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This game is amazing, and this thread is amazing. First of all, I have never heard of this thing before, and I thought I was up on my Obscure D&D Bullshit when it came to 20th-century PC adaptations. It's also a ridiculous, ambitious mess and reminds me of the sort of stuff Bethesda wanted to do with Elder Scrolls in the early days but felt they couldn't; these madmen over at Synergistic, who'd been putting D&D-adjacent computer stuff together since 1980, just plowed ahead with it. Glorious.  And really, I'm exactly the sort of person who's here for the nerdtalk about early D&D and its design intentions. Concerning D&D being influenced by contemporaries, I do feel like no discussion of that is complete without bringing up FASA, and especially BattleTech, in the context of Birthright. BattleTech was also initially a wargame, but the entire point of the MechWarrior side of the line was to try and make the role-playing aspect of it blend almost seamlessly with the "actual" wargame; you could get into adventures outside of your mech with the MW rules, and then when it came time for the larger army stuff, BattleTech and eventually things like CityTech were there for the larger scales. BTech in the 90s had a lot of other problems (boy, I've only recently really cottoned to just how heavily the writers of the early material were influenced by Soldier of Fortune Magazine and its ilk) but it was definitely a bit of a gauntlet thrown at D&D in terms of "giving the players more to do and more ways to engage with the world outside of The Delve". And of course, Shadowrun has to factor into this conversation, too, with how heavily even first edition leaned on a proper run requiring a lot of prep work.
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May 22, 2022 04:01
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So a question on the game itself while we wait for the next update ( ):It was mentioned that you get pretty much gently caress-all XP while playing this game, so is it just completely not viable to try and focus on powering up your characters, due to that time being better spent on just getting your lands built up and your bloodline strengthened since you can spend a bunch of money to hire level 9+ characters anyways so why bother trying to level some lowbie when you can just hire people who are world-class adventurers (who for some reason are looking for work).
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May 22, 2022 04:28
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SpaceDrake posted:This game is amazing, and this thread is amazing. First of all, I have never heard of this thing before, and I thought I was up on my Obscure D&D Bullshit when it came to 20th-century PC adaptations. It's also a ridiculous, ambitious mess and reminds me of the sort of stuff Bethesda wanted to do with Elder Scrolls in the early days but felt they couldn't; these madmen over at Synergistic, who'd been putting D&D-adjacent computer stuff together since 1980, just plowed ahead with it. Glorious. It actually goes back farther than that. Villains & Vigilantes (published in 1979), the first superhero RPG to garner a significant following (Superhero 2044 was technically published two years earlier, but has mostly languished in obscurity, well, even moreso, anyway; "obscure" is kind of a relative term when talking about a non-D&D RPG, thanks to what the OGL did to the industry), had a ton of rules designed to get players actually behaving like superheroes. For one thing, characters only got experience for criminals they arrest, so killing is strictly off the table (V&V doesn't provide much of a setting in its main book - the original version is fewer than forty pages long, and the more well-known revised edition only adds another ten or so - but it's mostly inspired by the silver age of comics, particularly DC's output during the era, where morality was pretty black-and-white). There are also rules for merchandising and public appearances as well as improving one's image through charity (making money from merch actually prevents you from getting any benefit from charity until you've donated as much as you made, though they don't mention anything about your secret identity selling pics to the local paper, so that's probably fine), and a section with detailed information about the most common types of crimes a superhero might be involved in stopping, basic judicial procedure, and even a section making it clear that, no, you can't be like Batman and line your lair with souvenirs from your villains, because that's literally stealing evidence from a crime scene. Basically, games that focused on roleplaying first and foremost have been around pretty much since the industry began.
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May 22, 2022 05:25
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Felinoid posted:Not quite on that last point. Bards can build a stronghold at 9th just like fighters, but receive only 10d6 0-level soldiers for it. Mages get nothing, but are kind of expected to build a laboratory; their army is in magic items and spell research, and as usual all of it costs big money rather than being given. And druids...hoo boy that's a whole thing. Doesn't kick in until 12th, and you have to literally fight your way up the hierarchy just to earn the levels, nevermind the perks, but you become part of the ruling caste of druids (complete with a domain to watch over and levelled druid assistants, similar to a thief's hangers-on but improving with each step) and eventually the leader of the whole world's naturists at level 15. ...Then you give it all up to continue advancing as a "hierophant" druid, solitary once again. Bloody weird. Don't forget the completely bonkers XP requirements for that stretch. ... and now that I'm looking at the tables, man, it's weirder than I thought. Starts out needing Fighter XP amounts to level, then goes to needing less than Thief, before ballooning to levels even Wizards and Paladins would wince at, before dropping off a cliff and being sub-Thief again. Evil Fluffy posted:So a question on the game itself while we wait for the next update ( A Fighter starts out needing 2000 XP to level, which roughly doubles each level after 3. Starting at 9, this levels out and all future levels require a flat 250k XP. Other classes mostly follow this, though with different bases; Thief need to least to start with by needing only 1250, and Wizards start with the highest base of 2500(though they're like Druids in that they buck the trend, and their XP requirements scale more slowly than other classes for several levels, before jumping back up to needing the most again). I don't recall the precise XP rewards for Realm actions, but if you want an idea of what mob XP is like, 1 HD things like goblins are worth 15 a pop. A 10 HD Ettin is worth 3000. I could go further, but I don't recall the mobs in this game scaling much past that, and most are going to be in that 1-10 HD range. I... want to say that the XP is also divided up between all active party members, but it's been too long. Suffice it to say, you're not getting all that far off of mob XP alone. Unoriginal One fucked around with this message at 06:10 on May 22, 2022 |
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May 22, 2022 05:58
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The original Marvel Super-Heroes RPG had a similar system, where you were awarded Karma Points (XP, effectively) for acting 'heroically' and lost it for less than heroic acts - up to and including losing every last point of Karma if you committed murder. When I talk about older versions of D&D not doing much more than paying lip service to game balance or encouraging roleplay, I really am trying to specifically talk about D&D; there were obviously a metric fuckton of games that were not designed to be so adversarial and combat-centric. Hell, you had games that didn't use dice (Amber was published in '91 and is usually pointed to as the first commercially viable diceless RPG, though there may have been precursors), games with no GM (Fiasco is my personal favorite, though I'm sure there are earlier examples out there), different games for every genre you can think of (the aforementioned V&V, or the Wild West Boot Hill, or any of a bajillion space games where Traveller was probably the most successful in the early period), and so on. The entire industry was being made up as it went along, and that's why concepts that today we take for granted like "balanced classes" and "DMs who aren't utter bastards" were a hit-or-miss proposition - the same way that a modern PC gamer would look at Rogue and go "holy poo poo, people actually played this?!?" The games are old, and much of what we would today consider standard industry features just... weren't that, is all. Like, arguably the earliest RPGs of all were called 'Braunsteins,' after the setting of the first such game... ...actually, yeah. Lemme talk about the Braunsteins for a bit. The first Braunstein game was a multi-player Napoleonic Wars scenario set in the fictional city of, you guessed it, Braunstein. But the guy running the game (David Wesely) didn't just say "okay, everyone plays a general;" he assigned non-military roles to some players, like the mayor, and the town clerk, and the banker, and so on (which, in a strange kinda way, sort of invented the idea of the character class...). Now, the plan was to set aside a small room to one side where players could talk with the referee privately, to set up moves, ask questions, et cetera. But to everyone's surprise, the players - there were more than 20 - started to talk to and scheme with each other, and the players in non-military roles started asking questions like "okay, so I walk down Main Street, what do I see?" They started wandering around and interacting with each other 'in character.' This was 1969. Which means, in a very real sense, the earliest proto-RPGs weren't TTRPGs - they were LARPs. Wesely teamed up with Dave Arneson, a name D&D grognards know well, to run more such "Braunsteins", but when he was recalled to active military service, Arneson took over. He started running a new series of Braunsteins