What are the best places to grind in the midgame? I've done the purest water quest, divine ore, and I'm in the middle of tangletre ossuary. I haven't ventured into Vela yet, asI've been relying on waiting till night, casting predator sight and taking out blind creatures w/ bows. I'd like to gain at least a few levels and increase my melee skills-- split between sword and cleaving, a bad idea, I know, but I stuck with my choices-- before moving on in the main plot. I'm hoping the rest of the ossuary will get me to level 6, but after that I'm a little wary of carniraptors and tauraxes. The tauraxes crushed me before I came upon the 'run away until nighttime tactic.

I'm a thief/ranger with a bit of low magic skills.

Do the skeletons in the pit NE of the purest water respawn? Do bees?

Awesome game, BTW, that I'm playing way too late.
Can't wait to finish it and buy book II!

I often spent time just camping just outside of Blackwater. Usually Taurax will spawn here, and in the night with predator site, they shouldn't be too hard to kill. If you become overwhelmed though, just walk into Blackwater, and let the priest take them out. You could also try the Easter Eggs. You can find information on the Easter Eggs in the third part of the third section in my walkthrough, Here. Hope that helps you!

That's a good idea. I just finished the Ossuary, spent some time camping, taking out goblins, and triggering poltergeist. Predator sight and enchanted arrows ftw.

After that I headed to Vela. I didn't realize it was a lower level area than the Ossuary- plowed right through the Goblin warlord. I think that I will try and find the 3rd East Egg in Crakamir, level up round Blackwater, then head to Shadowmirk. This game rule is fucking awesome.
This is my first play through and my characters all over the map, but I'm fine with that. Reminds me of Morrowind, in a way. The fact that I can't wait to try a new character build and wander around listening to music and letting the days pass.

Is it really cheap to camp and grind? No worse than reloading after being cursed, I guess.

Your walkthrough has unfortunately been an excellent reference when I was stuck in the early part of the game. It really opens up after clearing Grimmhold, but before that I was struggling. Good pacing.

You don't really need to "grind." Just with the XP from non-random encounters, you can get to a high enough level to make the endgame easy. If you really want to, though, it doesn't really matter where you do it. In Book II, camp encounters are based on location, but in Book I they're just based on your level. Once it's high enough, all you'll encounter is Tauraxes.

I agree with the last comment. I really appreciate the gameplay here because it truly does not require any grinding at all to complete the game. I'm one of those players that has to poke his nose into every square inch of a gaming area eventually, and I found that by the time I was nearing the 3/4ths mark of the main quest, I was breezing through combat.

The second playthrough, I tried a vastly different character and avoided unecessary exploration. It was significantly more challenging throughout, but not overwhelming. I have to give a brick-sized kudo to the devs for awesome balance.

A caveat, though: if you choose too many skills or spread the points over too many different attributes, your character is pre-chewed dog meat. You should know if you're in trouble by the time you're Level 3 or 4. A yellow lizard (the venomous ones) will be a nearly impossible opponent.