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Gonna give this another ~24 Hours~ to break the tie. Right now the vote stands.... 4 for scare 2 for kill 4 for deal
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# ? May 25, 2017 02:21 |
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# ? May 16, 2024 17:09 |
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Jack2142 posted:Gonna give this another ~24 Hours~ to break the tie. Deal- We know enough streetsmarts to understand the value of being the knife...
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# ? May 25, 2017 03:41 |
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Art of the Deal!
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# ? May 25, 2017 04:34 |
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Deal
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# ? May 25, 2017 06:52 |
Make the best deal. A terrific deal. The best deal.
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# ? May 25, 2017 14:00 |
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Okay Voting closed, with the new votes it looks like we're gonna sell out Feng and cut a deal with Cassius
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# ? May 26, 2017 04:20 |
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Update 2: Teron City Blues Where we sell out Feng, Take Cassius to Antidas and explore Teron and find mystical wonderments!!! =========================================== So lets go explore Teron for a little, first here is a map you can use this to fast travel around locations although I don't really know why considering the locations in this game, even the hub cities really aren't that large. Let's run by the Inn, Cassius is in there along with the prospector with his magic amulet, there is also a merchant outside with his Ordu bodyguard. For the record the Ordu in this game are essentially the Huns, however they have been trapped to the North of the Imperial territories by a nearly impassable mountain range, however a handful trickle over the pass in trader caravans to find work throughout the shattered Empire. Past the inn is a town graveyard, it looks like the undertaker is there let's see what he has to say Well, I guess Business? I am a loremaster maybe this guy can tell us something interesting about who is buried here. quote:
Okay that was enlightening at least we can afford a grave if we need one, let's head north along the wall. Oh look, mushrooms! In this game based off your perception and alchemy skill you can find reagents that you can make into things. Here we found some blood mushrooms, which can be used to make a berserker potion. It won't benefit us much because even beserk we still suck at fighting. However there are some good things we can craft using alchemy including gunpowder bombs which should help us considerably if we do get in a fight. Continuing on there is also a ruined tower we can investigate, after all its our job to delve into ruins even if they are like 50 feet away from our home. This looks bad, but in these people are actually solidly Roman middle class, the Shantytown for the actual poor is outside the walls! Rats! Perfect a starter dungeon so we can get some xp! (which triggers this amusing exchange) You don't gain xp from killing things in this game, although you do get xp from combat encounters. So in theory if you pick a fight and win the xp is pre-set determined by encounter not how many chumps you slaughter. quote:: Can I fight your rats? Let's go exploring... well there is a grate which is probably full of poo poo. Hmm a perception check triggers on the wall, it looks like we can take it apart and find... a motor pump? This triggers a crafting and intelligence check which we easily pass and we fix it up. Explore the drain that was full of goop! Ohh we got a artifact, once we get up to the surface we can get a better look at it. Goddamnit, loving squatters. While the option of picking a fight would be hilarious we will get the poo poo kicked out of us even though we have a knife since its 4v1 Luckily with streetwise we can bluff our way out. quote:: Hey thats mine! So sweet, we got some cool loot a sapphire worth 150 imperials... (we can sell it for around 1/4th that) and a Jellyfish artifact. It obviously has some use, but who knows if we will actually be able to find out what its used for. Spoiler: its something cool. Now lets head to the Darotan Compound Feng told us to take the map to Antidas and we might as well get that done. Wait... there is a preacher trying to raise a rabble! TIME FOR BILL NYE TO SAVE THE DAY FROM RELIGIOUS NUTTERS! This is actually an interesting scene though kind of long. http://imgur.com/a/Ji0PE the conversation is here for those interested in the whole thing and gives some good exposition on House Crassus. You also get an option to throw a rock at him mid speech. TLDR: quote:
