It does not need to be enchanted as clay golems are not immune to normal weaspons...
This is wrong. Clay golems are immune to normal weapons. You need a magic weapon to hit them, and that weapon needs to deal crushing damage in order to hurt them. The first such weapon available in the game is a Quarterstaff +1 in the starting dungeon.
Magic weapons in most of the crushing categories - maces, flails/morningstars, hammers, and staves - are widely available. Magic clubs are not; there are only four magic clubs in the entire Shadows of Amn campaign, and none of them is in a shop you can access at the start. If you have a character that might want a magic club, like Jaheira (they're the only one-handed blunt weapons she can use, and she's specialized in them already), you should go do the quest to help out Trademeet. You'll find one magic club while doing the quest, and another will be in one of the shops unlocked when you finish the quest.
Another useful tip ...
You mentioned that you completed the quest to bring "Hexxat" to the end of Dragomir's Tomb. If you invite the new character you found into the party, even for just a minute, she'll give you a very useful item - "Dragomir's Respite". What is that? It's a bag of holding, capable of containing a hundred items. Examine it and click the button to see the contents and transfer items between the bag and the character's inventory.
This, and other containers (gem bags from various merchants, scroll cases from various merchants, a potion case you can buy from Sister Garlena outside Watcher's Keep, an Ammo Belt found in the first level of Watcher's Keep, and eventually Bags of Holding as well), allow you to carry lots of useful stuff around and grab more of the goodies you find without cluttering your characters' inventories too much.
A surprisingly effective strategy. In BG1. Enemies get tougher in BG2, and one fireball just isn't that much damage so you need more fire. Plus there are quite a few enemies that are immune to fire. Fireballs won't help you at all when you're clearing out the fire giant temple in ToB.
(See also my Kill It With Fire run, in which I took a Dragon Disciple protagonist and built a fire-immune party so I could really cut loose. Played with mods, so many details will differ from an unmodded experience. Run includes both BGEE and BG2EE, but not the SoD expansion.)
Magic weapons in most of the crushing categories - maces, flails/morningstars, hammers, and staves - are widely available.
Ah! Crushing is a category, I didn't realise that. I thought it was an attribute the items needed to have (e.g. piercing, slashing). Thank you for clearing me up on that!
she'll give you a very useful item - "Dragomir's Respite"
Alas, because out of desperation I used Disintegrate on Dragomir and I think that meant no items dropped Still, Bags of Holding sound really really useful, I will have to keep my eye out for them because at the moment my inventory is constantly full as well as those of the rest of my party.
Two things that I am struggling with at the moment:
1. I don't think I really understand how certain spells are getting made available to me as my Sorcerer levels up
My basic understanding is I get to access to new spells as my Sorcerer levels up. My Sorcerer is now level 11 and I noticed that although I could "memorise" Level 5 spells in my Mage Book, I didn't actually have any spells I could "memorise"! I noticed that when you open a scroll there is a button to 'write magic' so I click to that for Breach and now I have Breach in my Mage Book. Awesome! So I tried to 'write magic' for Spell Thrust but that didn't become available in my Mage Book. Super confusing. What am I misunderstanding here about Sorcerers?
2. I am up to chapter 3 in the game. I decided to give the Sphere quest a go. I might have been attempting this quest too soon? The quest went well until I got to the Abyss and tried to fight the Tanar'ri Lea'liyl. This fight went spectacularly badly. I was unable to hurt Lea'liyl no matter what I tried, Disintegrate and Death Spell had no impact (!). A number of my characters became Held but getting my cleric to use Dispel Magic on them did not take away the Hold.
I see that Lea'liyl has lots of protections (https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Lea'liyl ) but I still don't understand why I couldn't do any damage with magic or magic weapons?
Feeling stuck I read up on the quest on sorcerers.net: https://sorcerers.net/Games/BG2/Walkthrough/sphere.php. A lot of the spells/buffs mention there I don't have/haven't seen. Maybe that is part of the problem? It could also be I'm just trying to do this quest too soon & my levels/armour are not yet up to the job?
I haven’t run a Sorcerer in many years, so no help with that, but…
If the Tanar-ri put up a “Protection from Magic Weapons” or something he would be immune to exactly the only things he’s vulnerable to, so you have a couple choices. The most obvious is to pierce his defenses (“Breach” or higher level equivalent.), but running away can work surprisingly well. I’m not joking, most of those massive immunity sort of spells have a very short duration. So if you can keep him running around for a few turns, his protections will expire and he’ll be vulnerable to your attacks.
