Who thought that Cloakwood forest encounters was a good idea?

[The Cunning Fox (raZoleg)]

Show this man to me. Who designed this ♥♥♥♥? Who thought thst placing you in the middle of the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ettercap/spider ambush was a great way to improve gameplay? Even higher level heroes have a hard time getting out of this, which in most cases is either run or load a save. Who’s bright idea was this “ambush” mechanic? When you have thieves with detect trap that are supposed to watch out for “waylaying enemies”? I nearly threw my computer at the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ wall when I had to reload for the 40th time because the trip to and from the Inn and the forest is not just a lesson in humility, but also a test of sanity and self-control.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Cloakwood is a series of areas where you are supposed to scout ahead slowly and carefully. What exactly causes you problems in there? You mention traps, but those on the ground you can spot and disarm safely. If you get webbed during combat, then you haven't moved/positioned your party carefully enough. Then there's the side-quest from Tiber about locating his brother Chelak. Well, from a role-playing perspective you ought to prepare well before entering a cave. And nothing forces you to stay within the cave. Sometimes fleeing or retreating quickly can be a wise choice.

[Giblets]

Never had too much issues, the spider cave was touch but i tend to lure then out slowly.

[Knight Silver]

If you run quickly enough to the side of the screen, you won't have to deal with any of the enemies in the random encounters. The webs aren't fast enough to actually reach you in time.

[AlexMBrennan]

Well, back then people thought that killing the party on a poor dice roll was totally OK.

What exactly causes you problems in there?

They are obviously referring to ambush encounters that can happen when you travel between areas of Cloakwood.

These ambushes are the most difficult ones you can encounter in the entire game, and this is why you should only move between areas if you are fully healed.

[The Cunning Fox (raZoleg)]

I scout slowly, but that’s not the point, I have beaten the maps rather easily (my first playthrough is on Core Rules because if it’s D&D I wanna play D&D). But every time I shovel the hundreds of items from the mines or just from killing things — I get waylaid.

And I have to run (which is cowardice). I can take on Wyverns, spiders, but the Ettercaps cast Web almost instantly. I can’t keep healing whoever is stuck there, the other spells to immobilise the opposition are too long to cast, and my team lacks casters as Xzar doesn’t want to stay with me due to me being good, Neera just disappeared and Xan in level 5-6, and on very low hitpoints. The web even entangles spirits, and that is just strange. But you can’t rely on them anyway — they don’t spawn as often.

It’s not about dying on bad rolls — it’s about the fact that there is nothing you can do. Even good rolls end up in slaughter because these areas were meant for characters that aren’t exactly level 20 gods, so you’re not exactly a Juggernaut who can cut down scores of humanoid spiders. This isn’t the endgame. Come on.

Also: you sleep, waste your spells and health on an ambush, arrive at the new location, sleep and guess what. That’s right — your tired and beaten web-covered party of arachnophobes (phobia here being the word for “hatred”... deep, seething hatred) get to fight the locals who jump them as they rest.

Ursprungligen skrivet av Knight Silver:

If you run quickly enough to the side of the screen, you won't have to deal with any of the enemies in the random encounters. The webs aren't fast enough to actually reach you in time.

That’s what I do, but it feels extremely cowardly. If you can beat the best mercenaries of the world, why is it that a bunch of overweight Spidermen can cream you? Faerûn denizens better watch out for that forest — that’s a MUCH bigger problem than Iron shortage.

[AlexMBrennan]

It’s not about dying on bad rolls — it’s about the fact that there is nothing you can do

Yes, that's what I meant - for example, you can get the 10 bandit firing squad ambush when you leave the area where Gorion was killed. This is obviously completely unsurvivable.

The game is designed to have impossibly difficult ambushes because you can reload the autosave. Is that good game design? I would argue that it isn't but presumably they didn't know any better 20 years ago when this game was made.

[philos3]

There are ways to beat all these ambushes.
Ettercaps don't cast Web, instead they have laced the area with traps that cast web. The only BG1 creature that casts Web is the Gargantuan Spider, and IIRC that only affects one character.
So, in the case of the Ettercaps, "Don't move." that trips the traps and fires the web spells. Don't charge, let them come to you. Put Imoen (or whichever thief you have) in detect traps mode and have them remove the traps so you can move.
By the time you get to Cloakwood you should have acquired a few wands. Use them and missile weapons on the ambushers until they are next to you and then switch to melee. Frost wands can one shot the spiders and if lucky an Ettercap. Paralyzation wands almost work every time on these opponents. Be careful of lightning wands as they can rebound right back at you.

