Anyone seen this before?

Quite late in the game (party level 23) I was walking from trynton to Umpani basecamp. On the Arnika-Trynton road where you normally encounter lvl 10 creatures all my encounters were suddenly around lvl 4! A bit sad to against 4 instant death spellcasters (Bishop, ranger, samurai and valkyrie).
Is this common? When you exceed the level of an area the strength of the wandering monsters collapses?

Each "area" has a monster level cap, Ascension Peak being the only area I'm aware of that can have Level 50 monsters. Generally monsters are + or - 2 levels of the highest leveled character in the party, but not always.

The Arnika - Tryton road monster cap is somewhere in the 10-15 range, but since monster party generation is a some-what random thing, so wouldn't be surprised if you get some level 4 monster partys. Throw a quick kill-all spell (if possible) and keep going I say.

[img]smile.gif[/img]

The strange thing is that I never met low level monsters until my level was a lot higher than anything you can encounter on the road. Suddenly ALL the monsters were level 4-6.
It was fun to see the effect of quicksand on a level 4 party (modais I believe) though. 9 kills out of 9. lol.

Actually the same thing happened to me on Arnika Road. Where before there'd be a Sige with some Juggernauts, or maybe 20 highway men, or something along those lines - when I was headed there to defuse the bomb in Arnika, I came across endless hordes of roaches, all of which had like 20 hit points or something... Was very odd to see that.

And Peak was a pain in the arse, lol - those friggin' Adamantim Unicorns and when I found the Djinn of the Clouds and his pals... heck, there was ALWAYS like 4 Cloud Affects, at least, surrounding my party... And the insanity thing... ugh... nothing like having my Lord with Bloodlust and my Rogue turn on the party... lol...

I thought ascencion peak was a bit of a disappointment IMHO. I had one fight that was a bit difficult, when those maddening gazers managed to affect my samurai, twice! Even with magic screen and soul shield up at full power. He needed just one attack with three swings to off my monk (RFS-81).
The problem was that 5 flying serpents (forgot which type) blocked the path to the gazers.
Even the cloud djinns and greater demon managed to kill just one character with a death cloud. No problem with three casters capable of casting resurrection (sp?). I even managed to res, rest all and heal all in one round. He was back with a vengence!
Talk about frustrating! Could you imagine your enemy restoring a recently died comrade to full potential the very next round? There are no enemies with res right? Right?

Happened often to me.
Not as soon as you exceed the cap for that area, but when you're far behind.
I got the level 4 Sige + 3 level 4 bandits group regulary on the route between the T'rang teleporter house and Arnika, once i was level > 20.

Same. I met all kinds of new monsters as a later-level party I'd never seen before - because they were too low to run into before! Bloodvines, Red Vines etc, turn out to be level two or something.

Only reason Peak was a pain for me, was because until I had gotten to the Peak, I had only one death - and that was my Lord against the Sorceress and all those Death Knights. My Lord was the only one to bite the dust, and I took that for an acceptable loss (remembering painfully, how much trouble I had first time around with that). And then once I got to the Peak, those Djinns were casting Death Cloud, which killed RFS-81 (no big loss, not sure how a robot dies from it, but hey!), then the mad gazers turned my Lord and my Rogue against me, and nailed my Priest before she could cure their insanity. The only other person who had sane mind was my Valk, and she had horrible casting in the Mental Sphere (like everything beyond the second bubble was red, lol). And the things with the Mad Gazers, are the Plume Serpents. [img]smile.gif[/img] Or that is what they were for me. But aside from the Mad Gazers, initially (not a problem once I ran up on them), and the Djinn's (who the first time I fought them - I unleashed three elementals - they turned all three elementals against me also! LOL)