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If you're a Dwarven Fighter in AD&D and don't even have the 19 CON for slow regeneration what are you even doing with your life?
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Jul 31, 2021 07:14
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The speedrun option sounds more interesting, half the fun of these old games is watching someone break them in half and do stuff that isn't 100% intended by the developers. 
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Jul 31, 2021 08:08
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PurpleXVI posted:The speedrun option sounds more interesting, half the fun of these old games is watching someone break them in half and do stuff that isn't 100% intended by the developers. Truth. I want to see a master break the game over their knee.
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Jul 31, 2021 08:11
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The pantry is another one of those secret quests that are kind of obvious. I love how you have to go through several levels before they give you an option to resurrect people. It's so oldschool rpg  ...I didn't even remember that there were cursed weapons here, dang. Voted A. Normally i'm all for exploiting the game for all it's worth, it won't show you any mercy and should be treated in kind, but it feels kind of cheap to start a gimmick run (that takes several levels to even get going!) only to postpone it even more because it's less optimal? Also there are no tactics in this game more overpowered than "find a 2x2 room, lead enemies in circle" and you have access to that from day 1. 
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Jul 31, 2021 08:57
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vilkacis posted:Voted A. Normally i'm all for exploiting the game for all it's worth, it won't show you any mercy and should be treated in kind, but it feels kind of cheap to start a gimmick run (that takes several levels to even get going!) only to postpone it even more because it's less optimal? 
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Jul 31, 2021 10:53
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Alternatively, do the portal-hopping, but still change to premade characters to keep the challenge. Who are you carrying around anyway? Tod Uphill and Anya?
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Jul 31, 2021 10:56
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Speedrun would be more interesting anyway. I want to see how overpowered the custom characters get.
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Jul 31, 2021 19:08
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Games of this era tended to have a bit of difficulty-by-obscurity going on, and part of what I like about LPs of them is seeing them get broken over the knee of someone who knows how all this poo poo actually works, which is why I voted for the "gently caress playing fair" option.
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Jul 31, 2021 19:49
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To be frank, especially in a SSLP, how hard or interesting the fights and such are are entirely lost on the audience. Do whatever you find fun is my advice.
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Jul 31, 2021 21:15
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Tylana posted:To be frank, especially in a SSLP, how hard or interesting the fights and such are are entirely lost on the audience. Do whatever you find fun is my advice. I agree. I want to see as much of the game as possible; that's kind of the bloody point of an LP, especially a screen shot LP. Speed runs are designed to show of something else entirely, and need to be done in video for obvious reasons. I like how the LP has gone so far and I don't know why we would change it. Show off the companions, the dialogue, the enemies, the puzzles, items, campy voice acting etc without rushing. It's about the journey and all that
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Aug 1, 2021 00:44
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Of course, an NPC run could also be interesting. Perhaps two runs of the game are in order?
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Aug 1, 2021 01:26
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wafflemoose posted:Of course, an NPC run could also be interesting. Perhaps two runs of the game are in order? This is a thought that crossed my mind since making that poll. I think I'll probably end up doing that, with the second being more of a summarized bonus update. As for which to do first: from looking ahead, the remaining few plot points would make a bit more sense if I did the levels in order. It would also be a little better for showing certain level gimmicks. Much as I'd hate to invalidate the poll I made, it does also seem like sequence-breaking and getting overpowered are best shown in the bonus content. Does this sound good?
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Aug 1, 2021 03:35
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Works for me!
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Aug 1, 2021 03:55
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Breaking things is always a good bonus in my book.
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Aug 1, 2021 04:48
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I kind of want to see the same four player-made characters through the whole trilogy, but this isn't a humorous or narrative LP and part of me would like to see an NPC rotation.
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Aug 1, 2021 05:17
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Alpha3KV posted:This is a thought that crossed my mind since making that poll. I think I'll probably end up doing that, with the second being more of a summarized bonus update. As for which to do first: from looking ahead, the remaining few plot points would make a bit more sense if I did the levels in order. It would also be a little better for showing certain level gimmicks. Much as I'd hate to invalidate the poll I made, it does also seem like sequence-breaking and getting overpowered are best shown in the bonus content. Does this sound good? sure
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Aug 1, 2021 07:39
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Since I ultimately decided to do both options, I rewrote the end of that update from Armun's speech. That was split into two smaller images, and I re-ordered it so that the portal was shown before the other dwarves. I'm also showing the resurrections:Alpha3KV posted:
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Aug 2, 2021 05:24
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Anya looks pretty solid, 18/59 Strength is nothing to sneeze at.
