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TheGreatEvilKing posted:What happens if the team joins the dragon? I'm wondering how accurately the game represents your former PCs if only some of them turn. In particular, will the traitors still benefit from the Dust of Disappearance if you used it in the first half of the fight? And speaking of the Dust, can you take it with you into the next game if you don't use it here?
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Apr 2, 2020 05:25
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I thought he was possessing a Bronze Dragon. Brass breath fire. Looking up the Wiki on the Tyranthraxus he is apparently a weak example of his kind whether that is subjugated god or Daemon.
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Apr 2, 2020 05:37
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JustJeff88 posted:I have read all of Chokes' previous LPs, and I can say without fear of contradiction that he is indefatigable, tenacious and [insert long word here] in pursuit storytelling,  Like Hell he is. We've been waiting for years to finish our gig, and it's not easy to find other work when we're still trapped in this @#$%ing book! Hey, I managed to get a bit part recently! Yeah, and you got stuck with such a lousy role you ended up quitting and coming right back here! Face it, bro, Chokes doesn't respect you enough to give you a job worth having.   Y'know, the boss may have a point. Those words are even more an unnatural abomination than you are, Frank. Hey, you know what they say about stopped clocks.  I'm serious, though. Maybe what we need is good representation. Someone Chokes will respect. Hmm... That could work, but who could we find that can make Chokes see things our way? I'll handle the negotiations 
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Apr 2, 2020 06:10
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Truthkeeper posted:Funny you should say that, the module version of Srossar (the dragon) can automatically see through invisibility. Tyranthraxus himself has 150' ESP, which I'm not entirely clear if that also allows you to attack invisible creatures. At least n older editions of D&D (basically 3.5 and earlier), the invisibility granted by Dust of Disappearance explicitly can't be defeated by any means short of Dust of Appearance... not so sure about newer editions. Tyranthraxus's ESP ability would let him know that creatures were nearby, but not their location. In short, Dust of Disappearance was a very powerful consumable item and its representation here is basically accurate. Each dose could be used to coat a 10' radius (or a 20' cone, depending on whether it was a packet or blowtube), lasted 1-2 hours per application, and typical caches contained between 5 and 50 uses when found as random treasure. AD&D was a wild and crazy time.
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Apr 2, 2020 08:29
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DGM_2 posted:
STOP IMPROVISING YOU CLODS, I SAID I'D CALL OK
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Apr 2, 2020 08:42
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Chokes McGee posted:This has not been my experience in Gold Box. Most of the time they just up and blast you in the face as an alternate action. Maybe I'm just not observant idk This absolutely works in the PC Gold Box (only on monsters, not PCs, because enemies running away won't have this effect at all). You can get fooled sometimes because it isn't always clear when the new round has begun if you don't keep track of who went first in the combat. You must go prior to the monster's turn in each round and trigger its AoO. Should be easy to test to see if it works in other versions. Load up a save, trigger a fight, write down the name of the first PC to go, kill all but one monster, and try it to see whether the monster gets to act in the same round as it takes an AoO. Depending on whether they were using development tools or direct coding, I'm imagining someone using tools to craft the final battle seeing "2" and typing "20" by mistake. Even with good QA, the last battle of the game is always going to receive the least amount of testing. And yes, it is possible to take the Dust of Disappearance into the next game, where you can use it to accomplish something somewhat amusing that you're unlikely to manage without it.
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Apr 2, 2020 18:18
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Narsham posted:And yes, it is possible to take the Dust of Disappearance into the next game, where you can use it to accomplish something somewhat amusing that you're unlikely to manage without it. Unless there's a trick I'm not aware of, it's not possible to take the Dust into the next game. Or any other items. But that's ok. You can find more Dust in the next game if you know where to look. Sadly, such a broken item is left out of future games. I would have loved having some Dust in Pools of Darkness.
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Apr 2, 2020 18:38
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Narsham posted:And yes, it is possible to take the Dust of Disappearance into the next game, where you can use it to accomplish something somewhat amusing that you're unlikely to manage without it. I vote that Chokes edit this into inventory and that he do the unlikely* thing with it. *presumably even more unlikely than a bunch of low-level adventurers killing a full-grown dragon with no damage sustained
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Apr 2, 2020 19:19
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Narsham posted:And yes, it is possible to take the Dust of Disappearance into the next game, where you can use it to accomplish something somewhat amusing that you're unlikely to manage without it. I remember, back in my youth, assuming this was some sort of bug with the import into the second game (similar to how I somehow managed to turn Gauntlets of Ogre Power into something even more broken with some kind of corrupted import) because there was no loving way that Dust of Disappearance was that powerful. And then I found out it was that powerful.
