After entering Maxos temple I was a little less than half way to level 17. In the mirror room I tried opening the empty barrel that spawns 3 walking armours, since in D2:ED I cleared the room with a bow and never realized there was anything special about it. The barrel is straight into the room, and then on the right, just past the half height wall. Of course it was an easy fight, but then I thought I should check if you could spawn more than one group at a time. If you open and close the barrel quickly, then the summoned opponents will stay grouped together; if you delay, then some will stay in place and some will move towards you, making them harder to deal with. The first time I tried, I opened and closed the barrel once, then stepped closer when the camera angle moved, so the spawning point moved, as well, making the resulting fight (after a third summon) a little hectic (at one point really having to dodge and use a potion). I tried again opening the barrel quickly 4 times and then jumping backwards, and had a much easier time with them. I started to leave, and then thought, 'hey, do you know what might be fun?' and then saved and went and opened the barrel about 12 or 15 times. I got hit a lot at first, but wasn't taking too much damage (needed a potion, but didn't have to get out of the line of fire). Static charge and retaliation auras were being triggered almost constantly the first 5 seconds (often 3 at a time), but my second explosive arrow into the group took out the majority of them (it was great fun seeing so many opponents go down at once). While cleaning up the last few walking armours, I went up to level 17.
I did not have my creature summoned for this. It might help to give them an alternate target, but they might also move more with another target, making exploding arrows less effective.
The fight with Amdusias was over relatively quickly. I ran up, we both fired off an arrow, I got hit with an explosive arrow and was stunned for a couple seconds, taking a little bit of damage during that time. I got a couple shots in just as my creature caught up and fired off a volley of Magic Missiles, and the fight was over. I got ok loot, but I wanted to try the fight again, anyway. Next time I jumped at an angle coming over the rise in the path, and avoided Amdusias' first attack, and the fight was over in a couple seconds. In the quest reward screen I had gold selected (after experience) and almost accepted it, but then noticed the bow in the options and decided to check it out. The base stats were decent, but it was well worth getting for the level 8 Increased Damage enchantment on it (I had level 7 from a set item in Lovis' room). The actual loot drop was forgettable.
After a trip to get Dreavan to upgrade the enchantment on my bow, I headed back to the fjords. Clearing the beach by the waterfall and swimming over to the one behind the anti-dragon shields brought me up to level 18. Clearing the path past the depleted ore mine brought me to level 19, at which point I figured I should go kill another rabbit to trigger the killer bunny (I stopped deliberately killing rabbits when I was two away, but accidentally took out another since then). The first time I killed him I got a couple equipment pieces with upgrades for my magic damage and ranged protection enchantments; nice, but not great. The second time I took out the killer bunny (using the same 'jump on a rock' technique) I got two pieces of potentially usable equipment: the amulet has +2 Stun Arrows, +6 Ranged Damage, 2 charm slots and 2 enchantment slots, while the helmet has +5 Vitality, +6 Spirit, 2 charm slots and 1 enchantment slot. I'm still wearing the Talisman of the North for when I go turn in my remaining quests, but after I get to Sentinel Island I'll have to compare these to my current equipment, and see if I have the ingredients to upgrade the existing low level enchantments.
I also used both of Bellegar's teleporters, that you need the password for. The lone chest gave me an amulet with +2 Explosive Arrows, +5 Dexterity, 2 charm slots and 1 enchantment slot. I sold the 'Spirit of the Forest' amulet that I bought for the +1 Explosive Arrows bonus, but didn't get much for it considering it was never used.
The issue then was how far I could level before I needed to complete quests. Since leveling was so fast, I figured I should just keep going and save each level, so I could reload if I needed to.
The first level of the mine brought me up to level 20, and the remainder almost got me to level 21. At the end I found a ring with +45 hit points, +4 Critical Chance, 2 charm slots, and 1 enchantment slot with level 7 Static Charge.
I leveled after the first 2 opponents in the waterfall cave, and got half way to level 22 finishing off the accessible areas of the cave.
With my 'just turned level 21' save I headed back to Broken Valley and turned in all the quests, keeping track of how much experience each gave, and got almost up to level 22. There was no way for me to reach level 23 before heading to Sentinel Island, so I decided to reload my save outside the waterfall cave, and go check some merchants. I got a bow from Martis with a level 9 Increase Magical Damage enchantment on it, but not much from anyone else. I went and finished off what I could in the waterfall cave again, and returned to the merchants; this time I got an amulet from Dr Needleman with a Static Charge 7 enchantment (I had it on a ring I have equipped, as well, but don't currently have the ingredients to remove it and add it back), IIRC a helmet from Lamotte with Life Line 8, Butcher 8 and Fire Curse 9 from Martis and Melee Protection 8 from Mara.
Based on my experience and the rewards from quests I had left to turn in, I figured the way to level with the least amount of experience points was to complete the full 'hunting we shall go' quest, report on the bandit camp location, give all my goblin hearts to Richard, give the scrying stone to the priest and confront the deserter. I didn't really want to loose Martis as a trader, but excluding that quest led to less optimal solutions. I wasn't going to level up much more than a couple times again anyway before he would become unavailable (I should have been checking him each time I leveled, but only did so when I first entered the camp, once looking for an enchantment ingredient and then on level 20 and 21).
I calculated that should put me 30 experience points over level 22, but for some reason ended up 28 points shy (rounding differences in the displayed experience vs actual experience from the Wisdom bonuses could account for up to 14 experience difference). I'm not sure what happened there, but going through the bandit camp was enough to get to level 22 (had that not been enough, there were still a few rabbits around, and a room full of chickens in the waterfall cave, for 1 exp each). I had been mindreading everyone, so the only ones left were the soldier outside the bandit camp, Locke's cart and David on the path to the fjords.
After heading to Sentinel Island I am now level 23. I will not be getting much experience from opponents there, so the extra experience from entering the fjords early and from the first mindread on the island may or may not make up for that (I'm guessing it will, but not by a significant amount).
I have not distributed any stat or skill points since I reached level 16, and currently have 35 stat points and 10 skill points in reserve.