[The Cunning Fox (raZoleg)]

But I don’t want to waste wands on meager peasant Ettercaps. I am a horader, which means I have an anxiety form the old 8bit platformers with inventory system that you must never use the items that are rare, or even consummable, otherwise you won’t be able to beat the boss. Wands feel cheap as well, like a ticket out of a bad situation, given to you by devs “You are failing miserably? Here, buy these magic sticks to pretend you are not playing a “story mode””.

But so far all the boss battles are the easiest: I just know where they are, so I either make a trap for them by just aggroing with Imoen and luring them to my spirits, or I cast the withering fog and wait as everyone dies. Cheap and unrewarding, but better than seeing your squad slaughtered because the enemies cast. The. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Horror. Again.

I don’t use lightning — most destruction I do is by whithering fog and I have clerics to tank for me: a Drow (of course — no D&D party should be without a Drow... I tried hiring Drizzt, but he ran away to his basement) and Brawen, then I have Imoen and Safana and Xan and me, a Shaman. But most of my spells are area based, and while Xan has good evasion and armour spells, he is hardly a damage dealer right now, just a charmer.

As soon as Ettercap poison people, clerics run around trying to heal them (I can disable it, but stocking up on antidote takes up space and weight, and I don’t have the strongest people in party), and I can’t use my Shaman to heal them ok or cast anything as she is busy breakdancing the spirits into reality. Needless to say, with this group I can’t tank for long, as I can’t summon enough spirits to tie 4 or 5 Ettercaps that spawn and they never attack the closest enemy — they pick their own targets.

It’s interesting how literally everything that comes my way is destroyed except the “common” enemy. This is the bane of RPGs, like the impossibly strong Giants and pathetically weak Dragons. Or virgin Daedra and chad Mountain Lions in Oblivion.

On a side note: 650XP for them is pathetic. Granted they are easily destroyed if they are alone in the field, but not so when they ambush.

[philos3]

I concur wholeheartedly that Ettercaps are undervalued. Dynaheir has the special ability to slow poison as part of her character. Hit her special abilities button and it works almost instantly like your PC's special abilities do.
Wands are consumables but they can be recharged. It is expensive, but you make more than enough gold to recharge several wands. Use a wand until it has 1 or 2 charges left. Then sell it to a merchant. When you buy it back it will be fully recharged. Depending on the merchant it probably will have 100 charges (fireball wands max at 50). If your character has low charisma, put someone that has better charisma in the top slot before you talk to the merchant and get a better price.

[The Cunning Fox (raZoleg)]

Still, wands feel like cheating and economy in this game is out the window, I have made enough to buy all the lords of Baldur’s Gate and have them carry me in a litter.

[MidnaFeetEnjoyer]

you can just run and fully avoid contact if you have any sense of char movement, or reposition to an advantageous fight

[Giblets]

if you're having trouble with "peasant Ettercaps" then clearly they're not peasants, if you're not willing to use items because you prefer to just horde them then that's your failing not the games.. the items are there to be used. And there's nothing wrong in running away of you encounter an enemy or ambush you can't handle, backing off to re-group and prepare it quite normal.

[The Cunning Fox (raZoleg)]

Peasants wielding pitchforks were always a problem for the nobility: Ettercap’s strength does not mean they aren’t filthy wood commoners. In fairness, those items could be used better and you can’t really afford much inventory space, considering how enemies drop a lot of loot. Carrying wands for every occasion? What’s next, having a personal wardrobe for the mage? I can just imagine some poor sod in rags, carrying a giant chest and Xan opening it up and pondering, not unlike the Loc Dog “Should I wear this lightning resistance robe with my fear wand, or should I put on the breath-save robe and just wield the fire wand at them?”Let’s be honest — if you have to shuffle your items before every encounter it’s not exactly a good flow for the gameplay. Dragonage suffered from this too. It’s only after Mass Effect 2 that it was more about gameplay, and not about shuffling items in your sack.

And wands are cheap because for the “game of intellectuals” it’s awfully easy to just buy a whole lot of them without thinking about your PC progress or levelling, and spam them, even if your character is terrible at everything and dies in one hit.

[MidnaFeetEnjoyer]

Great excuses for sucking at the game. Clearly you're just here to argue. There's a reason it's called an ambush. It's supposed to put you in a disadvantageous position, so you need to use all the power at your disposal that the game allows you, whatever is enough to deal with the threat with least casualties. Put your arbitrary 'moral' rules of gameplay aside that make you think the flow is not good and git gud. It's fine as it is, and it is a real time with pause game. You can do whatever you want during your pause. Don't like it? Bye

edit: or install scs, it makes the game way harder without simply making units do tons of damage or be mindlessly bulletspungy

[The Cunning Fox (raZoleg)]

Ambush is a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ mechanic if you have people who can detect anything, including traps. Wands are a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ excuse for not having any skill in gameplay. You sound like you’re here just to make a passive-aggressive comment and give your unwanted opinion. You don’t like this thread? Bye.