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rujasu
Dec 19, 2013



What is Dragon Wars?



A computer RPG released by Interplay in 1989, it was intended to be The Bard's Tale IV but was re-purposed at the last minute as the rights to the name and setting were held by Electronic Arts. As a result, Dragon Wars takes place in its own setting called Dilmun, a small collection of islands in a land known as Oceana. Despite the last-minute changes, it is a fully fleshed-out game with a deep storyline and setting.

The game was released for the Apple II, Amiga, and MS-DOS, among others. They're all functionally the same, just a few graphical differences. I'll be playing the DOS version. There's also a Famicom version, and as you might guess, it's totally different (and totally in Japanese, though there's a prototype English->Japanese->English version floating around). I might show it off when I've finished the PC version.

Why are you playing this?

It's one of my favorite games of all time! It really is a better game than any of the three Bard's Tale entries and stands up to many of the classic computer RPG's of the era. It's also one of the most open-ended and replayable games I've ever experienced, which makes it ideal for an LP in my opinion.

How are we doing this?



The game is not video-friendly at all, so this will be an informative/screenshot LP. I'm planning to show off as much of the game as I possibly can; we'll see how that goes.

Audience Participation?

Yes, that's what I'm hoping for! Because this game is so open-ended, and because I already know the most effective routes through the game, I'll be asking for your input in deciding which direction we go. In general, if there are multiple interesting paths available to us, I'll put it up to a vote. If there is only one interesting option available to us, I'll just go ahead with it. Additionally, we'll be starting the game with four characters, and I'd like YOU, THE VIEWER to help create these characters!

Characters?

The game does start us off with four default characters, and they're perfectly acceptable:



But what's the fun in that? We'll send Muskels and company packing and make our own!

Note that this isn't like the first Bard's Tale where our party will get wiped every five minutes. We start with four characters, and unless we decide to restart the game, we're more or less stuck with them. There are also some allies we can pick up and summonable creatures who will bring our party to a maximum size of 7.

So, from this point, I'll be taking applications for our main characters. Please submit only one character each. If there are exactly four submissions, I will (probably) use them. If there are fewer than four, I'll make up the other ones or use the prefabs. If there are more than four, I'll pick the ones I like or throw darts at the computer screen to decide.

How do I submit a character?

If you have played The Bard's Tale I and have your save file readily available, you can provide me with the TPW file of your favorite character and I'll import it.

If you've played Dragon Wars before and you'd like to fill out a character sheet yourself, go ahead, just give me a name, gender, & list of stats.

For the rest of you (probably all of you), just fill out the following questionnaire:

- Name (up to 12 characters long)
- Gender (Male or Female)
- Description of fighting style
- Favorite Weapon? (Axes, Flails, Maces, Swords, Bows, or just Magic)
- Magic user (Y/N)? If yes: High Magic, Druid Magic, Sun Magic, (pick no more than two) or just the basics?
- Is your character skilled at first aid? Athletics? Thievery?
- Is he/she a people person? More of a nature lover? Bookworm?
- General description, personality, anything else you want to add, etc.

In general, we'll need at least one magic user, and there are a few essential skills, but I'll make sure those bases are covered.

Updates coming soon. In the mean time, let's see your characters!


Characters have been created and we have begun the adventure!

TABLE OF CONTENTS:
- Part 1A: Creating Characters
- Part 1B: Creating Characters
- Part 2: Purgatory
- Part 3: More Purgatory
- Part 4: Low Magic & Combat
- Part 5: Literally going from Purgatory to Hell
- Part 6: Tars Ruins
- Part 7: Slave Camp
- Part 8: Slave Estate
- Part 9: Guard Bridge
- Part 10: Mystic Wood
- Part 11: Phoebus
- Part 12: We're in the Army Now: Siege Camp
- Part 13: We're in the Army Now Part II: Byzanople
- Part 14: We're in the (Byzantian) Army Now: The Battle With Kingshome
- Part 15: Byzanople Alternate Paths
- Part 16: Temple of the Sun
- Part 17: Phoeban Dungeon
- Part 18: City of the Yellow Mud Toad
- Part 19: Smuggler's Cove
- Part 20: Necropolis
- Part 21: Smuggler's Cove Revisited
- Part 22: Sunken Ruins
- Part 23: Freeport
- Part 24: Dwarf Ruins
- Part 25: Heavily Guarded Bridge (to Lansk)
- Part 26: Lansk
- Part 27: Lansk Undercity
- Part 28: Old Dock
- Part 29: Snake Pit
- Part 30: Kingshome Dungeon
- Part 31: Kingshome Not-Dungeon
- Part 32: Lanac'toor's Lab
- Part 33: Journey to the Magic College
- Part 34: Magic College
- Part 35: Dragon Valley Part I
- Part 36: Dragon Valley Part II
- Part 37: Royal Game Preserve
- Part 38: Taking the Pilgrim Ferry to Nisir
- Part 39: Nisir (Not Quite the Last Dungeon Yet)
- Part 40: Depths of Nisir 1
- Part 41: Depths of Nisir 2
- Part 42: Depths of Nisir 3

Magic Rundowns by MaskedHuzzah
- Part 1: Low Magic
- Part 2
- Part 3
- Part 4

rujasu fucked around with this message at 06:42 on Feb 18, 2017

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Snorb
Nov 19, 2010
Name: Piers Paardersen
Gender: Male
Describe Fighting Style Here: We are a master of the fine art of Putting-Things-to-the-Sword no Jutsu, of course!
Favorite Weapon: Swords, naturally. The traditional weapon of a hero!
Magic User: Hell no. He's about as magical as a loving rock.
Skills: I'm not entirely sure what skills are actually in the game, but let's lean towards stuff like athletics and make him tough as nails.
Personality: Piers is usually very friendly to his fellow adventurers, but he has a distrust of magic. Magic killed his brother once, you see...
Any Other Crap: Piers was formerly a soldier, and he plied his trade as a sellsword after leaving the military. He sees himself as The Hero from every one of the faerie tales his mother used to read him when he was little.

