I just beat the game for the first time. It seems like it was a 'neutral' playthrough, in all senses. The character was Chaotic Good and the fights were never easy, but I had enough power to get through. I assume the ending was 'neutral'. I did not fight the final boss, I used the special blade.

Throughout the game, I did try to get the most experience in side quests, doing as many as I could find. I sold the evil book because I did not want the evil path. I did some grinding in under the clerk's ward to buy some special item, before Curst. It was very slow for my tastes. The experience and money you get that way are dwarfed by quests. Even with all that, it feels like I rushed through the game. Nobody managed to reach even level 8 spells, even though I recorded them. Is the only way to stock up on spells to do endless fighting, or to opt into violence in quests? The peaceful options seem to give most experience.

The game did not feel as long as I expected. I know I did miss some quests but still.

Combat is such a small part of the game, I don't think it's really worth the time and effort to try to grind monsters to level up a bit more.

On my first play through, I also remember not being high enough level at the end to cast the spells from the highest level scrolls I found. I think that's intentional and you're supposed to use those uber-powerful spell scrolls as one-shot items rather than inscribing them into your spell book.

Yes. You're right. The fighting is the thing you spend the least on. I come from jrpgs and it is a bigger deal then. When I was grinding for money in pst, the real time waster was healing back up to do it again, followed by careful positioning to minimize damage. But the fighting is fun and I wanted to see more of it, exactly because of those strategy game elements.

I suppose it's true that the high level spells are just a red herring, unless you really spend eons grinding, because the last secret action that gave experience, it was 2,000,000 experience, right before the boss, so there really was no point other than discovering the story. Still, I plan to fool around a bit more in old saves. I might try to kill all the monsters in the baator section, which I could not do when I tried.

I think the semi-intended place for grinding is supposed to be Under-Sigil, since the monsters there constantly respawn. At a certain point in the story, more powerful ones (with more XP) appear there. I went in there a few times at one point and killed a bunch of things - it wasn't exciting, but by the end I could cast the top-level spells.

Also remember the less people in your party, the more experience everyone gets (since it's shared). So when grinding for your character's benefit, take as small a party as you can comfortably win the fights with.

As mentioned though, it's not necessary - unless you (like me) inscribed those spells into your spell book and actually wanted to use them.

Another decent place to grind is the Modron maze set to hard.

If you are lucky, you get three constructs spawned in a room which is 12k exp points. And they are easy enemies so you can plow through several rooms no problems on one go. Just remember to reset the maze each time you go back to rest to heal so you don't waste time trying to get to the last room you cleared after you got your HP back.

Modron maze? I never made it there. I suspected there was a place to get another character, based on some item descriptions, but I couldn't find it. Either way, I plan to start a new game with widescreen and other mods.

Can't believe I forgot about the Modron maze! And it makes perfect sense from a plot/universe point of view, since that is its purpose.

It can be rather boring, and there is the minor annoyance of starting a conversation before every single combat, but grinding is generally not exciting anyway...

There's a lot of stuff to pick up there too - while most of it is literally worth nothing, there are some useful things to be found too...

If you have very high constitution you can grind quite fast since you'll regenerate faster than the monsters hurt you.

Must need to be beyond legendary levels. Your allies will have to sit it out and if you go solo I don't think any constitution leve can save you from 6 worms.

I second what kmonster said about Constitution.

Of course you want to max Wisdom first for the biggest bonus to Experience Points, then Intelligence and Charisma for lots of dialogue options.

But if you want an arse-kicker, forget Strength and Dexterity. Max Constitution.

At normal difficulty 25 con will save you unless you're trying to die on purpose.

The curiosity shop in Sigil sells a metallic cube figurine. If you interact with it you can reach the Modron maze. Inside you will find a potential party member voiced by Dan Castellaneta (Homer Simpson)

The Modron maze is good for grinding at low levels at low difficulty and making money, once you're powerful enough you'll gain levels much faster in Undersigil.

That's accurate. Although some of them are good (and have cool animations) most of the enemies you'd like to use them on have high magic resistance (which you cannot diminish as you can in BG2), and so most of the times won't even be touched by them.

As squid830 said, best place to grind is Undersigil, where the Glabrezu appear (the dog-faced demons with four arms). They give good XP and have a chance of rare item drops (Aegis of Torment, Bell's Shield, high level spells). If you don't mind mods, there was a component in Qwin's Tweakpack to make the Glabrezu spawn before you leave Sigil --although they only give a fraction of the XP they give after you return from your planar trip, to compensate.

Not my experience. Undersigil's (edited name) Glabrezus will eat you alive, no matter what constitution you have.