set in the wild west, in the fictional Texas town of 'Brownstone' (from Braunstein, obviously). The Brownstone games introduced the idea of persistent characters with backstories and past relationships; before this, all the games had been finite one-and-done affairs. You showed up, you played, and your character either achieved their objective or failed; either way, when you showed up for the next game, you got a new character. Arneson's introduction of persistent characters - the invention of what today we'd call the "player character" - changed the whole game, figuratively speaking. Then Arneson went on to further develop the concepts into what became his Blackmoor game, which is probably D&D's single biggest influence - and if you're curious, the answer is yes, Wesely and Arneson establishing a pattern of "compound noun beginning with a color name" is why Gary Gygax called his setting 'Greyhawk'. So why does all that poo poo matter? Because it's illustrative of the whole hodgepodge of ideas and concepts and making-poo poo-up-as-we-go that was formative to early D&D. We can look at unbalanced classes or racial restrictions that seem unfun and weird math choices in the mechanics and on and on and on, and all those things are true... but all those complaints have to be viewed through a modern sensibility where we understand, without having to spell it out, "if one player gets dicked over by the rules because he wanted to play a gnome or whatever, that's a bad thing." It's that sensibility that didn't exist in early D&D, because people just hadn't had those conversations yet. ....I realize most people probably don't care and are scrolling past the textwall, but damned if I don't love talking about the Braunstein games so deal (I am not gonna go off on a tangent about how the hobby's earliest growth can be attributed to the SF Convention Scene of the early '70s and how that scene's... uh... severe hosed-up-ness probably didn't help, though. Mostly because I don't like thinking about that scene, Jesus Christ so many of the authors that were really formative to me as a kid were monsters)
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May 22, 2022 06:03
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:The first Braunstein game was a multi-player Napoleonic Wars scenario set in the fictional city of, you guessed it, Braunstein. But the guy running the game (David Wesely) didn't just say "okay, everyone plays a general;" he assigned non-military roles to some players, like the mayor, and the town clerk, and the banker, and so on (which, in a strange kinda way, sort of invented the idea of the character class...). Now, the plan was to set aside a small room to one side where players could talk with the referee privately, to set up moves, ask questions, et cetera. But to everyone's surprise, the players - there were more than 20 - started to talk to and scheme with each other, and the players in non-military roles started asking questions like "okay, so I walk down Main Street, what do I see?" They started wandering around and interacting with each other 'in character.' This was 1969. I can't help but find it hilarious that not only is that the earliest or at least one of the earliest examples of LARPing, but it's also apparently the earliest example of a GM having to deal with players doing something he never expected to happen in the first place and having to desperately improvise around something crazy they did. It's nice to know that even after decades of changes and whatnot the core of RPGs haven't really changed that much. On a more serious note though I'm genuinely fascinated by how (from my understanding) that it's effectively a spin on (or possibly evolution depending on how you look at it) Diplomacy of all games - that sense of scheming and plotting is definitely there in the description alone, but narrowed down to a more, well, human level as it were. I dunno if that was intentional or not since information on it seems to be pretty sparse, but I can definitely see a pattern based on "a game shaped solely by the players' actions."
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May 22, 2022 06:25
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There was a series of videos I saw on YouTube ages and ages ago that was basically a giant-rear end 'wargame' where different teams of players represented different countries - there were multiple scenarios possible and this one involved aliens, so your team could fight them or ally with them and try to obtain their technology or the like. It was held in the UK and mostly what I remember is that the "United States" team dressed in outrageously over-the-top outfits with aviator shades and flags on basically every piece of clothing. Anyways, I can't find it now because I can't remember what it was called (and IIRC the game had some painfully obtuse title like The Strategy Game or some poo poo), but if I can I'll link them, because they're pretty much what I believe the Braunsteins were like. Each team had their own objective (i.e. 'make sure your country does well'), and people were encouraged to come up with whatever random-rear end off-the-wall ideas they could and the game staff would adjudicate them. gently caress, this is gonna bug me all night
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May 22, 2022 06:39
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:Which means, in a very real sense, the earliest proto-RPGs weren't TTRPGs - they were LARPs. The Society for Creative Anachronism was founded in 1966, so depending on how important you think abstracted mechanics are, it could be argued that they slightly predate even this example (and were also, in fact, LARPs). The SCA might be familiar to certain LP fans as being the final bosses (after a fashion) of Wizardry IV. That said, it's worth noting that it was really Dave Arneson who pushed hard for the roleplaying side of D&D, while Gary Gygax was always more enthusiastic about the simulation side (it might be oversimplifying to just say "combat", but Gygax was generally more interested in what the players were doing, and not what their made-up characters might be thinking or feeling about it). This makes sense, since Arneson had, as you mention, a background in roleplaying before D&D, while Gary had been a wargamer pretty much exclusively, to my knowledge. It's why I dislike that Gygax tends to be the only person most people talk about, when what's, frankly, the actual good part of the hobby was mostly the doing of Arneson (also Gary tried to screw him out of royalties with AD&D, though he lost the lawsuit). Though it's not like that sort of thing was rare back then, given how things went betwee Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, or much earlier between Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks (and while Steve Jobs never tried to steal credit, the public often forgets that it was Steve Wozniak who actually made the Apple I and II, with Jobs just handling the business side of things).
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May 22, 2022 07:02
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Evil Fluffy posted:So a question on the game itself while we wait for the next update ( The next update is about half written, but going cold turkey on caffeine and soda has had some interesting effects on my sleep patterns so the usual writing rhythm got somewhat upset.  As for the gently caress-all XP, I don't really agree with that. By the end of the coming update, Rogr is up to level 10-ish, from his starting level 4. Also world class adventurers still gotta pay the rent, I guess.
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May 22, 2022 07:56
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Unoriginal One posted:Don't forget the completely bonkers XP requirements for that stretch. The last bit after the cliff isn't sub-Thief, it's still super-Wizard. Don't forget that when you give everything up to become a Hierophant, it zeroes your XP. (No, I have no bloody clue how that would work with level drain, and I doubt TSR did either.) The 500k for level 17 all has to be earned after you've gotten the first 3 million for level 15, beaten all the challenges to become the Grand Druid, gotten at least another 500k to qualify for level 16, and then thrown it all away to keep advancing. Which means the "2 million" quoted for level 20 is actually more like 5.5 million in total. The amount of XP to get a level 20 Druid would get you a level 24 Wizard, maybe 25 if there's spillover that gets zeroed before Hierophant. And that static 500k XP per level is over even the Wizard's exorbitant 375k per level after flattening out, so it's only going to get worse. Nevermind the weird spell progression. Druids get access to 6th level spells at about the time mages and clerics are getting access to 5th level, due to how they rocket up the mid levels, and then there's the truly bizarre bit that the Grand Druid has 6 spell slots of every level and you just stop gaining slots ever again as a Hierophant. That means from level 14 to level 15, your casting goes from 6/6/6/5/3/2/1 to 6/6/6/6/6/6/6. And then on top of that you get 6 extra floating spell levels, so you could go 7/7/7/6/6/6/6, or 6/9/6/6/6/6/6, or 6/6/6/6/6/7/6, or 8/6/6/7/6/6/6, or whatever the heck other depraved combination you feel like. But levelling from 15 to 20? 0 additional slots. The whole class feels like what you'd get if you took out spell loans from an XP-seller.
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May 22, 2022 08:55
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:There was a series of videos I saw on YouTube ages and ages ago that was basically a giant-rear end 'wargame' where different teams of players represented different countries - there were multiple scenarios possible and this one involved aliens, so your team could fight them or ally with them and try to obtain their technology or the like. It was held in the UK and mostly what I remember is that the "United States" team dressed in outrageously over-the-top outfits with aviator shades and flags on basically every piece of clothing. That sounds like Watch The Skies, a megagame that gets run every now and then.
