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Randalor posted: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"? Some are saying that your PC evil characters don't jump ship, just the NPCs. I swear it's an insta-game-over. many sides to this story 
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Nov 18, 2019 20:21
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| # ? May 19, 2024 18:39 |
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alls I know is, I use Llewyn as a benchmark for "what would evil characters do" and he and his summons would absolutely bail for a better offer at first opportunity.
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Nov 18, 2019 20:22
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Chokes McGee posted:Some are saying that your PC evil characters don't jump ship, just the NPCs. I played this on C64 back in the day and you still got to choose for all NPCs. Everyone who chooses to join fights alongside the villain as an enemy and it's standard game over screen if your remaining party dies or if everyone joins. It's probably platform dependent, your version might do something different! I also played the entire game through with 5 player characters and 3 permanent NPC characters. The game is probably balanced for something like that because the progression feels just about perfect and you're all maxed out in the end. Or it's just pure luck and there's no balancing because one of the hard demands for license was to follow RPG rules verbatim even if they make no sense. Like they often don't. I take it you got the thing from the place and are going to hilariously abuse it? Hob_Gadling fucked around with this message at 15:36 on Nov 19, 2019 |
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Nov 19, 2019 15:33
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Hob_Gadling posted:I take it you got the thing from the place and are going to hilariously abuse it? if it's the thing I'm thinking of I'm pretty sure we won't see it for a little while. because if I missed that I am going to be pissed. we will not be using item duplication on it, however. I'm not going to cheat unless I absolutely have to. Can't risk ruining my street cred  also update should be out... Thursdayish? Maybe? I'm falling a little behind where I want to be because at this rate it's going to take three years to get through all four games
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Nov 19, 2019 19:23
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If we’re discussing the Manual of Bodily Health, it’s in the library and I think you missed it. You may need to search the premises again. I confirmed the item.’s location using GameFAQs and will say no more about it at this time.
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Nov 19, 2019 21:49
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I suspect it's actually the dust of disappearance that's being talked about.
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Nov 20, 2019 23:18
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Any DnD game should have an event that involves the Deck of Many Things
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Nov 21, 2019 04:00
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Zeroisanumber posted:Any DnD game should have an event that involves the Deck of Many Things 
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Nov 21, 2019 06:03
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I think the most terrifying random event chart I ever saw was something like: "You walk past two people about to start a game of poker with the deck of many things."
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Nov 21, 2019 06:09
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That's an interesting way to spell "hilarious". Is the Deck of Many Things in the Gold Box games at all, or were there some things just too... unstable for the engine to handle? Also, what about bags of holding and portable hole interactions?
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Nov 21, 2019 14:26
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Randalor posted:Also, what about bags of holding and portable hole interactions?
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Nov 21, 2019 15:00
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Randalor posted:That's an interesting way to spell "hilarious". Is the Deck of Many Things in the Gold Box games at all, or were there some things just too... unstable for the engine to handle? Also, what about bags of holding and portable hole interactions? None of these items are in the games, sadly. A Bag of Holding is an adventuring necessity and my party had many good times with the Deck back in the day.
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Nov 21, 2019 17:57
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Doc Aquatic's random encounter table is also an amazing list.
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Nov 21, 2019 19:10
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The bag of holding does exist in this game, but only as a very rare random item AFAIK. It's not quite as good as it is elsewhere since the engine doesn't support proper containers, and it takes up one of only 16 inventory slots a character has without freeing up any more. It also requires the character to use one of their hands to have its effect, which is basically making all coins and unequipped items up to a certain point weightless.
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Nov 21, 2019 20:28
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That does sound pretty crap, but "hey wizard, hold all the money and little things since you're only chucking darts or spells which only takes one hand" sounds viable. I guess the concept of "stick straps on it, make it a backpack" or "have a Backpack-esque gear slot" weren't really things you could do, depending on if you want an in game or real life explanation.
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Nov 21, 2019 20:35
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achtungnight posted:If we’re discussing the Manual of Bodily Health, it’s in the library and I think you missed it. You may need to search the premises again. I confirmed the item.’s location using GameFAQs and will say no more about it at this time. I did not, but it's terrible and I'm not waiting a loving month for one pouint of constitution and I'm only using it in case of Raise Dead emergencies.
