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I will cast a meaningless protest vote for the nonexistent goblin rulers
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May 14, 2022 06:12
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disposablewords posted:I'm unclear on what you're saying would have been a houserule. Henchmen and their availability in general? Because that's right in the description of Charisma in the PHB. Further GM-facing rules on how to actually enact them are right in the DMG. And it makes the distinction between henchmen (your NPC lieutenant there because they respect or like you) and hirelings (the low-level mass followers you're paying money for), which you seem to be conflating. Apologies, I misspoke (mistyped?). CHA determines maximum amount of henchmen, but what I was saying was that henchmen aren't automatic. You could search one out if you wanted, but they weren't just handed to you at character creation like the post I quoted implied. (If you didn't mean to imply that, perhaps I misread as well.) Some characters never get any, some ended up with a whole posse. But it was always a thing you had to go out or your way to get, just as good friends are in the real world. Granted you could still have a henchman from step one going the childhood friend route in your backstory (a Sam to your Frodo) or whatever else, but that still requires creating a proper backstory. I don't know about the groups you played with, but as a kid I was in an unfortunate amount that just wanted to roll up stats and go, and as an adult I find that many of my players prefer the whole "taking on the world by myself" ideal, so their backstories tend to disavow creating henchmen, and even the party ends up being more a found family thing.
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May 15, 2022 07:37
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Felinoid posted:Apologies, I misspoke (mistyped?). CHA determines maximum amount of henchmen, but what I was saying was that henchmen aren't automatic. You could search one out if you wanted, but they weren't just handed to you at character creation like the post I quoted implied. (If you didn't mean to imply that, perhaps I misread as well.) Some characters never get any, some ended up with a whole posse. But it was always a thing you had to go out or your way to get, just as good friends are in the real world. Granted you could still have a henchman from step one going the childhood friend route in your backstory (a Sam to your Frodo) or whatever else, but that still requires creating a proper backstory. I don't know about the groups you played with, but as a kid I was in an unfortunate amount that just wanted to roll up stats and go, and as an adult I find that many of my players prefer the whole "taking on the world by myself" ideal, so their backstories tend to disavow creating henchmen, and even the party ends up being more a found family thing. Fair. I meant them as something you "get" mechanically, as in the rules support and suggest them and the capability is just built in to every character based on their Charisma stat. Nobody I played with actually used them, though, but I personally love even basic character shenanigans like that or troupe play. It's one of those nebulous "feel" things - "3 to 6 dudes against the world" inevitably just feels too small for me, I'd love for more campaigns (and games in general) to really reflect having a strong supporting cast. 2e's support for it is pretty barebones but it's something.
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May 15, 2022 17:41
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disposablewords posted:Fair. I meant them as something you "get" mechanically, as in the rules support and suggest them and the capability is just built in to every character based on their Charisma stat. Nobody I played with actually used them, though, but I personally love even basic character shenanigans like that or troupe play. It's one of those nebulous "feel" things - "3 to 6 dudes against the world" inevitably just feels too small for me, I'd love for more campaigns (and games in general) to really reflect having a strong supporting cast. 2e's support for it is pretty barebones but it's something. One of the issues 2e, and D&D in general, have is that they are very poor about support for anyone being less than 100%, if that makes sense. If you have a henchman, he can't just give you a bonus of some sort(maybe his assisting attacks add 1d4 to your hits, or him keeping pressure on the enemy gives you +2 to hit, or something like that), and enemies can't be one-shot-kill mooks or abstracted "mobs." Individual scenarios and modules sometimes have rules for abstracting this, but none exist overall. This means that adding more people to the battlefield, as in the form of henchmen or the like, easily makes the maths of the entire thing crumble like brittle chalk in a hydraulic press. In fact I'm pretty sure Birthright has the only formal mass battle system in all of 2e. Hell, does 3e even add one anywhere?
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May 15, 2022 17:53
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Pretty sure it shows up in some WOTC splatbook. Vague memories of seeing something about a mass combat system in a war themed book years ago.
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May 15, 2022 17:55
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PurpleXVI posted:One of the issues 2e, and D&D in general, have is that they are very poor about support for anyone being less than 100%, if that makes sense. If you have a henchman, he can't just give you a bonus of some sort(maybe his assisting attacks add 1d4 to your hits, or him keeping pressure on the enemy gives you +2 to hit, or something like that), and enemies can't be one-shot-kill mooks or abstracted "mobs." Individual scenarios and modules sometimes have rules for abstracting this, but none exist overall. This means that adding more people to the battlefield, as in the form of henchmen or the like, easily makes the maths of the entire thing crumble like brittle chalk in a hydraulic press. Heroes of Battle kind of does it, but rather than abstracting the soldiers and everything, it instead has the PCs' efforts within the battle (i.e., normal-scale combat encounters) affecting the battle as a whole. Normal mass combat rules appear in 3.5, in the Miniatures Handbook, along with a bunch of other variant rules about making things more wargame-y (it's also the book that introduced the fairly popular Favored Soul class, though it was revised/reprinted in Complete Divine several months later).