Essentially this conversation highlights, that since the fall of the Empire people including entire great houses are kind of going bat poo poo insane as things get worse. House Crassus as mentioned before used to be filled with powerful mages and loremasters. Now its last member is a gibbering prophet of long dead gods... and he is raising up the rabble in an attempt to start a holy revolution. While the game has a limited engine, it does do a good job of conveying locations and just the general decay of the world from its golden age, including snarky comments about the seamless blend of architecture. Also that guys standing there is a noble, just like in 40K PAULDRONS! are an important fashion statement in the Post-Imperial period. He asks us to come look at his artifacts, which leads to this interaction. Essentially we found a power glove and an ancient Orrey, if only we could get our hands on those items. Unfortunately this guy Thessalos is one of those assholes who buys priceless paintings and then puts them on his walls instead of a museum. He doesn't even care what they do he just likes the crap because its "old" and just wants to show off to us and make us jealous. Well lets look next door, I know there is this noble lady with more money than sense... I really need to raise some money to buy that prospectors amulet which should be useful if we need to go exploring. quote:
JFC this lady is dumb, she just gave me 6!!! sapphires and a pair of gold rings. This should be more than enough to be able to buy the amulet and have change left over. Now finally lets go to the compound and get this map sold. Okay, well I don't think sneaking in would be a good idea, lets go talk to the guard captain. Okay, yeah maybe stabbing Cassius wouldn't be a good idea, this guy doesn't look like he fucks around. quote:: Feng sent me to show Lord Antidas a map! Okay well that wasn't helpful, lets I guess collect Cassius and maybe Dellar will let us in that is doing something useful right? Okay, just got back to the inn, sold the gems and rings to a merchant up front and now we have about $500 imperials baby! Yeah, hand us the magic amulet... Wait... is that a gas mask with the filters missing? ... damnit. quote:: Hey Cassius, I am here to take you to Lord Antidas, I am the apprentice to the resident loremaster in town. Someone wants to have you murdered, I am warning you. quote:: Who is this? =========================================== Okay thats the end of the update, feedback is appreciated this is the first LP I have done. So advice on the formatting would be nice. This game has alot of ~10+ screen info dumps, and would people like me to make the screenshots of these and put them in an album(s) on imgur to avoid cluttering up the OP and also providing some context to backstory which is one of the strong points of this game. Now with the update ended how should we deal with the bandits to get to Dellar. A) Violence? We might be able to gank their leader and scare them into releasing the prisoner. (This might get us killed) B) Talk to them figure out what the ransom is, and try to negotiate it lower. C) Find a third option? Maybe we could figure out an alternate solution? E) Maybe we could get help from one of the guilds to get access to the palace. This would tie us into another quest line from an independant run however. Jack2142 fucked around with this message at 21:03 on May 27, 2017 |
# ? May 27, 2017 09:47 |
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C) Mystery options are always the best options.
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# ? May 27, 2017 10:39 |
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C) Figure something out. Use !
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# ? May 27, 2017 12:50 |
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C
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# ? May 27, 2017 17:13 |
C Those bandits are probably a tough fight.
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# ? May 27, 2017 18:27 |
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C If I'm remembering that fight correctly Bill Nye's build is nowhere near where it needs to be to wreck those bandits. I think I'm going to revisit this game. I've never played it the whole way through, always starting new playthroughs since the early game and difference between starting situations is so interesting. I'd really recommend this to anyone who can tolerate the graphics. The other game with this engine, Dungeon Rats, I don't care for as much. It has none of the strengths that this game has but all of its weaknesses. It's combat difficulty is much more reasonable but it has way too much combat and not enough intrigue.
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# ? May 27, 2017 19:12 |
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Cathode Raymond posted:C I actually thought we might, we can critical kill Esbenus, but couldn't pass the intimidation checks and would get murdered. Also I agree this game does a good job of setting up the intro, Teron is pretty well polished and while still the tutorial area each of the start's has a much different feel.
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# ? May 27, 2017 22:56 |
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Cathode Raymond posted:The other game with this engine, Dungeon Rats, I don't care for as much. It has none of the strengths that this game has but all of its weaknesses. It's combat difficulty is much more reasonable but it has way too much combat and not enough intrigue. That's pretty much the entire point of that game, isn't it? It exists purely for people that liked AoD's combat and don't want anything else getting in the way.
