Use Your Thieves Effectively
Having at least one thief in your party is a necessity in Durlag's Tower because of all its nasty traps. Take advantage of the additional experience level (or two, for single classed thieves) that thieves can now acquire and pump up the 'detect traps' ability of thieves. You'll want a thief with a detect-traps skill of at least 80. If you don't have a thief with abilities that formidable, use potions of perception to temporarily enhance your thieves' skills. Potions of perception can only be found in high hedge or at sorcerous sundries in the city of Baldur's Gate, and you should buy all of those potions in stock and use only one at a time. Don't waste a potion's effects by leaving the game unpaused when you're writing notes down or otherwise waiting around. If you don't have a thief character in your party, you'll have to rely on the 'find traps' priest spell to at least try to avoid most of them in Durlag's Tower. As a last resort, if you're lacking a character to find traps, you can send a magically protected, hasted character to act as a lightning rod to trigger (and, one hopes, avoid) traps while the remainder of your party waits in safety.

Thieves can not move stealthily if there aren't shadows around (not a problem in Durlag's Tower) and can only backstab if they are behind opponents, so you'll have to be a little more cautious in advancing your thieves. Remember that thieves can't move stealthily at the same time they are checking for traps, so take advantage of the ring of invisibility or invisibility potions to keep your thief from walking into a no-win confrontation. A thief with the ring of invisibility can quickly wander through a level, clean it of traps, and perhaps even use some strategic backstabbing to pick off a few isolated opponents.

Combine Beneficial Effects
There are some truly challenging confrontations in Tales of the Sword Coast, which are even tougher than the final battle with Sarevok in the original game. Since the most deadliest foes are magically resistant, you'll have to rely on missile and melee weapons. But while offensive spells won't always be successful, you should ensure that you use a variety of defensive incantations to give your party members the advantage. In addition to using haste spells/oil of speed as discussed above, you should ensure that you cast priest spells of bless, chant, call upon holy might, protection from evil ten-foot radius and other magical protection spells. Mage characters should protect themselves with minor globes of invulnerability, while fighters should take potions of giant strength and heroism.

Autopause and Miscellaneous Combat Tips
Another new tool at your disposal is the ability to set the game to automatically pause as soon as your party sights an attacking creature or character. Having an additional second or two to plan your attacks while your opponents are still out range can be extremely valuable, so you should use that autopause setting. Summoned creatures and animated dead still work extremely well at drawing attacks away from your party and disrupting enemy spellcasters, and debilitating area-of-effect spells such as stinking cloud and web are very effective against enemies lacking magical resistance.

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