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Hang in there, Chokes!
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Nov 6, 2019 22:47
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Seyser Koze posted:Hang in there, Chokes! What the —I didn’t say to start a dance party That’s the last time I send someone’s dreams to cover for me 
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Nov 7, 2019 00:16
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Pool of Radiance, Chapter 8: NerdQuest Today on the Gold Box adventures, we'll visit a cherished center of community learning and burgle everything that isn't nailed down. I won't lie: there may be a shenanigan or two along the way. But first, town stuff!   *scribble*Proclamation CXXXIV posted:Be it known that the council has declared those individuals who have taken up residence in the mansion of the former Koval Family to be traitors and thieves. Be it further known that a reward has been offered for the elimination of these outlaws. A commission to rid the city of this blight may be obtained from the council clerk. All right, let's see what Sasha has for us this time.  Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to bring back as many tomes as possible for further study. And what if we refuse? Then I'll be forced to not care. You already do that. Hey, you're finally catching on.  Ha ha! I think she bought it! ...? We were lying to her to get a reward later. Right? Like, why would we go to a library? ... Buckle up, buddy. This is gonna be a wild ride.Now that we have our commission, we need to do a little inventory management and clean out the junk we've picked up. Upon doing so, I stumble upon a revelation: Heather has a magic necklace! Necklaces of Missles are a very big deal in AD&D, and especially so in the Gold Box series. Contrary to the name, they don't fire Magic Missles. When invoked, they fling goddamn fireballs. Anyone can use them, they're an absolute necessity during late game, and what we've got here definitely isn't one of them.  Omigod. Look at that gemstone! You know it's fake. Right? Whatever. It's going to look so rad on me. Far be it from me to judge your fashion sense, Heather... Look, I'll just come right out and say it. It's gaudy as poo poo. Uh... Heather? Are you okay? Hello? *waves hand* Anyone home? DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH Well, that's not good. I've seen this before. You have? New equipment... crippling effects... *tug* inability to remove the item... Oh, Jesus Christ. We've seen this before, too. Someone wanna clue me in here? I'm afraid your friend has equipped a cursed item.  What we've actually picked up is a Necklace of Clumsiness.  As you can see, Heather's AC is now absolutely putrid, and that necklace is stuck on her. We'll have to get professional help to undo my dumbass mistake.  Hi, yeah. Our friend is dumb. Can you do anything about it?   Some things are beyond my abilities, even as a priestess of Sune. No, we mean she's dumber than usual. Oh! She's probably cursed, then. We think it's the necklace. Can you help us? Sure. Great! What?! Hey, the church's roof isn't going to fix itself. Ehn, it's not like we don't have the cash. Here you go!   ...wha? Where am I? Oh, good! She's back. Omigod, look at that necklace! If you even try to put that on again, I am putting you through this wall, even if it takes multiple tries. Hey! Speaking of really bad decisions, I just made one! ...what?  ...why are we doing this again? Must be some residual dumbness left over from Heather's curse. In we go!  u back  u no itWell, here we are again. But this time, we've got the advantage of an extra level and Hanover in full beast mode. Pre-fight, we buff ourselves with Bless and Protection from Evil. And, since Hold Person is a non-starter, we trade it in for spell of... questionable usefulness.   *thunk* ...?  If you remember from the Tier 2 spell list, Spiritual Hammer summons up a free phantom weapon that does 1-4 damage. However, the important thing is that—like all hammers—you can just straight up chuck it at your opponents. 1D4 isn't exactly going to set the world on fire, and it takes two turns for the attack: one to cast and another to equip and throw. On top of that, Shanna is not exactly trained in throwing weapons. But, it's not like we can do anything with those slots or put Shanna on the front line, and we even connect with one for 2 damage. Every little bit helps, I guess!   THOU FURIOUS?Though admittedly not by much.  On the other hand (lol), Hanover's gauntlets are paying off big time. Hitting for high double digits against these assholes is a big deal, because it takes off about a fourth of their HP. Heather, Justine, and even Sternn chip in, and shockingly, the first troll goes down smoothly!  Brief reminder that they're called Gauntlets of Ogre Strength for a reason.  