[quote=mdk]
Tonight I got into a pretty serious groove, and passed a bunch of areas, and long story short, I got ratted out. It was the coolest thing ever, and so now I'm a brodent. You don't get 'invaded,' per se. You get, like, abducted, into the rat's world, and then the rat kills you. You can't get out and all the creatures attack you, and there's like a thousand Pharos traps he can set up beforehand to assist in the slaughter. It's.... fucking.... beautiful.
[/quote]

You can escape, and escaping gets you a lockstone just the same as killing the Rat Bastard. But they do have a rather distinct advantage. I go back there every once in a while, rodents get more than they bargain for though. Now have 20-30 in EVERY stat and poison claws. The poison infusion, while on most weapons lowers the base attack and other elements/effects if the weapon has them, raises both the base attack and the bleed of the claws. Add that with very fast attacks and high stamina, by the time they can get away from [i]me[/i], I've poisoned them and bleed them out, giving them only seconds to heal before they die or I catch them in another flurry of attacks.

Also being such a high level and having a high Soul Memory, I can't really co-op anymore, but get invaded a LOT. And I still haven't even gotten halfway through the game yet....