This island was never meant for humans - Let's Play Tainted Grail

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Kobal2: Apr 29, 2019

malkav11 posted:

Yes, food is really critical. And we don't have Arev, who can generate it with his ability.

Speaking of, since the food counter is a d6, I assume we have a max reserve of 6 ? Can we gain d6s ?

# ? Oct 20, 2020 05:35

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# ? Apr 29, 2024 12:55

That Italian Guy: Jul 25, 2012; We need the equivalent of the shrimp = small pastry avatar, but for ambulances and their mysteries now.

Kobal2 posted:

Speaking of, since the food counter is a d6, I assume we have a max reserve of 6 ? Can we gain d6s ?

That's actually just a visual aid I'm using on TTS; in the original BG, resources are marked with small red cubes (or small purple cubes to indicate a value of 5). If we go overboard in a resource I may add a larger die or more d6; I doubt we'll need more than a couple, though :v:

# ? Oct 20, 2020 06:28

malkav11: Aug 7, 2009

It's quite possible to run out of space on your character sheets, even with five point cubes. But...not anytime soon.

# ? Oct 20, 2020 06:33

Omobono: Feb 19, 2013; That's it! No more hiding in tomato crates! It's time to show that idiota Germany how a real nation fights!

For pasta~! CHARGE!

Actually you people convinced me, switching from C to A. Some easier encounters to stockpile food and grab some xp while exploring.

# ? Oct 20, 2020 06:34

AJ_Impy: Jun 17, 2007; SWORD OF SMATTAS. CAN YOU NOT HEAR A WORLD CRY OUT FOR JUSTICE? WHEN WILL YOU DELIVER IT?; Yam Slacker

C, trust our reserves for a day.

# ? Oct 20, 2020 07:03

That Italian Guy: Jul 25, 2012; We need the equivalent of the shrimp = small pastry avatar, but for ambulances and their mysteries now.

It's a brand new day! Let's have a look at what happens when a new dawn rises.

Start of the Day posted:

1) Remove expired Menhirs: A Menhir that is already at "0 days left" on its duration at the beginning of the Day becomes inactive and goes dark. It is removed from the Table. This causes the land around it to be reclaimed by the wyrdness; in case there was any doubt, this is Bad for us:
- We have to remove from the map any Locations that are no longer in range of an Active Menhir - an Active Menhir reveals the 8 Locations that are either cardinally or orthogonally connected to it. We are allowed to put the Locations back if we manage to rekindle a Menhir that is in range of that Location;
- All Characters present on any removed Location card immediately lose 2 , gain 2 and are moved to the nearest remaining Location card (if there are several Locations the same distance away, choose the lowest-numbered one). This is not a Travel Action.
- If the last Menhir on the map goes out, we do not remove the last remaining Location cards. We may continue to play in these Locations, but each Character loses 2 and gains 2 at each Start of the Day - until they die or activate one of the Menhirs.
2) Reduce Active Menhir(s) duration: At the beginning of a new day, the flame in each rekindled Menhir gets a bit weaker. We lower the Menhir duration by 1, to a minimum of 0 days left.
3) Reduce Time counters (Dials): certain events will ask us to start a "timer" to keep track of the passage of time; each day, these trackers go down by 1. NOTE: these counters are remove when, at the beginning of a new day, they are set to 1 (instead of 0 like the Menhirs).
4) Reveal and read a new Event Card: we then draw a card from the Event/Chapter deck. Most events will stay in play only for the day they are drawn in; Quest Events, instead, remain active until the relevant Quest has been resolved.
5) Choose Equipment: this is where we decide who equips what, if we have multiple items with the same Keyword. We cannot equip new items during the rest of the day!

