|
achtungnight posted:For another video game example, visit Waterdeep in Eye of the Beholder. Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter may also have sewer levels- I have not played games featuring those cities enough to be sure. Both Baldur's Gate and Athkatla (the main hub-city in BG2) have non-trivial sewer systems, though they're pretty cramped and confined even for dungeons in those games, certainly not the spacious catacombs of this game. Not sure about in NWN. Chokes McGee posted:E: or just in general, the man helped invent swamp thing and I've been stealing his ip for over a decade so the least we could all do is buy something that makes him money Also this; a cursory googling gave me a bunch of pirate sites but nothing """legal""", and Wrightson definitely did good work with it. (Unfortunately, there's no way to guarantee that he gets money off of buying it either, thanks Amazon.)
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 06:05
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 1, 2024 09:24 |
|
|
KataraniSword posted:Both Baldur's Gate and Athkatla (the main hub-city in BG2) have non-trivial sewer systems, though they're pretty cramped and confined even for dungeons in those games, certainly not the spacious catacombs of this game. Not sure about in NWN. And the way path-finding and how formation works in the engine makes navigating any twisty narrow hall a pain in the god drat rear end because half your party will see as the way's blocked by the other party members and decide to walk all the way in the wrong direction to 'get around' hitting a dead end, drawing aggro or both.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 06:12
|
|
|
Chokes McGee posted:Where are you getting them from? This is the important question. The site is called readcomiconline.to, so...
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 13:06
|
|
|
Chokes McGee posted:so the least we could all do is buy something that makes him money Actually, that's beyond our power now. Turns out he died a few years ago: http://berniewrightson.com/a-message-from-liz-wrightson/
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 14:27
|
|
|
DGM_2 posted:Actually, that's beyond our power now. Turns out he died a few years ago: http://berniewrightson.com/a-message-from-liz-wrightson/  Where there's a will, there's a way!(  bernie.)
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 15:35
|
|
|
Chokes McGee posted:
 No, Sternn, you can't tamper with his will. The point is to give him our money, not swindle him out of his. I... don't understand the concept?   quote:( Agreed. I hope he would appreciate what we're doing
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 16:16
|
|
|
DGM_2 posted:Agreed. I hope he would appreciate what we're doing Probably not given all the swearing and the fact I turned Sternn into an idiot, but Sternn and Hanover's first appearance was Heavy Metal, and Sternn's not as dumb as he acts in these LPs, soooo... It does make me feel a lot better that I've never made any money off of this, though.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 16:39
|
|
|
Apropos of nothing but I re-read my poo poo a few days after the post to make sure I didn't leave any plots hole and/or memorize things to bring up later, and I'm really goddamn proud of that Yume 2kki joke, even if I'm the only one who gets it. 
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 19:03
|
|
|
KataraniSword posted:Both Baldur's Gate and Athkatla (the main hub-city in BG2) have non-trivial sewer systems, though they're pretty cramped and confined even for dungeons in those games, certainly not the spacious catacombs of this game. I just started replaying the games on the PS4 version and after Firewine Ruins I will never complain about a sewer level again.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 23:16
|
|
|
Finally caught up and have enjoyed every minute of it. Amazing job so far. I can now be glad that I quit PoR when the ghost kept killing me for taking library books. What an aggravating mess the rest of the game is. The Curses book has Alias wear the cleavage chainmail only at the very end. The author stated that after being captured she had to wear it so that any escape attempt would be ended with a simple sword thrust. I distinctly remember this because I would get completely embarrassed everytime I would show the cover to people who had asked what I was reading.
|
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2020 00:57
|
|
|
Yvershek posted:Finally caught up and have enjoyed every minute of it. Amazing job so far. "80s hair in Power Girl chainmail. Why, what are you reading  "
|
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2020 01:08
|
|
|
Seyser Koze posted:I just started replaying the games on the PS4 version and after Firewine Ruins I will never complain about a sewer level again. What, you don't like single-file-wide hallways filled with traps and kobolds entirely willing to prioritize setting you on fire over their own lives?  I mean, that's basically the entirety of what Eye of the Beholder 1's first six or so levels was, just in third-person instead of first. 
