12 Bandit ambush
toolarg
Member Posts: 178
What the flying fuck is up with that, is there any mod that disables it. Im trying harcore runs and it pisses me off that even before I reach the FFI Im ambushed by a circle of bandits with absolutely no chanche to survive. Im mad.
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@Tresset Especially in original BG, where you didn't get to pause the game while you desperately rummaged through your pack for that Potion of Mirrored Eyes, only to return to the game screen to find someone petrified. I learned the hard way to make sure to buy a Stone to Flesh scroll before I leave Candlekeep with Gorion.
They'd be super deadly against anyone with average dex and con scores though.
Best to figure out safe transition paths, not all transitions are created equal.
In this case, don't go east from the location with Imoen, go south. This way, you won't get this ambush and will safely reach Beregost. From there, you can go the the Friendly arm inn.
"Hah!", I said.
You are given three bodies at the beginning, use them as shield. Remember, the point of no-reload runs is to survive. Not level-up fast, etc.
There are two more instances in vanila BG:EE where you can die and probably break something in the real world:
1) Basilisk area. Make sure you always have at least one potion of Mirrored Eyes/potion Invisibility(if solo)/Protection From Petrification scroll(or memorized spell), when you're traveling there or out of there. If the ambush with a Lesser Basilisk happens and you are unprepared, that can be it. Also, the Stone to Flesh scroll wouldn't hurt; if you're in party and someone got petrified, and you don't have the scroll, both the companion and the equipment are lost forever.
2) Cloakwood Wyvern ambush. Always have some Cure Poison potions. In most cases it's easy to run away, but don't take any chances. Wyvern's poison is deadly: 5hp per tick. Even if you have the Slow Poison ability from the dreams, you won't be able to use it.
Also, it can come up during your first trip to the FAI, with you, Imoen, and Monty and Xzar if you took them, all at first level with no special equipment.
It's basically a "You rolled a 1, ha, ha, rocks fall, everyone dies" screen.
It's the equivalent of terrible DM'ing, and I've stopped even counting it against my minimal reloads. I'm not too sure I'd count it against a no-reload, either. It definitely needs to be taken out of the game, as it serves absolutely no good purpose, and it detracts from the quality of the game.
In contrast I've only played BG1 vanilla once to Chapter 5, and I saw that ambush twice, as well as one where a wolf spawned right next to a poor lv1 Imoen, and chunked her in one bite.
*shivers at traumatic noobie memories.*
I mostly notice this trying to scribe scrolls. I don't reload on failures, and I've noticed that if I get one failure, the chance of getting more failures in the next few attempts increases dramatically. I know it is mathematically possible to fail three times in a roll with 98% success rate, but I have had this happen on more than one occasion.
As others have mentioned the most consistent approach is to make initial transitions so as to avoid any chance of the encounter at all (south to HH, east to Beregost).
If you do encounter it then most charnames should be able to survive if they have armour, shield and HP (or familiar HP and Shield spell for a Mage). Only charname up shit creek is a thief, better grab some invis pots quick smart.
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I am not sure if this map is 100% accurate... All I really know is that it was a proposed change to BG1:EE and I am not sure it ever went through because of stability issues...
Anyway... while some of the links may not be accurate the encounters should be pretty solid...
In the same vein, although you could avoid that ambush if you had the metagame knowledge to take a very specific route, but a roleplayer (roleplaying a good obedient Charname) will like go straight for the Friendly Arm Inn. And it would suck to be forced to reload or lose party members due to pure bad luck. I personally would count such an ambush towards a reload, just like I count reloads caused by Neera wild surges, which I also have little control of, but I can totally understand why @BelgarathMTH might not.
If you don't want to run into the bandits then you can avoid doing so by not traveling between areas where the waylaid area is ar6100. If you cannot avoid doing this then try to make it so that your travel time does not overlap with hours 20-23 and you should not encounter bandits.
So lets say that you are traveling from the area with the belt ogre to the Friendly Arm. The travel time is 8 hours. If you are waylaid you will likely have traveled for 4 hours. And the creatures spawned will be based on the current hour of the day when you arrive in the ambush area. Since the 10 bandits are spawned at hours 20-23 you would be at risk of running into the bandits if you set out at hours 16-19. There is also a 5 bandit encounter in this area that happens at hours 18-19 so you may want to avoid that too by not traveling between hours 14-19. Keep in mind that this is just one example and travel times vary so you may need to adjust your math accordingly.
Like, you know, your favourite tv show being aired on TV.
Why, what were you thinking of?