in and WHAM!

http://i1084.photobucket.com/albums/j414/cbarchuk/Icewind%20Dale/iwind011.jpg

After he fell we mopped up the remaining stragglers. A lot of fun. I forgot how cool of a game Icewind Dale is.

Cheers

Retreated my party outside for resting and didn't get interrupted. My mage didn't memorize his spells(the otheres did), I guess that's because I paused the game while resting (it'S very useful when getting interrupted) and gave new commands immediately afterwards while the game was still paused.

The party fought their way to Marketh's domain and killed a few backstabbing thieves on their way. Detect invisibility makes them visible again, but it's hardly worth bothering. Casting is slow and they don't do much damage anyway.
My bard told the guy who drew the portrait of Marketh that he's skilled so he dropped his gear (including the 19 str girdle) and left to become an artist, the other one was no problem since I was prepared for battling this heavily armored guy.
After looting this level (including potatoes from the kitchen) I decided to leave instead of going up the stairs, I wanted to bring Ginafae the cure from Malavon's lair before killing Marketh since she didn't accept the cure afterwards in my last game.

I gave the potatoes to the gnomes down the well and was told the way to their city. I should have rested and to get at least the saving throw buffs from protection from evil and the emotion spells and more undead summons for support, but I decided to move on (which had caused 2 character deaths in my previous game). At least I could cast one animate dead and bless spell before getting there, luckily I also got a successful casting of chant and chromatic orb at the start of the battle, afterwards my characters were confused almost all the time. How lucky I was to survive without casualties I realized when my bard used the bardic horn of Valhalla in a non-confused moment and the four berserkers were slain within seconds.

In the hidden city I was pleasantly surprised that Dirty Llew offered to make a rhino beetle shield from the shell for only 5,000 gp (I didn't have much more gold) within 3 days.

My party moved on to the frost giant cave where they looted the containers, killed the flying things and started to clear the cave in the NE for the slaves.
I remembered how difficult the aurilite and her black ice knights were so I decided to rest and buff before fighting them. But after resting and summoning I stepped too close so I had to face them unbuffed. The caster was killed fast and most knights were kept busy by summons so I thought I could just kill them without bothering to invest more, stupid me didn't even replace the mage dagger with a weapon the mage was proficient in.
But those knights did hardly take any damage from physical combat so I ended up wasting valuable spells and other resources and having the characters run away most of the time to avoid getting killed. Healing potions and even a charge of the wand of heavens were used, resources worth about 1,000 gp total, how much time I have wasted with inventory management earlier in the game to pick up and sell loot which was less valuable.
If those ice knights hadn't be vulnerable to magic (although they have good saving throws), especially to fire based spells, I think I wouldn't have defeated them without character deaths.
During some time of the battle my druid used the boring beetle form because of the slashing resistance, if he had gotten the random item called bone marrow belt for extra resistance in the Severed Hand he could have soloed them easily.

Killing the frost giants in the cave and the salamanders in the ice aquarium afterwards was a breeze, my party went to the Severed Hand for selling stuff and and is now on the way back with about 180,000 instead of almost no GP, my party is looking forward to buying better equipment in the deep gnome city.

I finally gave the potion of strength transference I found in the Severed Hand to the mage, so now he has 10 instead of 11 str and 18 instead of 17 dex. It might have been more useful for the paladin who's going to wear the 19 str girdle of Stromnos for the rest of the game, but 18 natural strength for a warrior would have felt wrong.

Wow! Sounds like some pretty difficult fighting K. Man I'll bet you sweating bullets when your characters were confused. I hate when that happens...lol. Nicely done man.

QUICK UPDATE: I just started the 2nd level of Dragon's eye. Before I get into that let my just apologize for all of my typos. I really need to proofread what I write. I will try to be more on top of that. Alright here we go...