- We don't have any Expired Menhirs, but there is an Active one in Cuanacth, so we reduce its duration by 1 (6 days left).
- There are are no Time counters active at the moment so we skip Step 3.
- We then draw a new Event card:

We now know what happens when a Menhir goes dark, and it looks like these people have had to experience it first person. We don't have any Wealth, but we can decide to give them some Food, if we want to. We'll vote on this at the end of the update.
From time to time numbered Chapter Event cards (like Chapter 1-2) are going to ask us to add a certain number of Random Events to the Events deck. These events could be good or bad and are not advancing the Story; this means that right now we have up to 3 days (5 -2 characters) of "time passes" Events before we trigger Chapter 1-3. Please note that, by completing our current Active Quest, we would "skip" to Chapter 1-5 instead (and follow the text on that card).
- Finally, we equip the Adventuring Gear we have ~~bummed from~~ received from the townsfolk. I've temporarily assigned it to Ailei, but we have all the time to move it to Maggot, if you prefer, before its effects become relevant.

Expedition Log posted:

Tasks: None!
Active Menhirs: Cuanacth Farmhold (101), 6 days left.

We have decided to go North, to 102. Like in many Rogue-lites/likes Food is a primary concern. In Tainted Grail it's quite possible to enter a death spiral if we ever run out of it, due to the lack of Energy causing us to have very short days - days that we are spending trying to fill our pantry with delicious boar instead of following our Quest or rekindling Menhirs.

Travel posted:

We are Travelling to Location 102. Each party member spends 1 Energy (left: 7 both).
New Locations revealed::
- Fore-Dweller Mounds (106) and Whitening (107)

The familiar icon means that both Locations contain a Menhir! They are both inactive, of course, but we may be able to rekindle them once we discover the secret Menhir Rites - whenever we visit one of these locations, we can learn for free what we'll need to rekindle their Menhirs. Whitening has a new icon though: the red village icon means that this place is not welcoming to the outsiders. We'll need to resolve a Diplocy Encounter first thing first when we enter that Location. A quick reminder for all 4 symbols we can find under each Location's name:

With that in mind, it's time to activate the Location Action. Ailei is probably goint to be more of an hindrance than an help, right now, so we send in Maggot alone. Maggot spends 2 , receives 2 Food and draws a Green Encounter! Encounters are color coded based on the type of threat we are going to face:
- The Green deck is mostly used in the wild and contains natural threats such as wild animals or legendary beasts. Many of these Encounters grant Food when defeated.
- The Gray deck contains dangers related to the world of men, such as brigands, rogue knights, or people driven to insanity. Many of these Encounters grant Items or Wealth when defeated.
- The Purple deck contains mysterious and supernatural threats. We will have to discover its significance ourselves.
- The Blue deck is a special, non-combat deck - it is used for Diplomacy, mostly when we visit an unfriendly Settlement and it contains dangerous situations, as well as personal and diplomatic challenges.

Cards in each of these decks are divided into four difficulty levels, making the game harder as it progresses. We should be able to win Level 1 Encounters, at the moment, but we may need to get some Items (mostly weapons and armor...turns out they make a difference when fighting stuff) if we want to avoid unnecessary danger - a phyrric victory is often a quick path to a swift demise. We will probably try to bravely run away away from anything Level 2, though.

Since this is our first game, though, each of the 4 decks has a "baby's first Encounter" card on top of it, so we should be safe enough with this one.

Combat rules posted:

Combat in Tainted Grail is a turn-based confrontation between a Character (or a Party of Characters) and an enemy, represented by the Encounter card. Together, Characters build a long line (Sequence) of cards, with the aim of gaining enough markers in the Combat Pool to defeat the Encounter. These markers represent the total progress Characters make against their opponent, such as their tactical advantage, wounds they cause, and the opponent�s exhaustion.
To simulate the ebb and flow of Combat, enemies are often on the lookout at first, but become more dangerous as the encounter progresses; some may attempt to Flee if they feel they are in mortal danger.