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May 15, 2022 18:34
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PurpleXVI posted:One of the issues 2e, and D&D in general, have is that they are very poor about support for anyone being less than 100%, if that makes sense. If you have a henchman, he can't just give you a bonus of some sort(maybe his assisting attacks add 1d4 to your hits, or him keeping pressure on the enemy gives you +2 to hit, or something like that), and enemies can't be one-shot-kill mooks or abstracted "mobs." Individual scenarios and modules sometimes have rules for abstracting this, but none exist overall. This means that adding more people to the battlefield, as in the form of henchmen or the like, easily makes the maths of the entire thing crumble like brittle chalk in a hydraulic press. Yeah massive combats (even smaller ones sometimes) can eat up hours of your play sessions. The combat in 2e has a lot of moving parts, with half of them aligned counter to the other half. (One of the few things I will unconditionally praise 3e for is moving to a "higher is always better" system; the math nerd in me loves how THAC0 is built around figuring out what you need to roll on the die, but simply adding a bunch of numbers together and seeing if it meets a high target number certainly makes for a faster combat roll.) And as for 2e mass battle systems, look up the extremely aptly named BATTLESYSTEM rules. The short version is essentially "5 or 10 individuals are represented as a single figure and roll once as a group", but I believe the more in-depth rules actually change what you're rolling as well. I never got very deep into it at all, but the few glances I took were fascinating.
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May 15, 2022 19:52
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I was hoping to see this ever since I saw the Betrayal at Antara LP (the demo for which was included with Birthright). I only have some fuzzy-at-best memories for most of it*, but what I do recall is that the game is easily breakable in a number of easy and entertaining ways. I will make a note, though, for people who aren't familiar with 2nd ed.: Kill XP is minuscule, the XP you get for certain Regent actions is likewise pretty minor, and I'm pretty sure quest XP doesn't exist in this game. In other words, the levels you see are the levels you get; if your dudes aren't good enough for a particular dungeon, you can't do other dungeons to get their levels up, you have hire someone who's already there to do the job for you. That said, I do recall there being some very good recruits available, so don't sweat your regent's levels too much. *I could have sworn picking Boeruine most of the time, but going by the regent options I think I must have been taking Talinie and using them as a convenient punching bag.
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May 16, 2022 01:28
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Update 02: Spreadsheets For Breakfast  My name is Rogr Aglondier. I used to be no one special, just a dabbler in the magical arts, fascinated by what I would never be able to fully master. Until this morning.Rogr, despite being presented as sort of an everyman, actually has pretty remarkable stats. While many of them are wasted because, in 2nd edition AD&D, the swathe between 8 and 14 for any stat does not convey any bonuses, if someone rolled up these numbers with the ol' 3d6-down-the-line, I'd consider checking if the dice were loaded.   I awoke, stepped out of my door to enjoy the morning sunlight, and was greeted by a liveried footman who asked me what my orders were.As befits a low-level wizard, he has few spells. Obviously most of the spells in AD&D aren't really appropriate for Birthright, so we can't learn and memorize, say, Phantasmal Force, but at least he knows Magic Missile. In terms of realm spells, as far as I can tell mages and priests automatically have access to what realm spells can be cast, but sometimes lack the necessary Sources and character levels to cast them.  Seeing my confusion, he informed me that my advisors at the castle were ready to explain the situation. I assumed this was some prank of the count's, or Alliene's, and said I would be on my way immediately. After all, what sort of poor sport would I be if I didn't play along? Imagine my surprise when I arrived at Castle Aglondier and every servant and guard bowed to me! Well, all except one- Father! There you are! You can't sleep in till noon, we have a domain to manage!Every turn begins with a visit to the advisors. Considering how many actors there are and we have three actions between each visit, the Wars and Investitures tabs are worth checking every time, at the very least, to see who's punching who and who's managed to steal what.     I was aware of Ilien's location and status, of course, having lived here all my life, but it was sobering to understand that I was now responsible for not screwing it up. I must confess that conversations about borders, wars and armies went somewhat over my head. I think Alliene noticed this as she said: My father wishes to start off his rule on a good note, to set the proper tone and show everyone who he is. Who can we help?Like Endier, Ilien is a one-province minor state, but being as it is walled in behind allies more or less, it's much less of a juicy target. It also has less options for expansion, so a roleplay-centric "good guy" victory is actually a fitting option for it.  This was much more within the realm of my understanding. A villain, a servant of the dreaded Manslayer no less, doing evil, and needing to be stopped. I would make this my top priority, though I feared that I would need to sit through more meetings and possibly more lashes from Alliene's tongue before I would have the chance.Adventures pop up every few turns, and, I think, every time you clear one, a new one is likely to be presented. Though more than one can be available at once. As far as I'm aware they never time out and NPC's do not complete them, meaning that their rewards are entirely for the player, and they are drat good rewards at times.   