When does the Windspear Hills quest get harder?

Rumsedi

I remember if you do the Windspear Hills quest at a higher level some of the creatures are tougher (mainly Vamps and Golems I think). Does anyone know what level you need to be at for this to happen?

Viconia9

True. I have experienced some vampires, several orcs, and many other creatures (of the exploding kind) and a few beholders, not to mention Firekraag himself. I usually take it on as one of the last things before going to get Imoen. So that would be usually around level 12 for me. I'm not entirely sure when it decides to get really hard, but level 12 seems to be pretty percarious. Tread carefully!

Roach

I know I encountered vampires and golems around level 10-11. Maybe earlier now that I think about it.

Kesseran

If you really want to make it difficult you can stick the game in Nightmare Mode. It treats it like you have a full party of max lvl characters (meaning it spawns the rarest/hardest mobs in each area), makes the monsters hit like 4 times harder, they have close to 10x the hit points but give 10x the exp. Don't do it unless you have a very strong party or you will die.

Steps:
Go to your baldurs gate documents folder (standard is C:\Users\****\Documents\Baldur's Gate II - Enhanced Edition), open the Baldur.ini folder with notepad, near the bottom (or far right for older computers) should be an option that says "Nightmare mode '0'. Set that to "Nightmare Mode '1' and load up the game.

P.S This is bugged, as it also gives all the recruit-able characters the same stats as the monsters. The only fix for this (if you want to keep it classic) is to recruit them to your party and then remove/re-recruit them. This doesn't always work, but some people have said that recruiting them BEFORE setting Nightmare mode fixes it as long as you DO NOT remove/re-recruit them afterwards.

Edit: This also works for android users. The baldur.ini is at: Storage/Emulated/0/Android/Data/com.beamdog.baldursgateIIEnhancedEdition/files OR
Storage/ExtSdCard/Android/Data/com.beamdog.baldursgateIIEnhancedEdition/files if you have it installed to your sd card (won't be there if you have an unrooted device running android 4.4+)

Rumsedi

Thanks everyone. I'm doing a solo no reload challenge so Nightmare mode would probably be a step to far.

It's quite a high level I think, 18 or so? You get an adamantian Golem rather than an Iron one, and better Vampires (meAning more experience). Just can't remember quite when it happens.

Kesseran

Rumsedi said:

Thanks everyone. I'm doing a solo no reload challenge so Nightmare mode would probably be a step to far.

It's quite a high level I think, 18 or so? You get an adamantian Golem rather than an Iron one, and better Vampires (meAning more experience). Just can't remember quite when it happens.

That happens at level 16 for player character. The NPC's you recruit don't change the game outside of romance/extra quests.

Gallowglass

Kesseran said:

The NPC's you recruit don't change the game outside of romance/extra quests.

But also, the level of a newly-recruited NPC (at the time of joining) varies according to the average level of the rest of your party, not just the level of your protagonist. (This is contrary to what some guides and walkthroughs claim.)