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In Progress Let's Play Knights of the Chalice (with Codexers)!

What'll it be?


  • Total voters
    20
  • Poll closed .

Arpad

Educated
Joined
Jan 27, 2012
Messages
248
There never will be a sequel after the guy abandons his rts halfway and leaves game developement for forever.
 

Norfleet

Moderator
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
Messages
12,250
UPDATAN!

We descend down the hatch in Thri-kreen territory, follow the linear passageway, and reach this:
0078.jpg


We are taken their leader:
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He does not respond well.

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Curious...

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We agree, of course.

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Oh, this'll be good.

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And we're back in the throne room.

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Hirato does his Spiderman impression, taking the three guys, including the King, on the left side of the room out of the fight.

0090.jpg

Azira smites one of the door guards.

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Hirato lobs some magic missile at the stuck enemy cleric.

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Useless NPC wizard wanders up and gets hit by a sleep effect and passes out. At least he won't be in our way anymore.

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Arpad flanks and dispatches one of the loose guards.

0094.jpg

With most of our enemies now enwebbed, we take potshots at them as they flail around uselessly.

0095.jpg

Hirato scores with his crossbow, for once.

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The enemy lieutenant at the bottom of the map navigates his way through the maze of shot web and joins the melee.

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Someone cast sleep on Blood. Arpad awakens him with a good kick.

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Our melee fighters occupy the lieutenant while Hirato lobs some more magic missiles at the enemy cleric.

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Lieutenant is flanked in the corridor and killed gruesomely.

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Hirato shoots again. Guard becomes a victim of arrowkneeitis.

0101.jpg

With all remaining enemies immobilized in the web, the battle is now a turkeyshoot. Unfortunately, the stupid NPC helper has awakened himself and is trying to "contribute".

0102.jpg

The NPC does an amazingly stupid thing, destroying the web around the King. And immediately getting himself killed. QUEST FAILED!

0103.jpg

Do you know how many times I had to replay this because he would instantly die in round 1? Screw it, he was too stupid to live.

0104.jpg

Now that the guy we were attempting to install has stupidly gotten himself killed for absolutely no good reason, everyone hates us. We evacuate the area because we are full of loot and Hirato is low on ammo.

0105.jpg

We fight our way out of the front door, avoiding the wandering patrols because we have no more space for loot.

0106.jpg

Dispatching the stragglers turns the remaining battle into a turkeyshoot.

0107.jpg

Out of space, we triage the valuables and prepare to head back to town to sell the trash.

0108.jpg

Everyone levels up. Of particular note is Hirato reaching level 5. You know what this means!

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On our way out, we check for quest completion. Quest complete!

0111.jpg

Freshly reloaded and with the vendortrash emptied, we return to search the dwarf caves for loot. The dwarf patrols turn out to be exceptionally weak and easily killed. Some angry elementals are encountered, and we kill them. Unloading all of the vendortrash we acquire from that, and finding out that the Grimlock hatch actually leads to the same map, we unlock the Tomb of Whatzits.

0112.jpg

Snakes. Why does it always have to be snakes? We reload and sell trash before going down...

0113.jpg

Oh, look. A one way entrance. I wonder how long this section is and how much of it Hirato will spend being useless...

0114.jpg

Ghouls. I hate ghouls. KILL IT WITH FIRE!

Here, we bring up a type of encounter design I passionately despise:
:rage:
0115.jpg

In this particular room, you open the door and encounter a mummy. HOWEVER, for some asinine reason, you are not permitted to simply KILL IT WITH FIRE. Instead, you're forced to approach it, and ONLY THEN will combat start. It then kills/maims you instantly, forcing an endless series of annoying reloads until it finally doesn't kill you.

Then we stun it and nuke it to death. Did I mention how I REALLY REALLY HATE SETUPS LIKE THIS? The one thing I liked about TOEE is that you never had to do this: Nuke It From Orbit was always on the table. If you weren't interested in walking into a room to hear a length monologue, you could always just fireball the room.

0116.jpg

We loot the required door key and other itamz.

Searching the chamber to the south of that one, we find this:
0117.jpg

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This looks legit. Let's check it out first.

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Impatient, aren't we?

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Yeaaaah. I don't think we're going to be killing that...

0124.jpg

He offers us cake for letting him go. We can have either gold or itamz.

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Naturally, we pick itamz. Gold, pssh. As if we don't have enough vendortrash to unload as it is.

0126.jpg

Remember when I said I'd let you out? I lied.

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We check out the locked door.
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Ouch.

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Hmm. Cake.

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And the key we apparently need.

0134.jpg

:rage:Did I mention I hate this sort of thing?
Unable to initiate the battle on our terms with a proper alpha strike, we settle for taking the key, which doesn't activate those guys. Their cake was probably a lie anyway. We'll try back later when we are higher level, if we can.

0135.jpg

You know, I specifically searched and cleared those passages beforehand. Nonetheless, enemies spawn there, rush us, die to AOOs trying to go...somewhere. I have no idea why.

0136.jpg

We pin the remaining guys coming at us from the north corridor.

0137.jpg

Dispatching the weak low-hitpoint ghoul leaves only the big one, surrounded and pounded. He falls quickly, a relatively easy fight in which Hirato didn't have to do anything. We level up.

With that, we find and unlock the EXIT and end up back where we started. Guess it's time to get on with that main quest, we've killed and looted everything of value.
 

Whisper

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Feb 29, 2012
Messages
4,357
Releasing the Vrock will have effect in end-game.

Also, since loot despawn, you probably wont be able to take items you left behind.
 

Norfleet

Moderator
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
Messages
12,250
Releasing the Vrock will have effect in end-game.
Well, releasing it in the short-term almost surely results in your horrible death, so that's definitely an end-game effect.

Also, since loot despawn, you probably wont be able to take items you left behind.
That is definitely true of randomdrop loot, but not true of staticly placed loot.

From what I remember, the cake is not a lie.
In that case, after we level up enough to take such a thing, we must check out this cake.

But first, some UPDATAN:
0138.jpg

Arriving at our quest location, this fine fellow greets us with his band of low-level goons. They are swiftly dispatched and we move on.

0139.jpg

0140.jpg

We are confronted with a band of lizard-people, no doubt in the process of skinning the villagers to wear their skins.

0141.jpg

Several battles not unlike this follow as we search house to house, mostly simple door-defense battles. We loot all the dead villagers' corpses. No, I don't mean the stuff they have in their corpses. I mean the actual corpses. They weren't nailed down or anything.