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May 22, 2022 10:29
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Felinoid posted:The last bit after the cliff isn't sub-Thief, it's still super-Wizard. Don't forget that when you give everything up to become a Hierophant, it zeroes your XP. (No, I have no bloody clue how that would work with level drain, and I doubt TSR did either.) The 500k for level 17 all has to be earned after you've gotten the first 3 million for level 15, beaten all the challenges to become the Grand Druid, gotten at least another 500k to qualify for level 16, and then thrown it all away to keep advancing. Which means the "2 million" quoted for level 20 is actually more like 5.5 million in total. The amount of XP to get a level 20 Druid would get you a level 24 Wizard, maybe 25 if there's spillover that gets zeroed before Hierophant. And that static 500k XP per level is over even the Wizard's exorbitant 375k per level after flattening out, so it's only going to get worse. Gotta be honest, this sounds like "You are the NPC Super-Druid Giving out quests and discovering threats that Only The Chosen Ones can stop, and acting only when it's desperate."
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May 22, 2022 13:43
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EclecticTastes posted:It actually goes back farther than that. Villains & Vigilantes (published in 1979), the first superhero RPG to garner a significant following (Superhero 2044 was technically published two years earlier, but has mostly languished in obscurity, well, even moreso, anyway; "obscure" is kind of a relative term when talking about a non-D&D RPG, thanks to what the OGL did to the industry), had a ton of rules designed to get players actually behaving like superheroes. For one thing, characters only got experience for criminals they arrest, so killing is strictly off the table (V&V doesn't provide much of a setting in its main book - the original version is fewer than forty pages long, and the more well-known revised edition only adds another ten or so - but it's mostly inspired by the silver age of comics, particularly DC's output during the era, where morality was pretty black-and-white). I have a real soft spot for V&V 1e (I even have an Abandoned FATAL & Friends review of it); as it, Traveler 1e, Metamorphosis Alpha 1e, and Tunnels and Trolls were my goto games after OD&D when I was getting into this stupid hobby 40+ years ago. Superhero:2044 had even fewer actual character creation rules than V&V and was more a patrol simulator with a wargame tacked on, where the character described what they were doing to reduce crime in the future city of Ingeria as mercenary police basically. It had rules for Superhero Malpractice Insurance and paying taxes on captured villain gear.
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May 22, 2022 14:04
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:There was a series of videos I saw on YouTube ages and ages ago that was basically a giant-rear end 'wargame' where different teams of players represented different countries - there were multiple scenarios possible and this one involved aliens, so your team could fight them or ally with them and try to obtain their technology or the like. It was held in the UK and mostly what I remember is that the "United States" team dressed in outrageously over-the-top outfits with aviator shades and flags on basically every piece of clothing. This reminds me of a very similar game we played at my former job as a team-building exercise. Our boss had hired a retired military officer, who travelled around setting up what can best be described as the Danish Military's Official RPG. Kinda similar premise, except it less aliens, and more political tensions in a Middle-East region with its serial numbers filed off. I'll be completely honest, it was one of the absolutely greatest RPG experiences in my entire life, and it proved to me that in-game statistics can in no way compete against meta-gaming and not sticking to the GM's prepared adventure 
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May 22, 2022 14:18
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:There was a series of videos I saw on YouTube ages and ages ago that was basically a giant-rear end 'wargame' where different teams of players represented different countries - there were multiple scenarios possible and this one involved aliens, so your team could fight them or ally with them and try to obtain their technology or the like. It was held in the UK and mostly what I remember is that the "United States" team dressed in outrageously over-the-top outfits with aviator shades and flags on basically every piece of clothing. This? https://www.shutupandsitdown.com/videos/susd-play-megagame-2-pt1/
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May 22, 2022 15:19
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Felinoid posted:The last bit after the cliff isn't sub-Thief, it's still super-Wizard. Don't forget that when you give everything up to become a Hierophant, it zeroes your XP. (No, I have no bloody clue how that would work with level drain, and I doubt TSR did either.) The 500k for level 17 all has to be earned after you've gotten the first 3 million for level 15, beaten all the challenges to become the Grand Druid, gotten at least another 500k to qualify for level 16, and then thrown it all away to keep advancing. Which means the "2 million" quoted for level 20 is actually more like 5.5 million in total. The amount of XP to get a level 20 Druid would get you a level 24 Wizard, maybe 25 if there's spillover that gets zeroed before Hierophant. And that static 500k XP per level is over even the Wizard's exorbitant 375k per level after flattening out, so it's only going to get worse. So are there any reasons to become a Hierophant, or is it meant more as a NPC/flavorful thing where your character casts off all Mortal pleasures and seeks out tranquility and oneness with nature, and when the rest of the party finds them a year later, they have a massive beard (even if the druid was a woman) and have started living off of the red mushrooms with white dots entirely and talking to imaginary squirrels (the real squirrels learned awhile back to stay away from the Druid. They just won't shut up and let you go back to finding and burying nuts and acorns)?
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May 22, 2022 16:02
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PurpleXVI posted:It's one of those mechanics I've always wondered if anyone ever actually used. I've never encountered a gaming group that didn't either abstract it("okay, casting a spell of this level costs you 10GP in material component costs" etc.) or just completely ignored. I assume the original developers must've used it, because otherwise why bother coming up with hundreds of material component combinations for various spells, but never anyone I've actually played with. If you really want a system where material components are actually tracked, you probably don't want to make it any more complicated than the Ultima series does. Maybe a dozen different materials to track at most. Of course, you can make it even simpler than that if you try.
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May 22, 2022 17:23
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I'm fairly sure that the rapid advancement of rogues was designed as compensation because devs knew that they were absolutely necessary for their niche, but otherwise poo poo. That being said, bards and their casting progression could really benefit from that rapid advancement. The whole druid advancement scheme was somewhere between hilariously misguided and idiotic, and I think that we just used the cleric table. ============================= Divine Coffee Binge, I wanted to let you know that I read that whole long post and it was very interesting.
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May 22, 2022 17:34
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Bloodly posted:Gotta be honest, this sounds like "You are the NPC Super-Druid Giving out quests and discovering threats that Only The Chosen Ones can stop, and acting only when it's desperate." Considering that's the kind of thing you were meant to be doing from about level 12 regardless of your class, that checks out. Randalor posted:So are there any reasons to become a Hierophant, or is it meant more as a NPC/flavorful thing where your character casts off all Mortal pleasures and seeks out tranquility and oneness with nature, and when the rest of the party finds them a year later, they have a massive beard (even if the druid was a woman) and have started living off of the red mushrooms with white dots entirely and talking to imaginary squirrels (the real squirrels learned awhile back to stay away from the Druid. They just won't shut up and let you go back to finding and burying nuts and acorns)? 2 HP/level, better saves, proficiencies, getting rid of the massive responsibility of overseeing the natural balance of the entire freaking world if you didn't want it...oh and some utterly ridiculous spell-like abilities. At level 16, you get complete immunity to "natural" poisons (they define it more as animal or plant poisons), a complete halt in physical aging (meaning you will never die of old age and can still rack up the INT and WIS bonuses from aging but don't suffer any of the STR/DEX/CON penalties), and what is essentially Alter Self on loving command. At level 17, you gain the ability to hibernate (since immortality without the ability to skip the boring decades would suck I guess?), and the ability to go to the Elemental Plane of Earth (and back) at will and be completely fine there. Then 18-20 are just you learning the same thing with the Elemental Planes of Fire, Water, and Air, in that order. I don't recall what the epic level PCs book gave them for 21-32 (and don't remember where I left that book off the top of my head), but I bet it was equally ridiculous. EDIT: Yes that book only expanded the levels to 32. I don't know why that number specifically. But past level 20 you were basically supposed to be training to become an avatar of a chosen god, at which point your character is retired from existence. It didn't have to take all the way to 32 either, you could pop at any level once you had finished whatever great work would make you (one of) that god's avatar(s). Felinoid fucked around with this message at 18:03 on May 22, 2022 |
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May 22, 2022 17:45
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DGM_2 posted:If you really want a system where material components are actually tracked, you probably don't want to make it any more complicated than the Ultima series does. Maybe a dozen different materials to track at most. Ars Magica, probably the most "hard magic" RPG on the market (at least that people are aware of), like, to the point of most campaigns taking place over in-game decades due to how long magical research can take, find a way around this by having everything run on, essentially, themed magical essence harvested from places of power connected to the associated type of magic. Like, the essence (or "Vis" in the game's terminology) for magic that affects animals might be found in the skins of the deer that live in a particular grove where magical energy happens to be more concentrated, while essence for plant magic might be in the sap of a thousand-year-old oak growing near the mage's laboratory. It's all abstracted by mages having access to X number sources that produce Y units of vis of a given Art per season, providing a simple method of generating resources while still letting the characters feel like oldschool wizards, gathering arcane ingredients for their magical research. It's a great game if you like a detailed simulation that still leaves a lot of room for good roleplaying.