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Nov 21, 2019 22:18
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Ah ok, carry on then. 👍
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Nov 21, 2019 22:47
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So, if worse comes to worse, I'm authorizing you to
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Nov 22, 2019 09:21
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I'm just eagerly anticipating the moment when Rezen "finds" a chainsaw in Faerun and lets nature take its course.
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Nov 22, 2019 14:21
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Randalor posted:I'm just eagerly anticipating the moment when Rezen "finds" a chainsaw in Faerun and lets nature take its course. Elminster brought it back from one of his dumb runs to drink beer with Ed Greenwood back on Earth and lost track of it because he is a trash wizard. Elminster: The Worst.
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Nov 22, 2019 14:32
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Either that, or Rezen makes a quick shopping run to Sigil because she had it with her all along, and just needed to fill up the gas tank. Wait, was Sigil/Planescape a thing when the gold box games came out? Edit: Planescape was first printed in 1994. A solid 2 years after the last Gold Box game came out. I guess that rules out Sigil shenanigans.
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Nov 22, 2019 14:34
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Best bag in the game: buy a stack of 100 arrows and keep splitting it until your inventory is full. Then split one more time. You get an item called "bag" which drops your AC to -67 making you immune to pretty much all physical attacks unless attacker rolls a natural 20. This makes all sorts of shenanigans in the city possible.
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Nov 24, 2019 04:18
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This LP has made me reflect on my previous experiences with this adventure. Playing the game itself, reading (though thankfully not playing, because dear loving God in heaven no!) the module it's based on, Ruins of Adventure, and converting and expanding that module to make my Pathfinder group play through (we went off the rails quickly). As a few interesting notes: A) The madman is, and I quote, "mad (in the best Hollywood fashion), he doesn’t make a lot of sense, babbling on about anything that comes into his head. However (again in best Hollywood fashion) he does have some useful information". The module gives a few examples of hints that he can drop about the final boss. Of them, the only thing carried over here seems to be "Don’t go there! Don’t go on the hill!”, which doesn't make a drat bit of sense in either context. He's a little less of a pain in the rear end if you bring him back to town though. "The madman will reluctantly accompany the player character back to the settlement, but only if they insist. Doctors, surgeons, and clerics who examine him will concur that the only effective way to cure the wretch is for him to forget all that happened to him, to totally blank his mind of his terrible experiences. If not cured, he becomes a problem for the community, unable to control his actions or stay out of violent trouble." B) The basilisk is just as randomly out of nowhere here as it was originally. The module gives you a bag of holding for beating it, I'm fairly certain they don't exist in PoR. C) The librarian specter may be optional, the module only mentions him being in one room. I as the DM would obviously do what the game did and have him attack if you try to leave with any books, but directly as written, an argument could be made for being an optional fight to come back and do later, like the trolls and ogres. D) Speaking of, the fight with the trolls and ogres wasn't there in the module. None of the scripted fights in the slums were there, it's nothing but random encounters. I like the way the game handled it better, all things considered. E) All of the library books quoted for journal entries are taken verbatim from the module. By this point, the players should have a fairly good idea of what the boss is, what the Pool of Radiance is, and how the one is connected to the other if they've been paying attention. Oddly enough, in the module all of the joinable NPCs in town are working for Cadorna, with the goal of bringing him any actionable intel on the Pool. That never really came up in the game. F) Unrelated to the Library, but after the Kuto's Well section I brought up how different Norris the Gray looks between the Amiga and PC versions, but I'd forgotten that originally, he looked like this https://i.imgur.com/UlQBBPE.png Truthkeeper fucked around with this message at 10:37 on Nov 24, 2019 |
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Nov 24, 2019 10:04
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Man this takes me back  I played the hell out of this growing up
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Nov 24, 2019 11:30
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Chokes... as glad as I am to see another LP by you, I cannot tell if you are a madman or a genius for playing the Amiga version. I realise that it's slightly less ugly, but I don't know how anyone could play these games anymore without the Gold Box Companion. There was another LP of these games (DOS version) some years ago. It was genuinely funny, but the author lost all of his saves at the start of the third game in the series and the LP died. It's still around, but all of the images have since been lost - a bloody shame. The lesson to be learned here, I suppose, is "make backups". I know that they are incomplete, but can anyone link me the LPs of DW3 and PS? I'd at least like to read what there is of them. On a similar note, someone actually did narrative, SS LPs of DW1 through 4 from the NES. While they are perhaps more twee than comedic, I'd like to post the links here, but only with Chokes' permission. I've asked the author repeatedly to send them to the archives, but without success. I'm afraid that they will end up lost to time as well.