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# ? May 27, 2017 23:57 |
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Genocyber posted:That's pretty much the entire point of that game, isn't it? It exists purely for people that liked AoD's combat and don't want anything else getting in the way. jfc, who in their right mind asked for that?
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# ? May 28, 2017 04:11 |
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poo poo, at a glance I'm hugely tempted to go grab this game and try it out myself. Anything to be aware of before I make that decision?
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# ? May 28, 2017 07:13 |
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Jack2142 posted:I actually thought we might, we can critical kill Esbenus, but couldn't pass the intimidation checks and would get murdered. VVVVVVV: *Mechanical spoilers* This might actually become a broader issue as this LP progresses. From what I remember from playing this years ago you are punished very harshly if you try to later move back into combat and likewise for the persuasion skills. I can't remember the system providing much in lee-way at all when it comes to varying your decisions outside of the Violence Vs. Persuasion/Trickery paradigm even if you do have some choices if you stick the course. It's not very Obsidian in its approach. MiddleOne fucked around with this message at 08:19 on May 28, 2017 |
# ? May 28, 2017 08:16 |
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MiddleOne posted:VVVVVVV: *Mechanical spoilers* *Mechanical Spoilers* No thats one of the flaws of this game, there are many options and unless you are doing a hybrid build (my personal preference) you really are railroaded in certain instances at times. Luckily because we will have alot of specialist skills in civic's and skill point bonuses from intelligence the game generally will give us multiple non-violent paths we can utilize to keep things fresh, and we should still have a couple choices for participation votes throughout the game. Likewise once we get out of Teron the game opens up a bit in Act II & III where we can choose where to explore etc. and shift between factions, plus we will have to make some choices on what ancient artifacts we can use or power up as there is a cap. Also as a word of advice for people, combat in this game is hard yet not impossible and I won't give us an option to pick a fight that Bill Nye has no chance of winning, without me doing some incredible combat cheesing (which isn't fun) or me just using console commands, because the combat in this game has alot of RNG bullshit.
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# ? May 28, 2017 08:40 |
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PurpleXVI posted:poo poo, at a glance I'm hugely tempted to go grab this game and try it out myself. Anything to be aware of before I make that decision? This game in a nutshell: Pros ++ Interesting and novel setting, world building ++ Interesting and novel character creation and skill system + Surprisingly varied early game, and one of the more engaging "tutorial cities" in any game + Good and not overly-long dialogue + Competent art design + Competent crafting system + Variety of viable combat builds Cons - Difficult and RNG dependent combat system necessitates save scumming some fights, even with an optimized combat build (to the game's credit, there are a number of different and viable ways to optimize a combat build. No way to guarantee you will survive a given fight, though) - Skill checks can be bullshit at times, and trying to pass some skillchecks are completely impractical (may have been changed since 2015) -- Extremely dated graphics. The graphics would have been good c. 2003/2004 EDIT: I personally would recommend it to just about anyone at the 7.99 or whatever sale price it was just on sale for, I think I payed about $20 for it during its early access and I consider it one of my better video game purchases. Cathode Raymond fucked around with this message at 16:30 on May 28, 2017 |
# ? May 28, 2017 16:24 |
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The graphics aren't really that much worse than Wasteland 2. I saw a couple of screenshots of it from like 3 years ago and it looked way loving worse. Are people still imagining it looks like the earlier builds? Compare and contrast. WhiskeyWhiskers fucked around with this message at 16:46 on May 28, 2017 |
# ? May 28, 2017 16:44 |
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Cathode Raymond posted:Cons Well, I don't care about the graphics, but... Is the combat more RNG-based than, say, the Infinity Engine games? If it requires more save-scumming than Baldur's Gate due to save-or-die effects, it may be just too far gone for me. And with regards to the skill checks, is that to say that for some skill checks require extremely high values to pass, for the point of the game which they're at? Or is it something else?
