Hi Pablo!
Heh, I just ran a search for "Ludrug" because I wanted to use his name in a fanfic I'm writing and found this post...
Yep, this encounter is in the original BGI too. I ran into Ludrug and his friends with my very first character already.
Basically, you have three option with him - pay the 50 gold (at this point in the game, too high), call them "walking piles of hyena dung" (love
BG's innovative cursings...) and kill them - Ludrug has around 40 GP on him but the others have no treasure.
Or... what I did, since I like gnolls and ususally avoid killing them (easy to do with sleep and charm spells) - you say "I don't have that much money - sorry?"
Ludrug then challenges your strongest fighter to a one-on-one battle. He'll mean the character you used to talk to him, so don't put your mage in the front line...
Basically, only attack him with ONE character. If you bring the others to help, his pack will attack you. Ludrug is stronger then your average gnoll, around level 3-4 I think (have to check it with infinity) Now, here's the trick.... bring him down to 'near death', then unequip your weapon and only attack him with your fists. That deals non-lethal damage, so he'll only be knocked out.
Wait a bit, when he wakes up, he'll initiate a dialoge, admitting that you are stronger then him. He'll depart with his pack telling you that you are free to cross their territory, but he'll be watching you. For this, you get a fair amount of
XP - much more then what you'd get if you have killed them all (since strangely, Ludrug is still worth only 65XP like a regular gnoll).
I found this a fun encounter, showing you can solve issues in a (sort of) non-violent way without having to bribe the 'evil' humanoids (they are all chaotic neutral, actually).
Hi!
In AR5200 there is a group of Gnolls led by Ludrug who wants to collect a 50 gp. toll. I talked through to the point that their champion, Ludrug, challenged my "champion" whereupon Ludrug advanced and attacked, but his circle never changed from blue (neutral) to red (hostile).
My group ignored him even though he was attacking, so I forced my group to attack him so he wouldn't just wipe them out. When my group attacked him, the rest of his Gnolls remained neutral and wandered away. I killed three gnolls including Ludrug, but none of them went "hostile" even though they were under attack.
I don't recall this happening in the original BG1, but then again that was a long time ago....
Pablo
