That's what I do. Cut my through and run for my life.

Cutting through and running: That's *exactly* what I was doing, when Khalid - the second best-armored man in my party (after my own paladin) - got *instantly* wrecked. Again, it happened so fast that I thought one of the bandits scored a crit on him (though really, they probably did, only the actual "crit" damage was prevented by the helmet; although I suppose, if 2-3 bandits all roll max damage at the same time, it doesn't matter much).

The Sleep spell makes this one easy: Oh, I agree, totally. Sleep is awesome! However, one must *have* the spell, first; Xzar was my only mage, and we hadn't been to High hedge yet to buy the spell, nor had we been lucky enough to find it.

And yes, I kinda-sorta Iron Man these games now; when it comes to rolling Hit Points on level-up or learning new spells, I'll totally use quicksaves for those (once I've gotten someplace safe; enemy spawns in the wilderness can get out of hand quick if you do that in the wild), and for glitches (like when an NPC gets locked up and you can't talk to them).
When I've gotten several Chapters deep into the game, then I *do* reload saves if something truly horrible or stupid happens (green slimes, anyone?), but I like the first Chapter or two to be a reasonably straight shot.

With that in mind, the new run I've started is going well; for the moment, we're done running between Beregost and the Friendly Arm, having taken care of Landrin's spider infestation and the ogre with the belt fetish. The only bandits we've seen this time were a couple of stragglers just south of the crossroads, not far from the remains of a caravan; Montaron (that sick little man) has their scalps in his pack now.
We're staying the night in the Red Sheaf (where we had to fight off *another* bounty hunter), and Montaron is about to slip off into the dark on a one-halfling crime spree before the sun comes up, while my paladin and his goody-two-shoes friends (Imoen, Khalid and Jaheira) are busy visiting amongst themselves (and Xzar is watching them closely).

Well, back at it. Huzzah!

In this particular random encounter at 1 level even running away ends very often with casualties. I know your pain, but that's the beauty of iron man style playthrough and BG1 is very unforgiving at the beginning. I wouldn't bother with keeping the canon party though, because it's very limiting (basically no one can die). I used to play with only reloading when PC dies and that was a lot of fun. By the time I reached the end I used almost all of the available NPCs.

<sigh> I had Auto-Pause set for "Character Injured" (30% health or less) "Character Killed" and "Weapon Unusable". I generally don't need it for anything more than that.

Let me reiterate (yet again): IT HAPPENED IN A BLINK. Khalid was INSTA-DEAD. THAT"S how quickly it happened.

This random encounter is the ONLY thing that poses a problem when I play through this game, simply because it *can* happen early enough that there's just nothing you can do about it (Level 1 party, Xzar doesn't have Sleep yet, and Jaheira's Entangle doesn't stop ranged weapons). I'm good enough at this game that I don't have characters die UNLESS I get slapped with this random encounter right away, because - again - at Level 1, there's almost nothing you can do, except run away and hope they shoot like Imperial stormtroopers (which they often don't).
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Now, moving on to whether or not to use the canon party.

This is purely subjective, but speaking for myself... I've always *liked* the canon party. Even back in 1998, before there *was* BG2, before there *was* a canon party, I ended up using Imoen, Khalid, Jaheira, Minsc and Dynaheir because A) they're all encountered fairly naturally, and B) for me, they make a *great* party, tactically *and* in terms of story/character/role-play. (That is to say, BioWare/Black Isle at *least* had fairly strong reasons to settle on these as the party Gorion's foster child would have traveled with). Sure, way back in the before-time I've used Kivan (who is admittedly awesome), and these days Xzar and Montaron are useful stand-ins until I can get Minsc and Dynaheir; after that, why would I swap in anyone else? I *have* my party, and I want *them* getting all the XPs.

Again, completely subjective, but there it is.

Speaking of which, my new run (which has been bandit-free, except for a couple stragglers) is currently parked in Nashkel. We just got Minsc, we're all Level 2, Xzar and Montaron have gone their own way (although Xzar has promised to make a "charming little ashtray" out of my skull), and we're about to charge off to rescue Dynaheir (which will make us Level 3). The worst is over; it's all downhill from here. And boy, does that feel good. :)

And if you had it set to pause on enemy sighted, things would have been entirely different. THAT was the point I was trying to make.