A bunch of held party members is a problem, so two things. First, look at your own buffs before starting combat. A simple Bless will make you more resistant to such things, Free Action is proof against holds. And either Globe of Invulnerability is a good defense. There are also a number of potions and scrolls that boost magic resistance.
Secondly, you can free held characters with a Remove Paralysis. That’s even more reliable than a Dispel Magic and doesn’t remove other buffs.
This all may still mean you are too low level or need more resources for this quest. But its probably more attainable than you think!
Sorcerers only learn spells during the level-up process; you select spells with that menu interface, and then you can't learn additional spells from scrolls. But on the flip side, if you have any spell slots of a given level as a sorcerer, you should always have at least one known spell at that level you can memorize.
Mages only learn spells at character creation and from scrolls. It's quite possible to reach a new spell level but not have any spells you can cast at the new level, because you haven't found any scrolls at that level yet.
On Lea'liyl ... the demons down there you can get hearts from are all nabassu, and Lea'liyl is the strongest of the three. On defense, they just have standard demon immunities and don't cast anything to improve that. What are those standard demon immunities? Immunity to polymorph, poison, charm/domination, fear, confusion, feeblemind, and non-magical weapons. They do have pretty good stats, though; Lea'liyl has AC -9 including their DEX bonus, saves vs death on a 6 and vs spell on a 5, has 50% magic resistance, and is immune to fire and cold damage.
On offense, nabassu have four abilities they use; Paralyze, Silence, Death Gaze, and Vampiric Touch.
Paralyze is basically equivalent to a Hold spell - it immobilizes its targets on a failed spell save so they can't do anything. The duration is six rounds.
Silence is equivalent to a cleric's Silence 15' spell; it silences anything in the area on a failed spell save, and silenced creatures can't cast spells (unless that particular spell allows it). The duration is ten rounds.
Death Gaze is another Hold-like spell, but you need a death save to resist it. The spell also deals a bit of acid and fire damage, and the duration of the Hold effect is five rounds.
Vampiric Touch is just like the mage spell of the same name, dealing magic damage and giving the demon temporary hit points equal to the damage dealt. Except that nabassu don't care about any range limits in the spell.
All of the ongoing effects of these spells can be dispelled. If you failed, it's probably due to the level check. Lea'liyl is level 12; with a level 9 cleric trying to dispel their stuff, that's a 20% chance of success on each attempt. Trying to dispel things with a level disadvantage is an exercise in frustration.
The other two "Tanar'ri" are only level 10, which makes it considerably easier to dispel their abilities at your level (40% for a level 9 cleric). They also summon less powerful helpers. And ... well, you only need one heart. Anything you fight after that is just for the extra XP.
A special note on the "Death Gaze" ability nabassu have: as a gaze attack, you can actually block it with a potion of mirrored eyes. That is, if you had any; you're unlikely to find them in BG2EE at all. But BGEE has a nabassu boss with an upgraded version of the Death Gaze that permanently kills its target and replaces them with a ghast - you definitely want the mirrored eye potions in that fight.
So if you can keep him running around for a few turns, his protections will expire and he’ll be vulnerable to your attacks.
Hi @atcDave, thanks for this advice and for the encouragement. The tip to keep him running around for a few turns I hadn't even thought of so thank you for that! I'm going to try and do some other quests to level up a little bit and then I'm gonna give it another go 👍
Hi @jmerry, thank you as always for the invaluable advice.
When you say Mages from scrolls, does that mean clicking "write magic", or does that also include casting the spell at least once?
Your point about 'Trying to dispel things with a level advantage is an exercise in frustration' is really well made. I'm going to try and do some other quests to level up a bit before giving the Sphere quest another go.
I was just talking about the "write magic" button. There's no requirement to cast a spell in order to add it to your spellbook; my endgame mages typically have all of the spells in their spellbooks, but they haven't ever cast or even memorized many of them.
I was just talking about the "write magic" button. There's no requirement to cast a spell in order to add it to your spellbook; my endgame mages typically have all of the spells in their spellbooks, but they haven't ever cast or even memorized many of them.
BadSorcerer I would defer to jmerry to the issues we disagree on; he knows the code, I just play the game. And it sounds like a lot of the things you were having issues with are innate to the demon and effects that will not run out.
But that said; yes, when you see an enemy’s defenses go up, usually in the form of a casting/effect animation showing itself, you may be able to waste time until the defense runs out. It is obviously better if you can just take the defense down. But Plan B can often be to run away, or run and hide, until things start expiring.