The main Combat Sequence is as follows:
1) All characters involved in a Combat draw 3 cards from their Combat deck - a character's starting deck contains 15 basic cards and is different from the others. It is possible to take a Mulligan by discarding the initial hand; you can repeat this, but each one reduces your hand by 1, so a starting character can only take up to 2 Mulligans.
2) The Active character (if there are multiple ones involve in the Combat) plays 1+ cards, as allowed by the rules. We check to see if the Encounter has been won, otherwise we proceed to step 3.
3) The Enemy makes an attack against the Active character.
4) Repeat Step 2 and 3 for the other character(s) if any, then go to step 5.
5) Each character discards down to 3 cards, then draws 1 card.

The basic concept for Combat is to try an create a sequence of Cards by matching symbols on their sides, to gain some progress, represented by red markers , without getting slapped around too much. But we can't gently caress around too much: if we are forced to draw from an empty deck, we immediately lose the Combat. The full mechanics for this part of the game are deceptively complex and I usually find out that it's easier to explain them step by step when they become relevant, instead of going full on from the beginning. The enemies marked as "Your first Encounter" also have some text on their cards to help us navigate the Combat system. Without further ado, let's Draw out First Green Encounter and prepare to rumble.

A Rat-thing! posted:

At a glance:
- We need to gain 4 to win the Encounter.
- On its turn, the Mist-Shaped Vermin is going deal 1 Damage to us (if the current count is between 0 and 2); or it's going to remove one of our from the Combat pool if the count is 3.
- If we don't play any card during our turn or if we want to escape, the enemy is going to perform an Opportunity attack. In this case, the Vermin is as brave as us, and if we try to run away (or if we don't attack it) it'll simply escape as well, denying us his delicious Loot.
- Mmm, loot. If we manage to win, we'll receive 1 Food. Mystery meat!
- On the right side, there are some Attribute keys that we'll use to try to build our Combat Sequence. I'll explain those below.

Let's have a look at one of our Combat cards:

On the left side, there are 2 rows of keys. Our goal is to match a key on the left row with one on the same "line" on the previous card (the monster card or another card we've played previously in the Sequence). The right row of keys opens up some connectors for the next card we'll play in the Sequence.
- At the top, we have 3 orange keys with the Combat attributes: Aggression, Courage and Practicality. If we manage line up the left one with one matching the same attribute in the previous card in the Sequence, we get the effect shown in the black box. NOTE: These keys can be present or absent from cards, or they can require 2 points in an Attribute to allow a match (the Attribute symbol will be doubled in the key if that's the case).
- Below that, there is a Blue key: that's Magic. To activate the connection and get the bonus in the box, we need to spend 1 point of Magic from our reserves. This key is present on most cards, but is missing from some.
- At the bottom, the Yellow key is the Bonus. This key is always present and.
The first card we play each round is "free" - we don't need to pair Attribute or Magic keys to be able to play it (we simply don't get any effect, Bonus aside, in that case). Following cards need instead to connect to at least one of the Orange or Blue keys, and they also need to have a symbol in a key we're connecting.

Finally, our Combat Cards have an additional effect if they are the Last card of the Sequence: if that's the case, we resolve the effect in the center of the card whenever it is triggered. I'll explain the rest as we encounter it, but you can also have a look at this Reference Cards if you are curious:

As I mentioned before, this sound deceptively complex, but it's quite straightforward when played out. So, without further ado, let's face the furry menace. We start by Drawing our hand (3 cards):

Looking at our options, I can see we can win the combat on the next Round with the cards we have at the moment and without losing any health; we will have to spend 1 Magic to do so, though.

I play Hex and I connect the Blue key by spending 1 point of Magic. If we had 1 point of Practicality (snake head) we would immediately draw 1 card, but since Maggot is lacking that attribute, the key does nothing even if we have connected it. The bonus in the last row nets us an additional , for a total of (2 from the Magic key, 1 from the Bonus key).
We are not going to play another card right now: we can't connect distraction, since we are lacking Practicality; and we don't want to spend 1 more Magic to connect War Magic since we're going to win on the next Round anyway.