Sooo. Since we're in a different universe, I've been trying out new ways of casting spells. This is not the time for this! Sure it is! Check this out. Razzmatazz   ...huh. Lesson #1, Justine: there is never a bad time for battlefield banter. Ever.Sliding Rez over next to the troll was a calculated risk, but it actually allows us to hit both Trolls with Stinking Cloud, so there's a reason I did it. Two trolls are handled, and the third has an AC penalty. I don't think I've mentioned this, but even when a target makes their save roll, a victim of Stinking Cloud still gets penalties in combat. There's really no downside to this spell unless you're dumb enough to wade into it for no reason. But, I'm not sure who woul—  Smell... so horrible... must kill... troll No shower in world... will wash out smell Try this new soap I found. It's mint and lavender!In retrospect, I could've used a bow and arrow here, but we're on the clock. We've only got so long before those trolls start popping back up, so we need to kill as many things as possible as fast as possible, and that means getting our fighters in striking range. I roll the dice—literally—and Justine makes her savings throw. She offs the troll, and that's four monsters down with two left.  How's that battlefield banter working out for you? oofReally would've liked that second Stinking Cloud, but I took a gamble, and I need to live with the consequences. Well. Rez does. I'm perfectly safe, now that I think about it.  Hanover moves in and drops the hammer on troll #3, and we've only lost the squishiest member of the party so far. We're in great shape.  In an incredibly satisfying moment, the remaining troll fails its morale check and flees. (I don't think trolls can actually surrender.) The elation doesn't last long, because now we have to chase it into a corner and beat it senseless—and if we don't do so fast enough, those other trolls will start popping up right where Shanna and Sternn are standing.  Losing Justine doesn't help.  Nevertheless, Heather delivers the coup de grâce, and we're finally done here. Note that, through a glitch in the game, it's possible to prevent troll resurrection by parking a character on the spot they went down. When the game goes to add them back to the battlefield, it'll see the spot is already occupied and skip it. Sadly, I'm concentrating so much on getting everything right that I lose track of earlier kills. Besides, after Rez wips out, we've only got enough party members to stop two trolls, and the third popping up would wreck everyone regardless. It's much better to get the fight over with before they can get back up.   For our troubles, we get a shitload of experience, a useless Short Sword +1, a Halberd +1, and a scroll with spells we already know on it. Even the Halberd isn't that useful, as despite their being my favorite weapon in D&D, there's no reason to use one when we have Shield +1s. Giving up the extra point of AC just isn't worth it, especially since we already have magic swords. One last troll from the trolls  We stop briefly in town after this little misadventure, and Shanna picks up a new level. She now has access to Tier 3 of Cleric spells. If you like gadget spells and status effects, boy howdy, are you gonna love this list. I'm rolling the Cause and Cure version of each into a single line, because it'd dumb not to. Also, all the Cause/Cure stuff below is touch based, so you either have to be in camp or standing next to someone to use it.
Take a good, long look at that list, because that's the last of the Cleric spells we'll see in this game. Oh, didn't I mention? All the Gold Box games (except Pools of Darkness) have has a level cap to prevent you from powerlevelling and plowing over the opposition. In PoR, Clerics and Magic Users top out at 6, so Shanna's spellbook is full up. Fighters can go up to 8, and Thieves to 9. We will hit those marks around 65%-75% completion, and it's going to be really frustrating when Rez bottoms out at one or two casts of Tier 3 per memorization. Oh well. Let's go steal from a library!   hrrrrrgh nnnnnnnnngh What's up, big guy? Dang thing won't open. Nggggggggggh Move over. I got this.  Knock, knock.  Some doors are magically sealed, and Mendor's Library is one of them. It's possible to force them open with 18(00) Strength and some patience, but a more stylish answer is to cast (K)nock and blow the door off its hinges. Knock always works, and once something's open, it stays open until you leave the map. Not... really sure how that works, but whatever.   Look at this place! Books as far as the eye can see! cootiescootiescootiescooties You okay there, Heather? *rocks back and forth* I'm gonna need an extra set of hands if we want to get all these books out of here. Hey, Sternn! Want to help me loot the place? Do I?! I've just realized how much of a mistake it is to have those two on the same team. At least they're bonding over something they love. Aw, they're stealin' the candlesticks, too. That's sweet.    In each of those circled areas, you're able to use the (L)ook command (or (S)earch while walking around, if you really want to) to scan the section for books of interest.  