a funny story from the first incarnation of the party:
we'd finished everything in the monastary and were all around level 7 waiting to hit the arnika road. we camped up in the computer room above the exit, figuring to leave first thing in the morning, rather than the middle of the night when the encounters can get pretty scary!
we walked down and went to open the door out when we were suddenly engaged. 7 level 8 pestilent rats with 70+ hit points engaged us (followed by the ever helpful message "camoflauged creature spotted!")
figuring we could use the experience, i didnt bother with a reload. it took some clever tactics, but we got through it, except with two (yes, TWO) party members diseased. yick. figuring we could get to arnika to heal up, we hit the road straight away. 4 hardshell crabs and 7 venom crabs posed no serious problem...
but then i noticed how slowly the two diseased party members were recovering stamina. oy! by this point, i'd written over the quick save slots, so we were stuck - go ahead or start over.
fortunately, the two diseased characters were the lord and sam (not the bard!), so we soldiered on.
by the time we hit the piercing pipes chest, i realised we had to have a proper camp. too many injuries, too much stamina drain, no mana points left, wanting to save our only mana potion for the road (just in case!), it was the prudent decision. we get interrupted, have to fight, and start camping all over again. by the time we wake, dusk has fallen - we dont want to be on the road at night!
camp through to morning and wake up to find the sam has lost stamina and the lord is blind and insane. (that's some disease!) no turning back though - arnika or bust!
we got lucky and were able to avoid all but one encounter on the way to arnika (5 70 hp highwaymen with us tucked nicely in a corner), and were pleased to discover the lord's insane swings at the party were relieved by her inability to hit anything because she was blind. we could use the small blessing!
braffit's pool eased the party's suffering in short time, but i realised that having my lord go 5 levels as a priest (to get rest all, magic screen, and armorplate as early as possible) meant she would spend all that productive time in arnika unable to learn from all the identifying that needed doing!
so we have started over and are back in the monastary. both hybrids dualled over from pure magic casters at level 3 (as originally described). we're all level 7 and heading to the upper monastary (we spent a little time getting experience on the lower level
)
it's a long haul to level 8, but it would be nice if we could all be there when we hit the road, so that the sam and lord can start spell casting in earnest.