My head spun as my advisors attempted to outline the intricate web of alliances, grudges, vassalages and potential flare points in southwestern Cerilia. What I ended up taking away was that we were in an exceptionally fortuitous position, with all of our neighbours either well-disposed towards us or outright allied with us, while the farther north you went, the more unhappy everyone was to have each other for neighbours.I know they tried with this matrix, but unless you already know what relations you're looking for, or are just explicitly looking for the less common "enemies" and "war" statuses, this is a complete mess to use for an overview.   Alright, father, I know you won't like this, but our first order of business is to ensure that the taxes are being paid. Alliene knew me too well, intellectually I knew that taxes were necessary to keep Ilien running, and that they paid for important things, but the idea of demanding that others pay was alien to me. She saw the expression on my face and asked if she should handle it. I gladly agreed. Alliene is no worse a person than I am, but she works with the poor in the city, and she appreciates better than I that others' tax money is what helps pay for her efforts.To get anything done, we're going to have to zoom in. For the time being, we're in "low detail" mode, most holdings and non-state holdings are hidden. I'll show you later what it looks like when they aren't, and you might understand why I start out doing this.   I hope you're paying attention to this. Look how little control we have over our own territory!All we control at the moment are a level 7 Law holding in Ilien and a number of Source holdings. Sources are useful as they provide Regency points, which are used for pretty much any kind of action we take, and also because they let us cast spells. If you squint at the text, you can also see that Ilien is a level 7/0 province. The first is how "developed" the province is, how urban it is, in other words, and the second how "wild" it is. The development is the limit on non-source holding levels, and the wildness is the limit of source holding levels. This means that if you're a wizard, you'll almost certainly want to control some undeveloped wilderness to power your magic.  Unless we're at a war footing or really screwed for gold, Normal and even Light taxes will almost always do us, though with our level 7 Law holding we could almost certainly squeeze Ilien for Severe taxes with no repercussions. We'll also tick off the "Law Claims" option, which makes our Law holdings attempt to take a cut from any uncontrolled Guild and Temple holdings in the province. When played as a P&P game, using your Law holdings to snag others' money is generally considered a hostile move, but I don't think the AI reacts to it in this game.  Lastly, our court starts out as "Minimal," costing 1GB, or Gold Bar, equal to about 2000 Gold Pieces, per turn. I crank it up to a "Quaint" court at 3GB per turn. Once we start getting diplomatic with other factions, this will give us a bonus to it.  While Aliene busied herself with the taxation, I pored over our options. There were so many I felt lost in them.Starting at the upper left, going down the left column, and then the right column, our actions are: Adventure: Sets us off on an available adventure. Build Road: Roads make travel between provinces easier. Create Holding: Allows us to create a 0th-tier Holding in a province. Note that this needs not be a province we control. Diplomacy: One of the keys to breaking the game. Create Ley Line: Wizards are lazy bastards and really only intend to cast spells from their lab, but their capital provinces often aren't out in the boonies where the good Sources are. Ley Lines allow you to chain Sources so that your better-developed capital can still use the magic from some wild forest full of elves. Do Nothing: What it says, I love the icon for this one. Lieutenant: Allows you to recruit a lieutenant. Since you only start with two characters and you can take up to four with you on adventures, you generally want to recruit at least two before too long. Muster Troops: Recruits troops. Rule: The name for this one makes it easy to miss what it actually does. When you 'Rule' that means you attempt to improve the level of one of your Holdings or Provinces. As mentioned, Law, Guild and Temple holdings are limited to the development level of the province they're in, and Sources to the wildness. Provinces sacrifice a point of Wildness whenever they increase in development, but even when Wildness is at zero, the province can still get more developed. In the pen and paper game, elves are the exception to this rule as their development does not come at the cost of wildness, I'm unsure if this rule is transferred to the videogame. Agitate: Increases unrest in a province. As long as we control all law in a province, it would take us being a real fuckup or more than two Agitate attempts per turn to make one of our provinces start getting angry. It's generally a non-issue in the game. Contest: We use this to attack enemy holdings. I'll describe this in a bit more detail when I do it later this update. Declare War: I don't think this one needs an explanation. Espionage: Since Holdings are automatically visible, this is mostly if we want to get precise troop counts on an enemy. Often a waste of an action. Build Fortress: Castles function a bit like they do in Europa Universalis, in that an enemy that moves into a province with a Castle must bring troops equal to the castle's level PLUS its garrison to put it under siege, or they cannot move out of the province except to move back where they came from. This means castles on narrow borders can make excellent chokepoints to force someone to meet you on the field. Sieging castles down also takes a long time, it would take seven turns to siege down our castle in Ilien, for instance, giving us plenty of time to get up to bullshit while the enemy was tied down. Investiture: The official process of divinely transferring control of a province from one owner to another. In Europa Universalis terms this is kind of like coring a province you've occupied. Lieutenant Action: Once per turn we can get a free action out of our lieutenant. Cast Realm Spell: If we have the right level and source access we can cast a Realm Spell. Trade Route: Connects two owned Guild holdings at a distance from each other, making them generate extra Gold Bars     While Rogr is worrying about what to do, I'll take action in his stead. It's criminal that some heartless group of traders are profiting off our people, we should have our own guild in Ilien, so that the wealth of the people can benefit the people.Most actions have a chance of success affected by rolling a D20. Generally they succeed on a roll of 10+ by default, and most actions cost at minimum 1GB and 1RP(Regency Point). Additional RP's increase our odds of success at a 1 for 1 basis. Normally this would make it seem like we're drowning in RP's, but consider that for actions like Contesting enemy holdings, our opponent also gets to counter-spend and it can quickly get pricey. In any case we now have a 0th-level Guild in Ilien in case a gap should open in the market.  