The chance of stumbling across something valuable is completely random and, annoyingly, there's no way to know you got everything without a FAQ of some sort. You just kind of wander into each section and hammer (L)ook until you get bored. Nothing is really required to clear this commission, but everybody likes free money! scoot doot doodlely doo *tosses books in bag* Hmm. Some of these look important... I'm going to copy some notes out of them before we head back. oh no, they got you, you're one of them now ...seriously, are you okay? can'tsleepnerdswilleatmecan'tsleepnerdswilleatmeDidn't like the gadget spells? No problem! We've also got exposition dumps! Here's everything we found. Journal Entry 7 posted:A tightly bound scroll, seemingly immune to the ravages of time. Journal Entry 8 posted:A rugged popular account of the northern lands. Journal Entry 19 posted:A black bound tome written in a strange halting hand. Journal Entry 21 posted:A crumbling old book; one of a massive series. *flips through journal* I am not liking where this is going. Yeah? This "Tyranthraxus" name keeps coming up over and over again. He seems to be an extremely powerful demon in the service of Bane. I suddenly got a real bad feeling about this whole thing. What, just now?  Hey, what's that thing? What thing? That thing over there, with the scales! Do you think we can steal it? Nnnnnnnno.  All right, let's just back out slowly, and— Guys, you're not going to believe this. A basilisk popped out of my bag! That's because you put it in there No time for semantics! We have to deal with this basilisk!Oddly enough, this is not a Rocco's Basilisk pun, as this game was made in the late 80s/early 90s. Or was it? How do I know this entire game and LP isn't a fruitless task designed by an AI specifically to torture me? Ha ha, just kidding! Of course it is. I already know that. Basilisks can stone gaze, and stone gaze is... not great. There's a spell that fixes it without penalty, but the target has to make a CON check when they un-stone, or else they drop dead from shock. Plus, it's a Tier 4 spell, which means hauling your new collection of garden ornaments back to town no matter what. Happily, it is a status condition you need not ever deal with thanks to the one logical thing in all of RPG history being here, of all places.  Here, hold this.  ...the hell did you do that? Let's just say I have close, personal experience with this situation.I mmmmmmmay have picked up a few extra things while we were in town.  Once we're out of PoR's starting gates, you should never ever ever go without a mirror in the Gold Box series. Ever. Readying a mirror automatically makes Stone Gaze attempts bounce off you and back onto the target. It reduces a nasty instakill to an instant self-own that will never cease to delight you. There's nothing funnier than a stone gaze monster rolling up to your party, giving them the ol'  , and then immediately being skull-and-crossboned off the field. I laugh my rear end off every single goddamn time.Another interesting thing of note: the Amiga version gives you the opportunity to back away slowly from this fight. In the PC version, whoops! Basilisk all up in your face and business! It's yet another reason this is the superior version. Anyway, enemies still get a savings throw against their own gaze, and it doesn't seem to be sticking in this fight. We'll have to do it manually.  Need a little help here! books  Oh, for poo poo's sake. I'm helping!  argh I swear to God, you assholes are so useless sometimes.  Get ahold of yourself, woman   As the party mage, I'm calling dibs on the cloak. Any objections? go to my happy place, use yoga breath I'll take that as a no!  Ooh. Spiffy. Oh my God, there's more than one of her now. What did we do to deserve this? Oh, I think you know. Yeah. I do.That cloak is a Cloak of Displacement, and it's some top notch gear. Ostensibly, it gives you the same effect as a displacer beast, i.e. your image is projected away from your actual location. In practice, it gives anyone who wears it a substantial AC boost. Since anyone can equip it, it's great for mages, so Rezen's hit the jackpot here. As for the potions, one is Potion of Giant Strength, and the other is a Potion of Healing. They are Enlarge and Cure Moderate Wounds in a bottle, respectively. It's not a bad idea to save them for end game, where there will be long stretches where we won't be able to camp.  This place is such a mess. I bet it was beautiful in its time, but now... *mumble mumble* ? See? It's not just me! Shush. Um, hello? Are you all right? Sounds like a total no. Why don't you come with us? We can get you out of here and get you the help you need. Let me rephrase that. You're coming with us. Was that really necessary? Sometimes you need tough love.The Mad Man here has been in the Library way too long. I have no idea what he's gibbering about. I'm sure it's a reference to something later in the game, but it has nothing to do with this area whatsoever. Oh well, not our problem. Moving on!    