RickVoid
Oct 21, 2010
Name: Madrick
Gender: Male
Fighting Style: Kill it with fire.
Favorite Weapon: Magic is so much more than a weapon, you ignorant whelps.
Magic User: :smugwizard: ; Whatever lets him turn things to ash.
First Aid? No.
Athletic? Bwahahaha
Thievery? How dare You dare accuse me of such a thing! I researched every spell myself!
People Person? No.
Nature? Ick.
Bookworm? Spellbooks? Where!?
Personality: Madrick is the very model of a modern evil wizardling. Adventuring is the fastest path to power, and he views the other party members as his own personal henchmen/slaves.
Other stuff: He once got uproariously drunk and accidentally burned down a tavern... and a barn... and a few buildings... look, that village was bonfire waiting to happen anyway. In deference to pattern recognition, however, he chooses to abstain from further alcohol.

rujasu
Dec 19, 2013

Update 1A - Creating Characters

Let's start off with Piers.

Snorb posted:

Name: Piers Paardersen
Gender: Male
Describe Fighting Style Here: We are a master of the fine art of Putting-Things-to-the-Sword no Jutsu, of course!
Favorite Weapon: Swords, naturally. The traditional weapon of a hero!
Magic User: Hell no. He's about as magical as a loving rock.
Skills: I'm not entirely sure what skills are actually in the game, but let's lean towards stuff like athletics and make him tough as nails.
Personality: Piers is usually very friendly to his fellow adventurers, but he has a distrust of magic. Magic killed his brother once, you see...
Any Other Crap: Piers was formerly a soldier, and he plied his trade as a sellsword after leaving the military. He sees himself as The Hero from every one of the faerie tales his mother used to read him when he was little.



We get 50 skill/attribute points to distribute. Here's how we did it:



Strength affects how hard you hit with weapons, but there are other uses for it, so we want at least one really strong person on our team. Also needed for equipping some heavy melee weapons.

Dexterity is speed, accuracy (AV) and dodge (DV) all rolled into one, so it's also important for any fighting characters. Needed for equipping certain ranged weapons.

Intelligence affects spell accuracy, according to the manual. Otherwise, it doesn't do much, so melee characters don't need it.

Health is HP, Spirit x 2 is MP.



Lores help with solving puzzles and noticing things about the area. For example, if we're on a mountain, someone with Mountain Lore might notice something about the area which is helpful to us. Generally, you don't need more than 1 in any lore, and you don't need multiple characters to have the same lore. I'm giving Piers here a 2 in Mountain Lore because reasons.

Below lores are the abilities, some of which are absolutely essential. Piers gets Climb, Fistfighting, and Swim. Climb can get us to some places which would otherwise be inaccessible, so it's fairly important. Fistfighting is good in the beginning when you have no weapons, and useless later. Swim, like Climb, has its uses.



We'll ignore the Magics for now. Weapon skills increase your accuracy (AV) when using a particular weapon, and sometimes you need them to equip certain weapons. Since Piers is a sword specialist, we'll give him skill in both swords and two-handed swords.

Now onto Madrick...

RickVoid posted:

Name: Madrick
Gender: Male
Fighting Style: Kill it with fire.
Favorite Weapon: Magic is so much more than a weapon, you ignorant whelps.
Magic User: :smugwizard: ; Whatever lets him turn things to ash.
First Aid? No.
Athletic? Bwahahaha
Thievery? How dare You dare accuse me of such a thing! I researched every spell myself!
People Person? No.
Nature? Ick.
Bookworm? Spellbooks? Where!?
Personality: Madrick is the very model of a modern evil wizardling. Adventuring is the fastest path to power, and he views the other party members as his own personal henchmen/slaves.
Other stuff: He once got uproariously drunk and accidentally burned down a tavern... and a barn... and a few buildings... look, that village was bonfire waiting to happen anyway. In deference to pattern recognition, however, he chooses to abstain from further alcohol.



Mages don't need Strength as they'll be in the back. Dexterity is good if you want your mage to use a bow, but it's not needed. Additionally, it's a good idea to have a mage with low Dexterity, as he can go last every round and cast a spell to heal the whole party. The manual actually advises you to do so. Obviously, we want our mage to have lots of MP and we want his spells to work, so we'll put some points into Int and Spirit. Health is important for everyone, even if they're not in the front lines.



With Madrick being a magic enthusiast, we'll give him Arcane Lore. It's useful for discovering a few very important magical areas along the way, so you really want one person with this lore.

Lockpick is one of the most important abilities in the game. We'll want to level this one up to 2 at some point, maybe 3. There are lots of doors and chests in the game, and you can't just bash them open. This is one of the few things in the game that you absolutely must have. Hiding and Pickpocket also seem appropriate here.



Magic! Every discipline of magic offers a fire spell of some sort. Druid Magic is better for healing and utility spells, High and Sun Magic are better for offense. We'll go High here, again because reasons.

So that takes care of our first two characters. Two more, and we'll be able to begin our adventure!

rujasu fucked around with this message at 00:55 on Feb 23, 2015

Genocyber
Jun 4, 2012

Lilly-Anne
is female
fighting style is crushing enemies asap
fav. weapon is maces
can use sun magic
Is skill at athletics
Personality: is normally more stone-faced but gets very obnoxious when drunk

:effort:

Zore
Sep 21, 2010
willfully illiterate, aggressively miserable sourpuss whose sole raison d’etre is to put other people down for liking the wrong things
- Name: Kali
- Gender: female
- Description of fighting style: Berzerker
- Favorite Weapon: Axes
- Magic user: Druid support and healing
- Skilled at: first aid, general support stuff
- Who is he/she? Really in touch with nature and the natural world in general, has a way with animals and the like. Very personable and almost overly-friendly, she's always looking for something interesting or fun to catch her fancy.
- General description: Heir to an ancient and proud line of healers, Kali was ambivalent about all that and was always more interesting in animals and beating things with big sticks. Still, a lifetime of rigorous training has imprinted on her rather strongly, and she is a competent spell-weaver even if her heart isn't really in it at all. She's fairly careless and go with the flow, wandering where the wind and whim takes her. Hates cats with an unholy passion

Tuxedo Ted
Apr 24, 2007

- Name: Dolph
- Gender: Male
- Fighting style: sneaky! A fair fight is a chump's fight. Dolph ruthlessly takes every advantage he can get
- Favorite Weapon: Bows
- Magic user? Yes, if spreading out skills is tactically sound and can give him an advantage in a fight. I don't know what the different schools are like, but i imagine him using buffs and debuffs rather than go boom magic.
- Dolph is skilled at thievery and maybe athletics if there are points to spare.
- Dolph is a bit of a sleazeball, good at talking himself out of sticky situations and manipulating others for his benefit.
- Dolph is in it for fame, fortune, power, and all that other good stuff. He's not quite evil (that just gets you killed by others seeking fame and fortune), but history will forgive a hero of a few transgressions, so he doesnt mind getting his hands a little dirty to reach a goal more quickly.