|
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2020 12:19
|
|
|
Pools started. Heather just charged across the battle field from 20 squares away and soloed a Beholder. Just took all of its eye gazes like a champ and then murdered it dead I'm noticing the difficulty is dropping off slightly after the initial shock, although I haven't gotten to the boss dimensions yet. e: also gods help me but I'm considering doing my Bard's Tale LP in parallel to this one since I ain't gettin' any younger
|
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2020 00:24
|
|
|
Chokes McGee posted:e: also gods help me but I'm considering doing my Bard's Tale LP in parallel to this one since I ain't gettin' any younger Just make sure you don't burn yourself out. And that you post a link to the thread here as well.
|
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2020 00:27
|
|
|
Randalor posted:Just make sure you don't burn yourself out. And that you post a link to the thread here as well. Oh no worries, Bard's Tale is easy to get through, I just need to pfffft hhahahahahhahahah I'm doomed
|
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2020 00:56
|
|
|
You could always play the remake?
|
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2020 01:30
|
|
|
Seyser Koze posted:You could always play the remake? You must be new here, my name is Chokes, ty for reading my lp
|
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2020 02:07
|
|
|
Chokes McGee posted:Pools started. Heather just charged across the battle field from 20 squares away and soloed a Beholder. Just took all of its eye gazes like a champ and then murdered it dead Awww, they grow up so fast  Seems like only a few pages ago we were talking about how ridiculous 1e fighter saves got at high levels.
|
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2020 04:26
|
|
|
OH MY GODS WHY DID ANYONE PLAY THIS GAME OR CONSIDER IT FUN
|
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2020 04:50
|
|
|
Chokes McGee posted:Oh no worries, Bard's Tale is easy to get through, I just need to pfffft hhahahahahhahahah I'm doomed That series got just inches away from “every map is dark, filled with spinners or random teleports, and all encounters are with powerful monsters whose numbers require the use of exponents to display.” The hint books were pretty well written, though.
|
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2020 05:03
|
|
|
Narsham posted:That series got just inches away from “every map is dark, filled with spinners or random teleports, and all encounters are with powerful monsters whose numbers require the use of exponents to display.” The hint books were pretty well written, though. I have played Wizardry and Bard's Tale. This is not that. This is... something else. Something darker. More powerful.
|
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2020 05:32
|
|
|
Chokes McGee posted:OH MY GODS WHY DID ANYONE PLAY THIS GAME OR CONSIDER IT FUN I have never met a person who considered Pools of Darkness fun, and I refuse to believe they exist.
|
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2020 05:57
|
|
|
Sorta offtopic, but theres something that's been bugging me about Sternn. Every other characters name is a pun, but what's the reference in Lincoln Sternn's name?
|
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2020 12:50
|
|
|
Chokes McGee posted:I have played Wizardry and Bard's Tale. A power more evil than necromancy? Haberdashery?
|
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2020 13:34
|
|
|
Chokes McGee posted:I have played Wizardry and Bard's Tale. I was describing Bard’s Tale. PoD is more along the lines of every fourth encounter being about like the big “end of dungeon” encounters in previous games, and cramming about thirty or forty endgame encounters in, including as “end of dungeon” encounters. If you are stumbling around unsure where the safe places to rest are, it’s even worse. One particular adventuring area is especially horrible if you don’t know what you’re supposed to be doing. (Let’s just say that it is very much not a Fantastic Journey.) Also, I considered PoD fun at the time it was released. In retrospect, I can only conclude I had far too much time on my hands and far too few well-designed PC games as alternatives (though in its defense, there were a lot of comparatively awful CRPGs at the time). It plays reasonably fair, it is just a grind and relies far too much on the player using spells unstintingly in many encounter areas and resting between encounters. To call it “immersion breaking” now is a massive understatement.
|
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2020 14:18
|
|
|
Randalor posted:Sorta offtopic, but theres something that's been bugging me about Sternn. Every other characters name is a pun, but what's the reference in Lincoln Sternn's name? Aldo Gorney (see Wizardry, he was one of our names along with Nico) is another one that I don't think is a pun. Bernie was REALLY committed to lovely puns but I think he just gave up on one or two. Fillmore Coffers is still my favorite though, followed closely by Justine's and Nico's father, Levon.