Oh, what the—not you guys again. Sure. Start talkin'. *scribble* *skritch*Journal Entry 10 posted: ... Hmm, yes. I think this will be very helpful. You're holding it upside down. Am I, Shanna? Am I? ...come to think of it, I don't know. Thanks for the useless information, little guy! No problem. If you need more, you know where to find us. *sip*Their map is legit, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with the library. It's actually a small section of the Textile House. Hey, nobody said kobolds were expert cartographers. Anyhoo, we've done everything we can here. Let's sneak out the back before anyone notices.   Everyone try to stay quiet. So far, we haven't set off any alarms. We might just pull this heist off. I don't know why you're being so careful. This place is totally deserted. If there's one thing this adventure has taught me, it's that you shouldn't say things like that. Um, hello? This place would be crawling with nerds if anyone else could get in here. We'll be fine. Gghaldghlag Well. Mostly fine.  OMG IT'S A GHOST NERD I WARNED YOU BRO, I WARNED YOULooks like Mendor isn't a fan of people taking books without checking them out—to the point of refusing the afterlife to enforce it. We're going to have to perform a permanent exorcism to get out of here with our plunder. One minor setback, though.   wherrrrrrrrre's your libraaaaaaaaaary card what are we doing what are we doing aaaaaa He's non-corporeal! We need magic! No sweat, we've got magic gear. How hard could this b—   why is always me, whyAnything higher on the food chain than a ghoul in AD&D drains levels on successful damage. No savings throw, just gently caress you and your work for the last four hours. Wights are the biggest offenders, but Spectres? One level is not enough for them. Oh no—they steal two. Granted, it only applies if they hit, but a spectre is way out of our league right now, and it's going to beat the poo poo out of us if we don't hurry this along. Worse, with two levels per drain on the table, some Very Bad Things can happen.  LET ME OUT LET ME OUT  ... Welp. We're doomed. When are we not?Yes, that's right: if you're drained below Level 1, you're dead! Forever. Do not gently caress around with undead in AD&D.   Offscreen, I dumped Sleep for Magic Missle because I knew this fight was coming. Magic missle is guaranteed damage with no savings throw, and we need that right now. The rest is just surround, pummel, and hope he goes down before we take too much drain. The Mad Man soaking up a hit helps, too. I mean, he knew the risks when we coerced him into joining us. Have you ever noticed how often I say "because I knew this fight was coming" while prepping for scripted fights? That's a sign of great game design right there.  ...and when you get to Hell, you ask Murphy who sent you. Murphy? Long story.Mendor finally goes down. Sternn is down to Level 3, and Justine is at Level 2. In addition, we're hauling around the corpse of a lunatic who has been rendered thoroughly and irrevocably dead. Good job, everyone! Another rousing success by Team Rezen!    Wow. Those two aren't looking so hot.  Anything you can do, Shanna? I'm afraid I'm not nearly that powerful. What about scrolls? Got any that'll help? Maybe. Let me just check what I have here... Well. Well then. You should have your strength back now. Mostly. That's mostly great!Somewhere along the way, we picked up a scroll with Restoration on it. This is a seventh tier spell that restores one level that has been drained, and I have no idea where we got it from. Seriously. This isn't a wink-wink-nudge-we-hacked-the-game thing. We legitimately picked this scroll up at random, and I have no clue where. The Textile House, maybe? There's wights there, so it would make sense to stumble across a Restoration scroll as loot. Anyway, we've only got two casts, but having to re-earn one fighter and thief level instead of two isn't something I'm concerned about. I'm gonna call this one a win. Of course, we still have to deal with (what's left of) the Mad Man. I'm glad you're feeling better, Justine. Me too. What are we going to do with Crazy Pants over there? I'm afraid there's not much we can do. Even if we had more Restoration scrolls, his soul has left this plane far behind. I've got an idea! Oh, this'll end well. Hey, I'm open to suggestions at this point. What's the plan, Sternn? It's fairly simple. Hanover? You got it, boss. *toss* Problem solved! ... Uh... Should we say a few words, or...? Oh, why bother. Shanna? This is what you've reduced me to. I'm perfectly okay hurling a tortured soul's body into a ditch and walking away. I hope you're all happy. You know it!And that's Mendor's Library! At this point, we've cleaned out enough blocks/commissions that I'm comfortable tackling the first checkpoint of the game. So, tune in next time, where you'll hear Rezen and Heather say: CHEESE IT AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANext Time: The Burliest Brawl of All Chokes McGee fucked around with this message at 08:06 on Nov 12, 2019 |
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Nov 12, 2019 07:52
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I may give this one a shot for comedy purposes, but otherwise, it goes in the rubbish bin with the rest of the Cause spells in this game.
