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Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009


Zorbus is a Dungeons & Dragons themed, turn-based Roguelike dungeon delver with graphics and sound.



It separates itself from other roguelikes in that dungeon denizens act intelligently, there are over 2000 sound effects, you can recruit NPCs to fight with you and levels are made of themed rooms (throne rooms, prisons, hidden treasure caches, etc.).



I find it more immersive and it has an easier learning curve than most roguelikes. Together these make it a lot of tactical fun.


A worrying tactical situation

I really have to remark on the AI of some of the monsters and npcs. It is great. Dungeon dwellers will fight each other if from opposing factions, shout an alarm to gather reinforcements, use items like potions and wands intelligently, and flee to fight another day depending on how cowardly they are.

There is also a dynamic lighting system which allows you to sneak around in the dark. Beware of enemies with light sources or darksight though!

In addition Zorbus has speech bubbles; meaning NPCs will comment on your kills, monsters will tell you when they are running away and why, and your companions will even remark upon your use of an intelligent weapon. Yes, there are talking weapons in Zorbus and some are very snarky and will insult your slaying technique!

All this and Zorbus is a free, stable game that has only been released for a year. The developer is a goon and is constantly improving the game. If you are feeling up to it you can tip the developer on itch.io or by donating at zorbus.net.





http://www.zorbus.net/

https://zorbus.itch.io/

Helical Nightmares fucked around with this message at 00:01 on Jun 4, 2020

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Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009
Here are a few videos for Zorbus gameplay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sehSMK9DHGo March 2020

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WL8mp7pFUjs August 2019 10 minutes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHhFKKyvmqo Jul 2019

Here are some very short clips made by the Dev to highlight different elements of development.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TSWraI-EGI Tiles vs ASCII

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfjzwPnO9Bk Human Wizard

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC3zvoy0ZvQ&t=5s Sentient Weapon


Zorbus Tips:

I have ascended once with a Tiefling Fighter to demigodhood (the least of three endings)

Some tips:
- You start with a crappy staff and a threadbare robe. If you are a melee character, search the first level thoroughly for weapons and armor.
- It is good to have a spell or damaging wand on your hotbar to shoot enemies when they turn tail and run. This is why I like Tieflings. They have Fire Bolt as a ability.
- You can sell some magical items and potions in Carillo.
- Save good sets of armor and weapons for NPC companions. Your companions can use potions too.
- In my experience Search is a super important skill. You reveal more secret doors which leads to greater experience and more powerful treasure gains.



- Web is a pain in the rear end to fight through. Learn it yourself or recruit a wizard companion.
- Companions have the same level as you do regardless where you have recruited them.
- Not all enemies on a floor are designed to be killed immediately. Learn to run away or stealth around creatures that can turn hostile!

A Strange Aeon
Mar 26, 2010

You are now a slimy little toad
The Great Twist
Does each floor of the dungeon have a finite monster population or do they respawn?

Does the player have reputation with factions so some faction monsters will be friendly?

zorbus
Feb 12, 2020

A Strange Aeon posted:

Does each floor of the dungeon have a finite monster population or do they respawn?

Does the player have reputation with factions so some faction monsters will be friendly?

There are some respawns (total under 10 new creatures created per level).

There's no reputation-system, but rather an emotion-system. Some creatures are hostile against the player from the start, some are neutral. Some are neutral, but get gradually hostile if you stroll around their home for too long, or try to loot the containers in their home area.

The Moon Monster
Dec 30, 2005

Does the game have gotchas for people not very familiar with D&D? It sounds cool but I'm not really looking for another Nethack style learning curve.

rockinsaki
Feb 6, 2004

Skinless Half-Asian Wonder

..The Rider of a white horse. This rider wears a crown and will deceive many with talks of peace, but he will wage war against the saints.
How does this compare to Crawl (Linley's Stone Soup, not the recent griefing simulator)? Every time I try another, I'm disappointed, and I think a lot of it may come down to quality of life improvements that have been implemented over its many, many years of open source development. I'm certainly intrigued by the intelligent denizen aspect though.

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009

The Moon Monster posted:

Does the game have gotchas for people not very familiar with D&D? It sounds cool but I'm not really looking for another Nethack style learning curve.

