The Fighter standing at the edge of Web's AoE is literally just standing there until an enemy breaks free of web and only then does it start moving.
And how is it inefficient? It guarantees only archers get a shot at the Fighter. Anything melee can never ever hit the Fighter.
and are not applicable to all environments (such as running around a web area to lure enemies into changing direction, too).
Which becomes irrelevant once the pass is cleared and a Fighter>Cleric gets Animate Dead and Web is dropped on top of summons who stay in the middle of it.
Not forgetting that a single Sorcerer can only cast a few Grease/Web.
And this matters how? Resting takes a few seconds to do and the Sorcerer has full casts of Grease and Web again. Since it's the early game most buffs only last as long as a single combat so there's no drawback to resting. The party will need to rebuff after combat anyway.
The in-game days taken has literally no effect on anything that matters. So how exactly is that a consideration for a powergaming party? If a party takes 1 day to go through a dungeon or 10,000, nothing changes.
Waiting for the less capable ranged attackers in the party to do small amounts of damage while running in circles. Clearly one doesn't want to apply such "tactics" often and is happy about the first spells that add real power.
The Fighter standing at the edge of Web's AoE is literally just standing there until an enemy breaks free of web and only then does it start moving.
QED ... That matches my definition of the bodyguards I refer to.
At Dragon's Eye the Kensai did not do much else than waiting. Or to speed up the killing at the front. Or to eliminate key enemies in special situations. ... I can't wait to dual-class that thing!
Resting takes a few seconds to do and the Sorcerer has full casts of Grease and Web again. Since it's the early game most buffs only last as long as a single combat so there's no drawback to resting. The party will need to rebuff after combat anyway.
A party that doesn't need to rest so often is more powerful.
It wouldn't surprise me if even another player joined the fun and added comments to disagree with you by referring to a completely different party.
Good thing then that Archers output good damage in the mid game.
Also how is the Archer not a caster? It's got Spike Growth which is really the only offensive Druid spell worth casting. Armor of Faith, Iron Skin (which it has) and the regen buff are irrelevant for a character that stays in missile range.
Also 20% difference overall? Wow so your party deals 20% more damage at the start of the game... oh wait it doesn't. How about in chapter 1... wait nope.
Prologue is not difficult or long and only needs very basic qualities to complete with ease.
And the mid end game is even less difficult and picking and casting the correct buffs is even a simpler task.
I just don't understand the reasoning.
Cloudkill, early Emotion Buffs, etc.
Archers don't even get their full +1 damage/3 levels and they miss out on strength bonuses to damage.
Doesn't interfere with Spike Growth in Chapter 1. Doesn't interfere with Spike Growth and Cloudkill afterwards.
Now, I'm sure you'll rationalise away the minor amount of additional hits
Just as you rationalize the time it takes for a Kensai/Mage to get to 10 APR is nonexistent. Or somehow try to imply that, save for a few battles, the mid and end game aren't even more mindless than the early game.
But hey dealing the most damage in the part of the game where everything is just move characters, watch characters kill stuff is fun. Making the easier part of the game even easier at the cost of the part with some actual chance at triggering a game over isn't powergaming.
Yes but power gaming is about beating the whole game efficiently. You make big sacrifices to your overall potential to speed up the very short prologue and slightly longer but still short chapter 1. Then you do the rest of the game 20% slower. Which you've acknowledged so thank you, I certainly know that I had no aspirations of actually getting through to you and I doubt anyone else had any hope that I would either.
I really don't know why you find the early game so challenging anyway, in the hardest fights it's always possible to "advance to the rear" to regroup and there's no particularly challenging enemies that can't be taken care of with chromatic orb, hold or charm.
Except I only use "bodyguards" when there's literally no way for me to summon anything.
It's a tactic that becomes obsolete the moment any character gets a summon spell. Which is something that happens long before Dragon's Eye.
Oh and the Fighter standing by the edge of the AoE is still using a ranged weapon until an enemy comes close enough to it. Instead of standing there with a melee weapon hitting nothing.