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Apr 2, 2020 19:23
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achtungnight posted:Unless there's a trick I'm not aware of, it's not possible to take the Dust into the next game. Or any other items. But that's ok. You can find more Dust in the next game if you know where to look. Yeah. I was going to get to it in Curse's first update, but the game dumps all your equipment when you transfer your characters over no matter what. I'm not at all ruling out that there's some trick, though. If you guys remember from a little bit ago, I tried to import all our guys into the Amiga version of Curse and it did... not go well. Amongst many other bugs, if you have stuff equipped that changes your stats and then do an import, your stats go loving haywire. This is also an issue porting characters over in the DOS version. For example: in the dress rehersal for this stuff, Sternn somehow ended up with 99 charisma.   And, while appropriate on so many levels, that's not really helpful vis-a-vis the "no cheating" thing.So, we fired up a hex editor and fudged some new characters manually to get them to match. I also bumped Sternn an IQ point, which is pushing it, but I absolutely need that to make it through the games and it changes nothing about how PoR went.  Basically, the first rule of Curse transfer is always unequip everything and then pick "Remove Character" for each of your guys at the training hall. This generates GUY files (lol) with clean stats that Curse will accept with a minimum of fuss.
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Apr 2, 2020 20:55
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Olesh posted:At least n older editions of D&D (basically 3.5 and earlier), the invisibility granted by Dust of Disappearance explicitly can't be defeated by any means short of Dust of Appearance... not so sure about newer editions. Tyranthraxus's ESP ability would let him know that creatures were nearby, but not their location. Huh, and the Dust was still obtainable in the module too. Welp!
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Apr 2, 2020 21:40
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Chokes McGee posted:For example: in the dress rehersal for this stuff, Sternn somehow ended up with 99 charisma.    Stop doing tha- ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOSTERNN.    ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOSTERNN.
DGM_2 fucked around with this message at 11:27 on Apr 3, 2020 |
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Apr 2, 2020 21:49
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Chokes McGee posted:Thirdly, he's immune to spells, so don't even bother with your big guns. Even splash damage doesn't work. Are you quite sure? In the DOS version I reached this fight with one fighter and one magic user with no spells left and a wand of paralyzation. Guess what happened.
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Apr 3, 2020 06:02
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Hobgoblinist posted:Are you quite sure? In the DOS version I reached this fight with one fighter and one magic user with no spells left and a wand of paralyzation. It's entirely possible I'm wrong because I'm not big on magical items—I will be later, just not now—but I definitely know you can't hit him with any spells you learn in PoR and he doesn't take splash damage. Maybe he just has Globe of Minor Invincibility? Hold Monsters is a Tier 5 spell which is what I think Wand of Paralyzation uses also, spot the change, tee hee
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Apr 3, 2020 15:50
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also also, stop writing my characters better than I do, you're making me look bad
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Apr 3, 2020 15:56
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Chokes, since you are going to have to edit a bunch of things anyway, I am going to reiterate the idea that you do some class changing. I love the idea that was already posited of Justine becoming a Paladin and I personally think that writing Heather (because, like, trees are totally great, right?) or Hanover as a ranger would be great fun. You have a six person party and you (understandably) don't seem keen to multiclass or dualclass, so this would give you six different classes and allow you to show off pretty much all the game has to offer in terms of character build options. I'm of a mind that if one is going to show off every little intricacy of all four games such as side-quests and alternate outcomes, classes and game mechanics should be a part of that.Chokes McGee posted:also also, stop writing my characters better than I do, you're making me look bad As if this thread wasn't enough... 
JustJeff88 fucked around with this message at 18:59 on Apr 3, 2020 |
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Apr 3, 2020 18:42
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JustJeff88 posted:Chokes, since you are going to have to edit a bunch of things anyway, I am going to reiterate the idea that you do some class changing. I love the idea that was already posited of Justine becoming a Paladin and I personally think that writing Heather (because, like, trees are totally great, right?) or Hanover as a ranger would be great fun. You have a six person party and you (understandably) don't seem keen to multiclass or dualclass, so this would give you six different classes and allow you to show off pretty much all the game has to offer in terms of character build options. I'm of a mind that if one is going to show off every little intricacy of all four games such as side-quests and alternate outcomes, classes and game mechanics should be a part of that. sry duder it's fighters from pillar to post Besides, I've already done a run with this configuration and I really don't want to screw with a successful formula. I mean you'd think getting extra powers would only help but I'm extremely superstitious about old games like this and changing my party formula. 