Zorbus is very transparent. It has clear mechanics like QUD (which I love) and comes with a pdf manual. Zorbus draws from 70s and 80s D&D for inspiration, not for obscure mechanics like Nethack.

zorbus
Feb 12, 2020

The Moon Monster posted:

Does the game have gotchas for people not very familiar with D&D? It sounds cool but I'm not really looking for another Nethack style learning curve.
No D&D background is needed. I've tried to keep everything as simple and transparent as possible. Attributes and skills are explained during character creation.

The ingame Zorbupedia explains things a little further, or if you want to see the formulas behind the stuff, check the manual. You can browse the PDF-manual without downloading the game:
http://www.zorbus.net/Zorbus.pdf

rockinsaki posted:

How does this compare to Crawl (Linley's Stone Soup, not the recent griefing simulator)? Every time I try another, I'm disappointed, and I think a lot of it may come down to quality of life improvements that have been implemented over its many, many years of open source development. I'm certainly intrigued by the intelligent denizen aspect though.
I'd say the UI is very polished.

Keybindings can be changed, there is mouse support. I've tried to assign the default keys so that you can keep your other hand on the numpad / arrows (shift + arrow to move diagonally), and the other on the left side. There are also preset keybindings for WASD + mouse or VI-keys.

You can adjust tile size, screen size, text size etc.

There is autoexplore. There is autopilot which can take you to the nearest stairs, nearest unlooted container etc.

There is level loot, which shows a list of all floor items on the level. You can filter it, select an item, and you autopilot to the item and pick it up.

I'd say the autotargeting system in the game is great, as seen in this tutorial picture:



The tutorial can be browsed here:
http://www.zorbus.net/tutorial/index.html

rockinsaki
Feb 6, 2004

Skinless Half-Asian Wonder

..The Rider of a white horse. This rider wears a crown and will deceive many with talks of peace, but he will wage war against the saints.
Thanks for taking the time to address my question! I'll definitely check it out. Those sorts of user considerations, along with good visual system, are a big turn on

By popular demand
Jul 17, 2007
Probation
Can't post for 10 hours!
Any chance of an android port?
I do most of my gaming on a tablet these days.

zorbus
Feb 12, 2020

By popular demand posted:

Any chance of an android port?
I do most of my gaming on a tablet these days.
Not in the near future. The game is programmed in Pascal (not the best choice, I know), and quite tied with Windows. In theory, you could compile it to Android, but in practice these things never go smoothly.

By popular demand
Jul 17, 2007
Probation
Can't post for 10 hours!
Also, and you are perfectly within your rights to just tell me to gently caress off:
Any chance of opening the code up for outsiders? Experience shows that open source projects often get wider distribution and longer lifespan.

zorbus
Feb 12, 2020

By popular demand posted:

Also, and you are perfectly within your rights to just tell me to gently caress off:
Any chance of opening the code up for outsiders? Experience shows that open source projects often get wider distribution and longer lifespan.
It will stay closed. I want to maintain some mystery about the game, but the biggest reason is simply that I don't want anyone to see my crappy code. I have no CS background, and this is the first game I've ever made. The code base is getting more and more complex, but fortunately all the needed features are already there. It's quite the miracle that I haven't coded myself into a corner.

However, I could work with someone with Pascal / Lazarus experience to see if a Android port is even remotely possible.

By popular demand
Jul 17, 2007
Probation
Can't post for 10 hours!
I'm completely useless for that but I do know that there are some very good coders on these forums.
Best of luck, Imma give the game a try now.

Razakai
Sep 15, 2007

People are afraid
To merge on the freeway
Disappear here
Zorbus is pretty good. Got to the 4th floor or so on first go as a caster, picked some dumb talents which could have been improved in retrospect. Throwing around fireballs is fun but you have to rely heavily on your hirelings until then.

Zongerian
Apr 23, 2020

by Cyrano4747

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009
So I was tooling around with a human the other day and I had to use my starter healing potion because I got caught by a kobold and some reject goblin on level 1. Now usually I would call the run wasted unless I could keep both the initial healing potion and potion of blink until level 2. But I'm glad I didn't. This is what I found on level 1 in a treasure room with Search 2.





That weapon was packaged with a suit of studded leather armor (Resistance to Blunt/Pierce/Slash = 3) and a scroll of Vampiric weapon. What a find. I may use this weapon even in the end game because the annoying Pit Demons, Succubi, Erinyes and Slaadi are quite frequent in the lower levels, and summon their infernal friends.

The studded leather armor itself should sustain me through level 4.

