Those darn bushes...(possible spoiler)

Possilbe spoiler...

what is up with those **** Man traps?

I get to this point in the game with maybe only 1 or 2 sections (playing on hard difficulty) where i would consider the fights challenging. Then, on my way to the castle, I run into about 10 ratlings, 4 mantraps, and 4 swamp mucks. Do the programmers actually expect people at this point in the game to have a fighting chance with these critters? My party was around 8-10th level when i got to this point in the game, and i think i havenot passed up a single chance to get experience legitimately (i don't kill the NPC's unless they are evil)

I did manage to kill them...The mantraps took out the ratlings, the swamp mucks chased me to the graveyward, where they got stuck in the porticulis...i dispatched them with flamestrikes while deftly dodging their gas, and then got the mantraps 'stuck' on a corner near the moat, where i would shoot all my flamestrikes at them. Between resting and engaging, it must have taking me the better part of thee hours to kill these dudes.

My point is this. I don't think they intended for the player to fight them the way i did. If it were not for the clipping errors, i would have been toasted. What were the programmers thinking? I imagine if i were ten levels higher i still would have been toasted in a straight up fight with these guys!

[freudianslip]

deftly dodging their gas


for some reason that line caused me a good bit of laughter Hehe

Duh - although I play at the default setting and my party got wasted the first time I ran into these amazoni man traps (heh, a fitting name) they were pretty easy when I returned for a revenge: approach slowly (and do it during the day!), cast flame drop (that's a puny level 2 sun spell!) and watch 'em roast! Oh, and my chars were level 8 or 9. Who says that you have to fight all critters mano-a-mano? Use some of that grey matter and use a little strategy - there's actually few occasions where it makes a difference in this game.
And if "hard difficulty" is too hard for you - just try a more moderate setting...

Hmmm, I think Overton has a point. You can only get past the mantraps etc. by actually knowing what's ahead. The first time through (if you haven't read the board) is always, repeat, always a suicide run. So you are forced to reload, and only then do you have the chance to work out a winning strategy......

I think it shows bad game design to make reload an unavoidable option in order to survive. IMHO there are only three occasions when save/load is totally justified.
1. When you want to leave the game to go do something less important (Eat, sleep, work, sex...)
2. When you have fouled up big time and want the opportunity to go back and right them wrongs (Aarrrrgghhh, I knew I should have learnt healing spells before tackling the Serpent Temple).
3. When you want to try something wicked, like killing Freyedies or Erathsmedor (evil snicker!), which you want to erase afterwards (What, me kill a dragon! Never! Look he's still alive.....)

Why is killing Erathsmedor considered to be evil? He has obviously been corrupted by holding the Mavin for so long! He flies around indescriminitly toasting anyone wandering through the forest and has killed members of my party on many occaisions. He also takes the Shroud of Elsera from you, which you are told by DeSoto is needed to wipe the evil from the blade. Thats why every owner of the sword has been corrupted. The Dragon gives the sword to the next champion, doesn't give him the Shroud that will keep the new champion safe, watchs as the dark magic of the sword consumes him, and then goes and steals all the treasure from whoever has just died weilding the sword adding the spoils to his Horde.
That fact that he has been guarding the sword doesn't make him good or evil.

[emilyh]

It's probably from the conversation with the NPC in the hut near town, she said she liked him. There is a quest to kill the dragon, you can decide if you want to do it or not.

emilyh

ive just spent 3 hours trying to kill these things...forget it...
im done for the evening. i killed all the rogues and flys
apparently being able to target the mantraps isnt enough...you have to be sorta close for your spells to work. easier said than done

[thoon]

Well Jeez, what is hard difficulty supposed to mean? Like, you know, maybe ... Hard?

Who gives you a quest to kill the Dragon? I must have missed that one. Er, you don't mean the quest to stop the 'Bronze Dragon' which is just one of Hepheastus' machines, do you?