This turned out to be a fun dungeon, despite being an overgenerous five levels.
Dargoth was a pushover, but I assumed that he would be.
The Death Snare in this dungeon is a good one; it's nearly self-contained, unlike the first two. Everything you need to solve it is right there in the snare. The trick is a very simple one, and it's quite well clued. The funny part is that a few of the clues are hilarious overstatements--they could cause quite a bit of inconvenience for a player who isn't thinking, or who has become desperate. I haven't figured out what Seg 3 is good for yet. I think I'm building some confidence. The Maze of Dread is as good as solved!
I finally started to find some new and interesting items on the last level of this dungeon, so things are looking up for my journey into the Maze of Dread. And I'm going to need better items, because my missile weapons are useless, and my melee weapons aren't quite strong enough any longer. My three archmages are extremely fast; they always go first. For some reason, my bard is really slow. He quite often goes last--this is too bad, because he's wielding the Spectre Snare.
The best spells (apart from the obvious residual ones) are WIZW, SOWH, NILA, MAGM, and especially MEME. MEME is the best way to dislodge those annoying 90' monsters that constantly summon backup. I remember, dimly, that eventually FAFO becomes quite valuable, but I haven't needed it yet.
Cranford managed to handle the ridiculous amount of spell points that spell-casters earn by putting steep costs on the best spells. 300 spell points is essentially bottomless in BT1, but in BT2 you can burn through more than half of that in a single battle with 5 Baf Mages if things go badly for you.
My party leader, a Paladin wearing some "unmanly" speedboots, helps me keep my sanity by letting me run from the battles containing the worst XP to Annoyance ratios.
Dargoth is down!
Dargoth is down!
Death and drek? WTF?
