Dungeon 5 Turn 37
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Lara and Kamau take the three picks on the ground and Macadamia is given the rat fang dagger and the rat tails to go with them. Kamau once again receives the ring of protection. The party then attacks the group of kobolds on the lowest level.
Lara and her pet spider each knock out one of the kobold miners while Kamau interposes. The third miner gets a lucky hit in, and Macadamia fails to knock him out in a single attack even with the empowered rat fang. Ricki and Daisy attack the kobold in robes, but she seems to be made of sterner stuff than the others. She whips Kamau in the face, dealing 1 damage to him, and urges her remaining allies on.
“Kill them all, in the name of the Subject!”
Guards are in bedroom now
Just to keep things in perspective
Assuming room past scorpion is exit and that guards move 1 each turn, they will reach exit room in 5 turns.
We have 1 turn to finish this room, 1 for scorpion and 1 to move to exit room. That leaves us with 2 turns to deal with the Subject.
We might get lucky and the guards killing the beetles might take them an extra turn.
We could also save a turn if we give mac our extra def items and send him to scout the exit room while the others kill scorpion.
Also, Kamau can tank the guards for 1 turn since he has dauntless. So that’s an extra turn too
and remined that guards attack on entrance to room and everyone takes turn at the same time.
meaning if we are leaving room they are entering. They get to attack.
At least we have Kobold Family to soak up damage
> If we are leaving room they are entering. They get to attack
If we read that “everything on the same turn” then yes, but I doubt that. They enter from one side, we leave on the other side. Look at this room for example. If guards enter on the top, and we leave on the bottom, I don’t think they’d get to hit us.
If the guards were to get a hit on our team, that would mean that our “move right” and “guards enter” cannot be at the same time. It would mean that the guards for some reason would walk in first, and then run down to us (by normal in-room movement), before our guys start moving out. But why would it be so? There was never a rule that our movement is delayed for some reason. And if it’s not, then as they come in, we move out, and when they are in, we are not here already.
Example of that we had in the Chapel. Remember the Stalkroach? There was a moment when Kamau went into a room from the left, and the Stalkroach was seen climbing up the stairs, right in front of Kamau’s nose. I think that was a glimpse of such chase, one group enters, other group exists, we know what’s happening but can’t prevent them from exiting. But if they stayed, we definitely could enter-and-attack. I think we did it already many times. (of course, there’s the thing we have to KNOW whom to attack, so it cannot be an yet-unexplored room, but that’s another story, I think that this one explored/unexplored rule does not apply to them).
Turn 30
Lara is still in same room as Guards enter and attack Bats even when her turn was to go to another room and swap equipment
Lara and spider: attack cultist
Ricki and daisy: attack lone miner on floor above (or tell him it’s time to run if not hostile)
Kamau: interpose
Mac: finish your miner off
If mac’s attack isn’t needed, smif a pick
Are we sure Mac can finish the miner off? Miners are knocked out by 5 damage, Mac can only deal 4 by spending a rat tail and we don’t know how much defense the miner has.
I’d suggest to have Lara attack the last miner by the cultist or tell Mac to burn another tail.
We need a tail for scorp, a tail for subject
How many rat tails are left? I updated Mac’s inventory at the mechanics page, but don’t know how many tails were passed to him (-1 used now).
I think we are down to 3 now.
Nope, just the two
We had 3, should be 2 left.
Curious, Macadamia has 0 Atk. Note our Ring of Aggression can help here.
Three miners with picks is assumed 6 damage, plus 2 for pick crit. Kamau has 9 Def, so looks like the cultist with whip only deals 2 damage.
Math is off slightly as Kamau had 10 defense. Should be 3 dmg on the whip cultist.
Ah, good catch, ring of protection hadn’t been updated on character sheets at the time (though it was mentioned in the turn). 3 base -2 curse +2 shield +5 armour +1 proficiency +1 ring for 10. That tracks with either the whip granting +2 or, more likely in my mind, the cultist having base 2 attack.
My other thought was that the whip could count as a ranged attack with fixed damage. I feel like it’ll be a melee weapon with some “reach” ability to interact with nearby groups.
Side note, it’s better to say that Macadamia has less than 1 attack. He could totally have some Non-combatant ability giving him -1 attack or worse. That seems like overkill, but let’s not wager too much on a stat we can’t see.
“Allies”? Only one of the miners who were with her is still standing. I hope the plural is just a typo and not a sign that the kobolds we’ve been escorting are about to be turned against us…
There might be more miners in the room below…
Well, since all the combat in a fight happens at the same time, she definitely could hit Kamau and say something, while each miner got hit in the head and began preparing to take a horizontal position on the floor.
General instructions:
All attacks are non-lethal.