0142.jpg

We find the survivors.

Some interrogation:
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We are sent to kill the rest of the lizardmen. As if we weren't going to do that anyway...

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The lizardman boss battle. It is briefly hairy, mostly because everyone wants to kill Hirato, but we prevail.

0148.jpg

Merchant found! Vendortrash unloaded. Not that the lizard people had any drops, but still.

We interrogate the merchant:
0149.jpg

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He denies that the burnination was caused by lizardmen, saying that it is the work of rogues. Why can't we have any rogues?
0152.jpg

The RPG perversity principle rears its head: Having been urged not to go there, we must naturally go there. But first, we interrogate the rest of the villagers:
0153.jpg

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And the next phase of our random chain quest continues.
 

Azira

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Nov 3, 2004
Messages
8,518
Location
Copenhagen, Denmark
Codex 2012
The Vrock is killable if you let him stew and return later. It will require crafting the right items (cold-iron, preferrably holy-enchanted) and some patience, but I took him down in my playthrough ages ago. Still, I look forward to seeing what the consequences is of releasing him. :salute:

And of course, it is possible to keep the advisor alive. You'd probably need to cast the Web spell on him, not the mad king. But it's doable, if not easy.
 

Norfleet

Moderator
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
Messages
12,250
Well, there may or may not be any. Apparently he was banished back to Hell.

Anyway, UPDATAN!
0159.jpg

We arrive at the Orc Fort. Our entry rope is right where we expected it.

0160.jpg

And the witch lets us in, for once, without any kind of evil afoot. Admittedly, that would have actually been a surprise for once, but nope.
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Yeah, thanks for the advice. We kill the sleeping orcs and loot their corpses now.
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Disregarding the helpful advice, we promptly trash the other tower. With some KABOOM!
0164.jpg

Reaching the floor below, we come across a...stray tiger?
0165.jpg

And kill it.
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Dispatching some guards found in the lower towers. Not enough to be worthy of some BOOM, alas.

0167.jpg

Fire in the hole!

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We search some more huts and slay some more guards.

0169.jpg

More guard huts, more pyromania.

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There is no overkill. There is only "open fire" and "I need to reload".

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We opt to check the west passage first.

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It is full of undeads. We bash them up.

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Stun and smackdown.

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Searching the small cells, we find this guy.
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He helpfully tells us that we need to kill everyone, as if that was a surprise.

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Ambushing an orc patrol.

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Searching the rooms. Hirato is turning into quite the pyro now.

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We encounter a talky man.
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He tells us about all the stuff we can loot, kill, and blow up. And those wizards. We let him go because we still haven't found a place to rest and reload.
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Which prove to be rather flammable.

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Finishing off the survivors.

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Closets are always full of centipedes for some reason.

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Found the dragon-slaying arrows the dude mentioned.

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Dragon found.
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We opt to attack.
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Boom! Headshot!

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Searching the room below where we found the talky man, finding some loots.

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We interrupt some slaver entertainment.

0202.jpg

We throw a web into the room. Trying to save the hostages, or simply because we ran out of fireballs? You decide.

0203.jpg

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Extra-crispy style.

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We saved the hostage, probably because being stuck in a web kept him from doing anything stupid. The party gains experience!

0206.jpg

We loot the bodies. Level up!

0207.jpg

We encounter a random guy.
0208.jpg

We con some money out of him. Then we kill him. He isn't very tough.

0209.jpg

Yeah, let's not do that. With a name like "Executioner", he's up to no good. We give him some FIRE in the FACE.
0210.jpg

This is hard enough without sitting in a death trap.
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Azira revives in time to deliver the kill.
0212.jpg


0213.jpg

Another talky man. Looks legit. We'll be back.

0214.jpg

We go down the hatch and search the area.

0215.jpg

Oh, yay.
0216.jpg

But it's nothing Hirato's pyromania cannot solve.
0217.jpg

We finish off the survivors.
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Searching the random side rooms, reveals more bugs to kill.

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Searching another side room. Only a few? Meh. We kill them the regular way.

0220.jpg

Ah, here we go.

0221.jpg

The prisoners turn out to be immune to bombardment. Convenient! Hirato indulges in his pyromania.
0222.jpg

KABOOM!
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We clean up the stragglers.
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VICTOLY! We start releasing the prisoners.
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One of them reveals something interesting, then dies.
0227.jpg

The book of salamander summoning. Annoyingly, you have to either read it or destroy it...for some reason you can't just leave it alone. We don't have anything that can take that right now, so we destroy the book for the 50XP.
0228.jpg

South of that, we find some more gnolls Being only able to attack single file, they are quickly dispatched.

0229.jpg

Oh, hell yeah! A SHOPKEEPER! At this point, I wouldn't care if he was Satan himself! We unload our inventory of vendortrash, which has gotten critically full and forced some ugly loot triage.
0230.jpg

Heading eastward, we find this guy. He tells us more stuff about the base.
0231.jpg

Naturally, we proceed to trash random rooms. FIIIIIREBALL!
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And finishing the survivors off.

0233.jpg

When all you have is fireball, everything looks like a barbecue.

0234.jpg

More rooms full of monsters, more pyromania from Hirato. For some reason, even though you can't rest, it's perfectly okay to craft a wand in the middle of the dungeon. This is very useful...
0235.jpg

Because you can never have too much fireball. 5th level has always been the level where the fun starts.

0236.jpg

Having slain the guards, we release the prisoners and get more XP.

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Heading towards the south exit, we encounter more fireball fodder. Why are elves dealing with orcs? Who knows? That wasn't covered in the lore anywhere. Eh, green people...
0239.jpg

Pointy-eared people...
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They all burn the same.

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We release the fireproof prisoners, get XP.

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Hmm. Wasn't she supposed to be in her lab?

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Ah. A fake.

0244.jpg

But they all burn the same.

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A minotaur. We kill him and loot the room.

0246.jpg

Item get! This trader pass seems like it might be useful.

0247.jpg

And now for the real boss. An annoying door-teleport luck battle where you are forcibly teleported to someplace stupid and often die before you get to do anything. I really, really hate this particular kind of design. Notice the one thing we have NEVER done given the option, and that is GOING INTO ROOMS WITHOUT FIREBALLING FIRST? Fireball, your D&D room entry grenade. Just like you don't enter a hostile room without tossing a grenade in...