Next I attempted to cast Legion of the Dead for some cheap troops but, despite there being no error/failure message and having the right amount of Source access, nothing happened when I cast it(except for wasting my turn). I think it's because despite technically having the spell, Rogr might actually be too low-level to cast it. Unclear, though.  Lastly, neither Rogr or I are warriors or generals. Distasteful as it is, war is a part of statecraft, even if only in self defense. We need to hire someone more experienced to assist us...Each of these lieutenants costs as many GB's to hire as their level, which means that even without completely breaking the bank, we can hire a priest, for no further upkeep, that is thrice the level of our ruler. Additionally, I happen to know that Rhobher at the top of the list is also the leader of a non-province faction, one of the temples, and that if we hire him we also get his Temple holdings. I won't be doing this right now because it almost feels cheaty, but one of the prime ways of cheaply increasing power in The Gorgon's Alliance is to make friends with non-province faction leaders, hire them as your armed goons and then make fat bank off their Guild or Temple holdings, not to mention benefiting creatly from how powerful they are.  Hmmm... something seems fishy about some of these offers. Why would such powerful people offer to work for us? This one seems more our speed, someone we can stand up to if something should go wrong.I decide to hire Noelon Caesen, a Fighter of about the same level as Rogr and Alliene, for the sake of not completely shortcircuiting the first run.    Turn two starts with taxes as usual, nothing interesting there.  Alliene, what are you doing?! Please, Rogr, listen to me. This guild is controlled by... by an outsider, someone who has no interest in the welfare of Ilien and her people. I'm doing this so we have more resources for the people. ...very well, but please ask me first next time. I'm still the regent of this country, you know.Contesting holdings is a multi-step process. First, we bid Regency to challenge it, owner counter-bids, then we're allowed a final bid. This means the costs can easily get up into the 20's for both participants.  Now that we've contested it successfully... nothing happens. Sort of. When a holding is Contested the first time, it just gets sort of locked down. Imagine that the Port of Call Exchange's guildhouse is getting hammered by the Ilien IRS right now, their cargoes are all getting tossed and checked for contraband. They technically still exist, but we've put them in enough of a bind that they are currently generating neither Regency or Gold for their owner. He would have to counter-Rule to free them up again. We can Contest anything in a province we either control or also have a holding in. To cinch the win, we need to Contest it a second time, which utterly destroys it, no matter what its level.  Like so.  This means that we've crushed a holding that it would take the owner almost three full turns to rebuild in two actions, freeing up seven slots of Guild space for our own 0th-level Guild to grow. As soon as I succeed at these rolls, anyway. Is everything alright? Perfectly normal! I'm a capable businessperson! I know how this works! Until we get the Guild rebuilt, we're actually earning less taxes than when we were just squeezing it with the cops. Of course, if we get it up to a level 7 holding uninterrupted, we'll be making a lot more than we did before.    After several months in the big chair, it started feeling like we were getting things under control. The worst fires down by the docks had been put out, the new Guild was starting to employ people just as Alliene had promised, providing jobs for them and taxes for us. I felt like we were at a point where we could go do something for everyone, it was time to tackle...  Adventure 1: Elfwash Keep  Father, perhaps you should let Noelon go in front, you're not as young as you used to be. Oh, yes, I suppose that is what we pay him for.While it may look like a "blobber" at first, the party is actually present as separate sprites here in this .WAD. We're just seeing things from the leader's first-person perspective, so at these low levels, make sure to have a fighter in front. Later on, always, ALWAYS, make sure to have your mage in front.   Hmmm, something strikes me as odd about this tower... You'll have to tell us later, here comes the first guard!All these elf guards have a detection bark of "hey, you're not supposed to be here!" that lets you know they're homing in on you. Their pathfinding is... sub-Doom, though, they can't really navigate around corners or the like, so in many situations you can engage them at your leisure even once they're aware of you.  The instant combat starts, we're jolted into this third-person perspective. If you look under Noelon's character image, he has four buttons. As far as I'm aware, the first four all do the same, just tell him to attack, while the last one, generally used for the mages and clerics, is an order to keep a distance from the enemy. The only way we can break our human conga line formation is if we send a character off to fistfight an enemy, we cannot manually reposition them otherwise. And no, nothing in the manual or anything I've been able to google up tells me a drat thing about what the differences between the attacks are. 2e Fighters are a bit unlucky in that the only thing they can do with a weapon(other than using it as a shovel or crowbar) is to swing it at the enemy. They do not have fast and slow attacks, or multiple types of attacks, so I really am unsure of what the developers were going for here.  