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Nov 24, 2019 19:48
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Loel posted:Man this takes me back Same. I have fond(?) memories of playing the C-64 version of Pool of Radiance and Curse of the Azure bonds, at one point using an ancient and broken 1541 floppy drive that needed a kitchen knife to hold it closed til we managed to get it fixed at a combination music instrument store/Commodore hardware repair place. (I'm fairly sure the C-64 repair was just a sideline.)
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Nov 24, 2019 20:56
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Here's the link to the DW3 LP.
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Nov 25, 2019 03:53
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Come back from the Internet Wilderness, slam down several months of Chokes McGee LP. Life is good. Chokes McGee posted: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. Celeste nails it, and along with VVVVVV proves that we've actually fuckin' learned something in the past 30 years.
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Nov 25, 2019 07:39
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ManxomeBromide posted:Come back from the Internet Wilderness, slam down several months of Chokes McGee LP. EVERY DAY I OPEN PALM SLAM A CASSETTE INTO THE VCR. IT'S CHOKES MCGEE AND RIGHT THEN AND THERE I START DOING THE LPS ALONG WITH THE MAIN CHARACTER, REZEN
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Nov 25, 2019 08:11
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Pool of Radiance, Chapter 9: The Burliest Brawl of All Today on the Gold Box adventures, we're going to put ourselves through a bunch of ridiculous bullshit! More so than usual, I mean. If we make it out the other side, we're ready for midgame. To be honest, this one may be a little light on content. There's one thing to do here, and it'll formally introduce to what Gold Box fights are really like. Oh, you thought that's what we were already doing? That's cute. Really. It is.   Ah, just smell that fresh air!  Or not.  Hi! Sasha said we can get a boat to Sokal Keep here. If I remember correctly, her exact words involved a long walk and a short pier. Eh. Semantics.  All yours, Sternn! You know he's a space pilot, right? Like, up there? With the stars? Ehn. How hard could it be? You just turn the wheel and move the sail around every few minutes. We are so screwed.15 minutes later...   ...and what I want to know is, how did you wreck the boat when there wasn't any land under it? Hey, any landing you can walk away from!   See? We're not the only ones tossing dead people into gutters. Let's... let's just agree to stop talking about that. Might as well see if there's anything left. It's not like they're gonna use it.  Oh. Cool, cool. Just writin' total nonsense on scrolls. No biggie. Ugh. I just know this stupid thing is important, too. We're going to have to find someone who speaks the local language. It says Lux, Samosud, and Shestni. Respectively. Wait, you can actually read this bullshit? No. I did, however, take the liberty of copying a guide to runes out of Mendor's Library. GHOST NERD AAAH Heather! Heather. It's okay, we're not in the library any more. Like, I can see it in my mind, he's all spooky and nerdy and stuff   Post-scholastic stress disorder. You hate to see it.Iiiiiiiit's copyright protection time! Included with every copy of Pool of Radiance was a little double-wheel of paper that was absolute poo poo quality, easy to lose, and even easier to damage. This, of course, is why it's a vital component to play the game, let alone finish it.  I haven't shown it because it's boring and I don't care, but when the game starts up, it asks you to line up an Esprurar (Elvish) rune with a Dethek (Dwarfish) rune, then input a word next to a certain line. It won't even start if you get this wrong, but just in case you got a cracked version, the wheel will be used in a few other places. Here, we need it to translate Espruar into English by pointing the "Translate from Espruar" arrow at each letter, then reading the "To English" at the bottom of the dotted line. Note that no help is given you whatsoever about this. I've never actually translated the stuff with the wheel and just looked it up in FAQs, and it took me a good five minutes to figure out how the gently caress it was supposed to work. Regardless, these new words will be very helpful in the future, probably. All right, let's get in there and see what we're up against.    Not likin' how quiet it is. Agreedo. We haven't seen anyone or anything since we got here. Soooo. Monsters behind this door? Hey, you're catching on.  At this point, we should just assume there's monsters behind every door. Pfft. Where's the fun in that?In this fight, I find out Scorpions can hit multiple times. I assume this means we have to roll to save vs. poison twice, which makes it even more baffling how we don't lose anyone.  