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Still, as long as you get to move relatively early, there's still room for FIIIIIRE!
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TOASTY!

We notice the up. Predictably, another portal-trap teleport battle, which occurs even if you go back the long way...
0252.jpg

Another lame teleported-into-the-middle-of-the-room battle. What is it with RPG designers and TELEPORTING YOU STUPIDLY IN THE MIDDLE OF ROOMS FULL OF ENEMIES?

After several instant deaths, we manage to move early enough to...
0253.jpg

FWOOSH!

0254.jpg

Well, not everything is about fire. Hirato learned a new thing while setting things on fire. Levelling up gives you some new spell slots that still function even when the others have been emptied


0255.jpg

Although the minions are easily dispatched, the boss himself proves to be a mean one, particularly since we're pretty much out of spells everywhere.

0256.jpg

But hey, we get a new rest spot, and we can leave now! We unload the vendortrash and return to finish searching the caves.

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We find this guy next to the place where we found the shopkeeper, who has since left after the death of the wizard boss. He looks legit, right?

0258.jpg

Yeaaaah....

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Fallen. Right. Don't you just love mandatory stupidity?

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At least we got to move first.

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You'd think the guy in the front would be damaged first, and more, but no, the guy in the back totally bites it, the guy in the front is mostly just maimed.

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We are forced to finish him off by stabbing. It stings a little.

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Oh, so NOW we can kill him.

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We find the treasure room that goes with the key that we picked from the boss earlier. And loot it.

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An easily confused troll guard. Worth some laughs. We set him on fire for the XP.

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And, of course, another lame portal-trap fight where you instantly die on arrival like 80% of the time.

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Having survived the lame portal trap and cleared the area, we check the mail we looted from the dungeon:
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The original quest guy had nothing new to say about our findings, so it looks like we must keep going...
0271.jpg

This pass looks like our next quest destination, but it's a fair ways off.

We also revisited the area in the Thri-kreen tomb with the "statues", which we killed using some freshly whipped up cold iron weapons fairly easily and looted the goods. The armor went to Arpad, the sword was vendortrashed as it doesn't really fit anyone's build.
So our quest destination appears to be a ways off in the distance. Should we head straight there, or go check out some of those random scenic areas in between?
 

Norfleet

Moderator
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
Messages
12,250
Honestly, I'm uncertain how one can realistically Ironman this game, short of spending ages simply grinding to level 20 before doing anything. All defensive buffs are practically useless in this game: You can't actually cast them BEFORE going into a battle, and battles pretty much always start at knife fight range and immediately dissolve into a disorganized mess from there. Odds that you will actually get to DO anything before you are killed is often pretty bad, and you certainly don't get multiple rounds to cast stuff that doesn't go BOOM prior to the explosionmaking, unless you're fighting an easy door defense battle (in which case you probably didn't need them anyway). Unlike TOEE, where you could actually synchronize your party so they acted in correct, contiguous order, this game just causes everything to be a giant mess, so the odds that you will even be able to arrange the party in a non-asinine formation is pretty bad, unlike in TOEE where you could actually arrange a formation and they'd WALK that way.

All in all, I'd have to say TOEE did this particular sort of combat-centric RPG-type-dealy better, mostly because you can napalm entire rooms without ever going into them for no other reason other than because you EXPECT something might be there. If you could, I'd probably be going through this with like a party of 3 mages and just defensively napalming every room, going to combat mode before even opening the door, opening the door *IN* combat mode, and then immediately unloading a barrage of fireballs.

I know they claim in D&D that Evoker-types are weaker than other fancier wizards, but fanciness, for some reason, always seems to translate poorly to CRPGs. Enemies are inevitably well-protected against save-or-die type attacks, and besides, those don't scale well. It'll take maybe 20 save-or-die type attacks to empty a room of anyone not immune (probably the 3 low-level bodyguards), but if you unload 20 fireballs or the like into a room, everything takes about 300+ damage and *DIES*, and that's the pessimistic case.
 

Whisper

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Feb 29, 2012
Messages
4,357
Well, releasing it in the short-term almost surely results in your horrible death, so that's definitely an end-game effect.

I mean if you dont banish him and just leave him be, it would be have effect on final fight.
 

Whisper

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Feb 29, 2012
Messages
4,357
And of course, it is possible to keep the advisor alive. You'd probably need to cast the Web spell on him, not the mad king. But it's doable, if not easy.

Was easy for me to keep him alive. Web and/or Fireballing enemies in first round helps.
 

Norfleet

Moderator
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
Messages
12,250
That works...if you get to move first. The game is very fond of not letting you move first, despite the fact that you are generally the attacker and therefore there isn't even a fight until you open fire. Instead, you are drawn into a mandatory round of pointless blustering, ruining the entire point of being on offense. Only on rare occasions do you actually get to ATTACK your enemies.

And you don't normally HAVE fireballs at that point, unless you do some mad grinding for it first. And honestly, we *DID* web them, and the battle was pretty much won handily until the idiot decided that he just HAD to DO SOMETHING. Given that 90% of the time, he dies instantly in the opening round, I was just like "Fuck it, you're too stupid to live, let's just kill them all."
 

Rpgsaurus Rex

Guest
Ironman would be too much, for sure, unless you're a glutton for punishment. Too much RNG dependency in D&D games (esp. initiative, like you mention) to pull it off without breaking your keyboard.

It's a hard call - it's pretty much crafting that makes the game too easy in mid-late, with nigh infinite spells/healing that it allows. Though without crafting, the game would be too hard and probably unbeatable...
 

Ashery

Prophet
Joined
May 24, 2008
Messages
1,337
Someone needs to take improved initiative for their next feat :smug:

I don't remember the forced starts being *that* bad, but I had improved initiative on my casters, and that goes a long way towards helping them survive.

Your comment about going into combat mode and then opening the door is cheesy as hell, by the way, as it'd effectively bypass the whole "roll for initiative" bit. Kinda ruins the game, actually.

ToEE may have had custom formations, but it also had some of the worst fucking pathing. Cleaning out the bugbears under the moathouse was so fucking annoying due to the engine. This is one area where blobbers excel, actually, as the party gets abstracted to a single point.
 

Rpgsaurus Rex

Guest
Improved initiative helps (personally, I always take it ASAP when replaying KotC), but you can still lose your roll (and you will). Too much randomness + not being able to afford RNG trolling means one has to grind, grind, grind so one can be sure of winning even when RNG really wants you dead. And grinding in a game like KotC, well, is really boring. :>
 

Norfleet

Moderator
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
Messages
12,250
Someone needs to take improved initiative for their next feat :smug:
Yeah, that absolutely does not help for those forced-teleport battles because...