Not that it matters, all but two enemies in this dungeon are easily dumpstered by Noelon's sword.     Hm, well, I believe my first impression was right. Your first impression of what? The tower. The central keep. It has no doors at ground level. What a genius design for staying unbothered...Yeah, while a lot of these levels try to look like believable locations, some of them don't try too hard. The outside is made up of two courtyards and the battlements, and in each courtyard there are two barracks. We start off by clearing the courtyard to our right when we enter, then circle around on the battlements and descend into the one on the left.    As a low-tier dungeon, most of the enemies come at us in ones, so Noelon can easily handle them. As we descend into the second courtyard, however...   A pair of guards detect us from between the barracks buildings while Noelon engages the third! Whatever is a mage to do?  Cast Magic Missile, that's what. Magic is... also kind of odd. Here, for instance, I cast the spell and it briefly resumes real-time progress before lapsing back into turn-based. Other times they don't cast at all until I press to end the turn. Also what's important is that Rogr just pirouettes in place and blasts the elf. He would have done the same if I had targeted the one that Alliene and Noelon were in the way of. That is to say he would have just blasted Noelon in the back of the head rather than the elf, hence why, once your mage can survive a few stabs to the face, you want them up front so they can blast enemies without wasting your own party.  Alliene handles the other one that shows up from the back. These elves are pretty spectacularly fragile and she can just bop them with her mace about as well as Noelon can with his sword, though he's a bit more reliable about it.    Doors are also weird. Some you have to manually open, others slide open just as you get near them, like the ones for the barracks.   Each of the small barracks contain either a few gold coins, some "mundane" objects or some healing potions. If you really want to maximize your loot, hoover up EVERYTHING. Even cups, butter knives, spare swords and the like. As far as I recall there's no carry capacity that I've ever encountered, and all the mundane stuff gets sold for spare change when the mission is over. Every 2000 gold worth of loot and garage sales you accrue on a mission translates into another Gold Bar/GB worth of money on the strategic map, so to some extent effective dungeoneering can replace good budgeting.  Hmmm... I believe I see a door over there. But surely, this can't be the intended way to enter the tower. Even better, if it's not the intended way, no one will be expecting us.  We do indeed need to get in through here but... the door is locked. If we had a Mage with Knock memorized, we could just blast the door open with that and wander in, Caine from Endier could easily solve it like that, but then we'd be missing out on more adventure.  Oh and the game does have falling damage, all this damage is what the party gets for getting on the balcony "early" and needing to drop down into the bushes.    Well, if we can't get in from above, perhaps we can get in from below.At this point I've yet to remember what the jump button is, so my only way of getting into the well is to climb on to the walls and drop down into it.     Rogr's "Continual Light" spell is also great here, because a lot of adventuring locations are lit like absolute poo poo, so without it you're left stumbling around in the dark.  Oh I do believe someone left a Potion of Extra Healing down here! How fortuitous! Please don't drink that until I've had a chance to memorize Cure Dysentery.  The same elves as above are patrolling the basement. Once again no real threat.  Also get used to this easy-to-miss button texture and press every button you find because most of them will unveil secrets or progress. This one in particular reveals a spectacularly awesome thing for a low-level adventure.    Can you see it? That little green speck behind the piles of gold?  Okay, so what's really important about this ring is two things I'll reveal now and a third that'll be super hilarious later. The first thing is that we never have a time pressure, if we have a good book to read and don't mind passing it around, any damage out of combat is now a non-issue. The second thing is that while the game claims that our combat in adventures is now turn-based, it's a filthy liar. Everyone is just really polite about taking turns, time still passes as normal, so technically anything that can't kill Noelon in one blow now can't kill him as long as I'm willing to show incredibly poor sportsmanship. Now, I promise not to abuse this, but I want to make it obvious just what a clumsily janky mess this is.  From the outside, you might've noticed that the "keep" is just two vertical tubes. This room is at the bottom of the smaller of the two. The left button lowers the room, and the right raises it. As far as I can tell you can just keep lowering it almost infinitely, but there's nothing farther down than this, so we start by going up a level.     It eventually dumps us here, but turn around before going down the corridor.   Because if you're bringing a party like this, you'll also need this wand to complete the adventure.  Hurry up when you move down the corridor as it has a crusher ceiling that starts coming down the moment you enter it. It's easily missed until it flattens you since it has no sound cue.    Our reward at the end is a Scepter of Resurrection, which is great in case Noelon should eat poo poo. I believe your regent always survives adventure... misadventures, but you can easily lose all sorts of competent and handy buddies.    And a small side passage loops back to where we started. Now time to explore what lies upwards.   For the most part, it's just a bunch of niches with one item in them each. Not to say that the items aren't very nice and interesting.  