Well, whatever. I'm not arguing. A quick rest to top off our HP and spells, and on we go!   They're whispering his name through this disappearing land, but hidden in his coat is a red right hand~ That's, like, really dark compared to what you usually sing. I can't help it! It's spooooooky in here. See? Hmm. *peers* These don't look like nerds... Nah, just regular ol' skeletons. Oh, okay. Wut up, bone guys! Huh. I didn't actually expect them to actually listen. Maybe one of the words we found will work! Maybe. Let's try...  WHAT  Well, this is just rude. Hey! You're the one who said lux to me, you lux!These undead are looking for a password, which is almost assuredly on the list of three Elvish words we found earlier. As we did not provide the correct one, we'll have to beat them into submission instead.  Skeletons are a pain in the rear end, by the way, because they take half damage from bladed weapons. They're still scrub tier undead, though. They just take a few more hits to kill than usual. Zombies, on the other hand, are complete unremarkable mooks that we can clown on with great impetuousity. We have another trick in our arsenal as well...  Man. These things are takin' all day to kill. Hey, Shanna. You're a cleric. Can't you, I dunno, exercise them or something? You mean 'exorcise.' Uh, yeah? That's what I said? "Exercise" is fitness. "Exorcise" is banishment. ...quote:
Oh. That explains a lot. Most likely. And yes, yes I can. I cast you out, unclean spirits! In the name of Lady Sune, I cast you out! CHEESE IT AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Is... is that it? Look, I'm new to this. What do you want?Clerics have the ability to Turn Undead, which is yet another reason they're ridiculously overpowed in AD&D. (T)urn is a unique menu option for Shanna, and it can be activated once per fight. If successful, any affected undead will gain the Fear effect, which makes them hightail it off the battlefield. Unfortunately, this is doubly useless: not only is it not guaranteed to work, but if the targets don't have a path to flee through, they'll just get stuck in a corner. At higher levels, you can actually banish skeletons and zombies with (T)urn, which is a mass instakill. I don't think PoR supports that particular mechanic, but the rest of the Gold Box series does. On a related note, we're not going to see a whole lot of low tier undead once we clear the first game. Anyway, there's a chart that determines what undead have the potential to be turned by a Cleric per level, and here it is! Level 1: Skeelton, Zombie, Ghoul, Wight Level 3: Wraith Level 4: Mummy Level 5: Spectre Level 6: Vampire (!!) Note that this is ability and not a guarantee. The only thing the above chart means is not to waste your time turning a vampire if you're not level 6. Otherwise, it's a crapshoot.  Back to the game: we clean things up quickly enough.  The next patrol that shows up, we try a different word...   ...and it's all good. We won't have to type the password over and over again. From here on out, the game will just ask us if we want to give the password, which we will. No more skeleton fights for us!       Is it a good idea to talk to frogs? Don't worry. I've got... frog charisma.     bleh  Well, I'm afraid we've exahusted all diplomatic options.   Well, that takes care of the green menace. Getting anything back treasure-wise? Northeast corner.  Well... I don't want to seem ungrateful, but judging by the heft, it's not very powerful. Buddy, if you thought I meant this room...  Wow. Really delivered this time, Rez. My magic wand is infallable! Y'know that's just a stick. Right? Yup. I was wondering when you guys would notice. *toss* Anyway, check this out. See this wall here? Now you see it, now you don't.  The hell do you keep doin' that, short stuff? I'unno! I think I've gone treasure hunting so often that my ESP adapted to it. It's the only power that wasn't affected when I brought us over here. I'd like to discuss some lucrative business opportunities with you after we're done with this. Sorry, I only steal from dungeons. Gotta go where your talents take you.   Goodness gracious. I seem to remember someone complaining about a crappy hammer earlier. It was a pretty bad hammer. Fair enough.This is a great haul for us: Chain Mail +1, Shield +1, Long Sword +1, and a Mace +2. Shanna gets the chain mail and mace, Hanover gets the shield, and Sternn gets the long sword.  We are in fantastic shape right now. AC's low, all our fighters have enchanted long swords, and even the cleric is wielding a powerful weapon. And that's good, because we're gonna need it here in a little bit. DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN   So many things in disrepair, wherever we go. Hey, at least we didn't cause them this time. ...this time? Don't worry! You'll get totally used to it. ...used to what? Okay. Whatever you do, don't say LUX.  