When you say Mages from scrolls, does that mean clicking "write magic", or does that also include casting the spell at least once?
Be aware that the Intelligence of the mage affects how much spells he can learn for each level so it is possible that he can not learn spells of a certain level as he has already learned the maximum number for his intelligence. There are 2 ways to deal with it: erase from the spell book the spells that you find are not useful for your particular play style or better make your intelligence higher drinking one or more genius potions. In the latter case once the spell is learned it is available until you eventually erase it, you will know it even after the potion effect expires and your intelligence sets to its default value. Sorcerers don't have this issue, they all learn spells levelling up at the same rate regardless of their intelligence.
But that said; yes, when you see an enemy’s defenses go up, usually in the form of a casting/effect animation showing itself, you may be able to waste time until the defense runs out. It is obviously better if you can just take the defense down. But Plan B can often be to run away, or run and hide, until things start expiring.
Be aware that the Intelligence of the mage affects how much spells he can learn for each level so it is possible that he can not learn spells of a certain level as he has already learned the maximum number for his intelligence. There are 2 ways to deal with it: erase from the spell book the spells that you find are not useful for your particular play style or better make your intelligence higher drinking one or more genius potions. In the latter case once the spell is learned it is available until you eventually erase it, you will know it even after the potion effect expires and your intelligence sets to its default value. Sorcerers don't have this issue, they all learn spells levelling up at the same rate regardless of their intelligence.
Ok I understand thanks @gorgonzola. I didn't know this so thank you 👍
But that said; yes, when you see an enemy’s defenses go up, usually in the form of a casting/effect animation showing itself, you may be able to waste time until the defense runs out. It is obviously better if you can just take the defense down. But Plan B can often be to run away, or run and hide, until things start expiring.
what @atcDave say is correct and really effective if you lack of the spells to take down protections i.e. your mage has depleted his daily memorizations of Breach or is disrupted when casting it, but notice that it only works with short lasting protections like Protection From Magical Weapons and the Mantle spells that last only 4 rounds (each round lasts 6 real time seconds, each turn lasts 10 rounds, knowing it is crucial also to know how much your buffs and protections from spells will last), but Stoneskin lasts 12 in game hours so don't try the trick if the foe is protected by it instead disrupt his casting with elemental damage while you deplete his skins with physical attacks, use the weapons that have the better APR (attack per round) to do it, a dart has 3 base APR, a bow 2 and a sword only 1, so is more effective if your Fighter switches to darts to do it if the foe is a mage so has low AC (armour class), vs a dragon is different as he has good AC, but I would not face a dragon until I have ways to breach him and to lower his resistance....
There is an other similar tactic with the purpose of wasting his offensive spells instead of the short lasting defensive ones. If the target of a targeting spell disappears while the caster is casting the spell fizzles and is wasted, disappearing means to become invisible, hiding in shadows for a thief or using an invisibility spell or potion, simply run away from his sight does not work, the invisibility spell has a casting time of 2 (tenth of round) so 1.2 sec, to use it your mage must be in sight of your target, but not of the enemy (to avoid to be targeted himself) and the thing needs good timing as the mage has to cast immediately after the foe starts to do it, hoping that the foe casting time is more then 2, using a potion is instantaneous, but invisibility potions are limited in number and expensive. If the foe is casting an AOE spell like web or fireball the trick does not work, the cure for it is to run away from the area of effect, to do it is better if your toon is hasted, haste affects all the party if they are all in its AOE when it is cast and is REALLY useful not only to run away from AOE spells, but because it gives you a lot of mobility that can be used tactically and adds an attack/round to everybody (including your summons).
Even a low level party can take down a demon in the sphere if he uses those tactics, luring away his defenders and taking them down one by one then depleting his own spells, at that point he is only a physical attacker with good Thac0 and AC, tough but doable if you have the weapons that can hit him and enough healing potions and spells to keep you tank alive long enough.
I find that type of fighting, using mobility and tactical dominance to decide which enemies take down first, when and where, one of the most rewarding and one that gives me real fun when taking down much higher level strong enemies, is not the only approach to fight effectively those battles, but is something very different from casting fireballs into the fog of war metagame knowing that the enemies are there, ting that is lame, it needs planning, flawless well timed execution and tactical use of the terrain.