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# ? May 28, 2017 17:53 |
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PurpleXVI posted:Well, I don't care about the graphics, but... There are not really any save-or-die effects, and there is probably less save-scumming overall than Infinity Engine games just because there is less combat and the combat tends to be more decisive. Combat is rarely mandatory and usually takes the form of you vs a tough handful of enemies and is often decided in a few turns. However combat often comes down to whether you roll a crucial dodge or land an especially important knockdown hammer strike, and that's where the RNG really shows. The skill checks are generally ok but there are some skill checks that are completely unworkable. To give one example that comes to mind, solving a certain situation early on requires either a very high impersonate check, a series of much more reasonable but much more varied skill checks and a single difficult combat, or ~3 difficult combat encounters in a row. In that example the impersonate check is basically impossible, the series of skill checks probably requires some foreknowledge, and the full-combat option requires a combat-heavy build and probably some save scumming. It's not hugely dickish and not indicative of all sequences but those types of situations do show up from time to time and can be frustrating.
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# ? May 28, 2017 18:39 |
I tried to pick up this game again yesterday and was just struck by how easy it is to screw yourself over. I'm really not sure how you're supposed to figure out what skill checks are needed on a blind playthrough, and trial and error just seems tedious.
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# ? May 28, 2017 19:11 |
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Are there any outright trap options or useless skills? Or is everything roughly equally handy?
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# ? May 28, 2017 19:24 |
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Cathode Raymond posted:There are not really any save-or-die effects, and there is probably less save-scumming overall than Infinity Engine games just because there is less combat and the combat tends to be more decisive. Combat is rarely mandatory and usually takes the form of you vs a tough handful of enemies and is often decided in a few turns. However combat often comes down to whether you roll a crucial dodge or land an especially important knockdown hammer strike, and that's where the RNG really shows. Personally I don't think any skill checks are unworkable, there are some very difficult ones in this game and if I remember the check your talking about. I think you are talking about the monastery? I agree its bullshit, you can impersonate an Imperial Guard (The check is actually really easy if you are one), Throw the leader off the cliff and scare a couple away. Finally join them in the attack and holyshit it is hard... run across a bridge while archers shoot you, get up the wall while archers shoot you, its miserable. Luckily as a loremaster we can bypass all of that and get the rewards at the end of the quest through a secret back door. PurpleXVI posted:Are there any outright trap options or useless skills? Or is everything roughly equally handy? There are trap skills depending on playthrough, a big one is splitting your weapon points. If your going to fight alot pump all your combat skills into one offensive weapon and one defensive weapon. I.e Spear/Axe or Dodge/Block splitting your weapon skills is a bad idea. In regards to civil skills it really depends on your playthrough, all the dialogue skills have a good number of checks, and outside of the aforementioned gating checks. 3 or 4 points in a skill is usually enough to get by, the biggest trap I could say is trying to spread yourself too thin though. In this game you can't be "good" at everything. Likewise unless you plan on sneaking alot or stealing... don't put skill points into that it would be a waste. On our loremaster lockpick and traps can be useful as some ruins are indeed booby trapped and locked. Fundamentally the game dev did not like the idea that in say Skyrim, your warrior with minimal magic ability could end up the archmage of the College of Winterhold, while also simultaneously running the Dark Brotherhood and so on and so forth. The best way I would put the game is you need to set aside the mindset that you need to have 100% completion on everything or even just an "optimal" resolution to a quest. There are simply some things you can't do and almost every event does have multiple solutions, just sometimes they are pretty... obtuse? for lack of a better word, this is pretty much the closest thing I can think of to a grognard crpg possible before delving into roguelikes. Jack2142 fucked around with this message at 21:47 on May 28, 2017 |
# ? May 28, 2017 19:57 |
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There's a free demo of this up on steam, afaik supposed to basically have the whole tutorial area so just give that a try first if unsure. Couldn't get into it myself, it's pretty much a choose your own adventure book with the staple bs instadeaths for going left instead of right or not having the right build. And beating it seems to be a case of trial and error, a common strategy is just hoarding your skill points and only increasing skills when you run into a check you can't beat. The story and setting do look interesting enough so I'll be following this. Avalerion fucked around with this message at 21:39 on May 28, 2017 |
# ? May 28, 2017 21:35 |
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This game's setting and gameplay seemed interesting. I'm glad someone else is min-maxing this poo poo for my enjoyment I'm particularly happy to read about all these little quirks that people experienced with the game can elaborate on, like the trap skill question and such.