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Aug 2, 2021 07:40
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Poor Anya, so strong, so dumb. Doesn't sound like she has 5 int, though, so i guess she's doing all right! You know, other than the whole dying bit. I don't think i ever brought either of these two, given at this point Thagor exists and plugs a front row slot well enough, the party is probably decently ahead in levels compared to Anya, and more than one thief is kind of pointless. Alpha3KV posted:Resurrected characters start with no items. Their bones tend to appear around some gear that they were presumably holding when they died, though. I don't remember Anya but Tod definitely comes next to some lockpicks for instance.
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Aug 2, 2021 08:32
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vilkacis posted:and thief is kind of pointless. quote:Their bones tend to appear around some gear that they were presumably holding when they died, though. I don't remember Anya but Tod definitely comes next to some lockpicks for instance.
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Aug 2, 2021 08:55
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Look thieves are good luck charms
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Aug 2, 2021 11:11
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vilkacis posted:Look thieves are good luck charms ♪ La la la I'm playing Wizardry and I can't hear you over the [lack of] sound of my thief being sooo good and useful ♪
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Aug 2, 2021 11:14
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vilkacis posted:Their bones tend to appear around some gear that they were presumably holding when they died, though. I don't remember Anya but Tod definitely comes next to some lockpicks for instance. What I mean is that they start with empty inventories. I might make another small edit wording it that way and also telling what happens with a removed character's items (all left on the ground at that spot).
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Aug 2, 2021 17:18
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vilkacis posted:Poor Anya, so strong, so dumb. Doesn't sound like she has 5 int, though, so i guess she's doing all right! You know, other than the whole dying bit. Technically, low INT level doesn't mean dumbness, it means very little capabilities in educational matters, like foreign lanuages or math. 11 in WIS means she has a medium level of common sense and streetwise.
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Aug 2, 2021 19:21
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EOTB 6: Putting All Our Eggs in One Basket New level, new party. The south entrance to level 6 goes right into a door that can only be opened from the other side. We'll need to go through the teleporter puzzle in level 5 for the north entrance.  There, we come across this door with pressure plates on each side. You must place a weapon on each one to open the door. Bows and slings won't work for this. After that, it stays open permanently, so you can take the weapons back.  The main enemy of this level is kenku. They have noticeably more HP than previous enemies, an can cast Magic Missile. Due to an error, they are worth a LOT more experience than they should be. Each character in this party of four gets over 1000 XP for killing one.  One of the chambers in the northeast corner has this kenku egg. It can be eaten to restore a small amount of the hunger meter, but it's needed for other purposes.  The way into the central portion of the level has a lock of the same type seen in the greed puzzle (I didn't have a shot of them there). At a corner of two short hallways, we meet some nerd with delusions of grandeur. Listen to his voice crack here.   This is the game's mid-boss of sorts, who can be totally missed or skipped. His threats are not completely empty, since he can cast spells that damage the entire party.  The scattered blue pixels indicate that this was a Cone of Cold, thankfully a weak one. What you want to do is lure him to one of the open areas to the west or north. I back down the corridor, firing projectiles at him along the way. Enemies with spells or other ranged attacks will not use them unless they're within your sight range, so you can use that to your advantage even in a narrow hallway. Once he's in the open, I do the classic melee square dance, which no enemy is able to counter. He drops a wand and a Potion of Extra Healing.  There are two 3x3 rooms in this level with pressure plates in the middle and walls that look like this on both sides. Stepping on the plate will cause a total of four darts to be fired toward the middle. You can quickly step back to dodge them, making them land in front of the opposite walls. I collect them for later.  The key to the central area of the level is right in front of the door to the south stairs up to level 5.   These things can be found there. The portal's key is technically in this level, but in an isolated portion that can only be accessed from level 7.  In the north there are four rooms each containing multiple kenku. They are connected by a long hallway, so I use the same strategy as for the mage by firing projectiles to soften them up before getting them into the open. It's actually a bit riskier than with him since they could potentially attack from multiple sides.  Those rooms also have eggs in them. There are a total of ten throughout the level.  Getting them all into the nest is this level's fairly intuitive special quest. Doing so removes the walls surrounding that tile.  The prize is this, our first +5 weapon.  It doesn't have longer reach than any other melee weapon, until the third game makes polearms usable from the middle row.  