These are the WORST. You're ranking or travelling, grabbing some equipment, and suddenly you're attacked before you could check the where command. You may be at half life, you may have been sleeping at no life. Either way, you were caught, and you're under attack. The procedure is simple; quaff a potion of recall and start running. Note that I said QUAFF A POTION. Don't rely on word of recall. Potions are lagless, word of recall is one round of lag, which may cause you to get tripped up if someone setup an interceptor at your altar. Note that if you were cursed in some way, recalling is out of the question. At this point, it's run run run. You simply have to run and get away.

These are pretty much the four types of ambush, they're similar in most ways, but obviously differ on your state of readiness. The lesson you should gleam from this is usage of the where command, and being prepared.

How to avoid PK

You can split this topic up into a few categories: Low range (30 and below), middle range (30-43), and hero range (43-51).

Low rangers can safely rely on city guards to protect you. The only thing you have to watch out for with this tactic is archers, and distance attackers. Typically, I utilize the lag of archery to just run to another city. Note that the city guards do differ in strength: Var Bandor's are the weakest (exception: Bromrin), Earendam's are the next strongest (The gate guards are actually fairly meaty) while Fortress Krilin's guards surpass anything around (You suffer though by not having much of an escape plan). I leave it up to the reader to discover which mobs are city guard flagged, but it's pretty obvious in the former two cities. Almost all of the normal mobs in Krilin serve as a city guard (NORMAL mobs, not Baron, etc.).

To avoid future PK, it's probably in your BEST interest not to insult/irritate higher rangers. Heroes have a knack for gaining lowbie "fans", who usually trade services for equipment and information, and so on. Usually these services include killing someone who's way outside the hero's range. So, if you want to avoid this, don't punch higher level people in the face unless you want enemies.

Group backstabbing is fairly prevalent in the lowbie ranges, due to the lack of hitpoints that most people have. These group backstabs are typically done by physical classes, moreso by thieves and warriors since they typically have a solid offense skill of some sort early on. The only way to avoid this is to get to know who you're travelling with; RP with them a little bit first hand, and then move on. The situation differs on who's what class, but typically, don't let yourself get knocked down to 20 hps while the person in question has full hps. You're practically asking for it.

"Equipment bulls-eye" If you're wearing a slew of awesome equipment, expect your PK target value to shoot through the roof. People love to kill lowbies with awesome equipment, just because it's typically "easier" then hunting it down themselves. My lowbies typically sell high level equipment to high level people, where the equipment SHOULD be. Just don't charge insane prices, or you may run afoul with the punching high level people in the face clause.