Like I said I just started the 2nd level and I've done two major sections that I wanted to describe. The first is that far right section where the boring beetles are. I normally hate these guys cause their AoE casts hold person and I absolutely hate hold person. What I did was have my cleric cast a few animate undead before hand. Had my thief, with a ring of free action, go in and backstab one of the little buggers to aggro the rest towards my party. He quickly did a 360 and led the little bug army towards my party. I had my mage cast grease and it worked. My undead army and my party used to ranged attacks to bring down the swarm of beetles. I basically rinsed and repeated this till I got to that body that has the Sword of Confusion and Defender Axe. Nice items by the way.
The next fight I did was in that temple area full of trolls and Talonite Priests. I almost lost two party members...yikes. It was quite a scare. This is how it went down:
There's a narrow passage just north of the temple chamber. I positioned my party just north of that and once again had my cleric cast 3 animate dead spells along with a few party buffs. I sent my thief in and backstabbed one of the clerics to pieces and then immediately hit my stealth button. In IWD1, you can restealth right in front of enemies. I'm sure its a bug but hey, I'm not complaining. He was able to restealth after several seconds. The swarm of priests and trolls went north towards my party. I had my druid cast spike growth into the narrow passage along with cloudburst which is just devastating. Druids really kick ass in this game in my opinion. The remaining trolls went after my undead army while my thief came from behind and backstabbed another priest. If you can believe it, the bad guys broke through my ranks. My animate dead spell is still the weaker version. My thief came up again to backstab. This time he got caught in a corner with 3 trolls who were just beating the daylights out of him. Luckily his sword of confusion helped him out...well...I think it did cause 2 of them were confused. My ranger/cleric ran up to tank along with my druid who changed back into boring beetle form. I think there were about 3 or so trolls left and they were all attacking my cleric and brought her down to about 3 HP. My thief got brought down to 1HP! I had my mage quickly cast horror on the group that was on my thief hoping that I could wiggle him from the certain doom that he was moments away from. He got out and I had him run like the wind blows and switch to his bow. I also had to bring back my cleric who was hurt bad. The trolls really wanted the cleric bad and kept chasing her. They were completely ignoring my beetle druid. A few more desperate turns later, I was able to finally down them. Very close fight. Overall I thought I did just about everything right but man it was tough. We freed Sheemish and then rested. Very entertaining I must say but I have this bad feeling I won't be able to finish the no-reload. Having too many close calls and I've barely started...lol. Oh well.

Actually, cbarchuk, it sounds like you're doing great. Your tactics in that fight with the trolls and Talonites were pretty solid - those Druid spells rock. The only thing I'd suggest is to make use of potions for big fights like that. Something like the Potion of Mind Focusing, which gives you +3 DEX (to boost your AC and your ranged THAC0), potions of giant STR (more damage and boosted melee THAC0), potion of Invulnerability, etc. These can all make a huge difference. As well, try out some buffing spells from your Cleric such as Protection from Evil, etc.

Keep on rolling though, you sound like you're doing great and having fun.

*edit* Oh, and another spell to toss into the mix is Web. That along with Grease and Spike Growth is one deadly brew.

Oh, and sorry. Upon re-reading, I see you were using party buffs. Carry on!

Alrighty, I figured I would try this out before deciding if I want to make a Minimal Reload Challenge for IWD and IWDII. So, I have IWD with HoW+TotLM.

Mods:
IWD Fixpack
IWD NPC (None are in use though.)
Improved BAMs
IWD Improvements
IWD UB
IWD Tweaks
Item Upgrade
Full Plate and Packing Steel
1PP IWD Fixes
1PP High Quality Music for IWD HoW/TotLM

If any of these mods aren't good I'll try to take them out and start back from the beginning.