This one is actually kind of irrelevant since Intelligence is one of the stats which in base 2e AD&D don't really improve anything by being better unless you're using the optional proficiency rules or you expect to get high enough level to need access to the topmost spell tiers.  If this works as intended it is INSANELY busted. Magic Resistance in 2e is a flat chance to ignore a spell, so whoever's wearing this, in this case Rogr, has a 50% chance to ignore any magic thrown his way. Now, I don't remember many NPC spellcasters in these adventures, but may as well be prepared.  Lastly, this is just a real solid item. I toss it on Alliene since she's more likely to have swords swung at her than Rogr and Noelon is already a tank with his AC of 0. Note that in pre-3e editions you want a LOW Armor Class and unless you're playing something really busted or have a very nice GM, your best AC is likely to be around -2 as a Fighter or Cleric and notably higher for any other class. Now when we reach the penultimate niche...   ...this doesn't look safe. Do you think they'd leave this bubbling green liquid lying around if it wasn't safe, Alliene? I'm sure someone just spilled their Decanter of Endless Baja Blast. ...okay, sure, but what if Noelon went ahead on his own? He's the sturdiest of us. I couldn't imagine sending one of my subjects to endanger himself without taking the same risk.I have faint memories of being able to split up the party so you don't have to do dumb poo poo like this, but until I find out if that's actually possible, because Sierra decided proper documentation was for chumps and losers, anything that one party member runs into, everyone has to run into. And yes, this is obviously a pool of bubbling acid we could avoid if we could cast Levitation, but since we can't...   It loving stings. We do get a book for Rogr out of it, though, it says it teaches him some spells of level 7 to 9 in the manual, but of course it doesn't deign to tell us WHICH spells and I couldn't find any way to check it until next time he has to memorize some for an adventure, and even then probably not until he can actually cast those levels. It'll be a surprise! Time to head up to the last door.    Treasure!  Let's rush in there carelessly and scoop it all up in our fat little hands!   Say hello to the Otyugh, one of the two enemies on this map that Noelon can't just effortlessly flatten.  In 2e AD&D they get this adorable art despite literally being garbage monsters that live in trash and eat trash and love trash. They're about as smart as the average human a lot of the time, and telepathic, which most games seem to ignore in favour of just making them mindless monsters. I love giving them personalities when I run games, though. Unfortunately for us, since this game designer isn't as enlightened as me, it attacks on sight and Otyughs are actually reasonably capable of kicking the average adventurer's rear end. They're roughly as tough as 6th-level Fighters except they can also give you tetanus and they have multiple attacks.   It takes a big chunk out of Noelon, though some of that may also be me whanging him in the back of the head with magic missiles when I tried to give him some magic backup. Also between combat rounds, the Otyugh reverts into its dead/inactive sprite where it just looks like a pile of garbage. Then a few rounds later...  No! Noelon! He died protecting us... Don't worry, I have the Rod of Resurrection, I'll just-  So, what happens here is that normally in AD&D, if you get whacked down below 0 HP, you are dead and done for. Monsters with regeneration, however, like trolls, can just keep regenerating up till they're not dead any longer if not put down by special measures(fire, acid, etc.), and for some reason Birthright appears to treat all regeneration that way. Noelon was dead... and then he just regenerated his way up to not being dead. Very handy! And, unless this was a one-off bug, completely busted! ...do you think we should ask if he's alright? Perhaps when he's coincidentally standing inside of a protective pentagram. Normally people die when they're killed.  Aside from a good deal of money, this room also contains the Bone Key which opens the balcony door outside, no way out, though... except for that odd shimmering silver wall in the corner.   Real nice fire escape, elves, it drops us off in mid-air! Whatever, time to use that key.    Oh dear, it's been so long since I last took those Elven classes. What's he yelling? Something about preparation... readiness... "Prepare to die, human dogs!" So not a friendly greeting, then. Noelon, if you please? I have nooooo idea what the gently caress Nhoun's deal is, his level or what he's attacking with, since as far as I can tell they invented him for this game and thus he has no official stats. However, he just hacked off over half of Noelon's HP in one go, time for plan "get the gently caress out of here." This is what the "Retreat" button at the bottom of the screen is for.  It quite literally scrolls back your movements over the last 10 seconds or so prior to the fight, which means it can leap you back over gaps, up walls, etc.  Thankfully for us, Nhoun can't jump and refuses to use ladders because they're a human invention, so let's just...  Reposition a little. Now where was that Wand of Lightning?   Don't mess with Ilien, yeehaw. Sadly we can't loot corpses, but we CAN loot whatever he was guarding.    If a Good wizard, like Rogr, touches this book, it gives them a free level. Always inspect books before you do so, however, as there are also Neutral and Evil versions which instead do massive damage and, if I remember right, also XP loss, to wizards of the wrong alignment.   And here's Dierdren's ring. Score. We won't often need to make Ley Lines, but being able to make them for free when we do is an excellent deal. And now we can leave. We could do so at any time, but we really only get a reward if we do so after finding our quest objective which is almost always a treasure of some sort.  Everyone survived and we got like a quarter of a turn's worth of bonus income, plus some extremely nice magic items.  