Not for that encounter. Besides, "You have been waylaid by enemies and must defend yourself" is quite enough to let me know we've spotted enemies (in this case, completely surrounding us), at which point, I paused (my thumb never leaves the Space Bar): yep, we're completely surrounded by bandits with bows - options? Time to run for it. We were breaking through, and had *almost* reached the exit point when Khalid was insta-killed. From 13 to 0, with nothing in between.

Auto-Pause is no panacea, and it's absolutely no help when a character takes enough damage to instantly kill him. This encounter would have been no different.

Samurai1138 is right, those bandits could one shot pretty much any level 1 character, except maybe high CON fighter types, before they can even approach them or trying to run towards the edge of the map. In case of Khalid, maybe two arrows hit him simultaneously, giving the impression of one-shot.

However, given you had Khalid in your party, it means you recruited both Khalid and Jaheira, so you should have an invisibility potion that your main character could use on "autopause on enemy sighted", and this could prevent the end of an iron-man run.

But if you have this encounter on your way to FAI, before meeting K&J, it's a guaranteed game over for any kind of character or party. Spells do not help because the bandits are too many to cc them, and one or two lvl 1 spells can not counter the rate of fire of those bandits (not even shield or reflected image). Maybe sanctuary for cleric, but at a casting time of 4, the cleric will be dead before the casting completes.

Actually the "enemy sighted" is so good I almost consider it an exploit, because it pauses the game so quickly, even before all the enemies spawn in random encounters. So yes, you might consider using that in the future, though it may not matter a whole lot in this particular case.

I wouldn't do the iron man run, if you're not willing to accept NPCs dying. There's the raise dead for a reason in each temple. Perhaps, bend the rules a bit and reload when such random encounter happens in the future, or accept the fate by continuing the journey, or starting over. The game doesn't force just one option, you have the choice.

I would, because I've done it before. Numerous times. :)
When my party gets to Nashkel and we're all Lv 2, the worst really *is* over. There can/will be some pretty rough battles going forward, but no more of this "you rolled a 1, rocks fall, you die" kind of stuff. Outside of those early "gotcha's", the game is totally master-able.

Agreed. I've seen Let's Players play with that option turned on, and it just feels lazy. Never used it myself.

And that Potion of Invisibility was on Jaheira; being the party's healer, it made sense (and still does).

Everything just goes better when that encounter simply *doesn't* happen right away. I'd happily take just about anything else - at least you can *run* from the half-ogre with his pack of dogs (I almost *wish* I'd get that one again; it adds excitement without being a "gotcha").

Even though they don't have *random* encounters, one thing I really like about Icewind Dale 1 and 2 is that they ease you in and get *progressively* difficult, and steer clear of those early-game gotcha's (or *any* gotcha's that I can think of). In those two games, I think the biggest barrier to entry is simply rolling all six characters (and that, just because it takes so long).

I always use pause on enemy sighted because I don't want to play a game of reflexes, I want to take my time and consider a strategy, like on table top RPG games. Auto pause will not give you an advantage over the AI because it lets you start acting the same moment with it, otherwise AI will always act first. Yet, it seems to be a bug on waylays, as some enemies will not spawn right away, but on vanilla BG1 auto-pause on normal encounters even paused with a delay, after the enemy spellcasters started their casting animation and thus giving them a minor advantage (for example Tarnesh could always mirror image himself before I could do anything)

According to AD&D rules, shouldn't the attack only have knocked Khalid to negative HP, causing him to simply need someone to bandage his wounds instead of outright killing him?

(This is, of course, assuming the attack wasn't powerful enough to knock him down to -10 HP or below.)

Seriously, why don't the Infinity Engine games implement the "death's door" rule?

BG does not implement the -1 CON on every Raise Dead either, I take it this would be far more inconvenient than just raising the dead at a temple in exchange for an insignificant sum and no side effects.

Vanilla un-modded BG1 does.

No it doesn't, please verify yourself.