Charaters:
Atalaya Brightstar - Elf Diviner -Lawful Good
Stats: Str: 12 Dex: 12 Con: 12 Int: 18 Wis: 18 Cha: 12
Weapon Proficiency: * Missile Weapons
Spells: Sleep, Identify, and Shield
Memorized Spells: Sleep and Idenitify
http://i1111.photobucket.com/albums/h463/HolyLight101/Icewind%20Dale/iwind000.jpg


Akiel Blackheart - Elf Fighter/Thief - Lawful Evil
Stats: Str: 18/52 Dex: 20 Con: 17 Int: 10 Wis: 8 Cha: 8
Weapon Proficiencies: ** Large Swords, ** Small Swords
Thief Skills: Open Locks 50%, Move Silently 38%, Find Traps 30%, Pick Pocket 40%
http://i1111.photobucket.com/albums/h463/HolyLight101/Icewind%20Dale/iwind001.jpg
I think the reason his Dex is so high is because of the IWD Improvements mod.

Kalyinara Syriana - Half-Elf Cleric/Ranger - Chaotic Good
Stats: Str: 18/22 Dex: 18 Con: 16 Int: 10 Wis: 18 Cha: 6
Weapon Proficiencies: ** Missile Weapons, ** Maces
Racial Enemy: Spectral Undead
Memorized Priest Spells: Bless, Light Cure Wounds, and Remove Fear
http://i1111.photobucket.com/albums/h463/HolyLight101/Icewind%20Dale/iwind002.jpg

Soren Syriana - Half-Elf Fighter/Cleric - Lawful Good
Stats: Str: 18/32 Dex: 16 Con: 16 Int: 10 Wis: 18 Cha: 6
Weapon Proficiencies: ** Hammers, ** Maces
Memorized Priest Spells: Command, Magical Stone, and Sanctuary
http://i1111.photobucket.com/albums/h463/HolyLight101/Icewind%20Dale/iwind003.jpg

Analethene the Wise - Human Druid - True Neutral
Stats: Str: 16 Dex: 10 Con: 14 Int: 10 Wis: 18 Cha: 15
Weapon Proficiencies: * Clubs, * Missile Weapons
Memorized Priest Spells: Sunscorch, Entangle, and Shillelagh
http://i1111.photobucket.com/albums/h463/HolyLight101/Icewind%20Dale/iwind004.jpg
She is probably going to stay a druid for most of the game. Also, I couldn't think of a last name for her. Probably a good thing too.

Aiko Sykora - Human Thief - Lawful Evil
Stats: Str: 10 Dex: 18 Con: 14 Int: 18 Wis: 10 Cha: 9
Weapon Proficiencies: * Bows, * Small Swords
Thief Skills: Open Locks 30%, Move Silently 20%, Find Traps 10%, Pick Pockets 50%
http://i1111.photobucket.com/albums/h463/HolyLight101/Icewind%20Dale/iwind005.jpg
Shes probably gonna dual to mage at level 7 or 8.

Note: I'll try to tell this in a story format because I like to type out stories sometimes. I'll also try to remember to add tactics into it. To everyone else, good luck and have fun!

Edit: Bah, it doesn't do thumbnails, so I made them into direct links instead. Yay.

Alrighty, not going to do a story for this...Yay for mind changing. Also, its kind of interesting to do this. Haha.

Alright, the group talked to Hrothgar, and got some gear. They did some quests around Easthaven. A boy said that some mosters stole his fish. So the group attacked the group of goblins. Sleep, command and entangle were used to keep the goblins under control until they were killed.

At the enterance to the cave, there were three wolves, so the group used Sleep, Command and Entangle again. Until the wolves were beaten into submission.

Inside the cave, there were many fights with the same outcome. Until there was a fight with an ogre. Used Bless to buff the party, and used sleep and command, but not entangle because I unmemorized that spell on Analethene because I remembered why I didn't like it..Haha. The ogre, and his orc buddies were killed. Then retrurned to Hrothgar and did some more quests. Then, the group left for Kuldahar.

While in the pass, the group fought many goblins. Used command and sleep again. Until inside the the house where Atalaya was killed by a goblin. Then, the group rushed to Kuldahar, but in the end it wasn't fast enough because when two yetis showed up, they ended up killing Soren.

