Planar sphere, temple sewers, Umar hills, Windspear hills

Cvijeta

Do this in ch6 or earlier?

I done almost all else (fallen paladins, sir sarles, limited wish, umar hills small quests, other strongholds...)

SomeSort

Unless you're planning on recruiting Imoen, I say do them in Chapter 2. Temple Sewers will give you a lot of necessary practice against Beholders, (you'll be running into them later on, so practice early). Umar Hills and Windspear Hills shouldn't be that tough except for the optional bosses, and it's totally fine to just save those for Chapter 6 but do the rest of the quest now.

Planar sphere can be tough, but if you did the Planar Prison, you can probably handle the Planar Sphere. Just make a save before you commit to it so if you find yourself getting stuck you can back out and save it for later.

Temple Sewers and Planar Sphere in particular have some good loot, especially the Gauntlets of Dexterity and Gauntlets of Ogre Power.

profanitywarning

Cleaning out one or two levels of Watchers Keep could also be a good idea before going to chapter 3.

Lord_Tansheron

It depends on what you want out of your game. In terms of objective power progression, naturally it is advisable to clear as much as you can before the Underdark so you can smash through the more challenging parts with ease. However, there are other concerns for many players such as story, RP, or simply challenge (Underdark can be quite the pushover with WK equipment). There isn't really anything PREVENTING you from clearing the optional areas either before or after, and there is no real punishment or reward for choosing one over the other. So going from that, I'd simply suggest asking yourself what you want your game to look like, and how it fits in with that vision.

SomeSort

profanitywarning said:

Cleaning out one or two levels of Watchers Keep could also be a good idea before going to chapter 3.

As someone who has run the game a lot and done WK a lot of different ways, (the whole thing in Chapter 2, the first two floors in Chapter 2, just run into the first floor for the Crimson Dart and unlimited quivers in Chapter 2, ignore the thing entirely in Chapter 2), I would usually advise leaving it for later.

The quest experience is too much for Chapter 2 and can make Chapters 3-5 way too easy if you go very far in it early. And a lot of the spawns are going to be leveled, which means if you're running in during chapter 2 you're getting a watered down experience to some extent.

Anymore, I either do it in chapter 6 or, if I plan on recruiting the ToB NPC, save it for ToB. The one exception is if I really, really want that unlimited dart and quiver-- say I'm running an Archer charname-- in which case I'll send in a stealthed thief to loot those (leaving everything else untouched).

Though obviously everyone's mileage will vary.

Vithar

Cvijeta said:

Do this in ch6 or earlier?

I done almost all else (fallen paladins, sir sarles, limited wish, umar hills small quests, other strongholds...)

Doesn't really matter , if you are ''lets say a Paladin'' , you won't wait for Chapter 6 to go to Windspear.
It's possible to do these zones with all types of party setups and classes no matter the Chapter or Difficulty level.

Attalus

profanitywarning said:

Cleaning out one or two levels of Watchers Keep could also be a good idea before going to chapter 3.

Agree. Getting Foebane and the Purifier (if you have Keldorn or are playing a Paladin) is worth the price of admission