Ehn? What's that? Lux?   And a Lux to you as well, madame!  Oh whew. I thought you guys were nerds. You've met Mendor, then. Shyeah. I'm all like, I don't even want your stupid books. And then, he totally sucks the life out of Justine and Sternn! Wow. What a dick.   Look, it's not our fault. Our cleric kept demanding to write everything down. I know that feeling... This cleric. Did he make it out in time? Nnnnnnot exactly, no. I hope you've learned an important lesson today, Shanna. Nerding ddoesn't pay. I have learned no such thing and neither have you. *scribble*Journal Entry 3 posted:An old leather-bound book, written with a small, firm hand. Well, that's ominous. Nah. I'm sure it's fine and not the least bit worrisome.   We're totally walking into a trap. Yup. Well, we still don't get paid unless we clear it out, so... Bring it on, jerkfaces! Ha! Is that all you got? ...is that all you got? No, seriously. Is that all you got, or is there more? I need to know how deep in trouble we are here. Oh, c'mon. That's just excessive. oh my god oh my god oh my god Welcome to your 33% completion checkpoint! When you wander into this area, you are immediately attacked by:
Even better, you're caught flat footed and out in the open. And, if you don't know you're about to get jumped—which you don't—you haven't had time to prepare your buffs. This fight can either go really smoothly or really horribly wrong, but the first time you see it, you're going to freak at how outnumbered you are. As well you should! You can't sweep any of those monsters, hobgoblins have just enough THAC0 to be a hassle, and those four orc leaders in the back are going to be shooting at you nonstop. However! We have several things in our favor, even if it doesn't look like it. First of all, these are still bottom tier monsters. If we can whittle their numbers down, the rest will surrender, even if they still have the advantage. Secondly, we've done pretty much every available quest from the first part of the game and are equipped and leveled appropriately. I think the only thing I missed was cleaning out the Textile House, and lmfao I'm not fighting loving wights unless I'm forced to. And lastly, I knew this was coming and cast buffs ahead of time  So, your first move in this fight?  CHEESE IT AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Turn and run in the opposite direction. No, we're not running from the fight. We need a choke point yesterday, and the only viable one is behind us, where the entrance from the ghosts' room would be.  We cannot stay out in the open, or we'll get surrounded and thoroughly owned. Even if it means giving our opponents a free shot at our backs, we have to get the gently caress out of here. Fortunately, all our characters are wearing magic armor. At 12 squares of movement a turn, they can easily outrun the—  Shanna! What are you doing! *huff* *puff* what is she doing why isn't she here yet aaaaa ...quote:
Shanna! Get a move on! *wheeze*Well, this is a problem. Shanna is carrying too much, and her movement has been cut in half to 6. That is below the crowd of monsters'. That's... suboptimal. We still need everyone else to sprint back to the choke point, so she's going to have to fend for herself for now. We do use her turn to throw out all her money so she'll get her full movement back. We've got enough jewelry that it's not a concern. Besides, you can't take it with you—and if she doesn't make the choke point, she's going to find that out the hard way.   The arrows have started flying, too, which isn't great for Rez. Fortunately, the bracers and cloak pay off, and she's able to put distance between herself and the archers before she gets plastered.  We'll tuck her around the corner here, where she won't be in danger of arrow fire. We are absolutely going to need every crowd control spell she has to get through this, so we can't risk losing her due to an Orc Leader getting lucky.  Meanwhile, a small mob has caught up to Shanna. Fortunately, Gold Box AI is absolutely putrid and too dumb to immediately surround her, so there's still breathing room. It's not the least bit uncommon, by the way, to see an enemy walk back and forth over the same ground like three times before vaguely moving towards your guys. Small blessings, I guess.  