In addition to a thief, new players are advised to bring along a bard for their valuable loremastery, enabling them to easily identify magical items instead of relying on the Identify spell, which consumes first circle spell slots that should instead be loaded with Magic Missile, Chromatic Orb and Blindness. Sure, veterans may start off with a first level party and rapidly gain levels as they go, but for the purposes of my treatment the party will be borderline-maxed, as that's what the design calls for. The gating encounters, the convo with Bayard (see the 'cellar' section, below), the type and number of hostile denizens, the fifth circle scroll drops and the tough traps and locks all point to the design of Durlag's Tower catering to parties of maximum level, or not far off. Resting frequently results in ambushes, but having to defend the camp against a few Ghasts is preferable to hiking all the way back to town, which is time-consuming and may result in overworld waylays, anyway.
Reloading also refreshes generic spawns and may add to already-existing ones (true of the campaign in general).