An other approach could be being well prepared so have the right spells and potions to make your AC and ST so good that you can deal with the enemies and have the right spells to make their ST, Thac0 and AC worst so you can prevail, but I learned my preferred tactics playing the starting dungeon with Tactics Mod, is MUCH harder then the vanilla one, and there the equipment and consumables you have are very limited, at now most of the players prefer to play SCS as difficulty enhancing mod, but I still think that going few times trough the starting dungeon with Tactics Mod can teach a lot even for those that are not interested to play it all game long.
Probably your decision to return to the sphere when you have some more mileage (as player), levels and equipment (as party) is sound, but be aware that it is possible to win in even more challenging situations with low level parties or even low level solos, I show you 2 examples: the first is a solo taking down the fallen deva in the Tactics starting dungeon, the second is a solo taking down the Twisted Rune right out of Irenicus prison and it is an other really difficult battle that some mid level parties strive to win.
I remember when I begun to play, some battles that then was almost impossible now are trivial for me, and I am far from being the strongest player around, I am only one with a lot of mileage and experience, if you will get hooked by the game the same will be true for you, but you have to stretch a little and really challenge yourself if you want to improve as player, how much to stretch is completely upon yourself, you have to find when something ceases to be fun and challenge and starts to become utter frustration, the previous videos or the ones of those that on YT show us no reload runs with SCS are goals that ca be reached, not something that a beginner player can obtain soon and with ease...
I really hope that you will have a lot of fun with this game, there is much more in it then in more modern games and even more important it allows you to find your own style of playing, the same battle can be won in very different ways by players with different styles and/or using different parties, with BG2 the boredom is only due to repetition, always similar parties (tank, dps dealers and in the back mage and healer), always the same tactics that has proven effective.
@gorgonzola, thank you for this feedback and advice. It's incredibly helpful thank you. I'm going back to the Sphere to give it another try
I really like your point about BG2 having so much depth and how the same battle can be won in very different ways by players of different styles and/or using different parties, that's very attractive to me.
I wish you good luck, to beat a demon at low level on the first run of BG2 is not easy, you can try, but if it becomes too frustrating no one compels you to do it right now, at least be sure that you have weapons that can hit him.
Comments
Magic weapons in most of the crushing categories - maces, flails/morningstars, hammers, and staves - are widely available. Magic clubs are not; there are only four magic clubs in the entire Shadows of Amn campaign, and none of them is in a shop you can access at the start. If you have a character that might want a magic club, like Jaheira (they're the only one-handed blunt weapons she can use, and she's specialized in them already), you should go do the quest to help out Trademeet. You'll find one magic club while doing the quest, and another will be in one of the shops unlocked when you finish the quest.
Another useful tip ...
You mentioned that you completed the quest to bring "Hexxat" to the end of Dragomir's Tomb. If you invite the new character you found into the party, even for just a minute, she'll give you a very useful item - "Dragomir's Respite". What is that? It's a bag of holding, capable of containing a hundred items. Examine it and click the button to see the contents and transfer items between the bag and the character's inventory.
This, and other containers (gem bags from various merchants, scroll cases from various merchants, a potion case you can buy from Sister Garlena outside Watcher's Keep, an Ammo Belt found in the first level of Watcher's Keep, and eventually Bags of Holding as well), allow you to carry lots of useful stuff around and grab more of the goodies you find without cluttering your characters' inventories too much.
A surprisingly effective strategy. In BG1. Enemies get tougher in BG2, and one fireball just isn't that much damage so you need more fire. Plus there are quite a few enemies that are immune to fire. Fireballs won't help you at all when you're clearing out the fire giant temple in ToB.
(See also my Kill It With Fire run, in which I took a Dragon Disciple protagonist and built a fire-immune party so I could really cut loose. Played with mods, so many details will differ from an unmodded experience. Run includes both BGEE and BG2EE, but not the SoD expansion.)
Truer words never spoken.
Ah! Crushing is a category, I didn't realise that. I thought it was an attribute the items needed to have (e.g. piercing, slashing). Thank you for clearing me up on that!
Alas, because out of desperation I used Disintegrate on Dragomir and I think that meant no items dropped
1. I don't think I really understand how certain spells are getting made available to me as my Sorcerer levels up
My basic understanding is I get to access to new spells as my Sorcerer levels up. My Sorcerer is now level 11 and I noticed that although I could "memorise" Level 5 spells in my Mage Book, I didn't actually have any spells I could "memorise"! I noticed that when you open a scroll there is a button to 'write magic' so I click to that for Breach and now I have Breach in my Mage Book. Awesome! So I tried to 'write magic' for Spell Thrust but that didn't become available in my Mage Book. Super confusing. What am I misunderstanding here about Sorcerers?