Additionally, both Rogr and Alliene got level-ups. Now... this is probably a good time to talk victory points. We need 300 of these to win, and we get them from pretty much everything short of skipping turns. Provinces held by us or our Vassals are worth 3 points a piece. Alliances are worth 2 points a piece. Certain provinces, any owned by the Gorgon(10 each), his allies(5 each), the Spiderfell(10) or Rhoubhe(10) at game start. Defeating the Gorgon himself is worth a whopping 100 points. Additionally, major artifacts collected from adventures are also worth at least 10 points, with some of the bigger ones being worth 20, 30 or 60 points. Our current point tally: 3 for 1 provinces held. 4 points for our 2 alliances(Medoere and Roesone). 10 points for artifacts held(Dierdren's Ring) 17 points out of 300 needed to win. Ilien has a ways to go yet. In any case, let's go ahead and end the turn.   Alliene had hardly healed my bruises and cuts from the last adventure when my advisors interrupted us to say there's yet another one available! I'm not sure if this one is one we should take, however... Boeruine is hardly a villainous nation. Would it be right for us to deprive them of their honestly acquired artifact?Our good advisors have nothing else to share, but as soon as we start the turn... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYY9j6JfFCg  The game starts in earnest. Anuire is set into a relatively stable political configuration, but now nations are going to start declaring war on each other openly and upsetting the balance.  Oh and since I mentioned it, this is what the region around Ilien looks like with ALL holding markers, including non-regent holdings, showing. It's a bit of a mess. VOTE How much of a "roleplay" run do you want this to be? Should I take dubious missions like Boeruine's and come up with tortured logic for it or stay pure? Should I refrain from busting the game open with characters like Rhobher? Or should I break this wide open? I prefer the former, at least for this run. I can always show off how easy it is to speedrun the game if you don't give a drat later. And of course I'll be taking any and all suggestions if they seem fun or interesting, like if you want to see more of certain mechanics or want to see me set a certain goal like conquering the Spiderfell or the like.
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May 16, 2022 03:20
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take dubious missions we're doing this for their own good... no... the good of the entire world! also, I'm glad to see some dungeons but I expect to see some dragons at some point!
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May 16, 2022 04:05
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This is a game of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Second Edition, and I expect you to play like it, young man. Take any and all missions that offer sweet loot and kill anyone that gets in your way. While I'd also enjoy seeing you snap the game over your knee with overpowered allies, show a certain amount of restraint in who you recruit, but if you do recruit someone a bit overpowered, make sure they come with holdings, because that seems more fun.PurpleXVI posted:This one is actually kind of irrelevant since Intelligence is one of the stats which in base 2e AD&D don't really improve anything by being better unless you're using the optional proficiency rules or you expect to get high enough level to need access to the topmost spell tiers. While Birthright doesn't model them, Intelligence does have a few effects at higher levels. It affects how many languages you start with (or can potentially learn, it's up to the DM), it affects your chance of learning new spells from scrolls, and it limits how many spells of each spell level you can know (that rule is optional, but players of Baldur's Gate may remember it as that thing that happened when you tried to fill out Garrick's spell list with spare scrolls). Also, especially high Intelligence grants blanket immunity to lower-level Illusion spells, from level 1 at 19 INT to being immune to any illusion up to 7th level at 25 INT.
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May 16, 2022 04:12
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Should definitely keep an eye on Noelon there. Preferably from a tall ledge, looking into a ritual chamber with him chained up within. Embrace purity, and break the game wide open.
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May 16, 2022 04:17
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PurpleXVI posted:In fact I'm pretty sure Birthright has the only formal mass battle system in all of 2e. Hell, does 3e even add one anywhere? This reminded me that in the encyclopedia magica, some stuff like the machine of lum the mad they had alternate stats for large scale battles so I assume that was for people who wanted to use specific artifacts in Birthright campaigns.
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May 16, 2022 04:50
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BraveLittleToaster posted:Should definitely keep an eye on Noelon there. Preferably from a tall ledge, looking into a ritual chamber with him chained up within. Yeah, this
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May 16, 2022 09:00
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BraveLittleToaster posted:Should definitely keep an eye on Noelon there. Preferably from a tall ledge, looking into a ritual chamber with him chained up within. Can't really stop the game from being wonky, so might as well stick to roleplaying.
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May 16, 2022 12:07
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Stay pure and refrain.
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May 16, 2022 12:18
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I voted for Mr Nice for a reason. Stay pure and don't take the overpowered goons (and then do a second run where you make the game beg for mercy and grab so much loot the treasury collapses)
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May 16, 2022 12:50
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Murderhobo your way to victory and take every quest
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May 16, 2022 13:18
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Stay pure and refrain.
