XP getting questions and Battle Squares.

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Just started rank 3, did 2 squares and quicksaved. Did the 3rd square and got stuff other than XP; gems/gold or ammo. Ok, reload and try again - except 10 consecutive reloads resulted in gems/gold or some ammo every time:/ I stopped at that point. I did not have to reload this much to get XP only through ranks 1 and 2.

Side note - will doing all of battle squares at APL 8 get me to higher than APL 13? if not then I don't need to go out of my way to get only XP, because I can camp the undead in the fell wood and get to APL 13 then. I have a 5 man party and I'm not really interested in adding a fresh lvl 1 unless I can toss him aside afterwards and come out with a net XP gain.

XP getting wisdom needed lol

 

You get other rewards for doing battle squares. I'd suggest completing every level successfully. It's a bit of a boring grind in spite of the challenge of completing each battle in the time allotted (even with edited characters with the equivalent of rolling perfect 6's across the board), but you get some great magic items for doing it. Of course, you also get some not-so-great stuff like spell scrolls you already have or more enchanted ammo, but overall it's usually worth it.

You don't do it for the XP, you do it for the loot and the bragging rights (in game too, but that is really limited).

 

I got 170k exp out of Battle Squares starting at APL7 (three high level characters and three newbies), which is just shy of 30k per character. That's good for three to four level-ups, but getting from 8 to 13 isn't going to happen.

Based on my empirical data, you have around 1/3 to 1/2 chance of getting an exp reward per level, so you won't see it failing ten times in a row all that often, although I've experienced it too.

 

I guess it depends on what level you are when you attempt the challenge. Do the enemies scale with your character level, or are they fixed based on your level selection?

It's been a while, but I recall that I wasn't earning much XP when I'd taken a 6-character party and cleared out most of the temple before attempting the battle squares. I wasn't using mules, I'd just played them straight from the start.

 

Enemies won't scale to your level, the rank selector is the only one affecting monster types. However, the exp rewards DO depend on your average level, each level being worth the same as a monster with CR of (rank selected + 5). Hence, you can get up to 50 total exp rewards, five each between CR6 to CR15.

For comparison, I did the Squares with a three character party during an earlier playthrough, and only got just a bit over 100k exp for them since the party got into such high levels along the way AND started higher to begin with.

 

The worst thing about Battle Squares is the awkward UI. Killing monsters can be fun and challenging. Walking around until the golem finally figures out which square you're trying to select is just aggravating.

-Max

 

I didn't have a problem with that, I did however get bored fighting the battles over and over again. On the last few levels I had to use most of my potions to finish. I was in absolutely no danger of dying, I just couldn't inflict enough damage to win in the time allotted. Neither could the enemy.

 

in my experience the last BS levels were easiest after acuiring the club of disruption (many one hit kills).

the random bonus can be experience and is sweetest on the highest BS levels. i often saved after winning the final square before the bonus was applied. so just reloading i could hope for an other bonus. ;-)

 

It seems definite that the challenge scales to your level. Usually when I play IWD2 I do the first several ranks as far as I can go before the Wandering Village. This play I was hoping to make BS easy and wait until I cleared through the mind flayer citadel. So now I am doing rank 1 with a level 14 character and a level 14 party (no squatters or mules). The first rank is without a doubt much harder. I don't know about the 2-10 rank though yet. But the first rank is actually challenging when I was hoping to cut through the first 5 ranks like a hot knife through butter.