Case in point: while trying to get behind us to attack Rez, this orc forgot there were walls   Finally, after four free back attacks and a multitude of arrows, Shanna somehow catches up to us in one piece. Choke point established! This shall be the rock upon which the wave of monsters breaks   I mean, eventually. You can't see it from the screenshots, but there are literal minutes between each of our characters' turns. The only real downside to using the Amiga version of the Gold Box series is the speed. The timer on the DOS version was badly programmed and moves so fast you need special settings to be able to read anything. The Amiga version, however, is both coded correctly and S-L-O-W. I cranked up the in-game message speed to max, turned on Warp Mode in the emulator, and I'm still doing things like getting coffee and going to the bathroom while I'm waiting to kill the next orc. It's a chore and a half, and it's only going to get worse from here.  That's the thing about this fight: If you're high enough level and employ proper tactics, it goes from intimiating to boring in a big fat hurry. You just hunker down, swing at anything that walks over, and apply paralytics whenever you see an opportunity to hit 7-9 in one shot. These monsters aren't anything we haven't seen before, there's just a lot of them. But, holy moly, if you haven't gotten farther than this and aren't familiar with mid-to-late game Gold Box fights, this is a big ol' bucket of cold water dumped on you out of nowhere. The game's done babying you. From now on, you face the fully armed and operational hordes of the Boss.   Reminder that a hit with a dart on a Helpless enemy still counts as an instakill.   Eventually, we dump the entirety of Rez's Sleep spells onto the back ranks, which knocks out 27 monsters on its own. A little elbow grease to pick up a few more straight kills, aaaaaand.....  ...the surrenders start. That's ballgame.  Woo yay 187 XP. And no magic gear. Sure am glad that 30 minutes of my life was wasted!  Let me just pick that up. *splish* *splosh* Yeesh. It looks like a woman with two SMGs and a bad haircut came blazing through here. I don't think these stains are coming out... The things we do for adventure.Journal Entry 57 posted:A ratty piece of parchment with large writing on one side. Oh man. The Boss is gonna be so pissed when he finds out about this. Good. Now he knows not to gently caress with us.    Finally. A temple that hasn't been gutted by some foul creature. It's nice enough, I guess. Not a church going man, I take it? Nah, not really. I like the architecture, though. Tee hee. Flying buttresses. Pfft, I've got this. Luuuuux~   Well, as a matter o— *cast* I'm afraid not. The Boss has overrun most of the old city. We're working on it, though. A lot of the city on this side of the river is already cleared out. There are those names again. Yeah, that bad feeling I got hasn't gone away.   ... Uh...  Like, thanks! And we totally didn't take Mendor's books! It's ooooooookay, heeeeee was a diiiiiiiiiiickAnd with that, the keep is clear! We can use Samosud to get past the guards on the way out if we haven't already figured out the right word, but since we can't talk to Martinez without the Lux password anyway, it doesn't really matter. The point is, we've cleared our first PoR major hurdle and are now fully prepared for the real ridiculous poo poo this game will throw at us. In addition, beating Sokal Keep opens up shipping lanes and dramatically expands the areas we're able to explore. We'll be visiting one such area next time, wherein you'll hear Sternn say:  I'M ON A BOAT! TOOT TOOTNext Time: Robberhaus
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Nov 25, 2019 08:29
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PREPARE FOR THE ABYSS, SPIRIT
Bring it.
*jingle*
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Chokes McGee posted:
For a split second my brain went "Sternn thinks he's Hypnotoad? Or does he just WISH he had that kind of charm?"
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Nov 25, 2019 09:05
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Per the D&D Monster Manual, Giant Scorpions get 3 attacks per round- 2 pincers and the tail sting. Only the latter is poison, and it can strike with a bonus if both pincers hit. So you only need to save vs. poison once in any case. This monster didn't appear in future Gold Box Games, possibly because of the complicated attack rolls. Loved the Exorcism jokes. Frogs are poisonous also, but they usually die too fast for it to be a concern. Giant Spiders now, I'm not too good with those... I believe those ghosts in the barracks are wraiths if you have to fight them, or maybe specters. Either one is bad. Wraiths drain 1 level per hit, but you need enchanted weapons to damage them. Martinez is definitely a specter. The Sokal Keep Orc fight is bad enough I'd have undead aiding the players if I were DM and they gave the passwords. But of course the game doesn't think of that. Ugh.
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Nov 25, 2019 11:10
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If memory serves, the Sokal Keep orc fight is one where I'd just turn on automatic combat, go watch TV for an hour, and come back to see whether I was dead or not. Not the last fight like that by any means.