|
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2020 18:17
|
|
|
Chokes McGee posted:e: also gods help me but I'm considering doing my Bard's Tale LP in parallel to this one since I ain't gettin' any younger You're planning a Bard's Tale LP? Good to hear! Do you have a party picked out, or will you just do the thing where you throw dozens of characters into the meat grinder that is the starting area and just keep whoever survives long enough to gain a couple of levels? DGM_2 fucked around with this message at 19:37 on Apr 26, 2020 |
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2020 18:57
|
|
|
DGM_2 posted:You're planning a Bard's Tale LP? Good to hear! I mean he said he was playing Bard's Tale already.
|
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2020 20:28
|
|
|
docbeard posted:I mean he said he was playing Bard's Tale already.  I have a party picked out. It's just a matter of whether or not I want to sink the effort into it because I'll be doing the C64 version and lord god amighty
|
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2020 21:19
|
|
|
Bard's Tale was the first RPG I ever played. Specifically Bard's Tale II.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2020 00:26
|
|
|
Night10194 posted:Bard's Tale was the first RPG I ever played. Specifically Bard's Tale II. I can only assume you hate then to this day
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2020 01:08
|
|
|
Somehow I love them.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2020 01:14
|
|
|
Pool of Radiance, Chapter 5: Hapless Today on the Gold Box adventures, we're going to explore the wide wide world!  Turns out the wide wide world really loving sucks.   augh they're everywhere So, justine! Like, what was up with you and Sternn last night? Is this really the best time for this conversationOn our travels, we bump into a pack of griffins. They can book it across the battlefield and hit multiple times but are otherwise unremarkable. There's a sizeable amount of them, though, and it's always a pain to fight outdoors. The best strategy is to (G)uard and let them come to us. This strategy will not be viable except for the most straightforward of fights, but we might as well use it while it's available!  Now, back to the map. This is what overworld travel looks like in Curse. Thankfully, we're ashewing Pools' grid based system for the direct approach. At each stop, we can choose where we're headed next and whether we want to take the trails or wilderness. The town names aren't shown anywhere but the Adventurer's Journal, so if you don't have that (or you're lazy, like I am) you'll have to use trial and error. The best part about that? You get jumped by scripted encounters between some towns depending on which road you take. Even better, some of the offroad encounters in the northwest can get really nasty.  Right now, our first stop is here, below the green square in the forest. That's the Standing Stones, and they'll serve as a (loose) hub for the rest of the game. No, you won't ever be told this. You're just expected to discover it at random, and you can end up finishing some of the main quests along the way without even knowing it. That's not necessarily a problem, but it sure is annoying to stagger from extended campaign to extended campaign before someone tells you what the gently caress you're even supposed to be doing.  On our way to the Stones  no not those, we stop in Ashabenford. The towns themselves aren't a big deal and are compressed down to a series of Wizardry-style menu options. Certain options may or may not be there and may or may not serve you depending on how much the townspeople like you. Fortunately, Ashabenford is pretty easy going.  Even better: they have a training hall! Extra HP all around, Rez learns Minor Globe of Invulnerability because why not, and Sternn picks up Stinking Cloud. He's officially a useful mage now. Whatever Rezen is doing is working. These two thoughts may not actually be related.   Lemme see here. Scotch, beer, whisky, mead, cuppa joe, and a bottle of root beer. Sure, but what are the rest of us drinking? Ha ha ha ha! ... ...ha ha? Yeah, just mix 'em up in a bucket and bring me a funnel. It's faster.    !Tavern Tale 28 posted:Two ships have been lost travelling to Shadowdale. the river's gotten very dangerous. Tavern Tale 55 posted:The Cormyr representative was preparing to leave after hearing the king found his daughter, but he was called back because she escaped again. In addition to training and shopping, you can swing by the local pub and drop eaves all over the place. We didn't do it in Pools because it can trigger a very irritating and ridiculously overleveled bar fight, but in Curse, you're safe to kick up your feet wherever you like. In the process, you'll hear these Tavern Tales. Unlike Journal Entries, tavern tales are one line rumors that may not even be true. They add context and the occasional helpful hint, but they're just as likely to be bullshit. You don't miss much by skipping them and won't spoil much reading through all of them Adventurer's Journal. One even says that Sasha is depressed without anyone to give quests to, which I know is 100% a lie. Well, Hanover's taken a year off his lifespan, and our mages know even more spells than they did before, so we're ready to roll. On to the Standing Stones!  ... Thanks, Tyranthraxus! Who's Tyranthraxus? Really? We're really doing this? Looks like. Well, good luck to you. Hope you get rid of those bonds. Me too, Tyranthraxus! ???Thanks to hints from someone who is not Tyranthraxus, at all, we'll be headed towards Hap down there in the southeast corner. If you (A)ttack instead of thanking him, he just goes poof, and you don't learn anything. I'm pretty sure he comes back if you leave and return, so you might as well take your hint and move on.  So what's the 411 with last night, Sternn? You two get freaky or what? Nah. We spent the night watch in a tree and watched the sun rise together. That's... totally sweet! Boss' always been a romantic. Okay, sure, you were in a tree. But—and I cannot possibly stress this enough—were you K-I-S-S-I-N-G?  Hey, I love having people discuss my love life behind my back as much as the next person, but is anyone else worried about those shadows? Like, what shadows? I don't see any shadows.  Hey, it wasn't me this time! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYour reward for trying to advance the plot is three Black Dragons. This is... not ideal. Besides being our first regular encounter with extra large type enemies, they—like every dragon in the game—have breath weapons.   blauuuuuuuuuuugh Shouldn't you be doing something, Sternn? Ehn. She'll be fine. *sizzle*This particular flavor of dragon spits acid. You'll see all sorts of fun stuff like flame, ice, and loving lightning as we progress through the series. Isn't that exciting? Aren't you excited? AREN'T YOU? AREN'T YOU?! Most dragons will fire their breath weapons in a cone, which I'm still not 100% clear on the range of. I'm reasonably certain acid breath can only hit one character, though, because otherwise the rest of our party in that shot would've been real real hosed. When you get hit by dragon breath, you get a savings throw. If you fail, you'll eat the whole damage and like it. Otherwise, you'll merely (merely!) take half damage. In an odd move, a dragon's breath weapon damage is directly tied to their total HP, so if you immediately prioritize kicking the poo poo out of them you save yourself a lot of grief. I guess they have more problems firing it off the closer they get to death? It kind of makes sense. Anyway, your job is to pummel the poo poo out of these assholes before they get a chance to spit up on you. Fortunately, they can't move and fire a breath weapon in the same turn, so we can wait for them to get within range rather than running out after them. That's good, because we're still fighting outdoors, and we do not want single characters left straggling out where the entire pack can pounce and shred them. More importantly, it's easy for mid level characters to both hit and kill dragons if they all team up on one. The AC on dragons isn't bad (usually), it's just they have buckets full of HP. Magic Missles and Long Sword large target damage once again carry the day. We have to work for it, but we eventually come out the other end alive. Nothing else of note, but the fact three black dragons just swooped down out of nowhere is awfully suspicious. We'll have to keep an eye on that. Still, it's not all bad, because this fight nets both Shanna and Sternn a level up. Yes, that's twice in an update. If you have a party to protect them, early game Curse is a great way to powerlevel a new mage.  Speaking of spells, it occurs to me that I never went over Tier 4 Cleric spells, which Shanna picked up a while back. They are as follows:
Generally, I just memorize a single PoE 10' cast for major fights and dump the rest into Poison as an "Oh poo poo" button. Now that that's out of the way, on to Hap!  It's quiet. Too quiet? No? It's actually really peaceful? Omigod. People always have to ruin things. What are you doing on the streets? You're not supposed to be on the streets! Get off the streets! Well we're certainly not not on the streets, if that's what you mean. ...  Please don't commit murder until we've at least assessed the situation.  (Not the local temple. At all. No need to check.) Well, this looks like the local temple. Um, did you even read the sign? ...you have brain issues, you know that? Oh rad! I love darkwave! Your own, personal Jesus~   ...  And please take Akabar with you. He'd love nothing more than to join your party. You really want to get rid of him that bad, huh? You have no ideaAkabar joins you here. His skills include not casting anything worth a drat despite knowing Lightning Bolt and taking up valuable space on the battlefield. One time during a fight, he hit two of our own guys with Stinking Cloud and I had to restart afterwards. Akabar is loving terrible. You can just flat refuse to let him join, but then he gets all pissy. I'm not even sure if it's a BUT THOU MUST situation, so we take the path of least resistance and let him tag along. Another useless dead weight NPC! Thanks, game! Where the gently caress is Dirten when you need oh poo poo sorry Shanna  Okay. We need to do something about these dark elves. I think we should run reconaissance and know their patrol routes before we— How dare you invade this town, good sir  I don't know why I bother sometimes. Me either.Another thing Akabar does is automatically insult and attack the guards on sight. So that's also worthless! I mean, we're going to have to fight them anyway, but having a choice would've been nice.  