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Apr 3, 2020 19:10
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If it helps, I frequently had Paladins and Rangers in my parties in these games but almost never used their special abilities. So they might as well have just been Fighters when all was said and done.
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Apr 3, 2020 19:16
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Yeah, I remember dual-classed characters (in particular) being far more useful in Curse than either Rangers or Paladins. (I never played any of the games after Curse.)
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Apr 3, 2020 20:08
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Chokes McGee posted:It's entirely possible I'm wrong because I'm not big on magical items—I will be later, just not now—but I definitely know you can't hit him with any spells you learn in PoR and he doesn't take splash damage. Maybe he just has Globe of Minor Invincibility? Hold Monsters is a Tier 5 spell which is what I think Wand of Paralyzation uses Doesn't 1st ed D&D and AD&D have save vs. wand as well as save vs. spell, and a save vs. death? Maybe the dragon has great save vs spell and lousy save vs. wand? Or is paralyze a vs. death? I remember there being a lot of different kinds of save vs. stuff, and me wondering why they didn't simplify or condense some of them.
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Apr 4, 2020 03:34
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Only about.. four saves in 2ed I think. Which ended up being kind of dodging, mental resist, physical resist, beingdead resist. I remember a sidebar telling GMs how to rule what a hazard was saves with.
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Apr 4, 2020 03:37
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Tylana posted:Only about.. four saves in 2ed I think. Which ended up being kind of dodging, mental resist, physical resist, beingdead resist. I remember a sidebar telling GMs how to rule what a hazard was saves with. Baldur's Gate definitely has five - save vs wand/staff/rod (mostly wands that have 'special' resistance-bypassing properties), save vs breath weapon (used for breath weapons, obviously, which is only relevant against dragons and other murderbarfers), save vs death (also includes paralysis/poison), save vs petrification (also includes polymorph), and save vs spell (everything not listed before, as well as general HP damage). Notably, while a Wand of Paralyzation rolls off your wand save score, a Wand of Fire casts a fireball, which keys off of your spell saving throw. It's a mess but can be basically boiled down to two stats for Getting The gently caress Out Of The Way, one stat for keeping your body healthy, one stat for keeping your body in the same state it's already in, and one stat for just facetanking a spell.
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Apr 4, 2020 03:49
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Gold mine! Kite man! Hell yeah.
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Apr 4, 2020 04:40
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Again, making a huge assumption that anything on paper translates remotely similarly to the game, but paper Tyranthraxus has a flat 20% magic resistance. It's not out of the realm of possibility that that's the case and you just got screwed by RNG when you tried.
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Apr 4, 2020 04:58
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Kacie posted:Doesn't 1st ed D&D and AD&D have save vs. wand as well as save vs. spell, and a save vs. death? 
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Apr 4, 2020 05:15
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FIGHTING MAN, the newest superhero show
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Apr 4, 2020 16:55
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Fight Man? Hell yeah?
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Apr 5, 2020 11:18
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Oh old-school D&D, when a late game fighter's role was "Walk up to the enemy spell caster or magic effect user and punch them hard". Look at those saves! 75% chance to shrug off most effects, and better than 50% baseline overall. Not like nowadays, with your "Three saves tied to stats" and "Fighter-mans not good at resisting magic" and "wizards breaking the fundamental laws of reality at a whim". Back in my day...
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Apr 5, 2020 12:10
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Arcade Rabbit posted:Fight Man! Fight Man! FIGHT MAN! Hell yeah.
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Apr 5, 2020 18:00
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Randalor posted:Oh old-school D&D, when a late game fighter's role was "Walk up to the enemy spell caster or magic effect user and punch them hard". Look at those saves! 75% chance to shrug off most effects, and better than 50% baseline overall. Not like nowadays, with your "Three saves tied to stats" and "Fighter-mans not good at resisting magic" and "wizards breaking the fundamental laws of reality at a whim". Back in my day... Yes, but it's not as funny when you walk up to the Evil High Priest, who casts Harm, makes a successful to-hit on you, and reduces you to 1d4 hp, no save. Or you roll a "1" on a save and are instantly dead, or petrified, or disintegrated. None of this "the first save isn't instantly fatal" crap. And you may not be remembering some of the high level spells available to magic-users and illusionists, one of which is literally called Alter Reality.