Your comment about going into combat mode and then opening the door is cheesy as hell, by the way, as it'd effectively bypass the whole "roll for initiative" bit. Kinda ruins the game, actually.
Actually, TOEE is more generous there than the core rules. In core rules, if you do this, you get a FREE surprise round of nukes, *AND* you get to roll for initiative and if you win THAT, you get to attack AGAIN. TOEE does not have surprise rounds, so you receive only first strike, after which you are last forever. KOTC, on rare occasions, actually permits you to DO this double-nuke attack, when you are permitted to manually initiate combat.

Unfortunately, forced-teleport battles inevitably fall into this particular category of battle. Even when they are totally not surprising at all and in any actual PnP game, you'd have declared battlestations at least 3 rounds in advance, because of how obviously they are telegraphed.

ToEE may have had custom formations, but it also had some of the worst fucking pathing. Cleaning out the bugbears under the moathouse was so fucking annoying due to the engine.
Honestly, I never noticed the pathfinding being really atrocious. I guess it could be really bad if you simply blobmoved your entire group at once in the general direction of hostile territory, as opposed to advancing with scouting units first.

The other thing the game really lacks is the option for recon by fire. SO many times I have done this in the Infinity Engine games, lobbing fireballs blindly into a room just to flush out any ambushes.


Improved initiative helps (personally, I always take it ASAP when replaying KotC), but you can still lose your roll (and you will). Too much randomness + not being able to afford RNG trolling means one has to grind, grind, grind so one can be sure of winning even when RNG really wants you dead. And grinding in a game like KotC, well, is really boring. :>
Improved Initiative isn't even really productive. Moving in the wrong order is almost as counterproductive as moving last. The "Delay" move in KOTC is, again, much inferior to the TOEE version (which is the Core Rules method). In KOTC, if you delay, you are dead last. In core rules, you can merely be as slow as the slowest person in the group. Improved Initiative is frequently of little help if you get to move first, only to be stuck going last anyway because you have to wait until someone gets out of the way, or for enemies to actually move into range in the first place.
 

Rpgsaurus Rex

Guest
Improved initiative is fantastic on casters in KotC, it's pretty much #1 priority. If you cast some big disable or AoE before enemies can get to move, it makes it soooo much easier. Because battles are usually in relatively small space and "in your face" that you're always in range for spells and stuff, the problem you mentioned (nothing to do => move last) wasn't really a problem I encountered much.
 

Ashery

Prophet
Joined
May 24, 2008
Messages
1,337
Someone needs to take improved initiative for their next feat :smug:
Yeah, that absolutely does not help for those forced-teleport battles because...

Wait, what? The fact that KotC *doesn't* allow you to get a surprise round is precisely why improved initiative is so important.

Your comment about going into combat mode and then opening the door is cheesy as hell, by the way, as it'd effectively bypass the whole "roll for initiative" bit. Kinda ruins the game, actually.
Actually, TOEE is more generous there than the core rules. In core rules, if you do this, you get a FREE surprise round of nukes, *AND* you get to roll for initiative and if you win THAT, you get to attack AGAIN. TOEE does not have surprise rounds, so you receive only first strike, after which you are last forever. KOTC, on rare occasions, actually permits you to DO this double-nuke attack, when you are permitted to manually initiate combat.

I guess I'm showing that most of my experience is through computer adaptations. Considering that computer games will mainly consist of static actors, it's just way too fucking easy to get a surprise round in every fucking battle.

Now, in a pen and paper game where the actors *aren't* static, those rules wouldn't be too much in favour of the player as it'd actually require a significant amount of work to get a surprise round off.

If given the choice between forced-teleport battles or having encounters designed with the assumption that the player will always get the first shot, I'll choose the former. On a similar note, it's the same reason I don't mind the fact that KotC doesn't allow pre-buffing.

ToEE may have had custom formations, but it also had some of the worst fucking pathing. Cleaning out the bugbears under the moathouse was so fucking annoying due to the engine.
Honestly, I never noticed the pathfinding being really atrocious. I guess it could be really bad if you simply blobmoved your entire group at once in the general direction of hostile territory, as opposed to advancing with scouting units first.

Moving over open ground wasn't *too* bad, but the gridless layout completely fucked over pathing in tight spaces. The shitty pathing forced the decision to allow units to move through friendlies. That then completely fucked up many tactical options that rely on using character positioning as a means for crowd control.

The other thing the game really lacks is the option for recon by fire. SO many times I have done this in the Infinity Engine games, lobbing fireballs blindly into a room just to flush out any ambushes.

A fair complaint. But this draws back to the fact that, in most computer games, you're dealing primarily with static actors. So, while in some situations this should be a very viable strategy, you shouldn't be able to clear out every room in an orc fort with a single fireball because the orcs were too fucking deaf to hear your dozen earlier ones.


Improved initiative helps (personally, I always take it ASAP when replaying KotC), but you can still lose your roll (and you will). Too much randomness + not being able to afford RNG trolling means one has to grind, grind, grind so one can be sure of winning even when RNG really wants you dead. And grinding in a game like KotC, well, is really boring. :>
Improved Initiative isn't even really productive. Moving in the wrong order is almost as counterproductive as moving last. The "Delay" move in KOTC is, again, much inferior to the TOEE version (which is the Core Rules method). In KOTC, if you delay, you are dead last. In core rules, you can merely be as slow as the slowest person in the group. Improved Initiative is frequently of little help if you get to move first, only to be stuck going last anyway because you have to wait until someone gets out of the way, or for enemies to actually move into range in the first place.

That...doesn't make sense.

So often you're complaining about your wizard being taken out in the first round of combat. How the *hell* is getting an additional +4 initiative not going to help survivability? The points on the "Delay" move in KotC are valid (I haven't played in a while, to be honest), but it doesn't change the fact that having your arcane caster win initiative will significantly improve their survivability.
 

Norfleet

Moderator
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
Messages
12,250
I guess I'm showing that most of my experience is through computer adaptations. Considering that computer games will mainly consist of static actors, it's just way too fucking easy to get a surprise round in every fucking battle.
True, but the computer games also give you a ridiculously huge number of enemies you're expected to kill. Why, just the bodycount you log in a single level often exceeds the bodycount of an entire PnP campaign.