Everyone stand back. I'll handle this.   ?   Training's coming along well, I see. No kidding. What kind of idiot taught you how to use spells? ...So. Dark elves. Dark elves (more commonly referred to as "drow") are not fun to fight. For whatever reason, they have a resistance to magic. That means about half to two thirds of the spells you cast on them just... don't work. They don't take half damage; they're either not affected or take no damage. This includes splash damage, and taking fireball off the table takes a good 70% of our crowd control away. I hate dark elves. Everything about them is stupid and overpowed, and they take three times the amount of effort to put down. Even better: they're all heavily armored and packing magical weapons! That's standard for dark elves. You don't have to pay extra. Why would you, anyway? Why are you paying to fight these guys? That's a really bad deal!   Our basic strategy for these fights involves casting Hold Person over and over and OVER again until it finally sticks. Even Magic Missle doesn't work here, and I know that for a fact because Akbar won't stop casting it.  That was terrible. Everything about that was terrible. No arguments here. Like I said, I love these guys! Can we kill any more of them?  Oh man. You're gonna love this next part.The one silver lining—and it's an admittedly big one—is that Drow carry Drow magical items. Every one of them. And you can use them. Their chain mail is better than plate armor. Their swords are all +2 guaranteed. They just cart that poo poo around like it ain't no thing. Grabbing gear off the first patrol you kill does a lot to flatten the difficulty curve. It's still obnoxious to fight them, mind, but it makes things a little easier.   Even better: in between fights, you can head back to the temple and camp out. This is really good, because we don't want to rush into the boss fight. We'll see why in a second, but as irritating as it is, we need have to beat up on random patrols for a bit.  This is made even worse when the mages and clerics start showing up. They're all multiclassed and packing +2 swords. Luv 2 have multiple highly armored Magic Missle proof clerics casting Hold Person at our party  MY LUST FOR BLOOD IS NOT YET SATED Is it just me, or are there a lot less of these patrols then before? I think they're finally runnin' out of guys. Good gods. Just how many of them has Heather killed? Ask a stupid question, I guess.It's not the party's imagination. Eventually, the number of guards showing up starts to dwindle. That's the sign we've been looking for. Time to go knock on some doors, and then some heads.  *buffs* Everybody ready? Rarin' to go. *kicks down door* Well, that's disappoin— Oh, you shoulda led with that.   FACE MY ARMIES OF DARKNESS. ... Uh... small problem there, chief. WHAT? WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? OH. WELL, THAT'S EMBARASSING.  Spell charisma  If you pop in here as soon as you roll into town, you are going to get swamped by about 7-8 mages and 7-8 clerics. This is a very bad thing since Fireball will not help you here. Those are some stiff, dare I say impossible, odds—but that's okay, because Chokes Has Played the Game Before™. Instead of kicking down the first door available, we stay on the outskirts and gently caress up random patrols. Not only do we get quality gear and keep fights down to manageable numbers, but the longer you fight patrols, the lower the number of drow in this fight drops. Here, you can see it's bottomed out at two mages and two clerics. That Efreet is neither impressive nor immune to spells, so it might as well be a patrol fight.   It's still not easy or fun, but well within our range of abilities.  You alright, Shanna? Ugh. I'm fine. Let me just tuck this into my journal... We gotta get you a new one of those. No thank you. I'd just have to copy all the notes over. You've got review clippings from New Phlan restaurants in there! How is that going to help us? It's not like we're banned from the town!quote:
You don't know that. No, I suppose I don't.  (Apparently the village's full name is Haptooth. Who knew?)  Hooray for the heroes from afar! We're free!  Justine? What's wrong with your face? other than the whole jaw thing Is that... is that a smile? Are you smiling? Oh shut up. It totally is! I didn't even know you could do that! Considering I have to deal with you assholes, I'm not surprised. A wizard's tower? I bet people will give us even MORE money to clear that out! We're... we're not getting any money from the village. WELP CYA *grab* LET ME GO THE SWEET SOUND OF WIZARD TREASURE CALLS TO ME Oh, come on! If there were treasure, I'd already know by now. YOU JUST WANT IT FOR YOURSELF YOU'RE drat RIGHT I DO I WANT THE TREASURE YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TREASURE Why is everyone yelling? CAN YOU KEEP IT DOWN SHANNA, I CAN BARELY HEAR MYSELF OVER YOU This is idiotic. I'm leaving. Akabar, no! You can't quit! Why not? Because we want to fire you first. Who needs 'em, anyway? Look at this gear! We're unstoppable! Hell yeah! Let's go subjugate an entire town to our will! ...well poop.Next Time: Under Where?