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May 22, 2022 18:05
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EclecticTastes posted:There are also rules for merchandising and public appearances as well as improving one's image through charity (making money from merch actually prevents you from getting any benefit from charity until you've donated as much as you made, though they don't mention anything about your secret identity selling pics to the local paper, so that's probably fine), and a section with detailed information about the most common types of crimes a superhero might be involved in stopping, basic judicial procedure, and even a section making it clear that, no, you can't be like Batman and line your lair with souvenirs from your villains, because that's literally stealing evidence from a crime scene. This is giving me flashbacks to Xcrawl and I would love to see a videogame take on that setting (Smash TV doesn't count). PurpleXVI posted:The next update is about half written, but going cold turkey on caffeine and soda has had some interesting effects on my sleep patterns so the usual writing rhythm got somewhat upset. Oh yeah I did that back in 2008 and the good news is that after about a week and a half of headaches and other caffeine withdrawal symptoms I felt great and you will too! 
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May 22, 2022 18:06
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Evil Fluffy posted:This is giving me flashbacks to Xcrawl and I would love to see a videogame take on that setting (Smash TV doesn't count). So, a video game, based on a tabletop game, premised around a fictional game show that deliberately uses the format of the tabletop game as its premise/theme? I like the way you think. Cyanide Studios has already done something in that vein with their Blood Bowl adaptations (they even released an adaptation of the Dungeonbowl, which is a highly lethal football championship where the field is a dungeon you have to cross to score, though it flopped and they removed it from Steam for some reason).
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May 22, 2022 18:32
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About level limits for different races: they have always been bullshit and any mechanical pretensions were made up after the fact. They were created because Gygax hated people playing non-human races. His whole thing was conan style sword and sorcery and weird fiction, human protagonists only. He wanted games to be humanocentric and reckoned that giving non-human characters edges in any way will cause them to crowd out humans as a pc option. His words: quote:The character races in the AD&D system were selected with care. They give variety of approach, but any player selecting a non-human (part- or demi-human) character does not have any real advantage. True, some of those racial types give short-term advantages to the players who choose them, but in the long run, these same characters are at an equal disadvantage when compared to human characters with the same number of experience points. This was, in fact, designed into the game. The variety of approach makes role selection more interesting. Players must weigh advantages and disadvantages carefully before opting for character race, human or otherwise. It is in vogue in some campaigns to remove restrictions on demi-humans — or at least relax them somewhat. While this might make the DM popular for a time with those participants with dwarven fighters of high level, or eleven wizards of vast power, it will eventually consign the campaign as a whole to one in which the only races will be non-human. Dwarves, elves, et al will have all the advantages and no real disadvantages, so the majority of players will select those races, and humankind will disappear from the realm of player character types. This bears upon the various hybrid racial types, as well.
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May 22, 2022 18:54
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Evil Fluffy posted:Oh yeah I did that back in 2008 and the good news is that after about a week and a half of headaches and other caffeine withdrawal symptoms I felt great and you will too! Mostly I had a couple of days where I couldn't sleep more than two or four hours in a go and then felt too REJUVENATED to sleep any more until twelve hours later, and also insanely vivid dreams.
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May 22, 2022 19:28
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Felinoid posted:Not quite on that last point. Bards can build a stronghold at 9th just like fighters, but receive only 10d6 0-level soldiers for it. Mages get nothing, but are kind of expected to build a laboratory; their army is in magic items and spell research, and as usual all of it costs big money rather than being given. Which is kind of odd if early D&D really was designed to mimic Tolkien as much as possible. It's been an age since I read the books, but I don't remember Gandalf doing any of that.
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May 22, 2022 19:34
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DGM_2 posted:Which is kind of odd if early D&D really was designed to mimic Tolkien as much as possible. It's been an age since I read the books, but I don't remember Gandalf doing any of that. It wasn't. Early dnd was designed more as a hodgepodge of pulp fiction stuff where a bunch of tolkien just fell in all over the place. But the domain stuff, that? That actually comes from chainmail, the wargame that dnd was something of an extension of. It was made to be the point where dnd linked to chainmail, where you went from the personal scale to the army scale.
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May 22, 2022 19:55
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JustJeff88 posted:Sleep doesn't even allow a save. Talk about an easy victory. Can you imagine I slept (pun intended) on Sleep when I played Baldurs Gate? I kept loading my mages up with magic missile to finish off enemies who were difficult to take down with physical attacks, never realizing I had a tool to trivialize encounters (unless they were undead or something)
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May 22, 2022 20:28
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NewMars posted:About level limits for different races: they have always been bullshit and any mechanical pretensions were made up after the fact. They were created because Gygax hated people playing non-human races. His whole thing was conan style sword and sorcery and weird fiction, human protagonists only. He wanted games to be humanocentric and reckoned that giving non-human characters edges in any way will cause them to crowd out humans as a pc option. His words: It's really funny that it came from a DM who'd failed to control his own setting overreacting and pooping in everyone else's games.
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May 22, 2022 20:56
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It’s totally on brand honestly.
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May 22, 2022 20:57
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PurpleXVI posted:The next update is about half written, but going cold turkey on caffeine and soda has had some interesting effects on my sleep patterns so the usual writing rhythm got somewhat upset. Well that has me scratching my head, as I don't think I'd ever seen anyone level up, even if I used them for each and every single dungeon crawl available in the game.. Regent-only quest XP, maybe? But to be fair, it's been a long, long time, so I may well have forgotten an XP source or two. Also, to be fair to those world-class adventurers, they're doing it for a lot of money; and I imagine it's a cushier, more reliable job than wandering murder hobo.
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May 22, 2022 21:35
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EXACTLY this, thank you! EDIT: JustJeff88 posted:Divine Coffee Binge, I wanted to let you know that I read that whole long post and it was very interesting. Thanks! I feel better about the self-indulgence now, lol DivineCoffeeBinge fucked around with this message at 22:08 on May 22, 2022 |
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May 22, 2022 22:04
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DGM_2 posted:If you really want a system where material components are actually tracked, you probably don't want to make it any more complicated than the Ultima series does. Maybe a dozen different materials to track at most. Interestingly, the system kept getting modified.
Also for the fighter vs wizard debate but for video games. Ultima 7 and 7p2 featured real time group combat. It was pandemonium if your party was tricked out, and arming a character with a spellbook is a good way to wipe your party. The best solution is to arm everyone with plate mail and two handed swords (or glass swords for serious encounters). 40-50 feral hogs would be wiped out in a flash, although all that slaughter would certainly generate an appetite.
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May 22, 2022 22:47
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Unoriginal One posted:Well that has me scratching my head, as I don't think I'd ever seen anyone level up, even if I used them for each and every single dungeon crawl available in the game.. Regent-only quest XP, maybe? But... Rogr and Allina leveled up in the first actual update?