SystemLogoff
Feb 19, 2011

End Session?

Can you double your screenshot size too? It's a little small to see.

Excited for this though, I've never heard of the game before.

rujasu
Dec 19, 2013

Update 1B - Creating Characters

Time to finish our party! And yes, I'll go ahead and double-size screenshots from here on out.

We definitely want someone who can heal and use Druid Magic, so let's create Kali!

Zore posted:

- Name: Kali
- Gender: female
- Description of fighting style: Berzerker
- Favorite Weapon: Axes
- Magic user: Druid support and healing
- Skilled at: first aid, general support stuff
- Who is he/she? Really in touch with nature and the natural world in general, has a way with animals and the like. Very personable and almost overly-friendly, she's always looking for something interesting or fun to catch her fancy.
- General description: Heir to an ancient and proud line of healers, Kali was ambivalent about all that and was always more interesting in animals and beating things with big sticks. Still, a lifetime of rigorous training has imprinted on her rather strongly, and she is a competent spell-weaver even if her heart isn't really in it at all. She's fairly careless and go with the flow, wandering where the wind and whim takes her. Hates cats with an unholy passion



ATTRIBUTES:
Strength: 17
Dexterity: 13
Intelligence: 12
Spirit: 11
Health: 14

Strength is important for axe users. The better axes can't be equipped without 18 Strength, so we'll make Kali fairly strong. Otherwise, we'll go for a fairly even spread, so she can fight and cast spells.



LORES
Forest Lore - 1

Of course, Kali will be our forest expert. There are plenty of wooded areas in Dilmun, so this may come in handy.

ABILITIES
Swim - 1
Bandage - 2
Tracker - 1

Bandage is one of the most important abilities in the game. Outside of battle, it's effectively a free heal spell. More points allows us to heal a greater portion of allies' health, so we'll start off with 2 here and hopefully increase this a bit more later. Tracker is the ability to track people or other creatures, it makes sense for a nature enthusiast to have this.



KNOWLEDGE
Bureaucracy - 1
Low Magic - 1
Druid Magic - 1
Axes - 1

Bureaucracy is actually a public speaking & negotiation skill. There's not a lot of talking in this game, but occasionally this will help.

For the fourth slot, we could take Lilly-Anne or Dolph. I'm going to opt for Dolph here to give us a bow-user.

Tuxedo Ted posted:

- Name: Dolph
- Gender: Male
- Fighting style: sneaky! A fair fight is a chump's fight. Dolph ruthlessly takes every advantage he can get
- Favorite Weapon: Bows
- Magic user? Yes, if spreading out skills is tactically sound and can give him an advantage in a fight. I don't know what the different schools are like, but i imagine him using buffs and debuffs rather than go boom magic.
- Dolph is skilled at thievery and maybe athletics if there are points to spare.
- Dolph is a bit of a sleazeball, good at talking himself out of sticky situations and manipulating others for his benefit.
- Dolph is in it for fame, fortune, power, and all that other good stuff. He's not quite evil (that just gets you killed by others seeking fame and fortune), but history will forgive a hero of a few transgressions, so he doesnt mind getting his hands a little dirty to reach a goal more quickly.



ATTRIBUTES:
Strength: 12
Dexterity: 16
Intelligence: 11
Spirit: 11
Health: 12

We'll give our bow expert a decent amount of Dexterity.



LORES:
Town Lore - 1

We'll give him Town Lore, since nobody else has it.

ABILITIES:
Hiding - 1
Lockpick - 3

We'll make Dolph an expert lockpicker so Madrick can focus more on his magic. 3 is all the lockpicking skill we should need in this game.



KNOWLEDGE:
Low Magic - 1
Sun Magic - 1
Bows - 1
Crossbows - 1

Giving a character Low Magic costs 5 skill points, and the higher magic disciplines cost 10, so Dolph will only get a single point in Bows and Crossbows for now.

There's not a ton of "buffing" magic in the game, but there is some, and it's spread across all disciplines. We'll give Dolph a point of Sun Magic so that we have someone with each of the big three.



And we're ready to go! This party should do pretty well. I didn't go for a fully-optimized, min-maxed party here, but that's not really necessary. The important thing is we have a good variety of skills and all of the magic disciplines accounted for.

Next update coming later today!

rujasu fucked around with this message at 00:56 on Feb 23, 2015

PotatoManJack
Nov 9, 2009
I was always curious of this game having been a huge fan of the Bards Tale series (I still remember getting out the graph paper to map out the dungeons in BT1 in pain staking details).

Will be following this one closely!

rujasu
Dec 19, 2013

Update 2: Purgatory

Let us begin the game!




Yep, that's right, you start this game off with literally nothing. Take a look at Madrick's inventory:



Every character manages his or her own stuff, including money. Note the statistics at the top: the first row of numbers is the attributes we set in character creation.

The second row includes Attack and Defense, which are essentially "accuracy" and "dodge" rather than how much damage you'll do. In fact, nothing on this screen will tell you how much damage your characters do when attacking, so you just have to figure this out on your own. We're level 1 of course, and have no armor, so AC is 0. This is one of those games where an AC of 0 is the worst, and it counts up from there, so higher numbers are better.

The next row is Health and Stun. Max Stun is always equal to Max Health. When a character is attacked, he or she will receive either stun damage, or both health and stun damage. If Stun goes to 0, the character is stunned and cannot fight, but this is recovered after battle. If Health goes to 0, the character is dead. Dead is particularly difficult to recover from in this game, and if a character dies, your best option is usually to restore from your last save point. The good news is that you can save anywhere in this game, even in dungeons.

Power is MP. If you don't have a Magic skill, this is always 0/0. If you have Magic, max Power is Spirit x 2. Madrick has 16 Spirit, so he has 32 power, which is considered a high number in this game.