Now, in a pen and paper game where the actors *aren't* static, those rules wouldn't be too much in favour of the player as it'd actually require a significant amount of work to get a surprise round off.
But it would be the GOOD kind of significant work.

If given the choice between forced-teleport battles or having encounters designed with the assumption that the player will always get the first shot, I'll choose the former. On a similar note, it's the same reason I don't mind the fact that KotC doesn't allow pre-buffing.
I dunno, it's far easier to design around a fixed assumption of the player shooting first, since this is a constant factor: Designing the game around force-teleports results in extremely lame fake-difficulty where you either instantly die in the first round before you even get to move, or a cakewalk. On top of that, it's ANNOYING. Any fixed factor such as "player shoots first" can always be accounted for in design. You KNOW how that's going to play out: Designing with that assumption in mind, I'd just put all the "things that shouldn't be potshotted in the opening round" far enough back behind some ablative chaff or even cover. It's basically the same kind of stuff you plan for when defending a room in real life: The attacker is always going to have initiative, because the decision of whether and when to attack belongs to the attacker.

Moving over open ground wasn't *too* bad, but the gridless layout completely fucked over pathing in tight spaces. The shitty pathing forced the decision to allow units to move through friendlies. That then completely fucked up many tactical options that rely on using character positioning as a means for crowd control.
I didn't actually notice that as a real problem, in all honesty: It's not actually true that enemies could noclip through all of your defenders, just that without rigid grids, the amount of space you had to take up to create a solid impassable wall was much tighter. If you created an extremely dense formation of tightly packed defenders, you could still create an impassable wall. It just wasn't quite as easy as with 5' grids: Instead of one or even two guys being able to render an entire 10' passage totally impassable to enemies, you needed 4 or 5 guys in a dense phalanx. It was still entirely possible to cockblock larger enemies like ogres at narrow passages.

A fair complaint. But this draws back to the fact that, in most computer games, you're dealing primarily with static actors. So, while in some situations this should be a very viable strategy, you shouldn't be able to clear out every room in an orc fort with a single fireball because the orcs were too fucking deaf to hear your dozen earlier ones.
I guess that depends on how loud of a boom fireballs game. According to RAW, fireballs aren't really an actual EXPLOSION and therefore do not produce loud overpressure blasts audible to everyone. On the other hand, there is absolutely no reason the actors have to be static. Even in this game, it isn't true...you'll see in the next update as I piss off an entire town. And the resulting battle? Awesome. Maybe not quite "pissing off all of Drassen" awesome, but still awesome.

So often you're complaining about your wizard being taken out in the first round of combat. How the *hell* is getting an additional +4 initiative not going to help survivability? The points on the "Delay" move in KotC are valid (I haven't played in a while, to be honest), but it doesn't change the fact that having your arcane caster win initiative will significantly improve their survivability.
Because I took it already, and it didn't help, because of the aforementioned above points. The battles where initiative even has an influence aren't the ones that matter. It's those annoying "let's teleport the entire party into a position where there are enemies all around you" battles where you die, and BECAUSE the game force-teleports you in, the enemy gets that free round of attack.

Maybe I should forge some Invulnerable Armor of Tankage. I remember putting that off because you have to be X level to start forging the actual real stuff, and not the inferior garbage versiions. But we've levelled up since then...I guess when that happens, the difficulty nosedives.
 

Ashery

Prophet
Joined
May 24, 2008
Messages
1,337
I guess I'm showing that most of my experience is through computer adaptations. Considering that computer games will mainly consist of static actors, it's just way too fucking easy to get a surprise round in every fucking battle.
True, but the computer games also give you a ridiculously huge number of enemies you're expected to kill. Why, just the bodycount you log in a single level often exceeds the bodycount of an entire PnP campaign.

True enough. Still, until someone designs an AI that reacts intelligently to noice/etc., I'd rather have the occasional forced battle than operate under the assumption that I have to preemptively nuke every room. But I've said that before, so *shrug*.

Now, in a pen and paper game where the actors *aren't* static, those rules wouldn't be too much in favour of the player as it'd actually require a significant amount of work to get a surprise round off.
But it would be the GOOD kind of significant work.

Oh, I agree completely.

If given the choice between forced-teleport battles or having encounters designed with the assumption that the player will always get the first shot, I'll choose the former. On a similar note, it's the same reason I don't mind the fact that KotC doesn't allow pre-buffing.
I dunno, it's far easier to design around a fixed assumption of the player shooting first, since this is a constant factor: Designing the game around force-teleports results in extremely lame fake-difficulty where you either instantly die in the first round before you even get to move, or a cakewalk. On top of that, it's ANNOYING. Any fixed factor such as "player shoots first" can always be accounted for in design. You KNOW how that's going to play out: Designing with that assumption in mind, I'd just put all the "things that shouldn't be potshotted in the opening round" far enough back behind some ablative chaff or even cover. It's basically the same kind of stuff you plan for when defending a room in real life: The attacker is always going to have initiative, because the decision of whether and when to attack belongs to the attacker.

How is it fake? You haven't designed your character to reliably win initiative and are facing the consequence for that. I fail to see how the teleports and lack of pre-buffing aren't accounted for in the design, either. Save for the first couple of levels, luck shouldn't be the deciding factor in battles when using good character builds.

Moving over open ground wasn't *too* bad, but the gridless layout completely fucked over pathing in tight spaces. The shitty pathing forced the decision to allow units to move through friendlies. That then completely fucked up many tactical options that rely on using character positioning as a means for crowd control.
I didn't actually notice that as a real problem, in all honesty: It's not actually true that enemies could noclip through all of your defenders, just that without rigid grids, the amount of space you had to take up to create a solid impassable wall was much tighter. If you created an extremely dense formation of tightly packed defenders, you could still create an impassable wall. It just wasn't quite as easy as with 5' grids: Instead of one or even two guys being able to render an entire 10' passage totally impassable to enemies, you needed 4 or 5 guys in a dense phalanx. It was still entirely possible to cockblock larger enemies like ogres at narrow passages.

Just goes to show the differences in our opinions.

Pathing and character placement was one of the main reasons I abandoned my initial ToEE playthrough. It just played like complete and utter shit after the, in my opinion, amazing encounter design in KotC.

It's also not just that they can no clip, but that you have no fucking idea if your character placement is adequate to prevent "leaks." Combine that with the piss poor movement mechanics and it quickly becomes irritating. There's just no way to accurately measure with a gridless system, let alone the difficulties it obviously caused re:movement.