Gooch181
Jan 1, 2008

The Gooch
I'm really enjoying this but still haven't managed to make it past the second floor. Is there a way to split a stack of healing potions to give half to a follower?

zorbus
Feb 12, 2020

Gooch181 posted:

I'm really enjoying this but still haven't managed to make it past the second floor. Is there a way to split a stack of healing potions to give half to a follower?
Use movement keys left / right to adjust amount, then enter to give.

There is a inventory help on the right when you open your own inventory, but the "exchange items" screen was missing some of the text. It's fixed in next release.

Gooch181
Jan 1, 2008

The Gooch
Awesome, thanks!
Current run is my strongest so far, just about to leave the trading hub and go to the second level. Found a library with a ton of neat books, those are really charming. One seems to list leaderboard players, others detail monsters and one even had an adventurer's notes on the organization of the dungeon/what you have to do to get to Zorbus. I've recruited two dwarves so far and am having a lot of luck with the halberd, which I just enchanted with a scroll of acid. drat cool game; I really like some of the quality of life/ease of access features.



Gooch181
Jan 1, 2008

The Gooch
I felt pretty confident going down to the second floor. Was immediately in a huge fight, which we barely made it through. We rested up and I hit level 3, then immediately got murdered by a mimic.

Popete
Oct 6, 2009

This will make sure you don't suggest to the KDz
That he should grow greens instead of crushing on MCs

Grimey Drawer

zorbus posted:

Not in the near future. The game is programmed in Pascal (not the best choice, I know), and quite tied with Windows. In theory, you could compile it to Android, but in practice these things never go smoothly.

:eyepop:

Cool project though!

LazyMaybe
Aug 18, 2013

oouagh
glad to see that the dual-wield spear dream is still alive

I will also say that right now giant spiders are pretty annoying, and casters that repeatedly summon spiders and cast web are incredibly obnoxious as a melee focused character.

Gooch181
Jan 1, 2008

The Gooch
So many thrash metal quotes coming from my party members. A+


I took an aasimar with 14 spirit, which thanks to his racial skill lets me have a huge posse. Hoping to finally make it out of the second floor. Is there a prerequisite to dual wielding? I made a halfling last run and couldn't get him to hold two daggers.

edit: RIP, opened a door into a flesh golem that tore me to bits even though I was slamming potions.

Gooch181 fucked around with this message at 22:44 on Jun 6, 2020

zorbus
Feb 12, 2020
Dualwield needs to be picked as a talent (requires Motion 14 and Melee 3). You can get the list of all talents if you uncheck the "Info / Hide unavailable" checkbox in the talents-screen. That way you can browse the requirements for talents that you can't yet access.

Also, when the menu selector is on ability / skill during character creation, the info box lists which talents require that ability / skill.

There will probably be a new version out next weekend, so if anyone has anything that needs fixing, tuning or clarifying, now would be a good time for comments.

Gooch181
Jan 1, 2008

The Gooch
Thanks, I never tried looking at the traits I didn't meet requirements for. Derp.

Most of the stuff I've been confused by has been my own fault for not looking harder, to be honest. If I think of anything I'll holler about it though.

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009
I thought this was going to be an easy run because I found a +2 named Urgosh and I cleared level 2 with relative ease but nooooo. I hit a hard wall upon venturing into level 3, which I will explain. Anyway here is what I learned.

Playing a non-magic user with ranged as your only option to hit fleeing enemies is much more difficult. Invest in arrows/bullets of poison or a poison flask to make 20 of your ammo poisonous. I was going after the kobold leader on level 2, and the creature led me on a merry chase in a circle through several rooms. I tried slime arrows but those didn't slow it down so stick to poison. I miss my tiefling's firebolt.

I didn't realize you can outfit your undead followers with gear too! I had extra so I slapped some chainmail on my skeleton and gave him a longsword. He lasted a few extra turns against a nasty Roper on level 3, seen below.


Not pictured: Wizard who was spamming summon animal running away to the north, Ettercap with web to the east also fleeing

So because I didn't have firebolt I couldn't shoot over enemy monsters to finally kill the fleeing Wizard and Ettercap. Thus experience gain was somewhat arrested and I found myself fighting a Roper and two Thri-kreen. As you can see everyone was injured. I tried to make it back to the upstairs because my companions would be teleported upstairs with me and it would be simple to wait and heal them. Unfortunately I lost my Elven Archer and Skeleton companions on the way to the stairs up. That Roper and all those injured enemies are now at full health and just waiting for me on the third floor.