The bad news is that nobody has actually learned any spells yet. You have to find scrolls and read them to learn spells. It turns out that these scrolls are tough to come by, as Namtar has outlawed all magic in Dilmun. Naturally, Madrick and our other two magic users are not going to be happy about this development!

To make matters worse, the game has dumped us in the middle of the slum known as Purgatory. Fortunately, Purgatory isn't too dangerous. Many enemies will only deal stun damage to us, and battles are generally easy to run from.



For example, walking just to the East, we immediately run into a Big Dog. We could easily run from the dog, who is 30 feet away. But instead, let's "Advance ahead" to get into melee range.



With the now dog being 10 feet away, we can fight it.





Not too tough. We took a bit of stun damage, but that's automatically healed at the end of battle.

So, what happens if we wander to the south a bit?



Eh, what's the worst that can happen?



Um. Just a hunch, but I don't think we're supposed to fight these guys yet. Fortunately, they're a good distance away, so...



Perhaps we should look for another way out of Purgatory. Let's head north!



Hopefully this guy flunked out of Spleen-Kicking 101. Rather than advance ahead, let's just stay back by having everyone use the "Dodge" command.



Now he's at 20 feet. We'll have everyone "attack" and let the Pikeman waste his turn coming to us. This way, we're essentially getting a pre-emptive attack.



Okay, so we got a free shot in on him! Now let's go another round...



Nice! We got some experience and gold, though Piers took some health damage. He's at 14 Health, which is fine, but we'll want to keep an eye on him.



Two Big Dogs, still pretty easy to contend with. Again, we wait for them to come to us rather than advancing and make short work of them.



We dispatch the Bandits quickly as well.



Sweet! When a character gains a level, he or she gets two extra skill points to distribute. Let's save them for a bit. Going just a bit farther north...



Well, that looks interesting.



Taking a cue from Interplay's earlier game Wasteland, the manual for Dragon Wars contains "paragraphs" with text indicating what is going on in the game. This was partly as an attempt at copy protection, but it also saved memory. Personally, I like this. The descriptions are interesting, and I don't have to sit through any boring cutscenes.

Paragraph 4 posted:

You stand before the gate to Purgatory's great public arena. Bloodthirsty residents of the Dilmun
interior come here toenjoy the spectacle of outlander scum such as yourselves fighting to the death on the
floor of the arena.
A guard swaggers up to you He is clad in the trappings of authority fine armor, a weather-beaten harness
well-oiledweapons. "Oy there, you filthy street scum," the guard growls. "you look fit enough to hold a
weapon. Why not haul your butt into the arena and make yourself useful?" Why fight for another man's
pleasure when life in Purgatory is adaily struggle for survival? You're about to turn away when the guard
lays a heavy hand on your shoulder and adds,"You'll get your choice of arms...and if you defeat your foe,
which I doubt, you might win Papers of Citizenship. Namtar help me - heathen dogs like you living in
Dilmun! I don't like it, but the law is the law."

Piers: Let's do this! We can pick out our own swords and armor, beat up some thugs, and win honor, glory, and citizenship!

Madrick: Count me out! I want no parts of this hand-to-hand fighting business!

Kali: Sounds exciting, but are we sure we're ready for this?

Dolph: Don't worry. I have a plan. Just follow my lead, everyone!






We get up to take up to 12 items, so we grab the following:

Piers: Broadsword, Leather Armor
Madrick: Mace, Leather Armor
Kali: Battle Axe, Leather Armor
Dolph: Leather Armor, Bow, 4 packs of Arrows

quote:

"Don't forget to equip your items," says the guard. "Let the combat commence!"

These words hardly finish echoing in your ears as the gate slams behind you and the roar of the crowd raises to a cresendo.

Everyone equips their arms and armor, and prepares for the fight...



Piers: ...

Kali: Dolph, about that plan...

Dolph: Hey, look over there!

Gladiator: Huh?




quote:

The guards take your gold as a penalty for losing the combat. "Better luck next time!" snickers the guards.

We lose a small amount of gold, but that's a small price to pay, because we get to keep the weapons!



The Gladiators are too tough to take on now, but we can return to the Arena later if we desire.

Let's explore the western part of Purgatory.



Paragraph 9 posted:

A statue of Namtar, the Beast From the Pit, dominates this dirty city square. You carefully examine the statue, trying to memorize the features of the villain who exiled you to Purgatory. You struggle in vain.
The citizens of Purgatory,themselves no less fond of Namtar, have taken it out on his image - the nose is broken, limbs are chipped, and the mouthis deformed beyond all recognition.As you watch, a wild beggar spits on the statue. "Filthy face of stone!," she mumbles. "Layed down with lizards he did,that stone face lies as much as he!" The poor mad creature wanders off, still spitting and mumbling, leading you to wonder if a similar fate awaits you in the months to come.

Namtar is a jerk, if you hadn't picked up on that.

A bit further to the west is a small building:



Paragraph 10 posted:

This back-alley building is in remarkably good repair. Curious, you enter, and recognize the interior of a modestly-appointed magic shop. A wizened gnome of a man springs from behind the counter and
scurries up to you. "Mercy,mercy me...customers! Bless me, customers at last!"
The old man is insane but friendly. He explains all high magic has been outlawed by order of Namtar, but
instruction inthe low arts is still permitted in isolated regions. He is eager to teach you what he knows,
and will in fact refuse a fee,preferring to teach for the simple joy of it. Unfortunately, the old man knows
little useful magic.

The wizard offers unlimited Low Magic scrolls, meaning all three of our magic users will pick up enough scrolls to learn all six Low Magic spells. This is all of the Low Magic there is in the game, and in general it's nothing special, but it offers a little bit of everything:

Mage Fire - Does a few damage to one enemy 30' away. Very useful now, less important later on.
Disarm - Disarms a foe. I've tried using this a bit, don't remember being impressed with the results.
Charm - Increases AV (accuracy) for one person slightly during combat. Never used this.
Luck - Increases DV (dodge rate) for one person slightly during combat. Never used this.
Lesser Heal - Heals a few points of health. Useful until we get better healing spells.
Mage Light - If you're in a dark area, cast this so you can see.

Everyone but Piers learns Low Magic, and Madrick stashes a handful of extra scrolls in his bag.

This is the western edge of the city, so let's head east.