A fair complaint. But this draws back to the fact that, in most computer games, you're dealing primarily with static actors. So, while in some situations this should be a very viable strategy, you shouldn't be able to clear out every room in an orc fort with a single fireball because the orcs were too fucking deaf to hear your dozen earlier ones.
I guess that depends on how loud of a boom fireballs game. According to RAW, fireballs aren't really an actual EXPLOSION and therefore do not produce loud overpressure blasts audible to everyone. On the other hand, there is absolutely no reason the actors have to be static. Even in this game, it isn't true...you'll see in the next update as I piss off an entire town. And the resulting battle? Awesome. Maybe not quite "pissing off all of Drassen" awesome, but still awesome.

I suppose "static" is a bit of an understatement. "Governed by incomplete scripts" would, perhaps, be better. They're "static" in the sense that they don't exist (or, at least, modeled) as living, breathing beings. Instead, they are nearly completely oblivious to their surroundings save for the occasional trigger (Like, say, how attacking a villager triggers the whole village to go hostile).

Even if the fireball itself isn't all that loud, the screams of the poor fuckers that are burning alive certainly are.

So often you're complaining about your wizard being taken out in the first round of combat. How the *hell* is getting an additional +4 initiative not going to help survivability? The points on the "Delay" move in KotC are valid (I haven't played in a while, to be honest), but it doesn't change the fact that having your arcane caster win initiative will significantly improve their survivability.
Because I took it already, and it didn't help, because of the aforementioned above points. The battles where initiative even has an influence aren't the ones that matter. It's those annoying "let's teleport the entire party into a position where there are enemies all around you" battles where you die, and BECAUSE the game force-teleports you in, the enemy gets that free round of attack.

Maybe I should forge some Invulnerable Armor of Tankage. I remember putting that off because you have to be X level to start forging the actual real stuff, and not the inferior garbage versiions. But we've levelled up since then...I guess when that happens, the difficulty nosedives.

I remember always having initiative rolled. Yes, even in those forced-teleport battles. Maybe there was the occasional exception, but I certainly don't remember them being the norm.
 

Norfleet

Moderator
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
Messages
12,250
How is it fake? You haven't designed your character to reliably win initiative and are facing the consequence for that. I fail to see how the teleports and lack of pre-buffing aren't accounted for in the design, either. Save for the first couple of levels, luck shouldn't be the deciding factor in battles when using good character builds.
You're kidding, right? I *HAVE* Improved Initiative. IT DOESN'T DO SHIT. And luck USUALLY isn't the deciding factor in battles...except the kind where they teleport you straight into a deathtrap. When they have to actually approach you and maneuver to attack you rather than having all of that simply given to them for free, the battles become relatively easy.

Pathing and character placement was one of the main reasons I abandoned my initial ToEE playthrough. It just played like complete and utter shit after the, in my opinion, amazing encounter design in KotC.
Surely you jest. TOEE's encounter design was far superior. You actually got to USE your character placement, rather than having it simply determined for you, generally in the most asinine method possible. You actually had the impression that you were Doing Something Tactical, rather than constantly just trying to salvage yet another enforced clusterfuck. And if something went horribly pear-shaped, it was somehow your fault, rather than a mess that you had zero actual input in because there is A: No way to bypass the encounter, with or without metagame information, and B: You don't actually get to do anything before you die.

Additionally, at no point were you stuck with the idea that an encounter was definitely going to happen, yet left with absolutely no way to prepare for it or even do anything other than wait for it to be forced on you. TOEE didn't have tihs problem: If you think an encounter was imminent...you shoot first!

It's also not just that they can no clip, but that you have no fucking idea if your character placement is adequate to prevent "leaks."
Never had that problem. If you position your guys as close as they can physically be, there are no leaks. If you leave any gap at all, it leaks. Fairly straightforward, really. And sometimes, you want that. TOEE really let you seriously punish enemies for trying it.

Combine that with the piss poor movement mechanics and it quickly becomes irritating. There's just no way to accurately measure with a gridless system, let alone the difficulties it obviously caused re:movement.
Really? Was it that bad? I mean, I found it straightforward. Enemies were over there, you were over here, and you pewpewed them.

I suppose "static" is a bit of an understatement. "Governed by incomplete scripts" would, perhaps, be better. They're "static" in the sense that they don't exist (or, at least, modeled) as living, breathing beings. Instead, they are nearly completely oblivious to their surroundings save for the occasional trigger (Like, say, how attacking a villager triggers the whole village to go hostile).
Well, what would they be doing instead? Presumably, a room full of orcs would be doing orcy, non-RPG-relevant things, hanging around in their rooms, occasionally patrolling between rooms, etc. If anything, anything else they could be doing would probably just decrease their actual readiness even more.

Even if the fireball itself isn't all that loud, the screams of the poor fuckers that are burning alive certainly are.
Very true. Games need to capture that more. Fireball would be so much more satisfying if it was accompanied by the anguished screams of the burning and the flailing around of the people you just set on fire. Instead, they just sort of take X fire damage and die instantly. I, for one, wouldn't mind if detonating a fireball pissed off the entire hive. It's not like such a reaction cannot be made. Back in JA2, I remember the fun of sneaking in, stabbing some guys in silence, then fortifying the crap out of a particularly defensible place in silence, before intentionally creating a disturbance to antagonize the entire hive and begin the turkey shoot, forcing enemies to run their way past a deadly gauntlet of exploding things to get at me.

Rigging the enemy base with explosives = Awesome.

I remember always having initiative rolled. Yes, even in those forced-teleport battles. Maybe there was the occasional exception, but I certainly don't remember them being the norm.
Initiative is always rolled anyway. It determines the order of who moves in the round after free fire. The round that doesn't happen because you are dead. Also, every single enemy has Improved Initiative anyway, so you gain no advantage by having it. You still get to move last anyway.
 

Norfleet

Moderator
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
Messages
12,250
And UPDATAN!

Taking the scenic route to our quest destination, we stop over at a spot marked "Fortress".
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Unfortunately, it seems to be blocked by a railroad forcefield. Guess we're not allowed to visit here yet.
We head for the pass.

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Searching some caves, we find ourselves being mauled by a bear.
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Immediately after that, we encounter a Vrock. What's it doing here? Good thing we still have those Cold Iron weapons from our other side trip equipped.
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Hirato attacks the Darkness.

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This particular cave contains spiders. TOASTY!