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May 22, 2022 23:04
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Update 03: Dungeons & Diplomacy  It's been several busy months since I last recorded the events of my regency. At first nothing seemed important enough to write down, and then I was very busy for a while. It started just after we'd returned from Elfwash Keep...  I arrived early to find Noelon and Alliene in the council chambers, debating how to best recover Farid's Coffer of the Realm from Boeruine. Or rather, Alliene was debating it, Noelon was staring into empty air and occasionally nodding. He hadn't been quite the same since that return from the brink of death. Father! Perfect timing! I think we've found- We won't be questing for the Coffer of the Realm. But- No, I won't hear any objections. Boeruine may be a conservative kingdom aiming for rulership of all Anuire, but they rule justly and fairly.I'm somewhat sad to pass up the Coffer of the Realm. As I recall it, it increases the contents of your treasury by 20% of what's left in it at the end of your turn. If you have just a few frugal turns and a decent income, that's enough to start a runaway reaction of free money. Money's generally less important than regency points, since outside of raising massive armies and paying huge bribes, most actions cost more RP than GB's, but it's still useful to have a healthy economy for the aforementioned huge bribes as they become necessary.   With Alliene still scowling at the back of my head, I instructed Noelon to go to the Impregnable Heart temple with a diplomatic offer. They were the other major controlling power remaining in Illien, and I didn't want to see how Alliene would chase them out of the province if they didn't join us willingly.Europa Universalis this ain't. Diplomacy in The Gorgon's Alliance is pretty simple. What is your opponent's current opinion of you? This is based on current diplomatic status and alignment differences. How much are you paying them to give you what you want? There's an upper limit to how much gold you can bribe with in one turn, so even if you have infinite gold, some diplomacy may take multiple turns. As a further exploit, if you vassalize "independents" like the Impregnable Heart, you get all their holdings... so you can freely trade them holdings and then get them back once they choose to serve you.   With Noelon as a go-between, and honestly it made me feel safer to have him out of the castle, I conferred with Hubaere Armiendin and found that we had a lot of common ground. After displaying my piety and willingness to help the war-suffering peoples of Anuire with a substantial gold donation, he eventually agreed to throw his full support behind me and Ilien as a whole.Don't do what I did here, by the way, salaries for vassals can very quickly get out of hand. In this case, the income from Hubaere's temples counters his massive paycheck, but I'll still manage to regret this decision before the update is over.  The Impregnable Heart held major temples scattered throughout Roesone and Medoere as well as its main seat in Ilien. This established the first time we held anything outside of own borders bar my few Sources in the Erebannien forest to our east. It felt good to be making progress, and without needing to fight any wars at that. If the only way to become ruler of Anuire was to make war on peaceful peoples, then, well, I really didn't want any of that. Hubaere is, as it later turns out, not exceptionally busted for dungeons. The only thing that seems to really crank them wide open is high-level mages, and for a very specific reason really only if they START at high level.   It looked like Ilien would be an island of peace in the sea of war that was Anuire... MY LORD. WE ARE BESIEGED BY INSECTS. Noelon, please, I've told you not to refer to people that- LOOK OUT THE WINDOW.  ...well I technically don't believe arachnids are insects.On occasion, "Chaos" enemies, I guess intended to represent raiding monsters and brigands, will pop up in random provinces and harass them. They're usually not particularly dangerous, but they force you to keep some mobile troops around because they can still "occupy" provinces and prevent them from producing taxes.   A single group of spiders is no threat, of course, not even to our un-modified starting army supported by Noelon and Hubaere. The fight is such a non-event that I'm not even going to take this chance to talk about the battle mechanics.  As a precaution, though, I produce some more units. Since the mass combat system in the Gorgon's Alliance is not the same as in the PnP game(do not ask me why not), I have no idea which units are best, so I just choose to produce Knights since I remember that in the PnP game heavy cavalry tend to kick rear end and I hope they copied that over.  We were hardly the only nation suffering from war and raiding, even Ghoere, practically right next door, was at war with the Spiderfell. I had no soft feelings for Baron Gavil Tael, he had proven himself to be a harsh and unpleasant ruler, but my heart bled for the suffering his subjects would experience as they were either squeezed for war taxes or besieged by the Spider's monsters.  We have Roesone and Medoere between us and the Spiderfell, but perhaps it wouldn't hurt to stay informed. As much as I hate to do it without my father's permission... perhaps someone should have a look at the state of the war over there, quietly and subtly.  We can see any nation's gold, regency and income for free, but a successful espionage roll will tell us what troops they have in a province even though we're far away from it. Look at that loving treasury, Jesus Christ. I think the Spider's just been saving every penny since the start of the game AND started with a huge war chest to boot. Plus we also learn that Ghoere has already marched into the Spiderfell. I wonder how that's going to turn out for them?   Inexplicably our ally Roesone also decides to contest one of our temples. Not sure why, but the AI in this game is... it does some wacky poo poo sometimes.   For instance, at the start of the next turn someone inexplicably chooses to Bless our sole province. It's actually a pretty useful spell if you have a high-quality province where you control all the holdings, as it lets you treat all holdings in the province as one level higher for ALL purposes, including regency income. If your Temples are equal to the province's level, the Regency cost is also negligible and will in fact probably be paid back by the holdings you're buffing up.But we have no idea why someone chose to do those to us, or even who.  THE BATTLE SEEMS TO BE TURNING AGAINST GHOERE. If the Spider spreads his domain... he's one of the most twisted Awnshegh in existence, second to few but the Gorgon himself. ...father, we can't stand idly by. As much as it pains me, you're right, as usual.  Declaring war actually consumes a domain action and even in the PnP game, without doing so, it's impossible to move troops into a non-allied ruler's provinces. In the PnP game, however, you immediately get several free troop movements after declaring war, while in the Gorgon's Alliance, it just ends your turn, meaning that defensive wars get a slight advantage.  It might be hard to see in the green-on-green, but all of our troops, represented by Rogr's sprite, are now sitting in the Spiderfell. Siege rules seem to be somewhat true to Birthright PnP. We need a group of troops of higher level than the present castle, level 7 in this case, and each turn they sit in the province and don't get their asses kicked, they degrade the castle by one 'level'. And once the castle is completely gone and we've been sitting there un-ousted for a full turn, we can claim to be "occupying" the province and Invest it as our own.  Of course, the Spider isn't going to take that sitting down. I have no idea exactly how this works, whether the spider conjured a mercenary out of nowhere with his massive coffers, whether it's supposed to be the castle's defenders, etc. But either way, they're here, they're chittering, and they're going to try to kick our asses. As the attacker we get to choose a battlefield. I know that the Woods have one or more tiles occupied by forest that can't be passed through or occupied by troops, but I have no idea what the practical difference is between River and Open in this. In the pen and paper game, rivers and cliffs block movement, but here I can just charge right across them with cavalry.  I must confess that facing my first battle was equal parts exhilarating and terrifying. Arrayed against us on the far side of the river were regiments of the walking dead, hordes of man-sized spiders and gnoll packs that beat their weapons against their shields and jeered at us when they saw us take to the field. I will lead the first wave, my liege. The undead will be no match for my god or my bodyguards.All lieutenants can be deployed along with their bodyguard of troops. Priests and Mage lieutenants can, additionally, cast spells. About the only way to clear skeletons off the battlefield is by blasting them with battlefield-scale Turn Undead casts. In the PnP game, player characters instead join units on the battlefield, giving them bonuses through their leadership and moving with them. They can still cast spells while in a regiment of troops, though, and battlefield-scale magic can do some wild stuff.  