I picked "recommended" options, but toned down pre-buffing (still have nightmares from dialogue screen spammed with kilometers of buffs in Tactics). Without pre-buffs, enemies still pre-buff, but in a way which does not turn every battle into a tea-party where you just throw summons and wait until buffs get down. They cast stoneskins and such, and casually become "immortal" by using contingencies, but you can fight them straight and fair without stacking every book with Breach and it's brother and sister spells. Instead of relying on cheap statistics and spell picks, SCS mages indeed act intelligently, often almost painfully so. Their pathfinding is excellent, as they can outrun your own guys who bump onto each other and map objects, while enemy AI moves around fluently, utilising cast&attack. While their movement is so cool sometimes I thought it's another human playing, cast&attack is damn frustrating. AI knows *perfectly* when actions begin and end, meaning he reacts insanely fast to your own spellcasters, interrupting their spells with melf's meteors. This thing should be toned down, but it's probably the only one.
Warriors drink potions, so it takes a bit more time to get rid of them. Rogues mostly spend their time hidden and backstab without mercy, with their target pick always being a party member with lowest HP and without protection spells. This means that for my party they were 100% predictable - they always went for Jan Jansen. Using Level1NPC, I made him a cookie-cutter Bounty Hunter, which meant he died from 1 backstab every battle. I really wish I'd met a thief with a bow or two swords for a change, but every fucking one of them was the same. So yeah, warriors - okay, thieves - challenging, but very boring.
My party was: Druid Avenger, Valygar changed to Wizard Slayer (Rebalanced class, stats unchanged), Jan Jansen changed to Bounty Hunter (stats unchanged), Minsc, Edwin and Aerie (unchanged). As minor tweaks I moved Robe of Vecna and stuff like that to ToB, and removed Shield of Balduran from the game. Also lacked scrolls of Immunity to Magic for some reason.
Item randomization did not bring anything new. Every major artifact was in the same place as always. Dissapointment.
Monsters and encounters with them were good. Irenicus dungeon with restricted rest but without overpowered encounters was more difficult then Illyich, because I just *had* to go all conservative on every spell I had. Tactics Mod made me use every cheese and run&hide trick I knew, SCS2 instead asked for fair planning and smart combat execution. Athkatla was moderately difficult, D'Arnise Keep more balanced than in Tactics (no Spirit Trolls rushing in half a dozens), Trademeet - about the same outside, but without cheating Faldorn. Instead she is just level 16 Druid with the same abilities you have (I managed to beat her with my own druid). Amaunator temple was't hard, Shadow Dragon I've beaten fairly straightforward, but Shadowlord surprised me with new spells and larger amount of minions. Planar Sphere was moderately difficult, the halflings really put up quite a fight, as well as Tolgerias. Firkraag and his minions did not bring anything new to the table. Dragons just did't surprise me that much, even with instant uninterruptable magic and without any traps exploits from my side. Lower Resistance and spells deal with them very quickly.
Beholders were quite interesting. Elder Orbs (or Brood Mothers?) seem able to summon regular ones which patrol area. But they still can be killed with AoE spells very easely. Just throwing some undead on them and bombarding area works wonders. Illithid are not as dangerous as in Tactics. They are manageable with very strong and resistant fighter with Improved Haste on, if you kite a bit. Which is fine, because Tactics illithid are nothing but save/load idiocy. Demons are angry motherfuckers. When someone summoned Glabrezu, I had only one option - to get rid of the fucker as fast as possible. Golems are same. With Freedom of Action and few protection spells, they fall as easy as always.
SCS "recommended" Bodhi was instagibbed into oblivion by traps, Daystar and spells. Second fight with her, however, was cool. She got some new companions, like a mage, and Aerie was 100% legit vampire. The fight was more fun then in Tactics, and, surprise, while SCS Bodhi is "toned down" (particularly her cold aura), more difficult. Vampires do deserve a credit. In SCS, they are truly annoying dicks. They spawn dozens of rats that drain constitution, turn into fast wolves, go invisible, become bats and fog, charm characters without protection from that and overall perform admirally. They are better enemies all around then in Tactics, and just carrying a Daystar around does not solve the problem (although it gets rid of their minions fast).
In Spellhold, SCS took all my items before I reached exit, which added some fresh experience, but not a lot - Aerie just conjured two +3 Katanas and Valygar, carrying armor from genie, cleared most of the dungeon, with few exeptions like Yan-Ti mages - these are as annoying as in Tactics. Fight with Irenicus was more flashy and thrilling, because clones were exact copies of my party. But with all the meat and spells flying around, they did not last long.