There's no penalty for resting in the early game, there's no point constructing a party that doesn't need to rest when most buffs run out by the end of combat
20% slower on battles that are won by simply watching the screen nd the game automatically hands over a win? lol
Also challenging? I said the prologue battles are the only ones in the game (save for a few ) where the game actually has a chance of killing a character off. The battles later on (particularly the end game) simply do not have any shot at killing a character even when all the player does is sit back and watch characters auto attack everything to death. So yes focusing on the battles in the game where there's some semblance of difficulty.
It's pretty pointless to increase the efficiency of a party of Fighter/Spellcasters when they have buffs and weapons since practically any configuration of this setup that isn't completely idiotic will win with minimal effort at that point
Except I only use "bodyguards" when there's literally no way for me to summon anything.
It's a tactic that becomes obsolete the moment any character gets a summon spell. Which is something that happens long before Dragon's Eye.
Oh and the Fighter standing by the edge of the AoE is still using a ranged weapon until an enemy comes close enough to it. Instead of standing there with a melee weapon hitting nothing.
There's no penalty for resting in the early game, there's no point constructing a party that doesn't need to rest when most buffs run out by the end of combat
20% slower on battles that are won by simply watching the screen nd the game automatically hands over a win? lol
Also challenging? I said the prologue battles are the only ones in the game (save for a few ) where the game actually has a chance of killing a character off. The battles later on (particularly the end game) simply do not have any shot at killing a character even when all the player does is sit back and watch characters auto attack everything to death. So yes focusing on the battles in the game where there's some semblance of difficulty.
It's pretty pointless to increase the efficiency of a party of Fighter/Spellcasters when they have buffs and weapons since practically any configuration of this setup that isn't completely idiotic will win with minimal effort at that point
Is this just copy pasted? I swear that you've said all of this garbage before.
Oh and the Fighter standing by the edge of the AoE is still using a ranged weapon until an enemy comes close enough to it. Instead of standing there with a melee weapon hitting nothing.
It is a really inefficient way to discuss all that if you're jumping forth and back between a single fight (or a few) during the prologue and later. During the prologue it's okay to have others help the ranged fighter. It's okay for spell casters to equip a sling and target enemies ... provided they are not archers that are not webbed.
Just as copy pasted as you repeating stuff about Sorcerers dealing less damage than a Fighter in a portion of a game where most battles just revolve around finding enemies and having Fighters auto attack?
This particular exception only lasts until the party is capable of summoning. After that it's inefficient to have body guards that aren't the summons.
I'm really enjoying how my tactics are evolving as new abilities and options are becoming available. With web and the 2 Fom rings I'm enjoying splitting the enemy up and letting the berserker tank one group while the kensei's play in a web. Ideally the 2 groups overlap slightly so half of the berserkers mob are in the web area.
It's especially interesting to note how quickly ranged weapons are falling behind. Even in the prologue there wasn't much difference and now the kensei's are leaps ahead of the archers kill score. I can't help but think that at even these early stages of the game that ranged combat is inefficient due to the damage disparity and length of fights, I mean by level 6 my kensei is doing 14-21 damage at 5/2 APR (which is about 50 damage/round during Kai, ranged does not compete).
How long does Kai last again? And how many uses of it does a level 9 Kensai get per rest?
My kensei's have only just hit level 7 as I didn't want to game to be a cakewalk with the insane xp.
At level 7 they get two uses of max damage which lets them do something like 100 damage/round for over 3 rounds. Ranged damage and spike traps really aren't efficient compared to that and this is at the point in the game where ranged combat is supposed to have such a huge advantage and yet all I can think is that ranged is woefully inefficient even now.
So how exactly does a Level 7 Kensai do 33 damage per attack?
Also 300 damage? When enemies in HoF have at least 100 HP. That's pretty a insignificant bump, the character goes back to average damage after 3 rounds.
So how exactly does a Level 7 Kensai do 33 damage per attack?
Also 300 damage? When enemies in HoF have at least 100 HP. That's pretty a insignificant bump, the character goes back to average damage after 3 rounds.
25 per attack, 4 attacks with haste. 300 damage means on 100 hp enemies means 3 dead enemies in 3 rounds, 6 with 2 kensei, which can be an entire encounter.