POOL OF RADIANCE 
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So I just looked it up. Using animate dead in 1e only works on humanoids, making it considerable less useful than 2e and 3e letting you raise hydras and giants and crazy crap. That said, if you can find corpses better to have the zombies eat the level drain than your party members. I always end up rolling necromancers in D&D anyway, so I might be a little biased. Just a little.
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Nov 12, 2019 09:00
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One of my favorite random D&D facts: healing spells are actually classified under the school of Necromancy. Hence why Animate Dead would be on a Cleric's spell list  After all, there's not a whole lot of a difference between manipulating life and undeath  
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Nov 12, 2019 09:43
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For what it's worth, Curse of the Azure Bonds manual has slightly better explanations for spells. Bestow curse drops saves and THAC0 by 4.
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Nov 12, 2019 10:14
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Rezen, you were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off. We’ll never get that Italian- er, fantasy Italian gold now!
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Nov 12, 2019 10:40
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I'm pretty sure the scroll with restoration spells is the one you got from the basilisk fight. The game designers showed some occasional minor mercy by often having scrolls like that in areas with problematic undead. I think the spell also brings the character to the minimum experience for their restored level. If you can get the mad man to town alive, he has chances of attacking citizens and therefor making you either fight or flee from the city guards. It definitely makes getting around there a pain.
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Nov 12, 2019 11:03
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If you can get the Madman to a temple, they’ll take him off your hands. Till then, like a previous poster said, it’s risky having him around. Level drain is bad news. Sadly we’re not done with risking it by a long shot. 
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Nov 12, 2019 11:51
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Alpha3KV posted:I'm pretty sure the scroll with restoration spells is the one you got from the basilisk fight. The game designers showed some occasional minor mercy by often having scrolls like that in areas with problematic undead. I think the spell also brings the character to the minimum experience for their restored level. If you can get the mad man to town alive, he has chances of attacking citizens and therefor making you either fight or flee from the city guards. It definitely makes getting around there a pain. Not true! I checked, and that’s an MU scroll. I thought that was the answer too, so I got really confused going through screenshots and not finding it. I’m almost certain we got it off of Grishnak but I honestly have zero idea.
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Nov 12, 2019 16:11
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In today’s edition of Chokes can’t read, that scroll was, in fact, from the basilisk. Good eye!
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Nov 12, 2019 16:25
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achtungnight posted:If you can get the Madman to a temple, they’ll take him off your hands. Till then, like a previous poster said, it’s risky having him around. As hilarious as him picking a fight with the town guard and then everyone in town hating us would be, literally tossing my dude there in a ditch was not something I expected the game to do. That was the moment I was talking about when everything comes together, because the game realized I was doing an LP and is warming up the comedy engines.
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Nov 12, 2019 16:36
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It’s kinda hard to imagine who in the game programming team thought dumping dead party members in a ditch was better than giving them ‘’a solemn roadside funeral’ but there you go.
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Nov 12, 2019 21:30
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Alpha3KV posted:I'm pretty sure the scroll with restoration spells is the one you got from the basilisk fight. The game designers showed some occasional minor mercy by often having scrolls like that in areas with problematic undead. I think the spell also brings the character to the minimum experience for their restored level. If you can get the mad man to town alive, he has chances of attacking citizens and therefor making you either fight or flee from the city guards. It definitely makes getting around there a pain. Yeah this game actually does have multiple opportunities to stockpile Restoration scrolls, thankfully. There is one area in which they elected not to be wildly sadistic.
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Nov 12, 2019 21:44
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Jason Sextro posted:Yeah this game actually does have multiple opportunities to stockpile Restoration scrolls, thankfully. There is one area in which they elected not to be wildly sadistic. And that’s really good because it could’ve made the game Early Bards Tale levels of bad.