The bonus for Hex would allow us to immediately gain an additional on Placement, winning the Encounter, if we were fighting an Encounter Value 4 Purple creature, but since this is Green, we don't get the bonus.

At this point, the enemy attacks us! Since our current Combat Value is 3, the Vermin removes 1 from the Pool; if we had only had 1 to 2 , it would have dealt 1 Damage to us instead.

We have less than 3 cards in our hand, so we don't have to discard any. Instead, we draw 1 bringing us back to our hand limit. Defense is a nice basic card if we want to take our time (and we don't have armor/shields to prevent damage), but I had hoped to draw a card with a in the Bonus box to avoid having to play War Magic; but since we were unlucky, I play that instead.

Since this is the first card we're playing this Round, we don't need to connect any Attribute or Magic key to be able to play it. We score 2 more from the Bonus Key and we now have enough to win the Encounter before the enemy gets to retaliate. Unfortunately, War Magic has a "On Placement" ability that forces us to gain 1 (current: 2). If this was the last card in our Sequence, we would have gained 2 at the start of the next turn (Hourglass symbol), but since the combat is over, we only get the drawback.

Anyway, we have won! On top of the 2 Food we got from activating the Location Action, we got 1 more Food from defeating the Vermin. I'm sure it has some kind of lunchbox with it, and we are not going to feast on mutated rat meat. Anyhoo, we can freely trade Food, Wealth, Items and Secrets between characters in the same Location, and we distribute the Food so that both Ailei and Maggot have 6 Food (minus whatever we have decided to spare for the refugees). Time to have a look around.

Exploration: Hunters' Grove (102) posted:

Ailei spends 1 (current:6).

Intro:

As funny as it would be to randomly deface a Shrine, we don't have the required Status to do so. We could steal some of the offerings, though. But first, since we don't have the Tracker Status, we are forced to go to Verse 3.
Verse 3:

If Lone Wolf has taught Goons anything is to always go left, never go near water and always vote Y to a "do you want to go on an adventure" choice (jokes aside, I will stop the update and ask the thread to vote if I think the thread should take ownership of the consequences of a decision).
Verse 5:

Decisions like this one, for example. In case it wasn't clear, 1 additional per Action is a massive penalty. The Dial/Time Counter is stuck with Ailei, since she was the one exploring and we cannot trade Dials/Counters unless specified; the manual doesn't mention anything about splitting Travel cost (cause they normally are 1 per Character), but I'd say it makes sense in this case to allow Maggot to pay part of the cost - as long as Ailei pays at least 1 point - to indicate that he, too, is helping with the dead weight. Even this way, we have the reamainder of the Today and tomorrow to find the Island Asylum and Explore it with doubled costs. Or...we could just ditch her on the side of the Road.

VOTE IS NOW OPEN
:siren:

Vote Options posted:

1) Refugees: vote A if you want both Ailei and Maggot to give them 1 Food to receive Rep&Exp. Vote B if you want only one character to do so (please specify whom). Vote C to let them starve.
2) Bowmaiden: vote A if you want to attempt to help her or vote B if you want to say "sorry" and move on.
3) Delicious offerings? Vote A if you want us to dig into the offerings on the altar (and please specify who should do the pilfering) or B to leave them be. This will cost 1 for Maggot or Ailei if we ditch the bowmaiden; or 2 for Ailei if she is carring the bowmaiden with her. we cannot interact with the altar before encountering the Bowmaiden choice, and if we interrupt that chain of events we are not going to be able to go back to it, so we can't change the sequence of events to lower the cost.
4) Travel direction: This is going to be more of a free vote, especially since we are not exactly sure where this Asylum Island is. EDIT: also feel free to suggest if you want the party to split up; this is a tactical decision with positive and negative consequences (cover more ground, but do so alone), so it's not automatically right nor wrong. If we are NOT carrying the Bowmaiden with us, I'll follow the usual travel rules and explore/interact with the Locations we visit; if we she is with us, instead, I'll try to hurry towards the destination without any additional interaction unless the thread demands otherwise (we currently have 4 and 3 effective on Ailei and Maggot respectively, or two more each if we are OK with become Exhausted). If you want me to attempt specific interactions on the way, please specify what!
4a) Plan Kobal2: Go west, stick to the plan, get to them mounds that look decidedly mist-covered. We'll even have time to treasure hunt/recharge magic!
4b) Plan TravelLog: Ailei to 106 and Maggot (with the Bowmaiden) to 107. The event card says the asylum is "off the coast to the south" so I guess we can have Aielle loop back down to the left and Maggot do the same on the right, ultimately meeting back up in Cuanacht. The Charred Conclave also sounds magical (perhaps charred because magic went wrong?) so I want Maggot to go there.
5) Double Dip: thanks to the magic of asynchronous play, we can play "what if" scenarios. In this case, we could have used the Location Action in Cuanacth again before leaving (since it refreshes at the start of a new Day). Vote A to have someone do some chores (and please specify whom) or B to save some extra .

NOTE: feel free to add simple conditions to your votes (like "Vote 5A if we abandon the Bowmaiden, 5B if we decide to help her).

We currently are in Location 102.

Explored Locations:
- 101
- 102

That Italian Guy fucked around with this message at 22:55 on Oct 20, 2020

# ? Oct 20, 2020 14:53

Narsham: Jun 5, 2008

Not familiar with this game, but the combat reference card says Opportunist triggers if you don�t play 2 or more combat cards in Step 2, so wouldn�t the rat run away before you killed it given that you only played 1 card?

# ? Oct 20, 2020 15:19

Omobono: Feb 19, 2013; That's it! No more hiding in tomato crates! It's time to show that idiota Germany how a real nation fights!

For pasta~! CHARGE!

Narsham posted:

Not familiar with this game, but the combat reference card says Opportunist triggers if you don�t play 2 or more combat cards in Step 2, so wouldn�t the rat run away before you killed it given that you only played 1 card?

The rat isn't an Opportunist though. All* combat enemies have opportunity attacks, only some are Opportunists.

*I assume

Soooo, where the gently caress is the Island Asylum and should we bother?

1) A - we're loaded.
2) Pending.
3) B - nope nope nope. Not risking the local priesthood's wrath.
4) Pending
5) Pending. We kinda need energy if we decide to carry the load around.

E: how bad an idea is splitting the party?
Maggot could move to 104 in order to scout 109. If the Asylum is there, Ailei joins up and we go there next day, otherwise Ailei moves to 108 while Maggot joins back up with her.
E2: am I missing something or does Maggot not care about exhausting, at the moment? He isn't recovering more than 4 energy per turn anyways.

Omobono fucked around with this message at 15:44 on Oct 20, 2020

# ? Oct 20, 2020 15:33

That Italian Guy: Jul 25, 2012; We need the equivalent of the shrimp = small pastry avatar, but for ambulances and their mysteries now.

Narsham posted:

Not familiar with this game, but the combat reference card says Opportunist triggers if you don�t play 2 or more combat cards in Step 2, so wouldn�t the rat run away before you killed it given that you only played 1 card?

As mentioned by Omobono, the "Opportunist" enemy Trait forces us to play 2 cards (instead of 1) to avoid the Opportunity Attack. Some enemies have additional Traits, like Opportunist, but the Rat was just a tutorial fight, so it had none. I'll explain these mechanics more in depth once we face enemies that have one of these Traits.

Omobono posted:

Soooo, where the gently caress is the Island Asylum and should we bother?

We don't know for sure. We do have a map that may or may not be accurate, though. "No comment" on the second part of the question :iiam:

Omobono posted:

E: how bad an idea is splitting the party?