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# ? May 29, 2017 07:42 |
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Jack2142 posted:
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# ? May 29, 2017 21:25 |
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Sorry about this guys for some reason the game kept crashing every time I tried to launch it, I have managed to get it to work after uninstalling some video drivers that seemed to be causing the issues, then I got distracted by Steel Division. My goal is to get the next update out tomorrow, I have most of the Screenshots just need to get it all assembled, things are going to really start picking up from this point on.
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# ? Jun 6, 2017 06:01 |
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Part III: Let's Make a Deal! Alright lets leave Teron and go visit the bandit encampment... oh wait it looks like there is a commotion at the gate quote:
quote:Hey thanks for letting my family into Teron, here is 150 Imperials you paid those guards! Okay so that didn't work, as seen we have the option of stalking him home. If it was just Aemolas we could take him, but he has his entire family who will shank us to death if we try this. If we didn't demand the repayment and paid to let him in he would have just given us some really lovely barbarian armor we could buy for like ~30 Imperials. However letting Aemolas in will unlock another quest to visit his village if we level up our word of honor rank (which determines how honest we are in dealings) where he may or may not have some valuables. Okay finally lets go visit the Bandit Camp and figure out their demands. Okay so its a dumpy little camp, there is maybe half a dozen bandits here holding Antidas useless cousin. This big guy up ahead looks like he should be in charge lets go talk to him. Hey this is the head honcho, if we picked the comedy option to critical strike him several things would happen with critical strike 3 and a knife we could try to slit his throat if we succeed we kill him and can try to pass an intimidation check on the remaining bandits to scare them off... if we fail they turn hostile and would kill us, if we succeed they would run away. If we failed the critical strike attack he knocks us unconscious, but doesn't kill us and sends us to deliver ransom terms to Dellar. Also the other bandits kick us while we're down and our health is perma de-buffed by a few points, but our dodge score gets boosted. We could also demand the prisoner, but lol it starts combat and we die. quote::Hey I am here to negotiate for the release of the prisoner Note if we choose, we can now try to convince Dellar that the ransom is 1000 Imperials and pocket the difference, there also could be an alternate angle here. House Aurelian has set up an outpost near Teron, which obviously is a huge danger, maybe House Darotan would be more willing to pay them 1000 Imperials to go attack the Aurelian Outpost. If we could pull this off we could probably get ourselves ingratiated to House Darotan. Also something about Esbenus seems interesting he doesn't look like a common raider. We could also just simply tell Dellar what the camp looks like and how best to attack it if we pass the perception check. Hmm, I wonder what the background is most Imperial Guards don't get the opportunity to desert and even fewer bandits and raiders manage to live long enough to get grey hair. Serving in the Imperial Guard sucks... wanna know why? It exposes you heavily to this games combat mechanics However after describing how his raider bands failed miserably he drops these dimes of interesting information... Yeah, go down the elevator platform in a place known as the Hellgate... wait that sounds suspiciously like an end game location... oh god I don't want to imagine what hosed up demons and poo poo are there and still kicking centuries after the apocalypse. Alright with that taken care of we can return to Dellar to let him know whats going on with the kidnapping situation. quote:
So now we come to a major decision point, the Aurelian Outpost is now the gate for the next section of the game and now we have a few really important choices to make that will impact how Teron is resolved and what we are doing in Part II. Vote 1: Solving the Raiders A: We convinced Esbenus to take a 500 Imperial Ransom, we can get Dellar to give us 1000 Imperials and embezzle the difference B: Tell Dellar how to kill Esbenus and his bandits and rescue the useless cousin C: Convince Esbenus to attack the Aurelian Outpost for House Darotan Vote 2: Aurelian Outpost A: Try to talk our way in as a lore master and sabotage the machine for house Darotan B: Switch sides, lets see if we can fix the machine in the outpost for House Aurelian to ingratiate ourselves with the most powerful post-apocalypse side C: Same as above, convince the bandits to attack the outpost D: Find work with one of the various guilds like the Merchants/Thieves/Assassins/Imperial Guards to bypass the outpost. Even the Imperial Guard play through will give us plenty of ways to non-violently resolve the