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May 16, 2022 13:23
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Another vote for Pure and refrain keep the immorality and rule bending for another run. Don't show it all of in the first one.
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May 16, 2022 13:30
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Now, while staying pure sounds nice and all, the problem is that The Gorgon's agents are everywhere now, and just because a ruler is Good doesn't mean that they won't side with The Gorgon if it means their people will be protected. They're good, but that doesn't mean they'll necessarily throw in with us when the chips are down. Their artifacts are better off in our vault where they won't fall into the hands of the Gorgon. Do as many adventures as you can unless they're explicitly our allies, and wait until the second playthrough to break the game.
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May 16, 2022 14:53
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Cythereal posted:Stay pure and refrain. 
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May 16, 2022 18:04
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I Kinda like how janky this is at the same time as it's amazingly detail oriented.
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May 16, 2022 18:15
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Seems like PURE GOODNESS and NO GAMEBREAKING(for now...) are in the lead at the moment, but I'll close voting and record the next update tomorrow, so there's still some time to change the results.
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May 16, 2022 19:34
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Cythereal posted:Stay pure and refrain. 
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May 16, 2022 19:47
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I'm glad, Purple, that you got this game running easily. I'm the type who obsesses over technical/incompatability issues with games, and will exert effort disproportional to a game's value to make it work on principle. Also, I didn't know that they had Taco Bell and/or Baja Blast in Denmark. Neat. There are only a few in Britain... I've been to the ones in Nottingham and Chelmsford. Don't ask me what I was doing in Essex.
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May 16, 2022 19:58
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JustJeff88 posted:Also, I didn't know that they had Taco Bell and/or Baja Blast in Denmark. Oh, we don't, it was just the "bubbly greenish drink" that I figured most people would recognize.
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May 16, 2022 20:01
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JustJeff88 posted:I'm glad, Purple, that you got this game running easily. I'm the type who obsesses over technical/incompatability issues with games, and will exert effort disproportional to a game's value to make it work on principle. I had thought I wanted to go to Britain to get jellied eels and black pudding But now I want to go to try the taco bell and the baja blast
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May 16, 2022 20:07
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Stay pure and refrain. Rogr is a good boy. 
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May 16, 2022 20:49
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I voted Rogr in the first place on the principles of staying pure and refraining from complete bastardry, admittedly just to see if it could be done without blowing up in the nice fellow's face.
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May 16, 2022 21:51
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PurpleXVI posted:Oh, we don't, it was just the "bubbly greenish drink" that I figured most people would recognize. Funny enough I have memories of seeing Baja Blast in some random nerd store at Emporia in Malmö like two years ago, alongside a bunch of its rather vile looking flavours. But then it was also obviously an import store.
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May 16, 2022 21:56
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sb hermit posted:I had thought I wanted to go to Britain to get jellied eels and black pudding I don't like either of those things, but I'm fairly fond of Taco Bell and I really wish that I had some Bakewells Tart and Battenbergs
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May 16, 2022 23:05
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JustJeff88 posted:I don't like either of those things, but I'm fairly fond of Taco Bell and I really wish that I had some Bakewells Tart and Battenbergs I'm going to see if I can pick those up at my local british grocer. Thanks! Worse comes to worse, I can always go to taco bell.
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May 17, 2022 01:15
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sb hermit posted:I'm going to see if I can pick those up at my local british grocer. Thanks! If you're in North America, prepare to pay a huge premium. Just to put it in context, a 6-pack of cherry Bakewells cost about £1.40 at Tesco UK. In the US, they cost $6 or more.
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May 17, 2022 01:24
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JustJeff88 posted:If you're in North America, prepare to pay a huge premium. Just to put it in context, a 6-pack of cherry Bakewells cost about £1.40 at Tesco UK. In the US, they cost $6 or more. I'm willing to risk it all for the authentic experience.
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May 17, 2022 01:40
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All Loot is Fair Game, but otherwise be pure Also Refrain for this run, and maybe a future run can be all about breaking the game?
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May 17, 2022 02:13
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Cythereal posted:Stay pure and refrain.
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May 17, 2022 02:28
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You know, I knew it was technically possible to level up, but I don't think I've ever actually seen it. Probably something to do with using the high level caster squad and their 9th level Fighter meatwall. Speaking of which, I recall that 9th level Fighter there being the best of the recruitable heaps of HP and negative AC; probably safe to pick him up even if you refrain from broken stuff this run, because what's a 2nd Ed. Fighter going to do?
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May 17, 2022 02:30
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Unoriginal One posted:Speaking of which, I recall that 9th level Fighter there being the best of the recruitable heaps of HP and negative AC; probably safe to pick him up even if you refrain from broken stuff this run, because what's a 2nd Ed. Fighter going to do? ahahahahahahahahah 2e Fighters are busted as gently caress, they are probably the most straight-up powerful class of their edition.
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May 17, 2022 09:23
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Care to explain on that one? I never played 2E very much except for the Baldur's Gate and IWD series.
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May 17, 2022 09:45
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