Alright, we've all had this happen once or twice or thrice if we're particularly unlucky. I think.
Adventurer has a party of about ten experienced soldiers travelling through the wilderness and camps for the night.
Bandits spawn in a perfect square around the adventurer and cripple him completely before he can even do anything and then proceed to kill him.
Not fair. You see, those ten soldiers are supposed to keep watch, and if they do the enemy wouldn't just appear on me in a square. They'd probably be a little ways away and advancing so I'd have time to at least get up and go into a martial trance. Maybe even get to fight a little before someone punches me in the head through my iron helmet. With animals I'm a bit more lenient in my opinion, particularly with big cats. A giant lioness is going to be experienced in hunting unaware prey. Bandits, however, are just society's rejects with weapons preying upon the unarmed and unprepared. They're not superninjas that can scale walls and read minds and teleport. In other words, bandits are not Urist Attano, nor should they have his power.
If I had no companions it'd make more sense that bandits could sneak up like that, but I wasn't alone. Had ten people with me, none of them got to do anything before I was insta-dead.
I propose making bandits and if you're lucky(and maybe have a large party) wild animals spawn some distance away from the player before they attack during night ambushes, giving your companions time to rally and ready their weapons and you time to get up and throw that chest full of goblinite at the attackers. This makes your formerly incompetent, useless companions into valuable assets if you plan to travel cross-country to kill a titan, travel that might take a week or more if you intend to skirt around that evil biome. As it is, I'm simply told to not sleep at night outside of hamlets or cities or fortresses, which doesn't seem right. It's unsafe, but it shouldn't be unsafe for the well prepared, well armed and experienced.
That's all I have to say. Anyone else have something to add?
Edit: Also had an idea. Human enemies could ambush you at night in closer proximity if they are trained assassins, and would be much more agile and have better weapon expertise than lowly brigands, perhaps starting with a line like "The Dark Wails of Medicine send their regards," or something. After all, they're trained to be sneaky and paid by faction A to find you and kill you. Your guards wouldn't have such an easy time detecting them, but thankfully assassins would be few and far between. It would make fame and amassed allies and enemies just as dangerous as it is rewarding.
Author
Topic: Wilderness sleeping needs work, Toady (Read 1113 times)