As the battle is joined, let's have a look at these cavalry. They've got stats. That's neat, right? That means that I should totally understand what's going on. ... ... ... hell no, because they don't seem to work like the stats from the goddamn PnP game. I'll grog out about what I consider to be the elegant Birthright PnP mass combat system after this post, but suffice to say that this is not it and I have no idea how it works except that Knights seem to be the rock to everything else's scissors except for skeletons. What counters skeletons, again?  Oh, yes, Turn Undead. Mind you, Turn Undead isn't even a battlefield-scale spell in the PnP and argh. Aaaargh. I just have no idea why they didn't straight up adapt the system and grumble grumble groggery.    Alliene, Noelon and Hubaere had insisted that I stay off the battlefield, so all I could do was watch with greater and greater trepidation as good men and women of Iliene fell in the marshes of the Spiderfell. What losses we suffered in this battle were my fault, due to my poor preparation, but I resolved not to let another soldier of Ilien fall for my lack of preparation ever again.  Probably the most jarring part about the strategic battles is how they end. Sometimes you've hardly destroyed one or two enemy units and the game just declares you've won and that a random number of enemy reserves have apparently been destroyed. I think there's some sort of morale mechanic, but I could never grok it. I had a single unit fight to death against five groups of Knights, and I've had equal armies just melt after they lost one or two units.  Seemingly without warning, the Spider's armies melted away before us. Skeletons crumbled to dust before Hubaere and Alliene, spiders scuttled into the woods, goblins and gnolls threw down their weapons and surrendered. We had won our first battle, but it would hardly be our last. Expecting further trouble, I raise more Knights, since they seemed to be the units that worked well. Out of sight I raise another two or three units of them practically every turn from now on until... you'll know it when you see it.  And drat, the Gorgon wasn't kidding about stirring up trouble. Everyone's at war! I think only the western coast is spared. It's interesting that Mur-Kilad has joined the Gorgon against Sielwode, but Thurazor hasn't. Don't ask me why.  In a surprising show of force, Endier and Rhuobhe, despite both being one-province states, appear to be getting the better of their wars against larger enemies. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Pcsa7EFfko  Mechanically I think this just means that there are going to be more "Chaos" attacks from now on, but I suppose it also means that if you piss off the Gorgon he may be able to literally teleport troops into battle against you.   Meanwhile, in our part of the world... we're slowly wearing down the Spider's citadel, shipping in knights, and spending our off actions buffing up holdings.  I was going to try out some realm spells but... some dickhead developed those provinces we had with level 3 sources in them, making them too civilized for our magic, argh!    We get a fight or two against the Spider's troops every turn and then suddenly... the big boy himself joins one of the fights.  It was strange how even the worst nightmares can become routine. I watched as Noelon sent out another day's patrols to ensure that the Spider's troops were bottled up in his citadel, when suddenly a warbling voice rang out throughout the woods. "TREMBLE BEFORE THE MIGHT OF TAL-QAZAR!" MY LORD. THE SPIDER ITSELF HAS TAKEN TO THE FIELD. Armoured knights crashed through the trees towards the sudden army of goblins and mercenaries that had emerged from the direction of Rhumannen, the part of Ghoere that the Spider had thoroughly occupied and laid claim to. This time I couldn't refuse to take to the field, the field came to me.The Spider actually came out to play before this, but that time he ran away after I trounced a single squad of goblins, so that was notably less interesting.  The towering Awnshegh himself emerged with the first wave of goblins and mercenaries, front and center of the formation. I watched an entire formation of Knights crash into him, for the Spider had no bodyguards, and expected to see them returning with his head but instead... battered and bloodied knights began to crawl away across the battlefield, torn apart by wounds the like of which I had never seen. I had to act.Presumably to give even level 1 wizard regents something to do in battle, they turned Magic Missile into a battlefield-level spell when it normally isn't. Since it's the only one Rogr has... I had him sidle up and try to pelt the Spider before he completely mangled that squad of knights and ran rampant.  ...and it worked, a single cast of Magic Missile apparently made the Spider rout.   Even days later, I had no idea exactly what happened. I'm no great practitioner of battle magic, but apparently my feeble Magic Missiles convinced the Spider he was under attack by a mightier wizard and he chose to quit the field rather than risk his life. I know better than to look a gift horse in the mouth. And a quick big map overview. The major notable things is that Sielwode seems to be missing a chunk and... Endier what the hell are you doing? These borders are going to completely gently caress with my OCD.    On the battlefield front, it's yet more wearing down the citadel and yet more the Spider pulling titanic mercenary armies out of his spiky rear end in a top hat. Provinces are supposed to be capped at their development level in terms of how many troops they can raise per turn, but I strongly suspect that may yet another PnP rule that the Gorgon's Alliance devs decided they should just ignore.   Half a year we spent in the woods of the Spiderfell, fending off goblin and gnoll raiders, slowly but surely burning away the edges of the Spider's citadel so he would have no place to hide the next time we routed him from the field. While we were doing that, our neighbours seemed to be engaged in strange and unexpected wars. Endier, of all nations, a hub of trade that had in everyone's memory remained strictly neutral, had suddenly launched what seemed to be a successful attack against Alamie while they were busy battling the goblins of Five Peaks. While I had heard worrisome things about Guilder Kalien over the years... surely a man would never be trustworthy unless he was offered trust. Father, this is going to be like the time you almost lost your lab buying those wood carvings. Well, you never know, they could have turned out to be very valuable like the man said. Surely it can't be his fault that the market for humorous ape pictures imploded shortly after.  Because Guilder Kalien is Neutral Evil, it'll take some work(and money) to get him to like us enough for an alliance, but Endier is currently uninvolved with other alliances and seems to be on on a roll considering that they were a one-province minor at game start. So I figure they're a strong investment. While I was negotiating with Guilder Kalien by letter, I also dispatched some back to Ilien to hear how things were going...   ...it turns out they could have been going better.I'm not sure if it's a coincidence, but I think the Barrow Mound adventure may trigger specifically when you're at war with the Spiderfell or possibly even more specifically when you break down the last level of the Spider's castle. I do think that the Chaos troops moving into Ilien are entirely a coincidence, though, as I don't really think Birthright does particularly complex event scripting.    I'm also not sure if the Spider is literally immortal or if he just keeps running away from these fights to hide in Rhumannen. In the canon Birthright setting he's immensely hard to kill because of troll-like post-death regeneration, and is a combat powerhouse besides, but I strongly suspect his immortality here is just the game being janky. I know that most non-Gorgon rulers can actually be killed on the battlefield, so who the hell knows. Not like the game deigns to tell us.   It seemed that our only chance of getting any peace from the Spider was to travel into the depths of Barrow Mound and challenge him face to face. Also here's why only wizards starting at high level are super busted. Rogr has levelled up to twice his starting level, level 10, due to adventuring, being in battles and leading his nation... but he doesn't automatically get spells on level-up, and spell-teaching books are dungeoneering rarities, plus they seem to be slanted towards the higher levels. This means that the best he can really hope for is to be a Magic Missile machinegun, until he gets to like level 18. A wizard starting at high level, meanwhile, has spells available for every level he has access to.