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2020 00:12
|
|
Put this in their drinks and get them out of this city.
Kidnapping? Are you sure that's a line the council wants to cross?
|
Good to see our team back in action.  And um, thanks for reminding me what band I was going to see later this month before the pandemic hit. Never mind, that’s not relevant to this LP. [hums “Satisfaction”]One thing I enjoyed about Curse of the Azure Bonds was that almost every little town had a side dungeon that was good for experience building. But it sucked that those areas weren’t always easy to find on the way to the main plot. If you’re not going to cover them I don’t blame you. Or are you planning to later? Once I learned about them, I usually went after one or two between main plot quests just to grind. This is where Azure Bonds the novel and the game diverge. Alias goes to visit Shadowdale after leaving Tilverton. We can visit Shadowdale too, but I don’t think the game ever requires it. She then goes on to another place we’re for sure visiting (can’t identify it right now, spoilers) and heads from there to the city of Westgate for the book’s climax. Westgate does not appear in this or any other Forgotten Realms game, far as I know. Alias does visit some other places in the Dalelands during her journey, but I don’t recall her ever visiting the Standing Stones or Hap. The Dalelands, for those not in the know, is made up of independent fiefdoms, mostly. The Kingdom of Cormyr is southwest and the Moonsea cities like Phlan are to the northeast, but none really hold rulership over this area. Not every city agrees with this government, but that’s how it is. Hillsfar and Zhentil Keep have probably the two biggest armies in the area, and luckily for everyone else they spend lots of time fighting each other. Neither government is entirely on the side of Good, though Zhentil Keep is probably closer to outright Evil. Smaller towns like Shadowdale, Dagger Falls, Ashabenford, and Essembra exist in the middle of this conflict and try to maintain their independence. Our party can’t do anything about the larger politics of the area, but for game atmosphere, it helps to know it exists. Hap, I don’t know any specific lore about outside this game. Overland encounters have definitely taken a step up from the last game. Three black dragons in the wilderness here, last game the only dragon we could fight was the final boss. Yes, I am excited to fight more dragons in this and future games. Just like Chokes. Never got into using Poison much in these games. Glad it works. Dark Elves in the Realms aren’t often seen above ground. Their presence in Hap terrorizing peasants is worrisome. There have been a lot of Forgotten Realms novels featuring Dark Elves, but Azure Bonds was not one of them. Good to see Akabar- the mage buddy of Alias from that novel- though. He was probably her most competent and valuable ally in the book other than Dragonbait. [pause] The game probably won’t manage his spells nearly as great, considering its track record with NPC magic. But I’ll let Chokes demonstrate that. [reads Chokes’ comments on Akabar] Like I said. I hate fighting Dark Elves too. And all magic resistance equipped creatures. Efreets aren’t nearly as bad, but as Fire Genies, they should be immune to Fireball anyway. And that is the biggest reason I hate fighting Dark Elves. Their gear disintegrates away from their power centers. Ugh. So, we going back in the village or elsewhere next?
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2020 01:06
|
|
|
One thing that's kind of neat when you reach the overworld portion is that the encounters and town reactions can change depending on which bonds are still active. There are also a couple journal entries at this point are only referenced if a character imported from Hillsfar is in the party. They're letters from the Harpers, one of which says they sent Akabar to Haptooth, which explains why he seems to know who the party is. Nothing explains why he never considers the blast radius of a fireball when casting, though.
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2020 04:07
|
|
|
Alpha didn’t mention it, so I will- The Harpers are a semi-secret society of adventurers and other powerful folk throughout the Realms dedicated to the cause of Good. They are an important part of the plot in Azure Bonds and the Sage of Shadowdale, Elminster, is an influential member. Since they sent Akabar and, I assume, others to help the party, the Harpers are on our side in this game. They could come over to us and introduce themselves, but they don’t work like that. I never played Hillsfar. Is there a plot reason why the Harpers would send letters to a character imported from that game?