2. I am up to chapter 3 in the game. I decided to give the Sphere quest a go. I might have been attempting this quest too soon? The quest went well until I got to the Abyss and tried to fight the Tanar'ri Lea'liyl. This fight went spectacularly badly. I was unable to hurt Lea'liyl no matter what I tried, Disintegrate and Death Spell had no impact (!). A number of my characters became Held but getting my cleric to use Dispel Magic on them did not take away the Hold.
I see that Lea'liyl has lots of protections (https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Lea'liyl ) but I still don't understand why I couldn't do any damage with magic or magic weapons?
Feeling stuck I read up on the quest on sorcerers.net: https://sorcerers.net/Games/BG2/Walkthrough/sphere.php. A lot of the spells/buffs mention there I don't have/haven't seen. Maybe that is part of the problem? It could also be I'm just trying to do this quest too soon & my levels/armour are not yet up to the job?
If the Tanar-ri put up a “Protection from Magic Weapons” or something he would be immune to exactly the only things he’s vulnerable to, so you have a couple choices. The most obvious is to pierce his defenses (“Breach” or higher level equivalent.), but running away can work surprisingly well. I’m not joking, most of those massive immunity sort of spells have a very short duration. So if you can keep him running around for a few turns, his protections will expire and he’ll be vulnerable to your attacks.
A bunch of held party members is a problem, so two things. First, look at your own buffs before starting combat. A simple Bless will make you more resistant to such things, Free Action is proof against holds. And either Globe of Invulnerability is a good defense. There are also a number of potions and scrolls that boost magic resistance.
Secondly, you can free held characters with a Remove Paralysis. That’s even more reliable than a Dispel Magic and doesn’t remove other buffs.
This all may still mean you are too low level or need more resources for this quest. But its probably more attainable than you think!
Mages only learn spells at character creation and from scrolls. It's quite possible to reach a new spell level but not have any spells you can cast at the new level, because you haven't found any scrolls at that level yet.
On Lea'liyl ... the demons down there you can get hearts from are all nabassu, and Lea'liyl is the strongest of the three. On defense, they just have standard demon immunities and don't cast anything to improve that. What are those standard demon immunities? Immunity to polymorph, poison, charm/domination, fear, confusion, feeblemind, and non-magical weapons. They do have pretty good stats, though; Lea'liyl has AC -9 including their DEX bonus, saves vs death on a 6 and vs spell on a 5, has 50% magic resistance, and is immune to fire and cold damage.
On offense, nabassu have four abilities they use; Paralyze, Silence, Death Gaze, and Vampiric Touch.
Paralyze is basically equivalent to a Hold spell - it immobilizes its targets on a failed spell save so they can't do anything. The duration is six rounds.
Silence is equivalent to a cleric's Silence 15' spell; it silences anything in the area on a failed spell save, and silenced creatures can't cast spells (unless that particular spell allows it). The duration is ten rounds.
Death Gaze is another Hold-like spell, but you need a death save to resist it. The spell also deals a bit of acid and fire damage, and the duration of the Hold effect is five rounds.
Vampiric Touch is just like the mage spell of the same name, dealing magic damage and giving the demon temporary hit points equal to the damage dealt. Except that nabassu don't care about any range limits in the spell.
All of the ongoing effects of these spells can be dispelled. If you failed, it's probably due to the level check. Lea'liyl is level 12; with a level 9 cleric trying to dispel their stuff, that's a 20% chance of success on each attempt. Trying to dispel things with a level disadvantage is an exercise in frustration.
The other two "Tanar'ri" are only level 10, which makes it considerably easier to dispel their abilities at your level (40% for a level 9 cleric). They also summon less powerful helpers. And ... well, you only need one heart. Anything you fight after that is just for the extra XP.
A special note on the "Death Gaze" ability nabassu have: as a gaze attack, you can actually block it with a potion of mirrored eyes. That is, if you had any; you're unlikely to find them in BG2EE at all. But BGEE has a nabassu boss with an upgraded version of the Death Gaze that permanently kills its target and replaces them with a ghast - you definitely want the mirrored eye potions in that fight.
Hi @atcDave, thanks for this advice and for the encouragement. The tip to keep him running around for a few turns I hadn't even thought of so thank you for that! I'm going to try and do some other quests to level up a little bit and then I'm gonna give it another go 👍
When you say Mages from scrolls, does that mean clicking "write magic", or does that also include casting the spell at least once?