Afterwards the kensei go back to doing 86 round with haste or 64.5 without haste which is just so much more than your zerkers do with their ranged weapons.
Last I checked there weren't just 6 enemies in the tombs.
Also after 3 rounds of Spike Trap layering that's 72 damage per round. 96 on the next round. Which'll last for 6 rounds. And that's with 6 enemies, that'll deal more damage with more enemies.
Not meaning to disturb this extended ... uhm ... "discussion" but news from my party:
Still happy with it ... just cleared Marketh's Palace. The Kensai 13 has become a Mage 13 and is only roughly 100,000 XP short of reactivating the primary class. That will be late fun ... no, haven't talk to Hjollder. Been using the Kensai's Mage skills only a bit for raising a few undead here and there. Meanwhile the Sorcerer and Dragon Disciple can run their own show based on completely different spells, not limited to improved hasting the melee fighters.
The Thief 3->Fighter is skilled with Axes, btw ... after having reached Longbow +++++ ... and been having a good time with the returning +2 axe, too. I'm still fond of it.
Cannot complain about the Fighter/Druid either. It felt good to equip that one ring again that's limited to multi-class fighters.
Not meaning to disturb this extended ... uhm ... "discussion" but news from my party:
Still happy with it ... just cleared Marketh's Palace. The Kensai 13 has become a Mage 13 and is only roughly 100,000 XP short of reactivating the primary class. That will be late fun ... no, haven't talk to Hjollder. Been using the Kensai's Mage skills only a bit for raising a few undead here and there. Meanwhile the Sorcerer and Dragon Disciple can run their own show based on completely different spells, not limited to improved hasting the melee fighters.
The Thief 3->Fighter is skilled with Axes, btw ... after having reached Longbow +++++ ... and been having a good time with the returning +2 axe, too. I'm still fond of it.
Cannot complain about the Fighter/Druid either. It felt good to equip that one ring again that's limited to multi-class fighters.
Nice work, what sort of complimentary strategies are you running with the two sorcerers?
I just finished Kress' tomb, the kensei's are so competent at clearing enemies that it becomes mostly about positioning them safely and letting them go to work (which is easy except in a few fights where enemies refuse to be held).
The slower xp from no insane bonus really changes the power curve and encourages better tactics and strategy. I am also completely discouraged from a 13 dual so will dual both of my kensei's at 9.
Giants will be interesting. Stinking Cloud doesn't play well with melee combat but I'll see how it goes.
It's a long time until sorcerers can know more than four spells greater than level 3.
Let's say I want to learn both Emotion:Courage and Emotion:Hope ... only two level 4 spells would be left to choose. Stoneskin? Yes! Spider Spawn? Hasted sword spiders are helpful! No spell left for area damage ... but with two sorcerers and no half mage for a very long time, either one can learn one Emotion spell and Stoneskin and have two different spells left to choose. That opens rooms for Greater Malison, Ice Storm and Secret Word (to be on the safer side).
It's similar for level 3 spells: Inv'10 radius? Of course! MMM? A safe way to eliminate trolls! Slow? Helpful! One left ... Skull Trap or Fireball? A first problem for me as protection from fire and cold are also level 3 spells but I want those area damage spells. Perhaps even Flame Arrow for the Dragon D. And Remove Magic against enemies that drink potions. And Haste and Ghost Armor? Will also need to wait for the dual-class Kensai/Mage.
Or level 5 spells: Shroud of Flame is nice for a Dragon D that isn't afraid of moving behind the summons. Same for Sunfire, as that's another way to burn the enemies after breathing on them. But what about Breach, Cloud Kill, Prot.From Acid, Spell Immunity, Lower Resistance? And do I also want the sorcerers summon more allies? The more the better, since there are no good ways to hold up giants, for example. There's some competition at spell level 6: Inv.Stalker, Project Image, Mass Inv, Acid Storm, Prot.From Magical Energy ... oops, one can only learn three spells for a long time.