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Apr 5, 2020 18:39
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Narsham posted:
That one's not nearly as omnipotent as the name would suggest. It's "wish, but instead of just saying what you want to happen, you have to portray it using phantasmal force".
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Apr 5, 2020 19:33
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Narsham posted:And you may not be remembering some of the high level spells available to magic-users and illusionists, one of which is literally called Alter Reality. Eh, Alter Reality is just the wizard version of "Limited Wish", which... I dunno if it's something I would spend a 7th level slot on. Besides, the joke was more "Wizards have gradually become more powerful as the editions went on" (which is true, and only partially because of the changes to the save system).
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Apr 5, 2020 19:46
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You're also missing that pre-3rd edition, any time a caster got hit before they got their spell off... spell lost, wasted, and many of the bigger, badder spells required a full turn to cast or had really nasty speed penalties. So if a Fighter had a bow, or just got up close to a mage, there was a good chance they'd never be casting anything at all. Also keep in mind that high-level casters had no bonuses to making their spells stick at all, while saving throws for high-level characters and high-HD monsters kept getting better all the time, so against tougher enemies your save-or-suck/die spells were very unlikely to stick, and you were much better off relying on raw damage... which fighters, gee, were pretty good at dealing with, too! And don't forget that mages didn't get bonus spells for high Int either, and need to pre-memorize all their spells for the day. If they get caught in a situation they're not prepared for... well gee whiz, they can't just quickly respec their spells, they gotta hide behind the beef wall.
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Apr 5, 2020 19:52
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Chokes McGee posted:also also, stop writing my characters better than I do, you're making me look bad Hey, we like your writing. We just want you to finish what you started. Though I admit I'm not in any position to lecture, given my abandoned Way of the Tiger run from... Geez, must be over a decade ago.
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Apr 6, 2020 12:34
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PurpleXVI posted:You're also missing that pre-3rd edition, any time a caster got hit before they got their spell off... spell lost, wasted, and many of the bigger, badder spells required a full turn to cast or had really nasty speed penalties. So if a Fighter had a bow, or just got up close to a mage, there was a good chance they'd never be casting anything at all. Also keep in mind that high-level casters had no bonuses to making their spells stick at all, while saving throws for high-level characters and high-HD monsters kept getting better all the time, so against tougher enemies your save-or-suck/die spells were very unlikely to stick, and you were much better off relying on raw damage... which fighters, gee, were pretty good at dealing with, too! Fighters get pretty much all the main tools they had in a regular 1e game in this Gold Box series, while the spellcasters get a pretty restricted subset of their usual stuff. Try playing PoD with a party with no wizards and then try again with a party of three wizards and no fighters/rangers/paladins, and then tell me that wizards are underpowered compared to fighters in 1e. But the original post was a “back in my day” joke. 3e/Pathfinder is the high-water mark of overpowered spellcasters. 1e is just massively unbalanced in terms of spell power at the same level, unforgiving with its effects, and tended to devolve into “I have a 5% chance to fail this save” at high levels.
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Apr 6, 2020 14:56
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https://youtu.be/mSB71jNq-yQ 2:30 is where the money is but watch the whole thing. Hoping to have the first bonds update by Monday!
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Apr 10, 2020 23:48
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I played the NES version of Pools of Radiance as a kid. It turns out that having access to a Necklace of Missiles in the Slums makes the game way, way less bullshit. Also, I didn't even know there were other games in the series and still don't know if they were released on the NES with the ability to port characters over; that means I was free to make multi-class characters, which also make the game easier once you Fireball your way past the initial hump. I remember farming Quickling random encounters out on the world map for the experience. I never did play any of the other Gold Box games; I didn't even know they existed until I was an adult. I did read both Pools of Radiance and Curse of the Azure Bonds, though, so I'm eager to see where this goes. By the way, those two books have nothing to do with each other beyond the setting.
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Apr 11, 2020 03:37
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Chokes McGee posted:https://youtu.be/mSB71jNq-yQ That is amazing.
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Apr 11, 2020 04:52
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That reminds me. There are lots of monsters in the wilds around Phlan that appear in PofR but not future games. Quicklings (fairy warriors under permanent Haste spell) are one of these. There’s also Centaurs, Thri-Kreen (psychic mantis people), and a few more I can’t remember offhand. Kinda sad we didn’t see much of these unique encounters. Oh well.
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Apr 11, 2020 10:42
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There's also a small number of monster lairs scattered about. Generic loot, no interesting encounters, overall felt kind of wasted.
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Apr 11, 2020 11:35
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