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May 22, 2022 23:05
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Update 04: Barrow Mound  Once again, Continual Light is more or less a necessity, because these dungeons are dark and some, like this one, rely a lot on easily-missed keys.  Barrow Mound was dark and oppressive, lit only by faint orange lights. The dungeon's inhabitants, goblins and giant spiders, had no need for torches and daylight to find their way around. It's exciting to see you about Haelyn's good work, Rogr, Cerilia will be better for the absence of the Spider. As we considered which way to go first, a giant, hairy shape swarmed out of the darkness and launched itself at Noelon, who had once again taken the lead. The giant spider's stiff hairs rasped over Noelon's black metal plate as he became a flurry of blades, keeping it at bay.Giant spiders are... weird! In default D&D, their basic stats are not too terrifying. They're not super-damaging, hard to hit or hard to kill, but their poison is pretty grim, in many cases being instant death on a failed save. The good news is that The Gorgon's Alliance didn't bother to emulate poisons in any way, so their main canon strength is gone. On the other hand, they seem to take an awful lot of killing. There's extremely little feedback on a hit vs a miss in melee, so I have no drat clue if they just have huge piles of HP or whether their AC is massive. I think the latter, since I get occasional glimpses of "to hit" numbers when processing a turn, and Noelon often needs to roll a 12 or better to hit them. Oddly enough, this sometimes changes from round to round and... it shouldn't? AC should be static. I have no idea what this loving game is doing behind the scenes, and I wish I could take it apart and find out.   The other enemy in Barrow Mound are goblins, which are really just like the elf guards at Elfwash Keep, except that instead of shouting "hey, you're not supposed to be there!" and "stop where you are!" in a generic voice, these guys have what I'd call a "gravelly New Jersey accent" and yell things like: "hey, lemme kill ya" and "hurt ya, kill ya, eat ya" as their battle cries on detecting the party.   Except for one open chamber right at the start, Barrow Mound is mostly corridors. I start by heading to the right of where the game spawns us, to find our first key.    It's interesting that spiders start out on the ceiling until they get close to you, then drop to the floor. Since I don't seem them in any chambers with tall ceilings, I can't tell if they actually start high up and drop down or whether their sprite is just mirrored vertically and flips upside down since the flip happens in the span of a single frame with no frames of the spider in mid-air.   This yields the Blue Key! I have no idea what it opens since I always get it first and thus have no clue what doors are actually barred to us if we don't have it. Doors only report that they're locked and what needs to be used to unlock them if interacted with, without that item. I kind of wish they just colour-coded the loving things like in Doom, it might be less immersive but it would make it a lot easier to navigate and know/remember where to loop back to after finding a certain key. There's a door right next to the one hiding the Blue Key which reports that it needs the White Key, which is our ultimate objective, key-wise.    Next, I return to the main chamber and cross over to the face side, to the left of where we started, this takes us upstairs. Hanging a left brings us to a small optional room that is, as per usual for this dungeon, full of spiders.   THIS IS GETTING SOMEWHAT SILLY. DID ANYONE MEMORIZE A CAST OF INSECT SPRAY? If this was a game with high-quality spells like Insect Spray, we'd also have Blaster Rifles and this would be much simpler.  This carving in the corner is actually a secret door, but once again it requires a White Key to open. It's easy to miss that it's actually a door, though, unless you open the automap, because the automap maps "through" doors and thus in many cases reveals secret passages.   Going the other way at the top of the stairs leads to the gallery above the central chamber. There are three doors and a spare corridor up here.    The first one has, yes, more spiders, but also this insanely good Ring of Protection +4. One thing that's worth noting is that after killing three giant spiders you can get to this thing, and that if you quit and re-enter an adventure without "completing" it,", it may cost you a domain action and respawn all enemies... but it also respawns all treasures. So it's trivial to deck everyone out in super-powered protective gear, hoard magic tomes and collect Rings of Regeneration. For instance, it's possible to reach the Libram of Silver Magic in Elfwash Keep without completing the level, so we could technically have gotten Rogr to level 20 just "grinding" that adventure over and over.     The second room along just contains a Necklace of Missiles which hurls bargain bin fireballs, usually much weaker than the real thing. The true prize here, instead, is the misaligned textures on the floor. Q&A were really having an off day here.   I thought we had reached another dead end until Hubaere drew my attention to the small crevice in the corner. It would be a tight squeeze, but we could make it through... surely that couldn't be intended, though, could it? Did the Goblins have to do this every time they delivered a message to the Spider?Spoiler, yes, it's required.   For now we'll be backing out, though, this hole is actually going to be our exit and not our entrance.     The third door in the gallery contains a Libram of Gainful Conjuration, which is a Libram of Silver Magic but for Neutral mages.  It also has this texture in the corner which is actually an interactible button. It took me a few tries to realize that, at first I just thought it was a decorative texture. Also, as per usual, I have absolutely zero clue what this does or opens, but you generally want to pull every lever and push every button in these dungeons.    A passage between the second and third doors leads to the gallery we could see after crawling through the hole behind the second door.  When I approach this door, the goblins inside attack Noelon through the door without it being open, because the Gorgon's Alliance is a well-designed and tightly programmed game.  Inside we find the green key! Once again, no clue what the hell this opens, but it's probably real important.    The second door has a couple of goblins guarding this switch, which opens a door next to it which leads to a cell full of... spiders. Of course it leads to spiders, everything leads to spiders here.    And the red key. What puzzles me a bit here is that I think several of these keys might not actually open anything. The only door I remember not being able to open without a key are the two that require white keys, and after getting the green and red keys, I know I don't open any doors except for the white key door. What the hell, Gorgon's Alliance?   Don't miss this other little hole in the wall, though, it leads to something we'll want and need.    Hm, a mysterious potion behind a wall in an Awnshegh's lair. I'm not feeling particularly confident this is safe. I'LL BE TAKING IT. In actual D&D, this thing just makes you immune to non-magical weapons for 5d4 rounds. Here it allows you to tank the gently caress out of anything for that duration, which definitely has some uses.   Next step is to hop downstairs and dunk on the goblin guard. There are two doors on the right.   The goblin was also guarding this Oil of Sharpness. Despite the name I think in this game you can technically apply it to any kind of weapon though obviously in actual D&D, it only works for sharp weapons.   This cell door appears to be jammed... Noelon, can you get it open? ITS AS THOUGH SOME DIVINE AGENCY HAS DECLARED IT IMMOVABLE. I CANNOT.It's just a .jpeg that's blocking our way, sadly. But if we go through the open door...    ...we can crawl in through yet another hole in the wall and get into the "barred" cell.   As we enter, a door opens in the far wall and clearly gets my attention. This spider is guarding a wand(just a Wand of Illumination), so I decide to clown on him and move in to collect it.   ...I seem to have mislaid the door. I brought a deck of cards!So, this is absolutely cruel. As far as I can tell there is NO WAY OUT of this room if you walk inside and it closes behind you. The only way out is to exit the adventure. I even tried some "cheat" commands to give myself a Teleport spell and warp out, but despite all guides agreeing on how it should work, it didn't. So... I restarted the adventure and walked all the way back here, this time NOT getting myself locked in a loving closet.   This time, instead, I walk through yet another hole in the wall into a cave-y back rooms section like where I got the Potion of Invulnerability.    Yet another Ioun Stone back here. Interesting fact about them: Unlike other items which are physically worn, Ioun Stones orbit around the "wearer's" head like a little moon. I forget if there's an upper limit to how many you can equip in actual D&D but I don't believe there's one in the Gorgon's Alliance.  This one provides +1 Dex. Another interesting AD&D fact, this time about Dexterity, is that unlike in later editions where you don't get a dex bonus to AC, or perhaps not all your bonus, if you wear heavy armor, nothing prevents you from pulling The Matrix-style dodge moves in full plate. It goes to Noelon since that mental image pleases me.     So at first it might seem like this is a weird detour that provides nothing. This is entirely correct. But when we get back, inexplicably...    Now a door in the MIDDLE of the wall, rather than the left side of it, opens instead. Not being dumb enough to fall for the same trick twice(usually), I instead blast it with a shot from a Wand of Lightning and perch myself at the doorstep, which is just close enough to reach what's behind it...  And it's the white key. This feels idiotic and obtuse, which perfectly captures the spirit of pre-made adventure modules.  First I loop back to the little altar room with the mural that's actually a door, this yields a book that teaches Rogr a random spell between levels 7 to 9 which, if he rolls a level 7 spell, he'll be able to cast in only another four levels of experience. Yay. Then it's back to where we found the first key, the Blue Key, next to which is a door opened by the White Key.     This appears to be yet another dead end, but ONCE AGAIN, an unmarked mural, the horned skull at the back, is actually a door, and in this case one we need to progress at all.    Beyond it lies a maze of twisty tunnels, all alike.   Aside from the end goal, the main goal is another pair of Ioun Stones.   I've been handing them all to Noelon so far, so his head is barely visible from inside a cloud of rapidly spinning orbs.    HOLD. I SEE THE SPIDER AHEAD. Stop shouting, we don't want him to notice us. THIS IS MY NORMAL SPEAKING VOICE.The Spider doesn't notice us at first, so instead I try to aggro the non-capitalized spider right ahead instead.   