My saving grace is that I have a bullet of dismiss (very nasty when used against you), several bullets of poison and a wand of charm with 4 charges. I can use those to get to the miniboss goblin leader on level 3 I wager.

LazyMaybe
Aug 18, 2013

oouagh

zorbus posted:

There will probably be a new version out next weekend, so if anyone has anything that needs fixing, tuning or clarifying, now would be a good time for comments.
acid cloud spell is really loving overpowered and I waltzed all over every enemy in the game with it

the titan guy with elemental fists in the zorbus seems ridiculously tanky. may be the point but he in particular is kinda nuts
it would be nice to be able to melee while webbed, right now if you're not a caster character getting the skill for firing at close range just so that you can do something while webbed is borderline mandatory
maybe wriggle could let you attack while webbed or escape webbing more easily

Gooch181
Jan 1, 2008

The Gooch
Getting real tempted to keep rerolling for a high number of stat points during creation and saving the character as a preset; i think 51 is the highest I've ever got. Looking at the leaderboard and it looks like some characters are starting with like 16/16/15/16 and such which is way stronger than my guys have been so far.

(I could totally be reading the win files wrong)

edit: lmao i just accidentally hit f1 and realized I'd never tried turning my lantern off before, I just assumed the I'd never turned it on :downs:
Def. a game changer now that I can actually sneak and stuff.

Gooch181 fucked around with this message at 01:07 on Jun 7, 2020

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009
I successfully conquered level 3...with a little help from my friends. :agesilaus:

On level 3 I managed to find and recruit one of two giff and not far from there I found a rogue saint in a room of statues to other Zorbus players.



So I was loaded for bear with fully equipped companions. Everyone that could equip (ie not the rogue saint) had a +2 weapon and the archer had a longbow.

With this team I took on the horde of goblins and the goblin king without too much of a problem.

With my search boosted by Goggles of Seeing +2 courtesy of the corpse of the goblin king I began finding secret doors literally everwhere.

I found one with a throne and here is the result:



I did not know thrones could permanently boost your stats.

Moving right along, my archer and rogue saint got separated from me and killed by a wizard (who then mocked me and said I was responsible for their death); but then I found my favorite Zorbus character: a mini-Beholder, the friendly Spectator.



Thanks to all the treasure rooms I found in levels 2 and 3 I have a number of weapon enchant scrolls and two enchant armor scrolls. The latter is outstanding because I have often had runs where I never found an enchant armor scroll.



So I'm saving the enchant armor scrolls for endgame where I might find a Mythril Plate or something similar.

For the weapon enchants, I've got a nice +1 bastard sword saved up that I can gamble with to see if the weapon enchants will stick to the weapon or destroy it. I also have a +1 rapier so I might use that as well.

Gooch181
Jan 1, 2008

The Gooch
I made it to the fourth floor and lost both of my companions, but managed to escape. Grabbed new pals from Carillo and preparing to go back in. I'm surely doomed, but it feels drat good to make it past the second floor.


Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009
Hmm. You have Plate Armor, a Golden Helmet and Dodge of 3 with a Body of 14...that's pretty good for venturing into level 4 with a posse of dudes.

I would guess that if you take your time and run away from mobs of enemies like a throne room or crypt full of undead nasties, you should do well. Good luck!

Motherfucker
Jul 16, 2011

I certainly dont have deep-seated issues involving birthdays.
This roguelike is loving dope, I didn't know it was a goon project!

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009
I beat dungeon level 4, but there was a cost.

Shortly after entering the steps down to level 4, I got tied up with some enemies and my favorite character, the spectator was slaughtered.

Below is just before I reach the upstairs to save all my companions. I pushed my luck too much.



Fortunately I found a Witch on level 4. I equipped her with chain mail and a closed helm. The result of that was that her spells would sometimes fail. Evidently it wasn't worth it because she succumbed to the denizens of level 4 not long after I found her. drat.



Though by the time I found a undead raising room I was feeling pretty good about my chances, because of the addition of three wights to my party.



They came in handy when I ran into this trap room. See those floors covered with lines of slime? I didn't bother with that at all. I just used a blink potion and got the hell out of there. The damage I was taking is from the archers that ambushed me.



So I discovered that a ring of animal friendship, or the perk, is pretty baller. If only for the fact that you can recruit unicorns. High level paladins are great once you get further down in the Zorbus because they can summon two unicorns at the beginning of a fight and unicorns have leap attacks that allows them to close quickly with enemies that are fleeing.



