Hm. So you're a soldier patrolling near the center of Loc Muinne, watching for nefariousness from the other factions or from the few citizens crazy enough to live in a harpy/gargoyle-infested city. You spot a weathered-looking, crazy-eyed fellow wearing not one but two swords on his back and some really weird-looking, heavily blood-stained armor. (And about sixty or so small spherical objects in what must be an impressive bandolier. ;))

So you're pretty likely to conclude that this is the infamous Geralt of Rivia, mutant, professional monster slayer, the Butcher of Blaviken, and the murderer of King Foltest. He's frequently found in the company of a sorceress of unknown but substantial power, formerly "advisor to" (perhaps "spy on") the king he assassinated. He escaped from La Valette prison, slaughtering pretty much the entire garrison. He joined (rejoined, perhaps, given that Iorveth is believed to be linked with the Kingslayer; it is not unreasonable to suspect that Geralt, Triss, Iorveth and the big anonymous fugitive are all in the same king-killing conspiracy) Iorveth and helped that D'hoine-hater slaughter the garrison of Flotsam. He showed up next in Vergen, playing a critical role helping an upstart defeat a much larger army and slaughtering yet more human beings. There are even rumors of Geralt sneaking through some cursed battlefield into the camp of Henselt and his Nilfgaardian guests, slaughtering the Nilfgaardians in the process, but those are presumably denied by Henselt...

He's now in front of you in Loc Muinne, a city in which a number of soldiers have already been found unusually extra-crispy... and Geralt is known to have some ability with fire among his bag of witcher's tricks.

So the reasonable thing for you and another nearby comrade-in-arm or two is to... scream and charge? Good luck with that. ;)

~~

Yeah, on Iorveth's path, the Loc Muinne soldiers seem to have a death wish. Seems a far more reasonable thing would be for them would be to cower in fear, run away, or try to get help -- reach either more of their comrades, particularly sorcerors -- a necromancer should do the trick ;), or the Order of the Rose, which was theoretically charged with keeping order and which has apparently failed to keep this mutant mass-murderer out of the city.

Well it has been a while since I was on Iorveth's but I do remember them being infinitely-spawning no? There are probably 10 of them in the camp too, so if you go toe-to-toe with them (without say, Heliotrope and Group Finisher) you would probably go down in seconds.

They're spawned one or two at a time around the marketplace area, and go hostile on close approach. Bad move. ;) The merchants didn't seem to mind, however.


At the time, I had an 80+-damage area-effect Igni, area-effect Aard, damaging/linking Yrden, seven vigor points, and pretty fast vigor regeneration. :D Must have barbecued around twenty in the Nilfgaard camp. Pretty much rolled and spammed Igni with the occasional Heliotrope; human troops are not terribly effective when incinerated.

(leading to the following exchange or something like it:
an annoyed Renaud ap Matsen: "Those were my best men."
Geralt: "You should have gotten better ones.")

Next time they will bring crossbows and shoot you in a back where you cannot deflect :)
Then a number of whining threads will increase :)
I suppose in almost every fantasy RPG system the hero becomes something of a immortal around the end of the story :)
It can be both satisfying... and little annoying.