There's a healer on the east side of the city, but it costs gold and we just lost all of ours. Instead, we can have Madrick cast Lesser Heal on Piers to refill his Health.



The building across from the healer has a few drunks standing in front of it. Gee, think this might be a tavern of some sort? Let's fight with the drunks and make our way inside. The drunks fail to land a hit on us, so it's an easy fight.



Madrick: Perfect! We should ask around for more meatshields to stand in front of me! Mwahahaha!
Piers: As insulted as I am, I have to agree. We need allies if we're going to defeat those gladiators at the arena, or those guards at the main gate.




Ulrik posted:

Fresh faces are a rare thing here, may name is Ulrik, and like you I cannot settle for slavery. Let us join forces.



Ulrik is a pure melee fighter who comes ready for action, and also has a 3 in the Axes skill. Note that while Ulrik's Attack Value is listed as 3 on this screen, he actually gets an additional bonus for each point of weapon skill which is not shown. Since Ulrik is using an axe and has a 3 in Axes, his AV is actually 6 right now, which is a good number. He should usually connect.

Now, let's talk about party order. There are seven party slots, and those in the first four can attack with melee weapons. Those in the back can only attack with bows or magic. We definitely want Piers and Ulrik up front, and Dolph can use magic or his bow from the back, so we'll go with a party order of Piers, Ulrik, Kali, Madrick, Dolph.

Now with that out of the way, let's see what the hot rumors are at the tavern.

Barkeep posted:

"I hear there's a secret hatch within the southwest tower leading to freedom."

"I hear a strong man can swim to safety through the harbor."

"I hear you should pay your respects to Irkalla if you plan to enter her realm."

So, what will our plan of action be?

- Try to escape Purgatory by looking for the secret hatch in the SW tower
- Try to escape Purgatory by swimming
- Pay our respects to Irkalla
- Explore Purgatory further
- Give up all hope and sell ourselves as slaves

ultrafilter
Aug 23, 2007

It's okay if you have any questions.


Let's explore for now.

rujasu
Dec 19, 2013

PotatoManJack posted:

I was always curious of this game having been a huge fan of the Bards Tale series (I still remember getting out the graph paper to map out the dungeons in BT1 in pain staking details).

Will be following this one closely!

Cool, glad to see people interested in this. I enjoyed BT1 as well, never did quite finish it though. Dragon Wars actually has an automap feature which is really sweet. Here's a shot of where we are right now in Purgatory:



As you can see, it only shows a section of the map on-screen, you have to scroll around to see the whole map, so it's not all that useful for the LP. The dude in the corner is us of course, the tiny building to our left is the tavern where we recruited Ulrik, and the larger building on the right is the healer. The red areas are explored, black is unexplored.

Once some votes come in, I'll do another update, so stay tuned!

Seyser Koze
Dec 15, 2013

Mucho Mucho
Nap Ghost
Explore further or use the hatch. Make that "explore further," because we have Big friends to make.

Usually they say you should escape via Magan, but that doesn't give as good a picture of the local geography...

I got this game with the Interplay 10-Year Anthology way back in '94, which I bought just for Out of this World and Star Trek: 25th Anniversary. I liked Dragon Wars but was terrible at it and never got very far. Learned my way around Purgatory pretty quick, though.

Seyser Koze fucked around with this message at 04:02 on Feb 23, 2015

RickVoid
Oct 21, 2010
Explore further.

All magic, cash, and gear stripped from him, and thrown in some sort of prison city? Yeah Madrick is having a bad day.

Do we get any sort of background on what Madrick those cretinous minions Madrick chooses to travel with did to piss off Namtar? Or is that left to our own imagination?

chiefnewo
May 21, 2007

RickVoid posted:

Explore further.

All magic, cash, and gear stripped from him, and thrown in some sort of prison city? Yeah Madrick is having a bad day.

Do we get any sort of background on what Madrick those cretinous minions Madrick chooses to travel with did to piss off Namtar? Or is that left to our own imagination?

There is some backstory in the manual as to how you came to be there, but I can't remember it off the top of my head.

Just wanted to say I'm enjoying the way you're handling the writing of the characters so far. A lot of LPs for old school RPGs turn me off as the character writing tends to drown out the game.

rujasu
Dec 19, 2013

RickVoid posted:

Explore further.

All magic, cash, and gear stripped from him, and thrown in some sort of prison city? Yeah Madrick is having a bad day.

Do we get any sort of background on what Madrick those cretinous minions Madrick chooses to travel with did to piss off Namtar? Or is that left to our own imagination?

Yes, there's background if you read the manual. Basically, Madrick & company are outsiders who set sail for Dilmun looking for adventure (or whatever suits their fancy). Namtar (spell it backwards), being evil and all, has taken over and pretty much just throws all "Outlanders" into Purgatory so that they don't mess with his plans. There's a couple of pages explaining it all, you can Google up the manual if you like, but that's basically it. You show up at this new place and immediately get robbed and chucked into the slums, and your quest is to escape, find Namtar, and kill him.

Also, here's a paragraph describing Purgatory which I managed to miss in the previous update:

Paragraph 14 posted:

Your knowledge of city lore serves you well. This place isn't so much a city as a prison. The streets are unpaved and evidently double as an open-air sewer system. Many of the city's structures are buildings only in the loosest sense of the word - several have holes in the roof (or no roof at all), others have been gutted by fire. Everything is damp, showing this city is little different from any other on Oceana...the rising sea level is eroding the land upon which the city is located, and it is slowly sinking. Doubtless those buildings that have basements will be at least hip-deep in water. Graffiti is scrawled on walls everywhere, generally curses directed at Namtar and crude pornographic renderings of all the species of Oceana. In all, Purgatory is an ugly place you would do well to leave as soon as possible.

The game really does a great job of making it clear that Purgatory is just a miserable place and everyone else there is about as miserable as you, or worse. Really sets the stage for the game.

chiefnewo posted:

There is some backstory in the manual as to how you came to be there, but I can't remember it off the top of my head.

Just wanted to say I'm enjoying the way you're handling the writing of the characters so far. A lot of LPs for old school RPGs turn me off as the character writing tends to drown out the game.

Thanks!

We will explore further in the next update, which will be coming in the next couple of days.