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Snakes. Why does it always have to be snakes? There's just something deeply comical about the notion of a "flat-footed" snake.

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We find a cloak in a random pile of rubble in a dead end in the tunnels.

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That key we found unlocks the door.

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And leads us into a pocket of Grimlocks. Fortunately, they are flammable.

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yay, an unavoidable pit. There is absolutely no way around it or any way to avoid it. In fact, that entire section of map is just inaccessible.

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Which leads us to another one of those lame instant-death teleport battles.

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After multiple attempts, we manage not to die in the first rounds and actually cast the spells needed to get moving again.
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We blast our way free and dispatch the survivors. We find a note telling us to follow the passage marked with a skeleton. Naturally, we ignore and just search all of them and kill everything we find anyway...

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Spiders...

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Minotaur...this was the passage we were TOLD to follow, and the cake was a lie, as it leads to a dead end. Not that we care. In fact, I didn't even actually read the note until afterwards.

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Elementals popping out of walls...

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Multiple groups of Elementals popping out of walls...

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And finally, some progress.

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For once we are NOT lamely teleported into a deathtrap and can engage them from the place we actually ARE...FWOOSH!

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We seem to be at an impasse. It was around here that I actually bothered to look at the note we got earlier and realized it was a liecake.

Left with no other options, we are forced to pull the rope.
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Naturally, EVERYONE has to stand in the room instead of, say, any number of other potential options for pulling a rope that don't involve standing there. At least we have two clerics. This would have been really awkward with only one.

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Oh, let me guess. We can expect a Medusa or several.

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Just Grimlocks here, though.
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FWOOSH!

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Ah, there we go. Why are we always DEFENDING ourselves rather than ATTACKING?

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And we are teleported into the room. Although at least we get to move FIRST for once. Couldn't we just fight our way out from that tunnel we entered through instead? Is that really so much to ask?

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FWOOSH. You can never have too much FWOOSH.

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The Medusa, driven by its burning need to kill Hirato, walks itself into a beatdown. Slashy slashy.
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We loot the bodies and continue moving deeper into the lair.

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What is it with the need to include purposeless blustering in dialogues, anyway? Are we actually going to be told anything? No? Can't talking be a free action WITHOUT it being an interrupt as well? Blargh. I swear they should have to pay for this with a feat chain instead of receiving this ability for free.

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But guess what we still have left over?

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BOOM! Headshot!

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Hirato cleans up.

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They throw a web at us, which is somewhat less relevant since we have already reached our desired defensive position. Also, they walk into it. Which means...

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FWOOSH!

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That is one tough wizard.

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But no matter how subtle the wizard, a blade through the chest will really cramp his style.

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We loot the bodies.

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With no other ways to go, we pop the door.

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And get an exit and a place to reload.

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That area will remain forever unexplorable, it seems. Even with everyone dead, we still can't pass that teleport trap.

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We take this moment to unload our vendortrash before continuing. It turns out our vendor also has a quest...which autocompletes the moment you select it. Easy $100.

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Back on the road again. Some random encounter Spider Wizards drop some Armor Bracers. What are they doing with those, anyway? Spiders don't have arms...

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We fight our way back towards our previous position through a random pack of tigers...

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An even more hilarious random pack of extra "special" tigers...

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And reach the other side again. On to the next club!

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We avoid creating a scene quite yet.

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Stumbling about trying to map everything results in an attempt at a mugging. I am somewhat unclear as to why low-level muggers would consider our heavily armed adventuring party a target, really...this never happens in real life. Try it: Walk through the worst parts of any city with a party of heavily armed soldiers. I betcha you encounter a grand total of zero muggers, although the police might complain. Unless your city of choice is Mogadishu.

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We find a secret passage and hatch down. We leave it for now to finish mapping this area.

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yay, merchant. We scoop the scrolls and unload our vendortrash. For CRPG characters, unloading your vendortrash is a ritual which serves much the same function as unloading your bladder.

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We can never seem to get away fromcentipedes, it seems. They truly are more likely than you think. Which, at this point, is pretty damned likely.

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Some random goons. However, they do not outright attack, although it's certainly trivial to provoke them into doing so. We leave them be...for now. It's important to make sure you're done with the area before doing anything that might create a permanent disturbance.

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Oh, look. Someone with exposition. And not a vendor.
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Mr. Exposition speaks. And gives us a quest. And a key.

With everything of note mapped out, it looks like we're done here. Let's cause some havoc!
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Well, he's certainly friendly, confronting us first...

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Here's your money.

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We start searching the closed off areas. With more FWOOSH. No one seems to care at this point. I suppose in a city of evil and slavery, tortured screaming of people on fire and the stench of burning people must be pretty commonplace event that no one pays attention to anymore. A man can get used to anything, I guess.

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Our map. We start clearing out those corner blockhouses.

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NE.
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SE.
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NW.
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SW.
Some classes SET PEOPLE ON FIRE. Hirato is a soulless monster.

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A slightly bigger blockhouse calls for a slightly bigger AOE.

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But sometimes the oldies are goodies.

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We pay those ruffians from earlier a visit...

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We encounter a random beggar. He gives us a White Knight chess piece. It does not appear to do anything. Ever. As of the end of this update, it is still taking up inventory space. Does anyone know whether we need to keep that?

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We FWOOSH the last guardhouse. Unfortunately, it is too big, and the alarm is sounded. Now the entire city is pissed off.

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More street battles break out as we attempt to haul off our vendortrash....

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We battle our way past the guards.

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Some of the surviving guards are so insistent on getting to Hirato that they're willing to walk a ridiculously long and circuituous route to get there. We pelt them to death with arrows and continue to clear our way towards the vendor.

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More guards, more fireballs in the night...

We unload our vendortrash and attempt to break out to the supply dump.
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A straightforward battle. No spawning into your face at knife fight range, no "cheese", no teleports. Just straight up action in the streets. Why can't more fights be like this?

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We successfully defend our ground. With FWOOSH.

Freshly reloaded...
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Annoyingly, we are teleported into the central building, rather than, you know, being able to attack from where we actually WERE. At least WE get to move first.

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We naturally start backing our way out for where we SHOULD have been in the FIRST place. And FWOOSHing. The slaves being sold function as static pieces instead of becoming potential collateral damage.

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Extra crispy.

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The battle reaches its conclusion with us finally having gotten back to where we should have been in the first place.

