That actually makes it worse, because the only way to prevent such unbalanced encounters is to effectively say, "after characters hit 10th level they only encounter NPCs that are level 8+." That is even more absurd than letting them slaughter 1st level NPCs en masse. The inherent problem is that level systems inevitably allows high level characters to puree a practically unlimited number of low level ones. It certainly cuts both ways; a single 10th level NPC would quickly annihilate even a large party of low level PCs (remind me some time to tell you about my first trip to Ravenloft, where my 5th level thief was the most experienced character in a party consisting of him, a 3rd level fighter, and a bunch of 2nd levels; after my death in the second session everyone just stopped coming.... )

Levels just make advanced characters too powerful, though it is no surprise they are quite popular with console and other arcade style gamers. In fact, I have heard it alleged that AD&D 4th ed. is little more than a computer "RPG" with pen and paper, and my admittedly limited experience with it corroborates that: The range of character action is surprisingly (and for any legitimate roleplaying, appallingly) limited, particularly given that the specific acts are quite complex and diverse. It is just that, y'know, 90% of them boil down to either hitting or casting a spell at something; I cannot help wondering if the most common criticism from fans is "I wish there were a way to just tell the GM, 'A,B,A,A,left,B.'" One of the many downsides of WotC buying TSR.

On the subject of White Wolf (and I concede it has been a while since I bothered looking at their stuff,) every one of their Storyteller line I have seen suffered the same above derided failing. The only improvement is that they bothered little with rules and numerical stat checks, since they intended from the outset to ignore such things for the sake of the story anyway. I could probably tolerate that (though it is still far too arbitrary for my taste) if "the story" consisted of anything more than the characters doing anything and everything the players considered fun (i.e. ego-stroking) and Mutually Assured Deification. To the extent the latter is even necessary when the GM routinely ignores the rules to let the characters perform any and all superhuman acts necessary to "win at roleplaying."


I suspect your GM has been letting you get away with (fictional) murder, possibly because s/he thinks it "roleplaying." A hack 'n slash party in a hack 'n slash systems is bad, but a roleplaying party with a hack 'n slash GM is worse, because they spend all their time fighting whether they like it or not. They also quickly discover their characters live in "Dungeon World," where the few villages exist only to provide adventure seeds leading to (supposedly) abandoned castle/temple/crypts.

Campaign design in GURPS is very challenging for hack 'n slash GMs, because they are forced to find interesting NONVIOLENT character activity, and ways to challenge players without combat (i.e. they actually have to ROLEPLAY rather than running through the "kill, loot, level" cycle ad nauseam.) Fortunately, the various world books are loaded with suggestions of campaign-appropriate ways to do that. In any campaign though, if the GM keeps throwing bandits and traps at the party, sooner rather than later a series of unlucky rolls will kill one or more of the characters. No character is likely to have a HT >12, and even a 500 point character is unlikely to have one much >15, which limits the damage they can absorb before incapacitation. Anything that does >20 damage apiece is an almost certain TPW. You can get away with lots of combat and/or high damage in cinematic campaigns (e.g. Supers,) but only because the rules of those settings allow for mitigating or completely avoiding the effects.


I did not use Multiplayer on my first run, but NPCs (hence I was royally pissed when I saw how badly they screwed up Corans proficiencies at 5th level.)


Yeah, that one is tricky more because of when it occurs than due to inherent difficulty. If you pick up Montaron and Xzar on the way you can have the latter throw a Magic Missile while you, Imoen and Montaron use missile weapons, and that should take out the mirrors and start inflicting damage before he can get off another spell, but you have to waste a few hobgoblins for bows and arrows, because you cannot afford to buy the former for all your characters with starting GP. I honestly cannot remember if the scripting lets you go in for a backstab as long as everyone in his LoS is hidden; BG bosses often do not, but that is my preferred means of dealing with mages when they do.


Strange; seemed like magic weapons were a dime a dozen in SoA, as is usually the case in high magic hack 'n slash.


Yeah, Greywolf is nasty unless you have a large party and/or more fighters than just you and Minsc. I counted it out once and he has something like 90+ HP, which is just ridiculous for the level of the party at that point, especially since it requires a level that gives him pretty good saves.

The Cloakwood and Iron Throne fights were kind of like a combination of that though, with a couple nasty fighters AND spellcasters. After my first run through they were much easier, because I had been around the block enough to stock up on poison arrows before fighting mages. Poison makes everything easier, because the high rate of fire for specced characters combined with the high AC of mages mean they just go "urk!" every round till they die, without ever getting off a spell, allowing me to double team the fighters with the rest of the party. Clerics can be tricky, because they have decent armor, but an early backstab prevents them casting long enough for me to poison the mages and turn my bows on them.