Seyser Koze
Dec 15, 2013

Mucho Mucho
Nap Ghost

rujasu posted:

Namtar (spell it backwards)

:eng101: Namtar is actually a figure from Mesopotamian mythology (along with a few other characters in the game) .

When we studied ancient Babylon in sixth grade I used this to try and convince my mom that video games not made by The Learning Company were educational.

rujasu
Dec 19, 2013

Seyser Koze posted:

:eng101: Namtar is actually a figure from Mesopotamian mythology (along with a few other characters in the game) .

You know, I might have known that at some point. Good catch. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Lanac'toor is not part of any ancient mythologies outside of this game, though.

Seyser Koze
Dec 15, 2013

Mucho Mucho
Nap Ghost

rujasu posted:

You know, I might have known that at some point. Good catch. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Lanac'toor is not part of any ancient mythologies outside of this game, though.

and i only just got that :gonk:

LPs are educational, too!

Ghostwoods
May 9, 2013

Say "Cheese!"
Exploration is good, but if we happen to stumble across Irkalla, we should probably say hi.

MaskedHuzzah
Mar 26, 2009

Come now! Look me in the eye and tell me - isn't this the face of a guy you can trust?
Lipstick Apathy
Oooh - this was one of my favorite games back in the day. I considered trying to put together a LP of it a while back, but didn't get too far before I gave up on that. Looking forward to this!

Explore more! And if possible, set up a .gif for some of the enemies.

rujasu
Dec 19, 2013

MaskedHuzzah posted:

Explore more! And if possible, set up a .gif for some of the enemies.

To show off the animations you mean? OK, I might be able to do that.

Glazius
Jul 22, 2007

Hail all those who are able,
any mouse can,
any mouse will,
but the Guard prevail.

Clapping Larry
So how do bows do with respect to ranged combat? Can they hit anyone no matter how far out?

rujasu
Dec 19, 2013

Glazius posted:

So how do bows do with respect to ranged combat? Can they hit anyone no matter how far out?

So, ranged combat.

Fists and most melee weapons hit from 10' out. Some special weapons can hit from farther out.

The bow that Dolph is currently using can hit a target 20' out. Again, some better bows can hit from farther out, but all bows and crossbows are good for at least 20'. The downside to bows is that they have limited ammo and don't do a lot of damage (at least for now).

With combat spells, again, every combat spell hits from at least 20', usually 30' or more. Mage Fire hits from 30'. That's about the only reason you'd want to use it; even basic weapons will typically do better damage. Honestly all Low Magic is kind of trash, even for being so early in the game. The only spell with any staying power is Mage Light, since there will always be dark areas, and we'd typically rather use items to light the way rather than wasting valuable Magic Power.

MaskedHuzzah
Mar 26, 2009

Come now! Look me in the eye and tell me - isn't this the face of a guy you can trust?
Lipstick Apathy
I still have the manual that came with the Interplay collection a while back - if you'd like, I can post descriptions and info of the spells as we find them.

PotatoManJack
Nov 9, 2009
Get your Explore on

Without looking for spoilers, is there any other way to get yourself starting equipment in Purgatory other than through the trick you used (like is there a weapon shop for which you could grind gold and buy stuff)?

Also, is there any way to actually see the damage value of weapons? One thing that always annoyed my about Bards Tale was that you started getting all this crazy equipment later in the game, but couldn't actually tell what was better without testing it out for a while and comparing the variable damage rolls over time.

Seyser Koze
Dec 15, 2013

Mucho Mucho
Nap Ghost

MaskedHuzzah posted:

I still have the manual that came with the Interplay collection a while back - if you'd like, I can post descriptions and info of the spells as we find them.

IIRC there's actually a bunch of lore about the world's history and major figures in the little blurbs at the beginning of the Low/High/Druid/Sun magic sections of the manual, so that could be a good thing to post.

rujasu
Dec 19, 2013

PotatoManJack posted:

Get your Explore on

Without looking for spoilers, is there any other way to get yourself starting equipment in Purgatory other than through the trick you used (like is there a weapon shop for which you could grind gold and buy stuff)?

Also, is there any way to actually see the damage value of weapons? One thing that always annoyed my about Bards Tale was that you started getting all this crazy equipment later in the game, but couldn't actually tell what was better without testing it out for a while and comparing the variable damage rolls over time.

Nope, there's nothing that tells you the damage value. This was annoying in the days before you could just look it up in an FAQ. However, the manual does tell you the damage ranges of spells.

The "arena trick" isn't really a trick. If you fight the Gladiators instead of running, they'll wreck your poo poo, but your whole party will just get "stunned" and you'll get kicked out of the arena minus your gold. I believe this is actually the "intended" way to get your starting equipment. There's not much lying around in Purgatory. However, in this update we'll see another way you can pick up equipment, so stay tuned.

MaskedHuzzah posted:

I still have the manual that came with the Interplay collection a while back - if you'd like, I can post descriptions and info of the spells as we find them.

I actually have two copies of the manual, but I have enough on my plate with the LP, so feel free to post spell descriptions as we go along. :)

Update 3: More Purgatory!

After a night of spending Ulrik's few remaining gold on cheap ale and sleeping on the tavern floor, we'll go ahead and explore Purgatory some more.

Before we do though, I'll take a brief minute to talk about leveling. In the last update, our four characters all leveled up to 2. In Dragon Wars, every time you gain a level, you get two skill points. (And that's all you get!) You can distribute these points however you want, and whenever you want. It is actually quite possible, and sometimes beneficial, to just sit on your unused skill points for a while until you know what skill(s) you need. For example, if we pick up a really awesome flail, we might want to give someone a skill in flails to use it more effectively. Or if we didn't already have someone with a 3 in Lockpick, we might need to level up Lockpick to get through a locked door. It also means that if we wanted to give our friend Piers a skill in Low Magic, which costs 5 to get the first point in, we could wait until he levels up two more times and stockpile enough points to get there.

Since we know Piers doesn't want any Low Magic, we'll go ahead and distribute his points now.