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XP get! Where are these people planning to GO with their freedom, anyway? Are they just gonna run off across the desert? The logistics of how that supposedly works out goes unaddressed.

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Levelling up, we seek to abuse the crafting system. Mithril Leather Armor? A convenient armor without spell-fail or actual proficiency required. Hirato's armor slot becomes useful. Even if it does sort of warp the fabric of reality. Because you can't make Mithril Padded Armor, naturally...but Mithril Leather Armor is perfectly okay.

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The local guard commander...

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Who summons more out of nowhere, even though we're pretty sure we cleared that area in advance. One of the lesser annoyances of RPGs, compared to obnoxious teleport battles, though. Giant Arpad blocks the way.

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Giant Bloodshifter blocks the other way.

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We clear the path with FWOOSH.

Ganking the key and selling their vendortrash, we open up the Slave Pens.
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He seems surprised to see us. But at least we have a non-retarded starting position.

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And so we wait for them to come to us and FWOOSH.

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We find the droids we were looking for.

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The city suddenly sprouts corpses everywhere. So, what, we were just standing here for however many days it took the rioting to advance this far?

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The streets are now filled with angry guard patrols. Angry, FLAMMABLE guard patrols.

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We once again blast our way towards the vendors and unload our cargo.

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We move to investigate the hatches now. Both hatches turn out to lead to the same area....

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This guy. Unfortunately, he just SITS there and we're not allowed to, you know, preemptively MURDER it or anything...

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So we have to pull this lever, whereupon it attacks us...

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Lacking any Adamantium weapons, we use something better.

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Advancing, we encounter another group of enemies. Violent action ensues.

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FWOOSH! That never gets old. Best spell ever.

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Hirato finishes off the last survivor...by shooting. Shooting is not too good for my enemies!

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Oh, look at that. We sneakily invert our marching order to out-cheese the cheese.
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See? Because walls just suddenly disappear and there is no way you could, I dunno, check them...in PnP I've defused so many things like this through simple paranoia. Remember, it's not paranoia when they really are out to get you.
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We use our short-range low-AOE freezer. Funny how a higher level spell is required to get a SMALLER explosion.
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Hosing off the other side...

Freshly unloaded and reloaded...
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Ayup. Gotta love those one-way entrances. We commence searching the passages ahead.

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Totally unguarded loot.

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And mummies and an elemental. Flammable mummies and a flammable elemental.

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Loot, and a key for the door right in front of us.

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Hey, for once we get to actually ATTACK instead of always having to DEFEND.

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FWOOSH!

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For some peculiar reason we cannot bombard the other side of this lake. It seems the lake is actually a solid impenetrable wall.

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And the hydrophobic water elementals thus have to go around as well. But we can still FWOOSH them.

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No matter how many times I see that, it never stops being funny.
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Man, these things just get bigger and bigger. It's like they're giant, dragon-sized snakes or something.

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And we reach our destination. BOSS FIGHT!

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Hey, for once we weren't lamely teleported. We actually arrived like that. This fight is gonna be awesome.

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These things may as well be good for SOMETHING.

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BOOM! Headshot! No more wizard.

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It seems when fire your last shot and run out of ammo, the corresponding fireworks are not shown. Yeah, no arrow animation, no headshot, but we get credit for it anyway in the results.

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Now it's time for FWOOSH in the center.

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We continue to bombard center.

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Azira smites one of the clerics.

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We accept the necessity of some friendly fire.

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The last cleric is flanked and taken out, stopping its annoying healing.

The enemy fighter flanks Bloodshifter...
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But Hirato FIRES HIS LAZOR, ending the battle.
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Boss slain. Corpses looted.

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We check out some unfinished business topside.

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Not allowed to simply initiate simple unprovoked aggression, we position ourselves before taunting our enemies into action. Then FWOOSHing them.

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Forcing our way in, we find some kind of...grass thing?

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Full of bears...
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...which we grossly overkill.

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Demonstrating that once again, this game badly needs the concept of DYNAMIC ENTRY...

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But at least we weren't teleported. FWOOSH!

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We let loose some stunblasts, gumming up the entrance...

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...because there is no overkill.

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Hirato attempts to interrupt the lone survivor's spellcasting with a barrage of magic missiles. Unfortunately, this totally works better in the IE games. The attempt fails.

0414.jpg

We kill him anyway.

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We investigate the Up. A portal trap battle ensues. Because for some reason you can't have a battle ON THE STAIRS or anything...or just lob fireballs into the room blindly until the screaming stops.

0416.jpg

At least our start position isn't horrendous. FWOOSH away!

0417.jpg

We clean up the survivors....

0418.jpg

With LAZOR! Then we loot their corpses and sell their trash.

0419.jpg

Investigating the south building triggers an immediate confrontation. At least we didn't have to poke them.

0420.jpg

Y'know, it's times like these that remind me of the cool "Fire Lance" effect of lobbing a fireball into an enclosed tube back in PnP AD&D. Which they no longer have. Fireball shaped charges were awesome, especially when you made a giant flamethrower by shaping a fireball into a tube.

0421.jpg

Once again the game demonstrates its need for DYNAMIC ENTRY.

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On top of that, they teleported us through the door. Grr. Never enter the room! NUKE FIRST.

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We manage to fall back to the doorway we belonged in, kill everyone, and loot their corpses.

0424.jpg

We talk to Mr. Exposition here again. Yeah, someone's an optimist. Like that ever happens. This place is going to be a shithole of warlordism for generations, man. These things tend to happen when you overthrow the existing political order without any firm plan for how to replace it.

0425.jpg

We return to home base and turn in our quest.

We stumble about looking for someone who might know something. We encounter that "summoned monster killing" thing. As I thought it was the combat tutorial part 2, I didn't screenshot the first part...
0426.jpg

...until THIS appeared instead of the wimpy monsters I expected. Not that expecting wimpy monsters stopped me from holing up in a defensive position before triggering it anyway. There is no overkill. It's not paranoia when they really are out to get you.

0427.jpg

We blast our enemies.

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With the enormous salamander thing vulnerable mostly only to cold, we accept some friendly fire to actually damage it.

0429.jpg

And finish it off with an Inflict.

0430.jpg

And hey, it triggers some additional dialogue.

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Yay. Now we have an "Undead Tower" to look for. Where might that be?

0432.jpg

And a second lead is also pointed out.

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So now where? Do we head for the nearby "Torbury" village, or should we check out that unnamed "Tower" on the other side of the map, conveniently in a place near a "Passage"?
 

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