To get to level 7, wee need some keys. They can only be obtained by going down pits to a subsection of this level.  Tod is wearing the Ring of Feather Fall and thus doesn't take damage. The keys are in small rooms that can only be opened from the pit side.  The southwest has a series of corridors with dart launchers. Each one can fire two or three times. When you pick up the darts from the northernmost one, it will reload when you step on a certain tile. This can provide an unlimited dart supply, right before a place you need a lot of darts:  A room full of shelf walls. Placing a dart or dagger on each shelf will remove the wall behind it, along with the item you used. Any other items on these shelves will be moved to another shelf at the beginning of this section.  This shield is +1. I left the normal one that looks like it behind so they don't get confused.  Here is the only magical weapon that starts out identified. There is also a small button here that opens the east wall, making a shortcut to other parts of the level.  The way to level 7 is barred by locks that move walls. This dwarven key will fit even though it's not the gargoyle lock they were used for previously.  Another copy protection checkpoint. The password is "wizard" here but the GOG version makes that irrelevant. Alpha3KV fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Oct 18, 2021 |
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Aug 7, 2021 20:08
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You got rid of the clerics...how are you going to heal besides potions and spending weeks resting?
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Aug 7, 2021 20:36
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I don't know if anyone will know the answer to this, but something I've noticed is that every level has exactly two enemy types (this last one seems to be the Kenku and the miniboss) - way back in the day I used to play Dungeon Hack which was a Roguelike based on the same engine as the EotB series and it had the same thing, so I'm curious if anyone knows if this is an engine limitation, where for whatever reason it can only have the data for two enemy types loaded at once?
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Aug 7, 2021 20:41
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That's some horrible exposition syndrome on that midboss
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Aug 7, 2021 20:44
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Being able to eat Kenku eggs is super hosed up considering that they're a sapient species. What the hell.
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Aug 7, 2021 21:10
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PurpleXVI posted:Being able to eat Kenku eggs is super hosed up considering that they're a sapient species. What the hell. This series was made when D&D and tabletop roleplaying were very firmly in the "don't think about it" era. It's eggs, you can eat eggs.
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Aug 7, 2021 21:11
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wafflemoose posted:You got rid of the clerics...how are you going to heal besides potions and spending weeks resting? I made an off-screen revisit to the dwarf cleric on level 5, who can heal the party to full as well as reviving NPCs. On that note, the cleric NPC's remains are in level 7, so I won't be without one for too long. I also amassed a large stockpile of potions from the first four levels, which should be more than sufficient until then.
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Aug 7, 2021 21:57
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It's surprising the average player character can identify a kenku egg so readily. How do we know it's not something else? One of my fellow players had a character who once ate an unknown egg. What followed was almost a reenactment of the movie Alien. Another time a player ate a dragon egg and temporarily gained the ability to spit and fart fire- without their control. This was despite boiling the egg first, a lengthy process that probably should have tipped the party off something was amiss. I also recall two instances of eggs poisonous to the player's race, one where it caused the player to gain fiendish attributes, and one where it brought a paladin into conflict with their deity. Our party eventually learned to leave strange eggs alone or at least not consume them.
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Aug 7, 2021 21:58
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achtungnight posted:It's surprising the average player character can identify a kenku egg so readily. How do we know it's not something else? One of NetHack's many, many trolls is cockatrice eggs. All eggs are unidentified when you find them, and generally not worth expending your relatively limited ability to identify items just to find out what they are (they also don't have any "soft" identification methods like other items). Eating a cockatrice egg will kill you via petrification within a few turns.
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Aug 7, 2021 22:06
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Mid-boss is too grand of a title for Wordy Cloak Guy. He's just some  idiot.Also goddamn i don't think Cone of Cold could even do as little 2 damage. Unless Anya's just too dense to notice when she's cold I'm sure the chieftain halberd is very good but i don't think i ever used it because what about my dual wielding??? wafflemoose posted:You got rid of the clerics...how are you going to heal besides potions and spending weeks resting? It's not as if time matters, though. Just go make some tea while you wait. achtungnight posted:It's surprising the average player character can identify a kenku egg so readily. How do we know it's not something else? The level is full of kenku though. It's not a guess completely out of nowhere.
