I finished it yesterday. My group was a archer fighter, two clerics (one Greatsword, one mace+shield) and one wizard (had all crafting feats except craft wand and forge ring). I didn't roll all 18s for them, not all of them even had 18 in their main stat. I had max HP on and must say even with that my characters would die or go unconscious often. In some later fights I was using True Ressurection to win.
I enjoyed the game a lot. I liked the two cities, both kind of felt more alive then in some AAA rpg games. Taneliz stuff was especially fun, hiding from the patrols and all.
Some areas were too tough and I only survived by crafting cure wands and arcane scrolls in the middle of the dungeons. I think my wizard crafted so many haste scrolls during the whole adventure he will kill anyone mentioning haste once he retires
Funny thing I left some areas on the map unexplored (all above the good city, forgot the name ) so although I beat the boss and my guys are lvl 20 I am not done with adventure yet
Many fights were really challenging, and I beat them because of two clerics. Spamming Harm and Mass Harm killed everyone from giant bosses, to Balors and all kinds of Dragons. I got no clue how would I do it without two of them Not to mention with two of them, one always being free to cast Freedom of Movement on the other or someone else.
Here is a possible bug I noticed (possible because I am not sure as it happened to me only a couple of times and some time ago): A cleric with still spell and two-handed weapon equipped got grappled but still could not cast spells.
Here are some design decisions I could not agree with:
1. Not giving bonus spells to clerics and especially wizard from wearing +x items to Wis or Int. Dungeons are really long and this is really needed.
2. Letting us craft whatever wherever. I wish crafting was limited to special places (like the shops of wizards) with access to needed materials. Although it is almost a requirement to survive dungeons I would rather wish I didn't need to and I could not do it there. Unless 1. is changed I guess this needs to stay as it is.
3. Too many Dragons. Or I missed some ingame explanation why are there so many dragons around. If that was FR or Dragonlance I think I would have made the dragons extinct through that whole adventure. Dragons should be bosses or tactically placed opponents, not random encounters or just filler to make some fights tougher. At least remove them from the random encounter lists and not let them randomly spawn as wandering monsters in dungeons.
4. Letting paralyzed spellcasters still cast spells with Still Spell. Cloudkill only lasting one round and not longer as it should. Many spells being pretty useless because of short range. Wizards are already weakened enough that it is really not needed to make them come to melee range to cast some spells like Finger of Death (which most of the high lvl game is almost useless as all opponents have huge fort saves). Confusion was a much more useful spell that would affect most opponents. Please increase range on many wizard spells. Also bows and crossbows have a way too short of a range. I do not understand why it was limited like that.
As for the last fight, I was planning to use the tried tactic of spamming Harm (after I saw the AC of the thing and figured hitting him in melee is just not going to work). But he got buffed with Death Ward which I could not Dispel. He also got Greater Ice Resistance and Foresight on him (bringing that crazy AC even higher). So I made a line down in the corridor and started buffing my archer and clerics. Once I got rid of weaker enemies (which took couple of Dehydrates and empowered Fireballs) I figured out a tactic that worked. My archer had a wounding Bow, while my wizard kept spamming Cloudkill and stilled Cloudkill once lvl 5 slots ran out. My clerics spent their action between healing, summoning elementals and casting Searing Light at the Dragon. Anyways I managed to lower his Constitution a lot and by the end his max HP was 200+ not 600+
Funny thing, I didn't even have right weapons to ignore his DR
Managed to finish him with a Lightning spell