Hello,

Played the game before, beat it, enjoyed it. It did have some challenge...but not like this.

100% of the random spawns are right up next to the party.
They beat 3-4 of my people to death before I move.
I miss 99% of the time unless it's a magic missle. No exhaggeration. Was just murdered (a party of 4) by a single frog.
I have beaten the moat house bandits, and spider.
I cannot reach level 2(100 exp) due to this.

No random fights to survive, even small ones, too weak to clear the moat.

Am I doing something wrong?

I have tried the standard, and content mods.

Kinda frustrated.

gog + co8 new content

Was running fighter cleric sorc sorc sorc (again, only magic missle seems to hit more than 10%). Even against enemies that are asleep. I beat the moat people by sleep-> magic missle, run to disengage, sleep in town and so on, for all the bandits...sheesh.


Oh yeah, summon monsters spawn, don't attack, die next round.

So, If i could even get normal random encounters, I'd be ok. Maybe just enemies far enough away to kill 1 before the other single enemy wipes my entire party out?

Have you tried using the new content?
Talk to Brother Smyth.

You can also pop up the dice window to see why you're missing things.

Sorcerors will die easily in random encounters for the first few levels.

Have you been using coup-de-grace on sleeping enemies?

There are also many non-combat quests you can do.

Early levels the game is Brutal.

Do the non-violent quests in Hommlet, get some XP. You'll get quests for a Grotto and a Battlefield. Do those, but avoid the south Battlefield has it ha a monster you won't beat.

Charm Person and Charm Animal are two of the best low-level spells - you remove an opponent and you gain an ally.

If you sleep in the Battlefield north you should get some doable random encounters. As you get your fighting teeth (experience both you and your character) you can sleep in the grotto for some stronger encounters.

Your party is a bit weak with one fighter. No bow rogue for reliable ranged sneak damage. Later on (crafting) you'll regret not having a Wizard. I love my Druid too, Summon Animal (if only for threat distraction) and Charm Animal have worked out well for me.

You can hire NPCs. If you do Hommlet you're told several times the town drunk is actually quite the guy. He is. Hire him to help you out for a level or two.

I don't understand which game you beated before. Can you tell us how much is the abilities of your characters? Talk a litle more about them. Maybe you distributed your stats in a inefficient way or are using a pretty bad roll for the attributes. Doing the town's quest as stated by @Darth__KEK can allow you to recruit a character for free too, and the experience is enough to level up from level 1 to level 2.

And the difference between your level and the monsters make huge difference, either because it make part in some mechanic's formula or to the disponible spells and feats. Thus, most the difficult relly on the order of the challenges that you make, and a ranger (maybe other classes too) with a decent suvivor skill score can help you mitigate some of the deadly random encounters.

Edit: indeed some spawn can be quite brutal to the frail magical classes (in case of bad rolls to the initiative) and the Moath House appear quite early, maybe making the undeveloped parties going there.

Also, I didn't realise but if you talk to the Hommlet blacksmith in the early days of the game and you have Co8 with New Content installed you can get a mini-quest that should give you a few XP.