Then when the Kensai/Mage is fully active again ... which has happened here meanwhile ... there are more combat related spells to learn. And waiting for so long is worthwhile:
Kensai 9, THAC0 3 with Long Sword +1 Kensai 12, THAC0 -4 with Long Sword +2 and 3 attacks Kensai 13, THAC0 -6 with Long Sword +3 and 5 attacks
Does anyone know where the extra -1 comes from when going below 0 THAC0? I vaguely remember I've talked about it to somebody before ... BG2? ... but don't remember. It's not displayed correctly.
In either case, the party is over-powered and a very good mix. Fallen Temple will be next ...
It's a long time until sorcerers can know more than four spells greater than level 3.
Let's say I want to learn both Emotion:Courage and Emotion:Hope ... only two level 4 spells would be left to choose. Stoneskin? Yes! Spider Spawn? Hasted sword spiders are helpful! No spell left for area damage ... but with two sorcerers and no half mage for a very long time, either one can learn one Emotion spell and Stoneskin and have two different spells left to choose. That opens rooms for Greater Malison, Ice Storm and Secret Word (to be on the safer side).
It's similar for level 3 spells: Inv'10 radius? Of course! MMM? A safe way to eliminate trolls! Slow? Helpful! One left ... Skull Trap or Fireball? A first problem for me as protection from fire and cold are also level 3 spells but I want those area damage spells. Perhaps even Flame Arrow for the Dragon D. And Remove Magic against enemies that drink potions. And Haste and Ghost Armor? Will also need to wait for the dual-class Kensai/Mage.
Or level 5 spells: Shroud of Flame is nice for a Dragon D that isn't afraid of moving behind the summons. Same for Sunfire, as that's another way to burn the enemies after breathing on them. But what about Breach, Cloud Kill, Prot.From Acid, Spell Immunity, Lower Resistance? And do I also want the sorcerers summon more allies? The more the better, since there are no good ways to hold up giants, for example. There's some competition at spell level 6: Inv.Stalker, Project Image, Mass Inv, Acid Storm, Prot.From Magical Energy ... oops, one can only learn three spells for a long time.
Then when the Kensai/Mage is fully active again ... which has happened here meanwhile ... there are more combat related spells to learn. And waiting for so long is worthwhile:
Kensai 9, THAC0 3 with Long Sword +1 Kensai 12, THAC0 -4 with Long Sword +2 and 3 attacks Kensai 13, THAC0 -6 with Long Sword +3 and 5 attacks
Does anyone know where the extra -1 comes from when going below 0 THAC0? I vaguely remember I've talked about it to somebody before ... BG2? ... but don't remember. It's not displayed correctly.
In either case, the party is over-powered and a very good mix. Fallen Temple will be next ...
Badge of the Brave covers one of the emotion spells nicely until a Mage can pick up the scroll. The Hope scroll turns up pretty soon after that if I recall correctly (don't have it yet in my current play through).
Greater Malison is excellent but not convinced about Ice Storm (low damage) or secret word (few spell protections). Has your experience been different?
Being that a bard could cast Haste, Invis 10ft, Emotion: Hope and most of those other spells that you only need to cast once/day I just don't see the incentive for one sorcerer, let alone two.
You messed your spell levels up a bit as Project image and mass invis are level 7.
Thac0 is a bit tricky to account for at any given point in time. Fighter 13 has base thac0 of 7. Kensei gives +4. Longsword gives +3. GM gives +3. Strength gives an amount (+2 to +3 I'd assume). That's a total of -5 or -6 depending. You can add more with items and buffs obviously.
It's cool that you're enjoying the party but I can't condone a power gaming party that doesn't include a Skald unless it's leveraging offensive spells more than physical damage (which I struggle to see as an efficient strategy in the long term but I'm open to new ideas always). End of the day your party will have 2-4 points worse AC most of the game and that translates into much more incoming damage that significantly reduces efficiency.
I've just hit Dragon Eye level 3. Man those cold wights have a boatload of HP, I had to watch the combat feed just to reassure myself they weren't ignoring my weapons or sporting physical damage reduction. Even with 5 party members doing 22 to 27 damage/hit and 15 APR over the party it just seemed to take forever (2 casts of web). Certainly this is a product of half xp raising the challenge level so maybe it's just me, what was everyone else's experience on this level?