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2020 04:26
|
|
|
achtungnight posted:Alpha didn’t mention it, so I will- The Harpers are a semi-secret society of adventurers and other powerful folk throughout the Realms dedicated to the cause of Good. They are an important part of the plot in Azure Bonds and the Sage of Shadowdale, Elminster, is an influential member. Since they sent Akabar and, I assume, others to help the party, the Harpers are on our side in this game. They could come over to us and introduce themselves, but they don’t work like that. Boredom would be my guess.
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2020 07:19
|
|
|
achtungnight posted:I never played Hillsfar. Is there a plot reason why the Harpers would send letters to a character imported from that game? It's been a good twenty years, but I seem to recall the player character in Hillsfar getting involved with the Harpers. Not to the point where you end up joining them, but enough to be considered a friend and ally. More importantly though, Chokes just got through the village of Hap (it really is just called Hap in the module and all other material, the nearby interesting geological feature it's named after is Haptooth). The module doesn't have the Standing Stone or Obviously Tyranthraxus to give you hints as to where to go after leaving Tilverton. Instead, the party has to follow up on whatever hints they picked up form the Fire Knives' base, which is why the writers take pity on you and have the King give you the most important missable bits if you hosed up searching the base. Those hints point the party to Zhentil Keep and Hillsfar, the trip to Hap isn't until later in the module. The game changed remarkably little. For all Chokes' griping about the dark elves, he may have gotten off easy. All the basic drow fighters that make up the bulk of the fights have innate spellcasting ability and can throw around darkness and faerie fire. But the only primary spellcasters (fighter/mages) only get two levels of mage spells, which obviously don't include Hold Person. And none of them have any super-special drow adamantine equipment that disintegrates in sunlight. Chokes was spot on about their magic resistance, all drow have a flat 50% chance to straight-up ignore whatever spells you might throw at them. There are two efreeti, who you might encounter together, they're still not particularly threatening. You're more likely to separate them, one will join the last group of guards if you follow Chokes' perfectly rational strategy to draw out the guards and fight them one group at a time. Akabar is also still here, and may or may not be more useful than game Akabar depending on your DM. He has a 50% chance of snapping and turning any encounter with guards into a fight. But he is immortal, courtesy of a spell Elminster cast on him without telling him. The townspeople are terrified of the dark elves until you kill a group, at which point they gain enough courage to leave their houses (and stop hiding under the counter in the case of one cowardly shopkeeper), but they won't do any fighting on their own. There are only 25 elves, I'm pretty sure an entire village could take them. There's also a totally inexplicable roomful of treasure, where the door can only be opened by a trapped crank that plays 'Pop Goes the Weasel'. Finishing the song opens the door, but opening, or breaking the door dumps a trio of molten-metal covered salamanders on the party. The room is full of the elves' accumulated loot stolen from the townsfolk. Unrelated to any of the above: this module has a lot of illustrations, but they're all very dark and hard to see. I suspect the original book had them in color but that this PDF was scanned in black and white, which would also explain the nearly unreadable maps. For example, this picture of Radatha, the leader of the Fire Knives, who I don't think got a name in the game.  Of course, it's also possible this was a deliberate stylistic choice, since some other pictures look better, such as a picture of Alias in a brief summary of the Azure Bonds novel, and the cover is in color, which means I'm either wrong or the cover was scanned in color. If it was a deliberate choice on TSR's part, I think it was a stupid one, since there's so much great art in here and a lot of it is too damned hard to see.
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2020 09:12
|
|
|
So the Drow have 1E Magic Resistance. This is expressed as a percentage chance to resist magic cast by an 11th level spellcaster. The chance to resist drops by 5% for every level above 11th and increases by 5% for every level below it, meaning that a 7th level caster trying to affect a drow with 50% MR will only succeed 30% of the time. An interesting wrinkle is that magic items which cast spells also have a caster level. That drow’s MR is only 5% against a 20th level spellcaster, but will remain effective against spells from wands, which are usually much lower caster level.
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2020 14:47
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 1, 2024 09:24 |
|
|
The only real involvement of the Harpers in Hillsfar is your guild master saying they'll help you out in the future when you finish the last quest. I guess the guild masters are members.
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2020 17:40
|
|