random high level mobs, and adventure parties

[almansur]

These are the two things I can't figure how to deal with. Most recently: as a level 13 cornac bulwark, I was in Kor'Pul laying waste to everything with no problem; open a door, and a level 25 armored skeleton 2 shots me. Another character, a level 14 higher archmage, was in a ruined dungeon, again destroying everything with no problems, when a level 35 orc pyromancer came around the corner and 1 shotted me (I hadn't touched any of the orbs). What causes these random over-leveled creatures to appear, and how do I deal with them?

The other issue I have is with adventure party ambushes. I needed to fight my way past one with my latter character, the archmage. I entered the fight, threw up a shield, took 1 step and then immediately died.

Nearly all of my characters are dying to these two causes (although I think I've finally learned my lesson with adventure parties: getting near one = death, avoid at all costs), which is why I made the archmage in the first place: I thought by maxing out Aegis and using Conveyance I'd be able to escape these situations, but apparently not.

Help?

[Grey]

Anything in a vault (a locked door - you get a warning before opening) is likely to be high level, so be wary of those and make sure you have an escape option.

Ruined dungeon is a semi high level area, so you will find difficult monsters in there.

Adventurer parties can be pretty awful. Make sure you have plenty of defence (damage resistance, high health, not just shields as they can be dispelled). Invisibility rune helps a lot to avoid them completely.

[Jigokuro]

Ruined dungeon always (In my experiences) has exactly one level 35-37 orc (random class) elite. If you can kill that (actually not normally hard, I have as bulwark and archmage, both under lvl 14) the rest of the dungeon is cake, save a possible random drake.

Adventure parties are a crapshoot. Sometimes they are easy pickings for elixir ingredients, some times they immediately kill you. I used to think the enemy health bar as shown on the map indicated how strong they would be, I'd even lead a party into a patrol so the patrol would weaken them (dying in the process), but I've since found that to not matter at all. Weird really, you'd think that idea would work, otherwise why even have the health bar there? if not for how healthy they are, then what is it?

[Toxic_Chicken]

Just stay away from adventurer parties if they're causing you trouble. Higher movement speed will make it easier to outrun them on the world map.

Adventure parties are a crapshoot. Sometimes they are easy pickings for elixir ingredients, some times they immediately kill you. I used to think the enemy health bar as shown on the map indicated how strong they would be, I'd even lead a party into a patrol so the patrol would weaken them (dying in the process), but I've since found that to not matter at all. Weird really, you'd think that idea would work, otherwise why even have the health bar there? if not for how healthy they are, then what is it?

The health bar is for showing if they fought a patrol recently. It takes 1-2 patrols to kill an adventurer party. Quest-giving NPCs on the world map will always win against adventurers, since they can't be killed.