And still ... Fireball and Skull Trap damage adds up fast with two casters even before Cloudkill is available. There have been enough fights that were done more quickly ... then onwards to the next encounter.
Same for the other fire based damage spells ... depending on what enemies they get casted on.
As for acid based area spells, I like Death Fog.
The problem with the Skald simply is I'm bored by bards. I've played them often enough ... even used them to cast spells a lot, but they give the feeling of being just an average mage because the singing does not involve any visible/graphical effects. It's several levels before a bard can cast multiple level 3 spells. Especially for all the fights where the party mostly is waiting behind summoned allies, replacing the Skald adds some fun.
Half XP HoF will certainly make the game harder.
At full XP it's been 268,xxx XP per hero after Forgotten Temple and 1,255,xxx after Severed Hand. I mentioned Dragon's Eye on June 4th ... no surprises in there. Only on level 4 more careful playing was necessary.
Finally, 3,958,xxx XP per hero inside the Fallen Temple before the staircase ... and still without HoW. So much about what character levels to reach. At insane it was only 2,345,xxx XP.
1) Hjollder rejects your party, if the levels are too low.
2) If you want to finish the main game first, your heroes will be automatically exported in one of the rooms before the final fight. You can import them when starting HoW afterwards, but items such as bag of holding, ammu belt, potion bags are lost.
3) You can talk to Hjollder any time, start HoW, and return to Kuldahar, too, once you can talk to Hjollder again.
2 spellcasters stacking Cloudkill adds up even faster.
Shroud and Sunfire is a level 5 spell the same level as Cloudkill. All the other instant damage Fire spells are higher level. Which all do worse damage than Incendiary Cloud.
2 spellcasters stacking Cloudkill adds up even faster.
Shroud and Sunfire is a level 5 spell the same level as Cloudkill. All the other instant damage Fire spells are higher level. Which all do worse damage than Incendiary Cloud.
Cloud kill+ranged weapons with less warriors seems like it will almost always be less party damage output than melee weapons everything else being equal.
Comments
The Fighter standing at the edge of Web's AoE is literally just standing there until an enemy breaks free of web and only then does it start moving.
And how is it inefficient? It guarantees only archers get a shot at the Fighter. Anything melee can never ever hit the Fighter. Which becomes irrelevant once the pass is cleared and a Fighter>Cleric gets Animate Dead and Web is dropped on top of summons who stay in the middle of it. And this matters how? Resting takes a few seconds to do and the Sorcerer has full casts of Grease and Web again. Since it's the early game most buffs only last as long as a single combat so there's no drawback to resting. The party will need to rebuff after combat anyway.
The in-game days taken has literally no effect on anything that matters. So how exactly is that a consideration for a powergaming party? If a party takes 1 day to go through a dungeon or 10,000, nothing changes.
At Dragon's Eye the Kensai did not do much else than waiting. Or to speed up the killing at the front. Or to eliminate key enemies in special situations. ... I can't wait to dual-class that thing! A party that doesn't need to rest so often is more powerful.
It wouldn't surprise me if even another player joined the fun and added comments to disagree with you by referring to a completely different party.
But hey dealing the most damage in the part of the game where everything is just move characters, watch characters kill stuff is fun. Making the easier part of the game even easier at the cost of the part with some actual chance at triggering a game over isn't powergaming.
Yes but power gaming is about beating the whole game efficiently. You make big sacrifices to your overall potential to speed up the very short prologue and slightly longer but still short chapter 1. Then you do the rest of the game 20% slower. Which you've acknowledged so thank you, I certainly know that I had no aspirations of actually getting through to you and I doubt anyone else had any hope that I would either.
I really don't know why you find the early game so challenging anyway, in the hardest fights it's always possible to "advance to the rear" to regroup and there's no particularly challenging enemies that can't be taken care of with chromatic orb, hold or charm.
It's a tactic that becomes obsolete the moment any character gets a summon spell. Which is something that happens long before Dragon's Eye.
Oh and the Fighter standing by the edge of the AoE is still using a ranged weapon until an enemy comes close enough to it. Instead of standing there with a melee weapon hitting nothing.