Sahuagin are a bit annoying with their powerful poison crossbows, but that's it. Not that I found them very tough in Tactics either.
There is a new fight with a drow guarding the gate. There are now some Glabrezu's and ton of drow. If Adalon would teleport me there without knowing, I'd be killed outright, but I stumbled on them when searched for loot, and still my jaw dropped. Drow are tougher, but their spell selection leaves to be desired.
The last to fall was Improved Irenicus. SCS version is, again, toned down, and less stupid or frustrating. First of all, Irenicus does not take any items away from you. Not that I cared, as he'd only take Staff of Magi from my party, probably. He does not challenge you into "nude" duel anymore. After he splits into different personalities and you deal with them, he summons around five powerful demons, turns into slayer and fight proceeds as in vanilla (just more anal rape and tears). You get a free Auto Save after finishing his "parts". Every one of parts is pretty damn dangerous.
The dragon drained my Valygar from level ~20 to 6, for example, somehow making his THAC0 an amazing +38. The Beholder would be beatable if not for pre-buffing and his dickish attitude of using charm and stun rays. Once I even caught sort of stun-lock - seems a bit bugged, as Valygar-bro continued to walk but still played animation like he was wing-buffeted. The immune to magic warrior, Wrath, can be, logically, only beaten hand-to-hand (or maybe by Mazzy with bow... damn, wish I thought of powerful ranged character before), but he drains Strength on each hit, so that's a bit counter productive to do. The flying Sword "Blackrazor meets Mordenkainen" can be killed with two Revisions Disintegrate spells or just magic-missile barrage, or by traps. Of course Irenicus runs around, casts shit and makes everything more tricky. I've seen him performing almost combo-actions, dispelling characters which were hit by other of his "parts".
For some reason, SCS version proved harder to me then Tactics. Tactics was just about stripping player of stuff and JRPG bosses. SCS proved to be more tricky. The trump card was Aerie - she loaded three Skeleton Warriors into Sequencer, who beaten beholder all by themselves.
Summoned balors can be dispatched by Silver Blade. Irenicus is the real problem. He is a grand master of dickiness, casting Time Stop, dispelling and attacking in his Slayer form, but fair in almost every thing - I even managed to get him to the point when all he had left were his melee attacks and magic missiles (Tactics Irenicus have infinite spells and healing). Every thing but one, and that is his innate regenerating ability. I have no idea how it works, but sometimes he can actually survive a CTRL+Y. I tested. To kill him, I had to summon three epic elementals, two Mordenkainen swords, give Valygar and Minsc improved haste, Lower Resistance him and Insect Plague him, put some acid arrows in his ass, and then bombard almost simultaneously by Edwin from Time Stop and Aerie in unison. Somehow that worked, but I probably got a few lucky crits, too.
Overall group performed p. well. With Spell Revisions, druid is an awesome summoner. A bit slacking at level 14, but then - decent.
Rebalanced Wizard Slayer mod is cool. It was funny to play with main warrior in party having 17 Strength without any way to beefing it up with items. Can't drink any decent potions either, only two types, the once which protect from magic. Aside from regular stuff, Valygar could wear Belt of Protection from Magical Energy, various +% Magic Resistance amulets and Ring of Spell Turning. Also, boots of speed for some reason. RWS can loose his beefed innate Magic Resistance to try and breach protection spells when he hits, but either is was bugged, or does not work against Mantle and such - I could't predict it. His epic abilities are unorthodox, one turns every spell back at enemy (but not AoE's) for 3 rounds, but, again, nullifies his magic resistance, the other gives +5 damage against spellcasters and makes them loose 1 spells for a hit. RWS lacks passive ability to stack spell failure on enemies, which sucks. Still, he has better Magic Resistance. At level 22, with amulet, Valygar almost reached Viconia's level of resistance.
Minsc sucked. Should've make him a Barbarian probably. Switched him for Sarevok in ToB. Jan Jansen mostly performed outside combat, rarely backstabbing. Edwin and Aerie were amazing as always. Wish I'd had another good fighter. SCS ending would be so much easier with one more Whirlwind.
Oh, about Kangaxx. He is now supposed to be level 35 wizard, but without his infinite Soul Trap. I seem to kinda cheated, or maybe got incredibly lucky. I had two rings of Ram. The only weapon which could harm him was Daystar. So I don't know how, but I managed to bring him to Near Death with Rings of Ram, and Valygar, again, somehow, beaten him with few very lucky Daystar hits. Maybe I should try and re-fight it with fully buffed version and see what exactly he does, but that's how he fell.