My merry band of misfits ran into an undead vault and I really wish I had kept my wand of chain lightning for situations like this one. Oh and I couldn't move backwards (west) for some reason. I think it was web but I'm not sure. So I blinked out of there. Seriously keep a stash of 7 or so blink potions. They are your emergency run away button. Thought I was going to die right here.



Here is another tricky situation. A wizard's home. Try to avoid (or have your companions tank) the incoming Web spell and the line of Fire Wall. Also stay the gently caress away from the Iron/Adamantium golem. Those things do massive damage even if you are wearing plate mail. Try to head for the wizard first as he is the primary threat with his repository of crowd control spells. Even if the wizard blinks away you are doing alright because you have separated him from the golem. Kill the golem and summons first then track down the fleeing wizard.




Onward to level 5.

Gooch181
Jan 1, 2008

The Gooch
Nice!
I haven't picked my playthrough back up because I've been distracted by some other stuff for a few days, but I'm looking forward to trying to finish level 4. I'm pretty sure it was either that wizard house or the undead crypt that took out my allies, but I can't recall which. Both were rough fights and they were pretty much back to back. I found an orb of dismiss and that saved me from two other tight spots, that wand you have with 5 charges is a serious boon.

Gooch181 fucked around with this message at 16:56 on Jun 10, 2020

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009
Cleared level 5, but like level 4 there was a cost.

My +2 Fiendbane urgrosh (spear-axe) really starts to shine at this level because it does double damage against all fiends (Demons, Devils and Slaadi). And on level 5 there were Slaadi, Bone Demons and Hellcats.

Here is where I lost my very useful unicorn companion. It was a wizard vault treasure room with 4 enemies inside (usually it is just 2 the golem and the spectator). The unicorn got too far inside the vault and was swarmed by enemies.


Pictured, one of the THREE types of mimics I've found in this game

Here is a ghost blacksmith room. The ghosts are pretty dangerous and you can see that the ghost blacksmith is all geared up for bear. The trick is I want those items, specifically the large shield +2. Usually there is also something nice in the chest/weapons rack. So I engaged the ghosts but lost my lion. It was expected. The lion did not have too many hit points anyway.



After this fight I revised my weapons, putting Fiendbane away and equipping the Large shield +2 and a Bastard Sword of Cold +2. At this point I need the extra defense and playing with a two handed weapon (Fiendbane) can be dangerous to my health.

At this point I revised my opinion about phase spiders. When I was dungeon delving with my Tiefling, I could throw firebolts at enemies that were running away and usually kill them with this method. Goddamn phase spiders blink all over the place and poison you. It is not too bad when there is one, but I ran into an ambush room (like in the post above in the room with the slime everywhere) and there were four of them.
To make a long story short the drat poison and blinking around killed two of my companions: the archer and the giff. That was a blow. I did learn that the phase spiders tend to not blink if you engage them at ranged, however this may be a coincidence. I had to finish them off by using the charge talent.


So I got to level 6, just me and my longtime companion from level one, the aasimar paladin.


Aasimar Paladin loadout on level 6

I shifted my playstyle to being very cautious and conservative with my resources. I would stop chasing down fleeing enemies and make sure the paladin had full stamina when she started conflicts.

In a vault room I found what I think is the most useful item in the game. I have found it over three playthroughs.


Yep, search is king.

Here is another tricky situation. I opened a secret door without resting to regain stamina for my companion and this is what I see, an entire war party of Githyanki.



I thought I would lose my lone companion at this point because she was too far in the room. Do note the Githyanki sorcerer. He nasty.

So to deal with this situation I used a horn and a spider figurine to summon two allies. The spirit warrior was a useful fighter, the spider was a meat shield.



Fortunately I was able to do two things. I damaged one of the Githyanki warriors so bad he fled the room, then I continually charged the Githyanki sorcerer until he blinked out of my sight.



Then I was able to mop up the remaining Githyanki in the room and then track down the fleeing sorcerer and warrior. Divide and conquer.


The spoils of my battle. Better than Plate Armor.

Githyanki are great to fight because they usually drop +2 to +3 weapons and have enchanted armor as well.


After that successful battle. I used an Elixir of Experience to get to level 12. Look what the paladin gets!


It's unicorn time baby!