There's no penalty for resting in the early game, there's no point constructing a party that doesn't need to rest when most buffs run out by the end of combat
20% slower on battles that are won by simply watching the screen nd the game automatically hands over a win? lol
Also challenging? I said the prologue battles are the only ones in the game (save for a few ) where the game actually has a chance of killing a character off. The battles later on (particularly the end game) simply do not have any shot at killing a character even when all the player does is sit back and watch characters auto attack everything to death. So yes focusing on the battles in the game where there's some semblance of difficulty.
It's pretty pointless to increase the efficiency of a party of Fighter/Spellcasters when they have buffs and weapons since practically any configuration of this setup that isn't completely idiotic will win with minimal effort at that point
This particular exception only lasts until the party is capable of summoning. After that it's inefficient to have body guards that aren't the summons.
It's especially interesting to note how quickly ranged weapons are falling behind. Even in the prologue there wasn't much difference and now the kensei's are leaps ahead of the archers kill score. I can't help but think that at even these early stages of the game that ranged combat is inefficient due to the damage disparity and length of fights, I mean by level 6 my kensei is doing 14-21 damage at 5/2 APR (which is about 50 damage/round during Kai, ranged does not compete).
How long does Kai last again? And how many uses of it does a level 9 Kensai get per rest?
At level 7 they get two uses of max damage which lets them do something like 100 damage/round for over 3 rounds. Ranged damage and spike traps really aren't efficient compared to that and this is at the point in the game where ranged combat is supposed to have such a huge advantage and yet all I can think is that ranged is woefully inefficient even now.
So how exactly does a Level 7 Kensai do 33 damage per attack?
Also 300 damage? When enemies in HoF have at least 100 HP. That's pretty a insignificant bump, the character goes back to average damage after 3 rounds.
Afterwards the kensei go back to doing 86 round with haste or 64.5 without haste which is just so much more than your zerkers do with their ranged weapons.
Also after 3 rounds of Spike Trap layering that's 72 damage per round. 96 on the next round. Which'll last for 6 rounds. And that's with 6 enemies, that'll deal more damage with more enemies.
Still happy with it ... just cleared Marketh's Palace. The Kensai 13 has become a Mage 13 and is only roughly 100,000 XP short of reactivating the primary class. That will be late fun ... no, haven't talk to Hjollder. Been using the Kensai's Mage skills only a bit for raising a few undead here and there. Meanwhile the Sorcerer and Dragon Disciple can run their own show based on completely different spells, not limited to improved hasting the melee fighters.
The Thief 3->Fighter is skilled with Axes, btw ... after having reached Longbow +++++ ... and been having a good time with the returning +2 axe, too. I'm still fond of it.
Cannot complain about the Fighter/Druid either. It felt good to equip that one ring again that's limited to multi-class fighters.
I just finished Kress' tomb, the kensei's are so competent at clearing enemies that it becomes mostly about positioning them safely and letting them go to work (which is easy except in a few fights where enemies refuse to be held).
The slower xp from no insane bonus really changes the power curve and encourages better tactics and strategy. I am also completely discouraged from a 13 dual so will dual both of my kensei's at 9.
Giants will be interesting. Stinking Cloud doesn't play well with melee combat but I'll see how it goes.
Let's say I want to learn both Emotion:Courage and Emotion:Hope ... only two level 4 spells would be left to choose. Stoneskin? Yes! Spider Spawn? Hasted sword spiders are helpful! No spell left for area damage ... but with two sorcerers and no half mage for a very long time, either one can learn one Emotion spell and Stoneskin and have two different spells left to choose. That opens rooms for Greater Malison, Ice Storm and Secret Word (to be on the safer side).
It's similar for level 3 spells: Inv'10 radius? Of course! MMM? A safe way to eliminate trolls! Slow? Helpful! One left ... Skull Trap or Fireball? A first problem for me as protection from fire and cold are also level 3 spells but I want those area damage spells. Perhaps even Flame Arrow for the Dragon D. And Remove Magic against enemies that drink potions. And Haste and Ghost Armor? Will also need to wait for the dual-class Kensai/Mage.
