Improved Bandit Camp - Ouch! :O

[NocturneN]

Playing with the "Improved End of Chapter-battles"-component, and wow...

 

Having exhausted most of my important spells in Tazok's Tent, I go outside to be greeted by Taughoz (or w/e he is called) and an ARMY of bandits! "No problem, let the slaughter begin!" I thought, but seriously.....

 

These are beefed-up bandits. They have downright ludicrious HP (Takes 3 fireballs or similar to kill them), they ALL pop Oil of Speed and completely shred my party with arrows! Yes, I can go back to saves before this moment and prepare myself better, still I'd like to know what the heck is going on here:

 

Both Shar-Teel and Branwen have missile AC of -6, and so does Edwin. They still get shredded almost instantly! No crits. Just what level are these guys?! No offense, but this fight is downright unfair! I have to contend with 20+ bandits who are all higher level than my party, use the improved targeting system of SCS which means they go straight for my Mage/Healers/Thieves first AND quaff potions like "Oil of Speed" "Hill giant strength"! As they are bandits, one would think they'd atleast be restricted to thieving pots and thac0! Should I really have to exhaust every fireball-spell, 2 potions of flame AND the Wand of Fire? I can Web them and Fireball them to death; that's about the only working strategy. It's cheesy as hell. :/

 

Looks like I'll have to knock them off one at a time - assassin style! - before I go into the tent... EDIT: That didn't work... Even if I oneshot them, the alarm goes off and I have to fight the whole camp!

[n-ghost]

Talk your way into the tent and then run away D:

 

Sometimes it's the best strategy when it comes to SCS. You can always return there later and hail down some righteous butt-kicking.

[DavidW]

I haven't intentionally touched the bandits' stats. If they have been significantly adjusted, it's a bug. (It's a not-impossible bug: SCS in its current version auto-corrects errors in THAC0 and saving throws, and that has the potential to turn invisible errors in the vanilla game into visible ones - that's one of the reasons this is a beta. I'm at work and not immediately able to check.)

 

Having said that, I agree with n-ghost. I don't particularly feel that the Bandit camp ought to be takeable at normal level. You can perfectly well run away after taking out the Iron Throne guys.

 

Incidentally, there are basically no values of X for which "No offence, but X" is less offensive than "X".

[Jarno Mikkola]

Not giving us a lot to go on with(no weidu.log's content etc), gives us a lot to point fingers with...

Such as having installed a mod that alters or adds a different quality bandits to the mix, which the SCS could misconstrue as say 30-50th level monsters, in which case the SCS can be part of the problem but is not it's base.

 

As for the Bandit's, they are not all rogues and thus have the Thief Thac0, but brute warriors, which have Fighter thac0, poor proficiency, poor armor and lack of great physical stats(strength/dex/con) and monsters 8-HPs/level.

[NocturneN]

Hmm, I know that, Jarno, alas I honestly didn't think this was a bug (having never played SCS before, and everything else SCS has done so far has been nice and fun!) - but reading David's reply I am no longer so sure. You can find my WeiDU-log in the op, here.

 

I despise having to run away from things; worst of all some pansy bandits! Ofcourse, an entire camp of bandits should present a tougher challenge than the average ambush along the road, but still. They are poorly organized (The Chill & Black Talons hate eachother!) rag-tag muggers and cuthtroaths! Some Black Talon Elites and named NPCs with better hp & thac0 I'm all for, but it becomes just wierd when every bandit is suddenly more proficient in combat than two Flaming Fist soldiers!

 

Since David haven't adjusted their stats, I think there's defiantely something fishy going on here. Also, I am not sure I could escape them even if I wanted to; I'd prolly lose atleast 3-4 characters from the hails of arrows!

[InKal]

It's nothing fishy. Bandits have vanilla stats and SCS scripting. (shadowkeeper don't lie ;]) But there's many of them and thats the point. If your mage has something like 20, 30 hitpoints (probably without acces to stoneskin yet) and is targeted by 5 or 7 or 10 archers under oil of speed, he/she will die pretty quick.

 

AFAIK they dont using true sight and/or detect illusion (which means that they are not thieves but generic fighters rather) so bring at least six invisibility potions with you. ;]

 

 

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yep. thanx google translator

[NocturneN]

I was finally able to beat them yesterday by carefully positioning my tanks to take the brunt of their assault while webbing them and bombarding them with fireball & skull trap! My PC thief char used up his poison darts; Shar-Teel and Viconia had to chuck Potions of Fortitude + the aid of 3 traps and 4 skeletons. Every Potion of Extra Healing went down aswell; but since the bandits use them themselves I don't see anything wrong with that! One hell of a fight, regardless!

 

InKal: Normal bandits are not able to hit (unless they roll 20s ofcourse) my mage (Edwin) when he's buffed with shield + boots of avoidance, gauntles of dexterity etc setting his missile AC to something like -6. These bandits still hit him frequently with rolls of 14, 15, etc... The bandits in the camp are definately not the same as those I've run into on the roads, I'll tell you that. I've taken some shots to show you guys some of the really extreme stuff going on (read the combat logs!):

 

 

Edwin, Branwen and Shar-Teel ALL had missile AC of ~ -6 here; good enough to not be hit by anything but crits from regular bandits. The bandits themselves (not only Black Talon Elites) all had some 40-50 hp (it took alot aoe spells, poison, and sniping to bring them down; I really had to focus targets because they all also popped Extra Healing Potions when not CCed!!) and were using everything from Oil of Speed to Stone Giant Strength. As you can imagine, this was quite the battle. The Hobgoblin Elites and Chill Hobgoblins weren't nearly as deadly, thankfully.