So now I feel a little more secure about fighting on levels 6 and 7 but I really do need more companions. Some of the enemies further down are nasty and summon their friends. So I would like my own army to support me.


Gooch181 posted:

Nice!
I haven't picked my playthrough back up because I've been distracted by some other stuff for a few days, but I'm looking forward to trying to finish level 4. I'm pretty sure it was either that wizard house or the undead crypt that took out my allies, but I can't recall which. Both were rough fights and they were pretty much back to back. I found an orb of dismiss and that saved me from two other tight spots, that wand you have with 5 charges is a serious boon.

Yeah I'm saving my orb of dismissal, wand of dismissal and arrows of dismissal for deeper levels. They function as a blink however so it is possible that the enemy dismissed will blink nearby and track you down in a few turns.

Whew! Anyway the rest of level 6 awaits.

Caidin
Oct 29, 2011
I'm never quite sure whats causing but I keep finding the floor king and it's just them alone and their entire retinue murdered judging by the equipment on the floor. Not really complaining per say but a curious occurrence none the less.

I'm nearing 100 characters and only one of them got to be a god thus far.

Gooch181
Jan 1, 2008

The Gooch
They probably got stomped out by elephants :D

Quite a few times my wife has made comments about the sound effects while I'm over here pecking away.
"Are you abusing dogs over there?"
"Are you playing a zoo game?"

zorbus
Feb 12, 2020
Release 33 is out at http://www.zorbus.net

Huge lore update! Some of the old lore books were rewritten and many new books introduced. Massive thanks to Helical Nightmares for help.

Full changelog:
http://www.zorbus.net/Zorbus.txt

Note:
Save files are not compatible between game releases! You will lose your saved games and previously ascended characters from the save folder!
If you enable the option "Check for updates on start" from the settings, you'll be informed when a new release is available, and asked if you want to update. The check is made when the game is started.
If you install a new release manually, then it's best to remove the old folder before installing a new version.

Added a tip about web / slime to the manual and the ingame Tips & Trick book:
You can try to attack even when stuck in web or slime. A body-check is made to determine if you can struggle through
the restraining effect. The strength of map cloud effects decrease each round, making it a bit easier to get free.
Potion of mobility gives temporary immunity to restraining effects.
Use a potion of blink or the spell blink for an immediate escape.
An advanced option is to replace a cloud effect with a less harmful one, for example conjuring fire wall on a web effect.

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Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009

Helical Nightmares posted:

So now I feel a little more secure about fighting on levels 6 and 7 but I really do need more companions.

See that? That's the theme of our show today. :negative:

So I and my aasimar paladin buddy (with summoned unicorns in tow) carefully divided and conquered level 6. I cleared all of it except for a wizard's lair and an adjacent golem vault with a clay and stone golem that get angry at you if you hang around or steal the treasure. I left those alone until I got stronger.

I found a portal to Carillo and I had enough cash to buy the only endgame weapon there.



I only have an Archery skill of around 4, but this longbow +4 in addition to my +1 eternal arrow should make a dent into fleeing enemies.

Onward to level 7 right? Yes, but carefully. When my companion and I were at full stamina I did the time-honored roguelike practice of "stair dancing;" namely going down stairs, aggroing creatures from the lower level and going up stairs so that the enemies follow you so you can kill them off when they are isolated.

So I did this a couple times and I managed to get a couple of yuan-ti and the duregar king to follow me upstairs to level 6 where they were eliminated.

Stair dancing is dangerous so when I pushed my luck doing it a third time...


Far too many enemies

...this is what I saw. This is a yikes moment. And this...



...means I am in big trouble. Two dragons and a drow wizard that can run all over the place? Not good.

I fled initially (away and trying to chase down that damned wizard) and this is what happened.


The chime of doom rings

This is bad. Losing my last companion means I don't just lose one ally. As mentioned previously the two unicorns that can be summoned by the paladin are gone too. So that puts me down three allies. And I need more allies to fight that damned wizard and the two dragons (who have long range breath weapons) who are tooling around the area.

I tried using a wand of dismissal to get rid of the dragons. It didn't work. What did work was using the orb of dismissal. Unfortunately over time the two dragons and the wizard converged in the same area again. So what am I to do? Well I turned to Carillo for answers.



This might work. A clone of myself (equipped with plate armor and a rings of cold and fire resistance) might be able to hold the line against two dragons. I don't have the gold to buy the elixir, but I've got plenty of magic items to sell.

So is this the end of my run? I'll find out next time.

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