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Nov 13, 2019 01:25
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Chokes McGee posted:In retrospect, I could've used a bow and arrow here, but we're on the clock. We've only got so long before those trolls start popping back up, so we need to kill as many things as possible as fast as possible, and that means getting our fighters in striking range. I roll the dice—literally—and Justine makes her savings throw. She offs the troll, and that's four monsters down with two left. In the DOS version, trolls only stand back up when they're at full health, which takes them a good 12 rounds. If the fight's been going that long, you probably aren't strong enough to be fighting it anyway. I don't know how they work in your version with the funny graphics, but I think according to the official rules they can fight as soon as they have positive HP again.
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Nov 13, 2019 02:14
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Chokes McGee posted:And that’s really good because it could’ve made the game Early Bards Tale levels of bad. There was a point where I had more than I could use, legitimately. I suspect Bard's Tale was on their minds at least a little in regards to how they could make this slightly more fair.
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Nov 13, 2019 02:49
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Chokes McGee posted:Knock always works, and once something's open, it stays open until you leave the map. Not... really sure how that works, but whatever. Wait a minute, we know this one. quote:
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Nov 13, 2019 02:55
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Uh.
Didn't... didn't we just come through here?
Yup.
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Thanks, Chokes, really needed a pick-me-up today and this worked like a charm. Cause Blindness is another save-or-die, much like Hold Person. The difference being that Hold Person wears off in a few rounds, and Cause Blindness...doesn't. It's a curse, duration permanent, and you need Cure Blindness. I don't know what the penalty to THACO is, but in 3.x it was definitely unfriendly; my paladin learned that the hard way in a fight with evil clerics. As a player, I prefer Hold Person. Blindness is good at nerfing a serious threat, however, and you better hope the cleric has a scroll of Remove Curse on hand if it hits your character in a fight.
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Nov 13, 2019 03:14
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Seyser Koze posted:Wait a minute, we know this one. Good gods that was almost ten years ago
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Nov 13, 2019 08:31
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I am almost amazed at how terrifying AD&D undead were.
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Nov 13, 2019 08:33
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I remember an old story about a GM who had players who wanted to play vampires, so they made them level up to it, transforming from the various styles of undead up to vampire. Eventually, this naturally led to a flying vampire gang fight, like you'd expect it to. Except every attack drained levels. So as the vampires had their dogfight, characters that were struck transmuted back to wights and mummies and stuff and came raining down from the sky onto the countryside below. Early D&D is weird.
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Nov 13, 2019 16:14
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Night10194 posted:I remember an old story about a GM who had players who wanted to play vampires, so they made them level up to it, transforming from the various styles of undead up to vampire. Eventually, this naturally led to a flying vampire gang fight, like you'd expect it to. Except every attack drained levels. So as the vampires had their dogfight, characters that were struck transmuted back to wights and mummies and stuff and came raining down from the sky onto the countryside below. Please tell me it ended with a bunch of scattered skeleton bones and skulls going “well poo poo, now what.”
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Nov 13, 2019 16:54
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Did undead not get level drain immunity in 1e D&D?
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Nov 13, 2019 18:58
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:Did undead not get level drain immunity in 1e D&D? I don't think anything got immunity to it. (Though I think in the case of monsters them getting hit by it was hit die reduction)
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Nov 13, 2019 19:57
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MonsterEnvy posted:I don't think anything got immunity to it. D&d-1sted.txt
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Nov 14, 2019 02:22
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Chokes McGee posted:And that’s really good because it could’ve made the game Early Bards Tale levels of bad. Kacie posted:Cause Blindness is another save-or-die, much like Hold Person. The difference being that Hold Person wears off in a few rounds, and Cause Blindness...doesn't. It's a curse, duration permanent, and you need Cure Blindness. I don't know what the penalty to THACO is, but in 3.x it was definitely unfriendly; my paladin learned that the hard way in a fight with evil clerics. In 4e, it's I think -5 to hit?
