i'm soloing a sorcerer and was at lvl 12 and only reloaded once. then killed em all then reloaded again to see if i could do this again and it worked again
it was just before i went to the asylum, listen:
i ran in the room to see where everybody spawned then reloaded.
i casted 5 skull traps between the beholder and the fighter then casted melf's minute meteors stoneskin true sight and improverd invisibility.
i ran through the skull traps, (they for some reason didn't trigger) i got to the top of the room hided behing the device wich can gat you back again.
when the twisted rune appeared the fighter + beholder were dead meat. only the wizard could see me. i killed here using my minute meteor's.
i then casted spider spawn to use up my remaining minute meteor's. got invisible fetch the staff. casted mordenkainer's sword from a scroll to kill the vampire. walked to shangelar to trigger al his spell trigger's/contingency.
walked away invisible waited for his trigger to wear off.
then casted spider spawn about, three more times and the spiders were very effective against shangalar.
i used only:
a identification scroll
a mordenkainer's sword scroll
a lvl 12 sorcerer equipped with
-robe of venca
-ring of wizardry
-ring of acnity
-belt of hill giant strength
ow one more thing. it was novice