Now, remember how I said Dexterity affects Attack and Defense value? Specifically, the formula is like this:

AV = (Dexterity / 4) ± (Weapon/Armor AV Effects) + (Weapon Skill)
DV = (Dexterity / 4) ± (Weapon/Armor DV Effects)

The key here is the Dexterity / 4 part. By increasing Piers's Dexterity from 15 to 16, we increase his base AV and DV from 3 to 4. And since he has a 3 in Swords, the AV is really a 7. That's a pretty good value. Accuracy is really important in this game because melee attacks miss all of the time. Fortunately, our enemies' attacks will usually miss as well, and we can use magic, which typically does not miss. Still, magic points are limited, so investing in Dexterity is a sound strategy.



Also, we want to make sure Kali's Bandage skill is sharp. After battle, she can use Bandage on all party members. Bandage recovers health up to a point: specifically, the number of the user's Bandage skill plus 10. Since Kali has a skill of 3, she can use Bandage to recover any party member to 13 Health. If their max Health is 13 or lower, it recovers all 13. If max Health is higher than 13, we'll have to use a heal spell to get them up to full health. So obviously, we want the Bandage skill + 10 to be as close to our party's max Health as possible.

We'll hold back on other stat increases for now. On to the exploring!

The tavern is in the northeastern section of Purgatory. Using my highly-advanced cartography skills, I've indicated where we are and where we've explored on the map below:



We've already checked out the tavern in the northeast and the arena in the north, so let's see what's over in the northwest.

On our way past the arena, we run into these guys:



(Please excuse the GIF quality. I'm working on it.)

This is one of the tougher fights in Purgatory, but it's not dangerous. At worst, your whole party will get "stunned" and you'll have to bandage up and re-fight.

Also in this area is Purgatory's only store, the Black Market:



They have the same junk from the Arena, and it's not too expensive, but even after a handful of fights we don't have much money. They do have some higher-end weapons such as the Greatsword and armor such as the Brigandine, but buying it is unnecessary.

Moving on a bit further...

Paragraph 67 posted:

This is an open-air slave market, filled with the cry of fleshmongers and the laughter of a perfumed crowd. Here men and women are for sale - people such as yourselves - to the jaded residents of the Dilmun interior. From the gate of the slave market you watch as several young men are auctioned off. They seem less healthy than yourselves - maybe they've been in the city longer than you. It seems a sad way out of this place, to make yourself a slave... but isn't anything better than a life of misery and slow death in the streets of Purgatory?

You scan the crowd, anxious to measure the character of citizens of the Dilmun interior. Their faces seem cruel and aristocratic, with a faint hint of the more-than-human. Here and there you spot a face that seems kinder than most, but if you were on the block, what guarantee would you have of receiving a kind master? Could you truly live with yourself as a slave? There is a long line of lost souls waiting for the auction block. Nothing will stop you should you decide to join them.

And now, I present one of my favorite screenshots from this game:



Ulrik: Didn't we JUST have a conversation about how we didn't want to be slaves?
Madrick: Hands off, slave-traders! These are MY minions!
Piers: I hate you so much, Madrick.


So yeah, I wasn't kidding about the selling ourselves as slaves thing. Remember, I was about nine when I first played this game. Anyway, being sold as slaves is technically a way to get out of Purgatory, though the whole "being a slave" part might be a bit of a problem.

For now, we'll make our way through the western section of Purgatory, passing by Namtar's statue to spit on it. We run into this guy on the way:



Easy fight, nice payoff:



Again, we'll sit on the points for now and make our way to the south. There is a temple off to the side, let's check it out.



NOTE: There are a lot of enemies with recycled art in this game.

Anyway, there's a statue here, so let's check it out:

Paragraph 3 posted:

This is a shrine to the dark lady Irkalla, queen of Magan, the underworld of Oceana. Of all the structures in this area, this is the best preserved. Simple offerings of weeds and rocks lay before Irkalla, indicating some residents of this world worship the dark queen. Irkalla's image is blasted from bronze. She seems serene and confident, with a terrible sort of beauty
lurking in her fierce countenance. The black pits of her eyes stare at you without emotion. Here is a deity to be feared - perhaps also to beloved.



Note that every statue in the game looks like an old bearded dude with a stick. You have to use your imagination a bit.

Anyway, we'll pray to Irkalla while we're here. You are prompted to sacrifice an item. Fortunately, we had Madrick stash a few extra Low Magic scrolls recently. Let's offer one of them up...



Kali: She wants more! Offer all the scrolls!
Madrick: Nooo! Not my scrolls!




From what I can tell, it's completely random whether you get "silent" or "pleased" per item. I tried sacrificing the same item multiple times, etc. and it seems to be a coin flip. As you might expect, "pleased" is what we're looking for here. We don't have to do this now, but it will important later. There's also something else to check out here:

Paragraph 94 posted:

You recall learning of waters like this during your mystic studies. The pool of water ahead fits the description of Aspu Waters...waters of the world ocean that underlies the surface of Oceana. Apsu Waters are coterminous with the world of Oceana, the mystical Magan Underworld, and dark dimensions where gods and devils reside.



Given the "mystic studies" bit, this might be something you need Arcane Lore to be able to see. I've never played without Arcane Lore, so I'm not sure. Anyway, the Apsu waters are a possible way out of Purgatory (unrelated to the Irkalla statue), so we'll keep that in the back of our minds. Leaving the temple, we venture a bit further to the southwest of Purgatory.

Paragraph 77 posted:

Amid the ruins you come upon a remarkable sight. A bonfire illuminates a shattered city square. Scores of people cavort about the fire this is the greatest gathering of people you've seen since arriving in Purgatory. The occupants of the square constitute a cross-section of Purgatory's citizenry. Blind beggars, mad poets, dog-faced children, and drunken priests swarm about the fire like moths to a flame; drinking, singing, loving, bleeding, brawling. Above them all, seated on a rude throne of stacked masonry, you see the man you surmise to be the king of this place. If he is a king, he is a king of thieves.

Astounded by this strange sight, you do not notice until it is too late a score of scoundrels sneaking up on you. Surrounded by rogues, you are urged toward the fire, where you come under the gaze of the figure on the throne. "Outlanders!," the king roars, teetering atop his perilous perch. "You've strayed far from your homes, little does and kittens. This is the Court of Miracles, gathered to pay homage to the King of Purgatory..." the king pauses, awaiting the proper moment before continuing, "...me, Clopin Trouillefou!"




Despite the fact that we have two party members with thievery skills, we're going to opt for No here.