After getting Soren and Atalaya resurrected. The group spoke with the Archdruid Arundel, and was told to go investigate the Vale of Shadows.

Atalaya - Diviner - 1
Akiel - Fighter/Thief - 1/1
Soren - Fighter/Cleric - 1/1
Kalyinara - Cleric/Ranger - 1/1
Analethene - Druid - 2
Aiko - Thief - 2

After returning from the Severed Hand the party used their new wealth to buy a violin for the bard, an umber hulk plate for the druid, a shield for the paladin and the mage scrolls Nym had to offer and gave the rhino beetle shield to him for enchanting.

The next foe on the list was maiden Illmadia, I didn't risk talking to her and started the battle by attacking one of her giants instead. When she came running my forces concentrated on her (I knew how dangerous she was from prebvious playthroughs) , I don't know if they ever hit her with weapons, she was killed by dissipating static charges from my druid. The remaining fire giants were a little harder than I remembered, but no problem.

I was looking forward to get one of the 3 attacks/round crossbow for my bard from the loot there, but I drew the blank, only the 2 attacks/round crossbow for which I still have to raise her strength to 18 for equipping.

Afterwards they killed the archers in the tower, trying to disable or force them into melee as fast as possible. They only shot 11 of their 190 arrows, leaving 179 arrows of piercing for my party to loot. The cleric got the full plate +1 which I consider the best heavy armor in the game, bathed in blood looks better however, so my paladin might wear it until the end of the game.

After a trip to the Severed Hand for selling more stuff and a teleport back the rhino beetle shield enchantment was finished, after a rest my party was ready to take on Malavon.
The party waited outside the fog caused by the iron golems. The clone was shot within seconds, thanks to the buffs no one got confused, the iron golems and umber hulks came into melee range and got destroyed. When the real Malavon appeared somewhere everyone in the party attacked him with melee weapons, after a few teleports he was killed.

Since the emotion spells, protection from evil, fire resistance and static charges were still active I spontaneously decided to delay looting and run to get the next badge instead, fighting the idol.
The skeletons which attacked upon entering were were defeated quickly. When the first greater mummies and zombie lords came into view in the east I sent the paladin using pale justice (although he still isn't specialized in large swords) running forward, hoping that only she was targeted by the spells, I guess with protection from fire, immunity to symbol of hopelessness and her extremely low AC she could have lasted for an eternity while the mummies kill themself with flamestrikes.
But more cadaverous undead appeared from the north, targeting the other party members with their spells. The druid got hopeless, so I had to hurry to destroy the idol to end the battle.

After waiting for the druid to shrug off the symbol of hopelessness the party plundered Malavon's lair and hurried to Marketh's domain to bring Ginafae the oil of null effect. She refused to accept it since she wanted to stay with Marketh, so I had to visit the second level first.
After killing a few thieves (it's fun if a thief coming from shadows gets zapped by static charge before he can attack) the party met Marketh and I made a big mistake. In my greed for XP I told him that I promised his sister to let him go hoping that I'd get the option to force him to leave his equipment behind, but he disappeared, leaving only the badge behind.
As reward I got lousy 80,000 XP from Ginafae, a bad bargain, for killing Marketh I would have gotten combat XP, the by far best druid weapon in the game, a better armor for my thief and other loot.
I got surprised by the kraken society mage afterwards (without HoW installed he doesn't appear) but he got killed fast, he managed to confuse my priest however, so I had to wait annoyingly long for her to get normal again.

After placing the 6 badges to open the stairs and using the seeds found in Malavon's lair for restoring the Severed Hand arboretum they had done everything they could before starting the endgame.

After 76 days and 9 hours the party ( XP range from 1,046,544 to 1,047,947) has now entered Hjollder's hut in Kuldahar, ready to help the people of Lonelywood.