Of course I somehow manage to get it to latch on to Rogr instead of Noelon and he almost gets munched in two rounds of combat.   And then the Spider joins the party, just as Rogr gets out of the way. For the AD&D-knowers out there, his stats are as follows: AC: -2 HP: 81 Thac0: 7 3 Attacks of 1d10/1d10/1d6, with the third being a bite that's save-or-die, and even if you save you eat 20 damage 15% Magic Resistance Regens 1 HP per round and can regen even after death, like a Troll Can spit blinding poison that blinds up to three targets for 1d6 turns(turns are 10 rounds each) For those not in the know, these stats mean he should basically be able to turn the entire party inside out and wear them like party hats in the span of a few minutes. The game obviously doesn't model most of his abilities, but I still don't like his raw damage output by itself, so let's do something about that.   Noelon takes some performance enhancing drugs and goes to work. There's little feedback, so it just looks like Noelon and the Spider flailing at each other for several rounds until suddenly...   Yes, it is DEEPLY anticlimactic. Let's just get out of the Spider's basement already.    After cleaning up his treasury, we get this new artifact. Considering that adventure mode is just RIFE with these bloodstrength-boosting items, there is generally little reason to ever spend regency on boosting your bloodstrength. The main point of greater bloodline strength is that at certain breakpoints you gain new abilities or have a chance to increase existing ones from their Minor versions to Major, or from Major to Greater. The Gorgon's Alliance doesn't feature all of the abilities, and especially not some of the more busted ones like Divine Wrath(imagine a Berserker Rage that makes mages roll max damage on all spells they cast.) or Elemental Control(free elemental summoning and spell-like abilities, albeit with per week/day use limits), which may be entirely missing or present only in downgraded versions(Divine Wrath, for instance, only has its, still very good, physical combat boosts and is always active). But some are still very good, like a Vorynn-blooded character with Enhanced Sense just straight up lowers the difficulty on all Realm actions by one point. It may sound minor, but over time the saving in Regency Points to boost successes can really add up. Anyway, let's blow this joint.   I'm not sure if the adventure is meant to kill him or what, but he's still loving here when we get back to the world map, Jesus Christ, dude, just give it up!  While the Spider keeps raising full armies from Rhumannen and running them over, I don't want to run back to deal with the spiders in Ilien and risk him retaking the province or some other dickhead nation snagging it out from under my nose. The spiders can't conquer Ilien or wear down my fort there, but it eats some of our tax income from it.   With the last remnants of the Spider's forces wiped out, his citadel burned to the ground and the Awnshegh himself slain- For the, what, third time? I lost count. Fifth, I believe. Ahem. With the Spider completely and utterly slain for good, we could finally raise the banner of Ilien over his former lair. For now, though, we would need to be wary. Though we longed to return to Ilien, it wouldn't be an option until the Spider's forces had also been evicted from Rhumannen.   May as well establish a rule of law and some commerce while we're here. The Spiderfell is an insanely good province due to its 5/7 rating. In the PnP game it's a 0/7, as befits a proper deep wilderness. But here it's simultaneously a well-developed province financially(except for the absence of a Guild) and also a powerhouse of magic. Unfortunately Endier controls a tier 7 Source here, so we can't tap it for ourselves unless we want to pick a fight with them.   Back with the counsellors, we're finally on the + provinces side of the Investiture chart! Heck yeah.  And paying for all these goddamn knights is starting to get expensive. Not going to disband a single unit until the Spider gets put down for good, though. By the look of it, someone's already parked a pack of somethings on top of his sole remaining province.  As we celebrated our victory over the Spider, we received a missive that made Alliene spit her wine all over Noelon. To be fair, it was certainly the biggest joke we'd ever heard.Endier just figured that WE would want to be THEIR vassal. It feels like they've got something the wrong way around.   Let's put the record straight, shall we? Since I literally can't give him enough gold to convince him with pure one-time payments, I instead offer him a "salary" to be my vassal.  And while I'm haggling with Guilder Kalien, Medoere crushes the last remnants of the Spiderfell, and then...  What the gently caress, Endier? Warding prevents units from entering OR leaving the loving province, so here's Endier stranding us away from being able to liberate Ilien from its spider siege. For gently caress's sake!  Well, we're stuck here for a few turns until it dissipates, so I just sit here rolling up various holdings in the Spiderfell and beyond, some of the temples we scarfed off Hubaere, for instance, can be notably higher level than they are.  Two turns later, it finally vanishes. But between the siege of Ilien limiting the taxes from it and some FUCKER tossing a Blight at it, my income has crumbled and...  We're going to have to downsize.  About half our army gets to go back to the fields, and several of them literally get paid in well-wishes and inspirational speeches, which is my interpretation of paying upkeep with Regency rather than Gold.   At least now we can squish those spiders harrying Ilien.   Finally back in Ilien, back in the castle I'd finally started thinking of as mine. We had defeated a major villain in Anuire, we had released Ilien from the swarm of giant spiders that had been terrorizing it for weeks... and then we got another letter that made Alliene do the spit-take thing. This time Noelon got his shield up in time.Motherfucker, Diemed not only declares war on us but somehow manages to get one of our literal allies, Medoere, in on it! Together they outnumber us about four to one on provinces. I considered diplomatic ouvertures to make them reconsider, we had been friends and allies of Roesone for years and years... If they're allied with Diemed, they won't stop until we're crushed and under their control. I SUGGEST WE STRIKE FIRST.   Medoere's going to have to bring some better game than that to gently caress with us, but with all of their provinces having castles, they can potentially outmaneuver us until we can afford to bring back the remainder of our knight swarm. Next time: we figure out if we're going to get our asses kicked by this fight they've picked or whether the underdogs of Ilien and Endier can take out the big bullies. Our current point tally: 6 for 2 provinces held. 9 for 3 provinces held by our Vassals(Endier has 3 provinces) 2 points for our 1 alliances(Roesone). 20 points for artifacts held(Dierdren's Ring, Brenna's Favor) 31 points out of 300 needed to win.
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May 22, 2022 23:06
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Can you use multiple of the same ioun stone on the same character? Because having a massive cloud of stones floating around someone's head giving them 25 in every stat would be extremely funny (especially if this game provides the high stat bonuses like regen, illusion immunity, etc). Though it would require looting and leaving dungeons a hell of a lot and sounds very tedious unless fights go fast. Mage spells only coming as rare drops in exploration is some world class bullshit and I will not judge you if you decide to farm spells since a level 10 mage with only 1st and 2nd circle magic is just dumb. You're a regent, you should be able to just buy some drat spells.
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May 22, 2022 23:52
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Evil Fluffy posted:Can you use multiple of the same ioun stone on the same character? Because having a massive cloud of stones floating around someone's head giving them 25 in every stat would be extremely funny (especially if this game provides the high stat bonuses like regen, illusion immunity, etc). Though it would require looting and leaving dungeons a hell of a lot and sounds very tedious unless fights go fast. As far as I can tell there is no limit to Ioun Stones per character, not even in the base 2e AD&D DMG under the entry for Ioun Stones. Though the stat-boosting ones do limit their stat boosting to 18.On the other hand, here are the varieties in the DMG... 1 pale blue rhomboid adds 1 point to Str. (18 max.) 2 scarlet & blue sphere adds 1 point to Int. (18 max.) 3 incandescent blue sphere adds 1 point to Wis. (18 max.) 4 deep red sphere adds 1 point to Dex. (18 max.) 5 pink rhomboid adds 1 point to Con. (18 max.) 6 pink & green sphere adds 1 point to Cha. (18 max.) 7 pale green prism adds 1 level of experience 8 clear spindle sustains person without food/water 9 iridescent spindle sustains person without air 10 pearly white spindle regenerates 1 hp/turn 11 pale lavender ellipsoid absorbs spells up to 4th level* 12 lavender & green ellipsoid absorbs spells up to 8th level** 13 vibrant purple prism stores 2d6 levels of spells 14 dusty rose prism gives +1 protection Nothing prevents you from being boosted up to level 30, not needing to eat or breathe, constantly regenerating vast amounts of HP, with impossible to hit AC, all stats at 18 and spells aimed at you just being harmlessly eaten up by the stones.
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May 22, 2022 23:56
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If that regeneration ioun stone lets you come back from death like with the ring, you should give one of them to someone else (like your regent). Getting regen on everyone sounds insanely good. And yeah, I remember the dungeons being an obtuse mess, to the point where I just didn't do them regardless of the rewards. Like I said: this game has a great concept but lousy execution.
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May 23, 2022 01:02
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PurpleXVI posted:Nothing prevents you from being boosted up to level 30, not needing to eat or breathe, constantly regenerating vast amounts of HP, with impossible to hit AC, all stats at 18 and spells aimed at you just being harmlessly eaten up by the stones. Well when you do your playthrough where you break the game over your knee I know what my request is going to be...
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May 23, 2022 02:16
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I simply love that the description text for Ioun Stones literally has the word 'worn' in inverted commas.
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May 23, 2022 02:43
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