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Nov 25, 2019 12:34
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This is the major place where the extra treasure you get in the NES version makes everything go so much easier. We've talked about it before, the Necklace of Missiles, which lets you throw loving fireballs. 4, 7, or 9 orcs incapacitated is nothing compared to turning 16 of them at a time into crispy husks. Every time I played the NES version, I got it from the old man in the slums for the package delivery. This absolutely made clearing the slums and Sokol Keep easy.
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Nov 25, 2019 12:56
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Yeah, that fight just screams "spam Fireball" in design. Can you even get a mage to a high enough level to learn it in this game?
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Nov 25, 2019 14:11
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I don't think the engine supported a three-sided combat at this point, so what they needed to do was describe half the attackers being forced to engage undead in the text, and shrunk the actual encounter. In any game like this, one big question is how the rules system will be adapted. SSI’s deal with TSR forced them to be as faithful as possible, so some of the punishing rules are simply following 1E AD&D precisely. Speaking of punishing, notice where that elf body is placed. The first time I played PoR, I didn't have a clue book or the savvy to explore every drat square of every location, so I breezed into the keep without getting the three magic words. What's not shown is that those random undead patrols are extremely frequent (every 4-5 squares of movement. Without the word, they guarantee that you're going to be banged up for the big fight. They also make blindly exploring the Keep a drat nuisance. I ended up skipping the Keep because of that. I think I didn't finish PoR until after Secret of the Silver Blades came out.
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Nov 25, 2019 16:06
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Randalor posted:Yeah, that fight just screams "spam Fireball" in design. Can you even get a mage to a high enough level to learn it in this game? You can, but it’s sure as poo poo not going to be any time soon.
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Nov 25, 2019 16:20
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Chokes McGee posted:You can, but it’s sure as poo poo not going to be any time soon. The other big trap to this is that Sokol Keep is presented, in essence, as a beginner quest - it's given to you at the same time the "clear the slums" commission is. Even worse, the other obstacles are easy to clear for a beginning party that doesn't even have access to Stinking Cloud! You have a codeword to bypass the undead, the scorpion and frogs are tough but manageable... And then you have the loving orcs. A low-level party is given no slack in this encounter. You still need to chokepoint up or die, and at level 2, you have precious few paralytic spells available. ETA: Also, Fireball is normally accessable at Magic User-level 5, granting access to Third Level spells. Typically, this grants you access to one, and only one, third level spell slot. And, even after clearing the slums and Kuto's Well, dealing with the Wand of Fear auction, and both the Textile House and the Library? Rezen is still not level 5. Your only way to access Fireball at this point are lucky scroll drops, a lucky necklace drop, or hiring the ripoffs at the guild. Kliff fucked around with this message at 18:21 on Nov 25, 2019 |
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Nov 25, 2019 18:07
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Kliff posted:The other big trap to this is that Sokol Keep is presented, in essence, as a beginner quest - it's given to you at the same time the "clear the slums" commission is. Even worse, the other obstacles are easy to clear for a beginning party that doesn't even have access to Stinking Cloud! You have a codeword to bypass the undead, the scorpion and frogs are tough but manageable... There are FAQs that are all "You'll want to do this one after clearing the auction" and I have no idea how that works  Also the fun thing about hirelings? Unless you have a Charisma of 18, you can't control them in combat! Maybe not even then! And they won't cast fireball on their own, or even worse, they'll put it where it blows away teammates!
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Nov 25, 2019 18:26
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| # ? May 19, 2024 18:39 |
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The only thing worse than AI-controlled party member not casting spells is AI-controlled party member casting spells. You can change that with an esoteric key combination I no longer remember and which changes between platforms, probably. As far as I know you never get to control your AI companions unless you kill them off and resurrect them with Raise Undead. That makes for some nifty free lvl 4 tanks. Hiring a couple fighters for this particular fight is not a bad idea either, provided you're willing to see them charge into the fray while you bravely bravely run away. Don't even have to give them shares if they're dead! This is the only place in the game with giant frogs, isn't it? I think you can encounter scorpions later on in the wilderness and maybe in a couple places I'm not going to mention, but frogs are permanently off the menu. There's a strange amount of one-off content.
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Nov 25, 2019 21:32
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