I decided to compare notes with a crackerjack blogger who is considered by
Lilura the world's foremost expert on the IE games, and she says:
Ok, it's time to venture forth into three of the hardest areas of the second and third chapters; namely, the Beholder Lair, the Planar Sphere and the Planar Prison. Take them on in whichever order you like, but I wouldn't go into the Planar Sphere or Planar Prison without first breaking into the seventh circle for Ruby Ray of Reversal. The reason? You will be up against Lavok and Tolgerias: two epic Mages that employ Spell Trap to make themselves all but immortal.
Hmm..they didn't use Spell Trap against me, only spells like Spell Deflection, Spell Turning, and Spell Shield.
Does Spell Trap work against area spells as well?
Anyway, my party did all three areas with no 6th or 7th level mage spells available.
Lavok and Tolgerias were not that difficult (did them on first try with no buffs), Planar Prison was quite hard, and I had to buff to the max to defeat the Unseeing Eye. I did the areas in the reverse order that I listed.
It's possible Spell Revisions (which I don't use) makes it harder if the duration of the Mantle and Prot vs Magic Spells is increased, but you don't really need debuffing spells when you can wait out the spells that protect against physical attacks. Also, as long as they don't have Immunity: Abjuration Keldorn has a decent chance of dispelling most of their buffs, even with only a 1.5 modifier (unmodded it's 2).
And as long as cast on an enemy with no protection against directly targeted spells I think Insect Plague should work. Not sure, though. Can someone clarify?
Disabling 3D Acceleration gets rid of most glitches (and playing windowed apparently gets rid of the remaining ones), but it also makes the game's spells look crappier.
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