Or level 5 spells: Shroud of Flame is nice for a Dragon D that isn't afraid of moving behind the summons. Same for Sunfire, as that's another way to burn the enemies after breathing on them. But what about Breach, Cloud Kill, Prot.From Acid, Spell Immunity, Lower Resistance? And do I also want the sorcerers summon more allies? The more the better, since there are no good ways to hold up giants, for example. There's some competition at spell level 6: Inv.Stalker, Project Image, Mass Inv, Acid Storm, Prot.From Magical Energy ... oops, one can only learn three spells for a long time.
Then when the Kensai/Mage is fully active again ... which has happened here meanwhile ... there are more combat related spells to learn. And waiting for so long is worthwhile:
Kensai 9, THAC0 3 with Long Sword +1
Kensai 12, THAC0 -4 with Long Sword +2 and 3 attacks
Kensai 13, THAC0 -6 with Long Sword +3 and 5 attacks
Does anyone know where the extra -1 comes from when going below 0 THAC0? I vaguely remember I've talked about it to somebody before ... BG2? ... but don't remember. It's not displayed correctly.
In either case, the party is over-powered and a very good mix. Fallen Temple will be next ...
Greater Malison is excellent but not convinced about Ice Storm (low damage) or secret word (few spell protections). Has your experience been different?
Being that a bard could cast Haste, Invis 10ft, Emotion: Hope and most of those other spells that you only need to cast once/day I just don't see the incentive for one sorcerer, let alone two.
You messed your spell levels up a bit as Project image and mass invis are level 7.
Thac0 is a bit tricky to account for at any given point in time. Fighter 13 has base thac0 of 7. Kensei gives +4. Longsword gives +3. GM gives +3. Strength gives an amount (+2 to +3 I'd assume). That's a total of -5 or -6 depending. You can add more with items and buffs obviously.
It's cool that you're enjoying the party but I can't condone a power gaming party that doesn't include a Skald unless it's leveraging offensive spells more than physical damage (which I struggle to see as an efficient strategy in the long term but I'm open to new ideas always). End of the day your party will have 2-4 points worse AC most of the game and that translates into much more incoming damage that significantly reduces efficiency.
I've just hit Dragon Eye level 3. Man those cold wights have a boatload of HP, I had to watch the combat feed just to reassure myself they weren't ignoring my weapons or sporting physical damage reduction. Even with 5 party members doing 22 to 27 damage/hit and 15 APR over the party it just seemed to take forever (2 casts of web). Certainly this is a product of half xp raising the challenge level so maybe it's just me, what was everyone else's experience on this level?
Same goes for Shroud of Flame and Sun Fire.
Cloudkill is 10d10 damage flat.
By the time Fireball and Skull Trap and other damage spells reach the damage of Cloudkill a Sorcerer will already have Incendiary Cloud.
Same for the other fire based damage spells ... depending on what enemies they get casted on.
As for acid based area spells, I like Death Fog.
The problem with the Skald simply is I'm bored by bards. I've played them often enough ... even used them to cast spells a lot, but they give the feeling of being just an average mage because the singing does not involve any visible/graphical effects. It's several levels before a bard can cast multiple level 3 spells. Especially for all the fights where the party mostly is waiting behind summoned allies, replacing the Skald adds some fun.
Half XP HoF will certainly make the game harder.
At full XP it's been 268,xxx XP per hero after Forgotten Temple and 1,255,xxx after Severed Hand. I mentioned Dragon's Eye on June 4th ... no surprises in there. Only on level 4 more careful playing was necessary.
Finally, 3,958,xxx XP per hero inside the Fallen Temple before the staircase ... and still without HoW. So much about what character levels to reach. At insane it was only 2,345,xxx XP.
1) Hjollder rejects your party, if the levels are too low.
2) If you want to finish the main game first, your heroes will be automatically exported in one of the rooms before the final fight. You can import them when starting HoW afterwards, but items such as bag of holding, ammu belt, potion bags are lost.
3) You can talk to Hjollder any time, start HoW, and return to Kuldahar, too, once you can talk to Hjollder again.
Shroud and Sunfire is a level 5 spell the same level as Cloudkill. All the other instant damage Fire spells are higher level. Which all do worse damage than Incendiary Cloud.