Clopin Trouillefou posted:

You must then prove yourselves to me! Defeat the dreaded Humbaba and you will know honor in my court. You will find him at the northeast corner of my realm.

Kali: Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go fight the Humbaba!

We make our way to the northeast section of Purgatory.



Well I guess we know why he's "dreaded."



Like everyone else in Purgatory, he misses his target a lot, but when he connects, he does some damage. That's 7 points of health damage, but also enough to drop her Stun rating from 14 to 0 in one hit.



We have some heavy hitters too though.




When a party member is stunned, they get shipped to the back of the party order at the end of the round. This means when Kali is healed, she is in the 5th slot and unable to melee. She's still able to finish off the Humbaba with a fireball, however.



Everyone is Level 4 now! These first few levels come quickly, but that will slow down quite a bit soon. Let's go back to Clopin and collect our reward.



We get 1000 gold for kicking some Humbababutt. Huzzah!

So that covers most of what there is to do within Purgatory. There's one area we haven't checked out yet, and that's the harbor in the southeast. Remember that the barkeep told us a good swimmer could escape through the harbor! Let's investigate.



Paragraph 5 posted:

With distaste you discover the source of the foul odor. Before you is a low structure, not so much a building as an oddseries of stone slabs leaning against one another. Some ancient stonemason identified this place with a legend carved intothe rock: "Morgue". A more recent hand has added its own opinion: "The way out, chumps!".

The stench of the dead is overpowering, but sensing there's something important about this place you hang around onthe fringes and observe the routine. Sallow work gangs of malnourished slaves, themselves more dead than alive, slowly carry corpses from the building and stack them in sloppy piles. You dimly wonder what crime or heresy landed these poor souls a job as salves in a city of criminals.From time to time additional corpses are brought here by the more tidy citizens of Purgatory. These are deposited in the house or stacked in the piles without seeming purpose. After a time, several of the slaves bundle one or more corpses intoa crude canvas sack and hurl the bundle over the wall. Distantly, you think you hear a splash. you judge you're near the harbor wall are the dead of Purgatory hurled into the waters of the city's harbor?

It occurs to you a living man could lay with the dead, and journey with them in a sack over the wall and to freedom in the harbor beyond. How far do the sacks of corpses fall? Are they really tossed in the harbor, or do they tumble into a well? Could you escape from a bag of cadavers before it sank to the bottom of the sea, maybe forever mired in muck and weeds? Perhaps the overpowering smell of this place is starting to get to you. or perhaps this is your ticket out.

(That was more than a paragraph!)

Anyway, this is either a possible way out of Purgatory, or a good way to get a cheap game over. Only one way to find out! Besides looking it up in the FAQ, you cheating bastards.

It's time to get out of Purgatory. How shall we do it?
- Find the hatch in the SW tower
- Try to swim the harbor
- Apsu Waters
- Sell ourselves as slaves
- Play dead and leave Purgatory in a body bag

Note that regardless of what option is chosen, the others will be explored in some fashion later in this LP, so don't go and spoil them all. Thanks!

Dolph: Hey, why didn't I get any lines in this update?

Added Space
Jul 13, 2012

Free Markets
Free People

Curse you Hayard-Gunnes!
I love the idea that we escape a slum by traipsing through underwater hell.

Tuxedo Ted
Apr 24, 2007

I'm not overly fond of watery escapes. Seems like you'd need a solid athletics check to swim to freedom, and a lot of the choices involve water. Let's check out that Southwest Tower for secret hatches.

Arcade Rabbit
Nov 11, 2013

A quick jaunt through Hell seems the best course of action. We have a goddess pleased with us, surely that's enough!

rujasu
Dec 19, 2013

Okay, so we have two votes for "go to Hell," one for "walk through walls," and none for slavery, drowning, or faking our own death. I'll keep this vote open for a bit, so keep 'em coming! There are lots of possible options and I'm interested in seeing which one we go for.

Tuxedo Ted posted:

I'm not overly fond of watery escapes. Seems like you'd need a solid athletics check to swim to freedom, and a lot of the choices involve water. Let's check out that Southwest Tower for secret hatches.

Remember, we do have multiple swimmers on the team, and it only costs one skill point to give another character the ability.

RickVoid
Oct 21, 2010
Madrick will not allow the party to sell themselves into slavery, nor will he hide with the corpses. I don't see him being overly fond of swimming to freedom either. Searching for secret passages in a tower (maybe a wizards tower!) seems far more his bag, so I vote for that.

On the other hand, if anyone is going to send this party to Hell it's going to be him, so if we can't find the passage that will probably be his second vote.

Ghostwoods
May 9, 2013

Say "Cheese!"
Let's make like the Event Horizon and take a jaunt through Hell. What's the worst that could happen, eh?
(Liberate tuteme ex Inferis!)

Snorb
Nov 19, 2010
Everyone knows the heroic thing to do is literally go to hell! What's the worst that could happen?

(Besides horrifying death.)

MaskedHuzzah
Mar 26, 2009

Come now! Look me in the eye and tell me - isn't this the face of a guy you can trust?
Lipstick Apathy
Slavery! It's one of the routes I never ended up exploring.

Zeroisanumber
Oct 23, 2010

Nap Ghost
I played this game when I was a kid, I must have been 13, 14, something like that. This was back in 1994-95, so there wasn't a gamefaqs guide or anything for it, so I would just play until I got stuck and then restart with the same characters and try again. One of the neat features of the game was that it let you restart the game while keeping your same characters and their equipment. I played it through like that a few times before I got bored and quit.

Let's Go through Hell, I don't remember how it goes, but it sounds interesting.

rujasu
Dec 19, 2013

Zeroisanumber posted:

One of the neat features of the game was that it let you restart the game while keeping your same characters and their equipment.

You're half-right. You keep your characters with their levels/skills/attributes and all learned magic, but you still get dumped in Purgatory with no money or stuff. So you have to find all of your equipment over again. But yep, this game had a New Game+ feature before that was really a thing. Obviously, that's something I plan to show off later on.

Votes so far:
Hell - 5
Hatch - 2
Slavery - 1
Swim - 0
Morgue - 0

Looks like we're Hell-bound, but I'll leave voting up for another day or so.

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PotatoManJack
Nov 9, 2009
If AC/DC has taught me anything, it's that we're all on a Highway to Hell

Loving this LP!

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