quest lines. ----- Bonus Content ----- Note: There are actually another two to three options for dealing with the outpost, that unfortunately we can't pass due to our build. First we can simply go to the outpost and sneak in and sabotage the machine using sneaking skills and alchemy skills to build a bomb and collapse the mine. Note you can also talk your way in and do the same thing, we can't pass the sneak checks this is a good option for assassins or thief characters. Or we could use lore to figure out a way to sabotage the machine in a more elegant solution. Two we could simply assault the mine and try to kill the guards. This is naturally pretty stupid as highlighted by the following snarky death screen. The game has a bunch of death screens for dying in various ways, usually topical to the situation at hand some being much much worse than this. Thirdly we can figure out how to poison the outpost to make attacking / sneaking in easier and soften it up. go to the market and bribe the merchants into ratting out Rhaskos in the slums He initially demands 100 Imperials, though you can bribe him down to 20 or you could just kill him and take his place using your disguise skill You can either make your own poison or you can buy a weak poison from the thieves guild for 5 Imperials or a strong poison from the Boatmen of Styx for significantly more. Then go attack the outpost at your leisure, this makes it alot easier for combat skilled characters to attack. Jack2142 fucked around with this message at 08:43 on Jun 7, 2017 |
# ? Jun 7, 2017 08:36 |
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Sounds like Esbenus and his merry band of muderous thugs found this game's version of "The Glow" form Fallout 1? I really hope we have a chance to Vote 1: A for maximum funds. Vote 2: Can we stall the vote until we got a better first real impression of house Aurelian?
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# ? Jun 7, 2017 12:34 |
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What's most likely to leave Esbenus breathing by the end? He sounds like a solid guy for a kidnapper and thug.
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# ? Jun 7, 2017 14:20 |
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Are we getting more of the joke gamover screens?
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# ? Jun 7, 2017 14:29 |
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1: A 2: B
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# ? Jun 7, 2017 16:01 |
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How important are your money reserves in this game? I'm all for embezzling the hell out of some nobles, but our Word of Honor might be more valuable if the game has limited important things to spend it on. 2: C. Let's take a snuggly position in the background so we don't wind up pissing powerful people off. More.
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# ? Jun 7, 2017 16:07 |
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Thanks for LPing this game, I didn't know about it. I bought it and am enjoying a combat play through. Another option for dealing with Rhaskos comes from your Body Count stat; don't have to pay anything if you have killed enough people.
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# ? Jun 7, 2017 19:18 |
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Kaboom Dragoon posted:What's most likely to leave Esbenus breathing by the end? He sounds like a solid guy for a kidnapper and thug. Well I will spoil this because it isn't a huge issue... Esbenus can survive and we will run into him in an act III location assuming we don't directly kill him ourselves, or send Dellar and his men to raid the bandit camp. He shows up at a different set of ancient ruins we can explore. MiddleOne posted:Are we getting more of the joke gamover screens? Yes OutofSight posted:Sounds like Esbenus and his merry band of muderous thugs found this game's version of "The Glow" form Fallout 1? I guess I can explain a bit about House Aurelian, they are the most powerful faction left after the apocalypse. Their leader Gaelius is a pretty competent guy, I would say he would be closest to say an Octavian type not particularly nice, but knows what needs to be done to win and willing to admit he needs others to complete his goal of winning the civil wars becoming Emperor. Jack2142 fucked around with this message at 08:48 on Jun 8, 2017 |
# ? Jun 7, 2017 21:14 |
I vote for getting Esbenus and co to attack the camp.
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# ? Jun 8, 2017 03:19 |
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As far as I can tell the votes look split between taking a skim of ransom money and paying Esbenus to attack the outpost I will give another 24 hours for people to vote,
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# ? Jun 10, 2017 00:17 |
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# ? May 16, 2024 17:09 |
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Whoops, looks like I forgot to vote Attack the camp
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# ? Jun 10, 2017 00:46 |