It's a tactical decision. Splitting the party allows us to cover more ground, but forces us to Explore with a specific Character and we will be unable to pool resources or face enemies as a Party. You can definitely vote for it, I'll add a note for this under option 4.

That Italian Guy fucked around with this message at 16:10 on Oct 20, 2020

# ? Oct 20, 2020 16:07

malkav11: Aug 7, 2009

Edit: Nevermind, missed it. But yeah, the map can be of help.

# ? Oct 20, 2020 16:07

Kobal2: Apr 29, 2019

That Italian Guy posted:

We have less than 3 cards in our hand, so we don't have to discard any. Instead, we draw 1 bringing us back to our hand limit. Defense is a nice basic card if we want to take our time (and we don't have armor/shields to prevent damage), but I had hoped to draw a card with a in the Bonus box to avoid having to play War Magic; but since we were unlucky, I play that instead.

Couldn't we have played defense for 0 gain in red cubes, then rat deals one damage because there's 2 red cubes on it, that dmg is nulled by Defense's bonus effect ; basically making it all a null turn but letting us get one more roll of the "dice" before having to suck it up and War Magic ? Or am I getting confused by the wall of rules ?
Not a huge deal, but if we can avoid stacking Horror on the guy going naturally crazy over time, that'd be better ^^;

About the event : what does the "add N random events to the deck" part of the event mean, in practice ? Are those typically worse or better than the base deck ? Is it a time management thing because Bad poo poo happens if we run out of deck ?

Anyway, votes !
1) C. We don't give away The Preci... I mean food and we have no cash. Filthy beggars ! You should be responsible, self-sufficient, bootstraps pulling Scroungers, like us !
2) Rough choice. Not only is carrying the cripple a huge time sink, we have no idea where the asylum *is*. It could be dead island (it's the only island that springs to mind), but looking at the map it could just as well be those things in the middle of the lake to the NW, or those broken towers jutting out of the sea to the SW. Plus the time sink would mean picking one of those directions and sprinting to it without stopping to explore or do card actions... Lastly, there's the upside/downside calculation. Upside : if we succeed in the task we'll probably get some reward (rep, xp likely, maybe an item, maybe a permanent status). Downside : doesn't seem to be any, unless Tracker but not Saved Hunter is a trigger for Bad poo poo but I'm thinking it's just a checkmark to avoid re-meeting her each time we go through here. All in all, I'm weighing towards B. Sorry girl, we're on a clock here. Big drat Heroes coming through.
3) B. loving with the gods is bad juju.
4) Go west, stick to the plan, get to them mounds that look decidedly mist-covered. We'll even have time to treasure hunt/recharge magic !
5) For just one energy, Ailei could stand to sweep a couple floors. Rep will likely help us deal with the cannibal village on our way to the burny arms place. A (Ailei)

When did Aileil gain her one Terror btw ? Is it because Maggot used War Magic ?
EDIT : oh wait no, it's just that her Terror track doesn't start at the base. Well that's not confusing in the least, good cardboard UI design there.

EDIT2 : Oh, and I'm OK with Ailei keeping the Adventuring kit. Rain and Chill sound like energy sinks to me, and I'd rather have our healer at her fullest.

Kobal2 fucked around with this message at 16:35 on Oct 20, 2020

# ? Oct 20, 2020 16:21

That Italian Guy: Jul 25, 2012; We need the equivalent of the shrimp = small pastry avatar, but for ambulances and their mysteries now.

Omobono posted:

Am I missing something or does Maggot not care about exhausting, at the moment? He isn't recovering more than 4 energy per turn anyways.

The main difference is that, if we are Exhausted, we will not be able to bank the leftover effective Energy for the following day; not all days are created equal, as costs and other criteria could change based on the Event that we have drawn for that day. As you noticed, it's possible for Maggot to go through the full Fear and Loathing in Kamelot experience by being constantly exhausted without too much of a drawback, under normal circumstances.
:shroom:

Feel free to let me know if you think I should go full hog on

at any time, though