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Nov 14, 2019 05:18
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Commander Keene posted:In 4e, it's I think -5 to hit? 3e (and 4e) were both full of these modifiers that were impossible to remember (is it -5, or -3, or 50/50 miss, etc) and I can't imagine going back from 5e's disadvantage system (which is roughly a -4 skew) let alone the rougher mechanics from AD&D
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Nov 14, 2019 06:08
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Commander Keene posted:Apparently from what one poster was saying over in the RPG thread, Bard's Tale 4 is even worse with that kind of BS, and it was released in 2018. This? This is why I don’t like classic rpg reboots/sequels. There was a certain innocence/ignorance to their game balance. No one had any idea what the poo poo they were doing and half the game doesn’t work and no one notices. There are songs in BT C64 that are flat broken. They do noting. And people to this day still don’t know that and use them anyway. Modern “lol Nintendo hard” gaming misses the larger point: the game wasn’t designed hostile, it just ended up that way. There’s a masochistic meanness to modern day efforts that sucks all the charm out of the retro experience and the only one I’ve played that was worth a drat is vvvvvv. tl;dr: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=?-vYafd-dm14
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Nov 14, 2019 07:58
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Yeah, the fact that "technical limitations" and "the concept of balancing these things was in its infancy" played a big part in why these games were brutal tends to get overlooked a lot. And that's overlooking bits where developers ambitions were not matched by their abilities. A bit from a series about the Elder Scrolls games sums this up pretty well. The article I just linked posted:1.) Language skills: One of the most heartbreaking things about CRPGs of this era is what I like to call the Interesting Choice Phenomenon. It's where you're given a choice of which skills to focus on, and you scroll down to see something like, “Guns, Medicine, Magic, Erotic Dancing.” And of course, you do a double-take. “Erotic Dancing? See, stupid modern games with their narrow focus and combat emphasis and committee design would never let me create an Erotic Dancing Gladiator! This is why I roll DOSBox, baby!” So you sink all your points into the skill, you set out with Cliveander, Duke of Badonk, and of course you get wiped by all the mandatory emphasized combats the game narrowly focuses on. You ragequit before you even get to a tavern and find out the developers straight-up forgot to include any use of the Erotic Dancing skill in the game whatsoever, and if you think I'm exaggerating, you haven't played enough old CRPGs. When you combine this era of CRPG games with the already pretty unforgiving D&D, you see what winds up happening. Also on a tangent, I would like to say: if you make me roll percentile dice when for something with a 50/50 chance, gently caress you. Let me flip a god drat coin, rear end in a top hat!
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Nov 15, 2019 17:25
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One of the whole reasons for 'trap builds' is that combat in CRPGs is usually a hard-gate to progression. If I'm playing Wasteland and I took a bunch of cool sounding skills but can't fight, I'm not going to get anywhere.
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Nov 15, 2019 17:27
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MechaCrash posted:Also on a tangent, I would like to say: if you make me roll percentile dice when for something with a 50/50 chance, gently caress you. Let me flip a god drat coin, rear end in a top hat! yeah in practice you'd just call odd or even
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Nov 15, 2019 18:11
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Peanut Butler posted:yeah in practice you'd just call odd or even ring ring it's paladium they asked me to pass along this message to everybody in the thread: "lol owned"
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Nov 15, 2019 20:57
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Night10194 posted:One of the whole reasons for 'trap builds' is that combat in CRPGs is usually a hard-gate to progression. If I'm playing Wasteland and I took a bunch of cool sounding skills but can't fight, I'm not going to get anywhere. It's even better in Wasteland, where half of the combat skills are themselves traps!
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Nov 16, 2019 02:07
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Chokes McGee posted:
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Nov 17, 2019 00:29
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the Buck Rogers Gold Box games are also really bad for trap skills, which is really too bad because those games are great. There really was some good use you could get out of that engine, as old as it was by the end.
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Nov 17, 2019 16:52
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Games like this, Baldur's Gate, and even games as comparatively young as the early Etrian Odyssey DS games have given me legitimate anxiety when playing more open ended RPGs. I love the freedom of party building, class selection, and skill tree variety but I also absolutely need a guide. Like, my brain will not let me play the game if I do not have a guide. The terror of getting 20-30 hours in to a game, only to stumble upon something I literally cannot defeat because of my current build is still permanently seared in to my soul.
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Nov 17, 2019 18:26
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Jason Sextro posted:the Buck Rogers Gold Box games are also really bad for trap skills, which is really too bad because those games are great. There really was some good use you could get out of that engine, as old as it was by the end. I always played the Sega Genesis version of that, it was amazing. Shame about all the midi organ music but still amazing
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Nov 17, 2019 20:38
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I never knew dropping dead party members into a random ditch was an actual option.  Then again, I took one look at what the hirelings demanded and never used them again.
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Nov 18, 2019 02:17
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Wait, if evil characters automatically join the villain at the end, what happens if you have an all-evil party? Does it just go "Game over, the end"?
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Nov 18, 2019 18:55
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