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Aug 8, 2021 02:05
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PurpleXVI posted:Being able to eat Kenku eggs is super hosed up considering that they're a sapient species. What the hell. I mean, you could make the argument that the egg itself isn't sentient, just the chick when it's eventually born. And maybe they're unfertalized eggs?
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Aug 8, 2021 04:56
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PurpleXVI posted:Being able to eat Kenku eggs is super hosed up considering that they're a sapient species. What the hell. Nethack called, they want your anti-cannibalism crusade back And while we're at it, please explain how eating sentient species is "super hosed up, what the hell", but invading their home and going on a killing spree without any attempt at asking for passage is a trifle not worth mentioning? Seriously. I know "murderhobo" is already a meme and a lot of game conventions are ethically dubious to outrageous when applied to the average modern person, but why the eating hangup? I can think of several reasons not to eat humans, none of which give humans credit. The Cheshire Cat posted:One of NetHack's many, many trolls is cockatrice eggs. Pierzak fucked around with this message at 06:10 on Aug 8, 2021 |
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Aug 8, 2021 06:08
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Pierzak posted:Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't cockatrice eggs great thrown weapons as they can petrify whatever they hit, as long as you handle them wearing gloves? In theory, yes, but as with all sorts of messing about with cockatrices, it's usually more trouble than it is worth. Getting the eggs, outside of random events (and you'd still have to identify them!), is a bother and a half. Generally speaking, for your stoning needs, you're better off just wielding a dead cockatrice and hitting things with it, but this is also incredibly dangerous for a multitude of reasons. Also, cockatrice eggs are the only eggs the monsters will throw at you, so, you know, make sure to duck!
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Aug 8, 2021 06:37
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Pierzak posted:And while we're at it, please explain how eating sentient species is "super hosed up, what the hell", but invading their home and going on a killing spree without any attempt at asking for passage is a trifle not worth mentioning? Seriously. I know "murderhobo" is already a meme and a lot of game conventions are ethically dubious to outrageous when applied to the average modern person, but why the eating hangup? I can think of several reasons not to eat humans, none of which give humans credit. I mean, far as I can tell, the Kenku never go: "Hey, leave, this is our region of the underworld." and give the party a chance to back off. They just charge over and attack mindlessly and the party's defending itself. The eggs, on the other hand, assuming they're fertilized eggs, are basically enemy combatants' children, so that's kind of where it goes from "self-defense against an attack" to "murdering enemy non-combatants and literally eating them." Plus I think the implication so far is that every monster we're encountering has either been lured in, hired, or convinced to fight against the surfacers by Xanathar, so they're actively declared enemy combatants, not just protecting their homelands or whatever. Randalor posted:I mean, you could make the argument that the egg itself isn't sentient, just the chick when it's eventually born. And maybe they're unfertalized eggs? I mean, sure, if they're unfertilized eggs, that would make it less hosed up. But considering that they appear to be related to a hatchery, I feel the implication is fertilized, and thus more or less eating children.
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Aug 8, 2021 09:05
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PurpleXVI posted:I mean, far as I can tell, the Kenku never go: "Hey, leave, this is our region of the underworld." and give the party a chance to back off. Except if we go that route, we can easily frame the situation as kenku living in their territory far below the sewers that humans use, and some random assholes manipulated by the evil* Main Questgiver Guy barging in, intent on breaking through their nest, eggs and all, by force of arms, with no attempt to parley. It's pretty much are_we_the_baddies.eotb. At this point eating kenku eggs is just not wasting food. Hell, I'd eat the adult kenku too, simply out of respect for the fallen. * (as evidenced by the written permission to pillage everything - are we even still carrying that letter?)
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Aug 8, 2021 10:18
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I made edits noting that bows and slings won't work for that first door, and that you can get infinite darts from one of the launchers.Pierzak posted:* (as evidenced by the written permission to pillage everything - are we even still carrying that letter?) It was one of the very first items I left behind to weigh a plate down, since no character will even notice, much less care, if you have it. All the kenku egg morality discussion is pretty interesting considering the way I'm starting the next level (no ETA on that update yet).
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Aug 10, 2021 08:18
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