Your point about 'Trying to dispel things with a level advantage is an exercise in frustration' is really well made. I'm going to try and do some other quests to level up a bit before giving the Sphere quest another go.
Cheers
Ok got it. Thanks @jmerry.
But that said; yes, when you see an enemy’s defenses go up, usually in the form of a casting/effect animation showing itself, you may be able to waste time until the defense runs out. It is obviously better if you can just take the defense down. But Plan B can often be to run away, or run and hide, until things start expiring.
Got it. Thanks @atcDave.
Ok I understand thanks @gorgonzola. I didn't know this so thank you 👍
what @atcDave say is correct and really effective if you lack of the spells to take down protections i.e. your mage has depleted his daily memorizations of Breach or is disrupted when casting it, but notice that it only works with short lasting protections like Protection From Magical Weapons and the Mantle spells that last only 4 rounds (each round lasts 6 real time seconds, each turn lasts 10 rounds, knowing it is crucial also to know how much your buffs and protections from spells will last), but Stoneskin lasts 12 in game hours so don't try the trick if the foe is protected by it instead disrupt his casting with elemental damage while you deplete his skins with physical attacks, use the weapons that have the better APR (attack per round) to do it, a dart has 3 base APR, a bow 2 and a sword only 1, so is more effective if your Fighter switches to darts to do it if the foe is a mage so has low AC (armour class), vs a dragon is different as he has good AC, but I would not face a dragon until I have ways to breach him and to lower his resistance....
There is an other similar tactic with the purpose of wasting his offensive spells instead of the short lasting defensive ones. If the target of a targeting spell disappears while the caster is casting the spell fizzles and is wasted, disappearing means to become invisible, hiding in shadows for a thief or using an invisibility spell or potion, simply run away from his sight does not work, the invisibility spell has a casting time of 2 (tenth of round) so 1.2 sec, to use it your mage must be in sight of your target, but not of the enemy (to avoid to be targeted himself) and the thing needs good timing as the mage has to cast immediately after the foe starts to do it, hoping that the foe casting time is more then 2, using a potion is instantaneous, but invisibility potions are limited in number and expensive. If the foe is casting an AOE spell like web or fireball the trick does not work, the cure for it is to run away from the area of effect, to do it is better if your toon is hasted, haste affects all the party if they are all in its AOE when it is cast and is REALLY useful not only to run away from AOE spells, but because it gives you a lot of mobility that can be used tactically and adds an attack/round to everybody (including your summons).
Even a low level party can take down a demon in the sphere if he uses those tactics, luring away his defenders and taking them down one by one then depleting his own spells, at that point he is only a physical attacker with good Thac0 and AC, tough but doable if you have the weapons that can hit him and enough healing potions and spells to keep you tank alive long enough.
I find that type of fighting, using mobility and tactical dominance to decide which enemies take down first, when and where, one of the most rewarding and one that gives me real fun when taking down much higher level strong enemies, is not the only approach to fight effectively those battles, but is something very different from casting fireballs into the fog of war metagame knowing that the enemies are there, ting that is lame, it needs planning, flawless well timed execution and tactical use of the terrain.
An other approach could be being well prepared so have the right spells and potions to make your AC and ST so good that you can deal with the enemies and have the right spells to make their ST, Thac0 and AC worst so you can prevail, but I learned my preferred tactics playing the starting dungeon with Tactics Mod, is MUCH harder then the vanilla one, and there the equipment and consumables you have are very limited, at now most of the players prefer to play SCS as difficulty enhancing mod, but I still think that going few times trough the starting dungeon with Tactics Mod can teach a lot even for those that are not interested to play it all game long.
I remember when I begun to play, some battles that then was almost impossible now are trivial for me, and I am far from being the strongest player around, I am only one with a lot of mileage and experience, if you will get hooked by the game the same will be true for you, but you have to stretch a little and really challenge yourself if you want to improve as player, how much to stretch is completely upon yourself, you have to find when something ceases to be fun and challenge and starts to become utter frustration, the previous videos or the ones of those that on YT show us no reload runs with SCS are goals that ca be reached, not something that a beginner player can obtain soon and with ease...
I really hope that you will have a lot of fun with this game, there is much more in it then in more modern games and even more important it allows you to find your own style of playing, the same battle can be won in very different ways by players with different styles and/or using different parties, with BG2 the boredom is only due to repetition, always similar parties (tank, dps dealers and in the back mage and healer), always the same tactics that has proven effective.
I really like your point about BG2 having so much depth and how the same battle can be won in very different ways by players of different styles and/or using different parties, that's very attractive to me.