Everyone avoid the floor with broken glass and pressure plates entirely, do not attempt to go there at all.
Inventory shuffle:
Lara Trades Macadamia one of her picks for rat fang and tails. Drops the other pick. Takes ring of aggression from Ricki.
Kamau drops a pick, gets thieves tools from Ricki.
Actions: Lara attacks cultist with greatsword. Spider attacks cultist, or miner if its attack is unnecessary for cultist. Take unguarded whip if combat ends.
Kamau: Interpose with regular shield, starting with the cultist group and following Macadamia one floor up to the stag beetle chest, then returning to stairs with Macadamia, after Macadamia loots chest (so you may not need to take damage from stags again), like you did at turn 25 of the tavern.
Macadamia: While Kamau is covering you (meaning always being in range of his interposing as he moves), run up to chest near stag beetles, passing through them, get what’s on it, dropping the pick you just got if necessary, run back to Ricki on the stairs, hand it to her. If you still can, smif a pick.
Ricki, follow Kamau upstairs one floor up until the lone unarmed miner. If
he is hostile, attack him while Kamau is there to interpose. If non hostile, try to convince him to leave with us, giving the item Macadamia looted from the chest if Miner needs/wants the item to be able to leave.
Daisy, attack any hostile kobolds remaining.
Anyone with free inventory at turn’s end please get any other unguarded cultist items, then pickaxes, if the combat ended down there.
Explanation:
Okay, fine. Maca has 0 innate atk. Yay. Let’s not bother having him attack.
Miners take five atk in a single turn to go down. Cultist doesn’t hit for much, lone miner is non-hostile. Kamau can interpose multiple groups like he did in tavern.
Credits to the Discord group:
Sickass, for multiple interpose idea
Elomir, for inventory management
TNIM, for determining stats, and Ricki order of action.
Darus Mul, helped with looting part
Claudious: rephrasing to ensure Macadamia doesn’t risk himself.
Will accept corrections, edits, for as long as the program allows me.
Get the robes if they drop along with the whip.
Done.
I don’t think we should have Ricki try to talk first. Let’s have her try to attack instead. LSN has said he’d stop us from attacking friendly NPCs. I’m afraid if we try to talk and he attacks we lose our action. Better to try attacking and end up talking than vice versa.
Done
Since we’ve got all this extra time, my main argument against this plan is that it’s completely contingent on mechanics we don’t fully understand. We’ve only interposed against two enemy groups once to my knowledge, in d2 with the drunks and the snale. I’m unsure it will work in this instance, and if Kamau only interposes one group Macadamia or Lara could take lethal or full remorse damage. We’ve also only split the pet off for an attack separately from the owner once, with the spider fighting the bugbear while Lara flipped the lever is this dungeon. If we fail to have Daisy make the attack because she’s too far away from Ricki (like we failed to have the spider attack the red group above the ladder while Lara was attacking the group below the ladder in this dungeon) we will end up with Kobolds still up at the end of the turn, which would require us staying on this screen until the top of turn 40 (an attacker on turn 39 couldn’t leave the room until next turn). My plan has better, or at worst equal and guaranteed, damage on all kobold enemies/potential enemies. The only thing my plan doesn’t have is looting the chest this turn, but that can STILL be done next turn without keeping a character stuck here till turn 40. Combat in this room is the riskiest thing we can do, and so we should prioritize completing it NOW over any other goals.
Random idea for the NEXT room, whatever turn we land there.
Someone here was counting the rat tails, and someone said that we need some rat tails for the scorpion. I think that’s a bad idea to attack the scorpion at all.
If we enter that room and attack the scorpion, of course Kamau will interpose to protect the kobold family, and we’re wasting actions of everyone else on attacking it. Actions can be used to make extra movement between rooms. And also we’re wasting a non-kobold enemy that the guards will have to kill before they can chase us. That’s wasting time killing a thing that actually works as our defense against them, like Rusty. It won’t hold them for long, but WILL hold them.
I say, let’s leave the scorpion alive. Let Kamau enter the room and interpose. Kamau would interpose anyways, and is stuck in this room for the rest of the turn, but that’s no change w.r.t. kill-the-scorpion alternative. However others characters can use their actions for – I dont know what, open topic here.
For example, someone could scan some guards (if visible) or the scorpion. For example someone could use their action to go further and scout the room below. Whoever does that, cannot return or go any further, since that’s an unexplored room, but should be relatively safe from any imminent attacks from any enemies that are there. I don’t think we’ve ever had anyone attacked upon entering into a yet-unexplored room.
If we trust that we can not be attacked upon entering a yet-unexplored room, we can even tell everyone except for Kamau to spend an action and run past scorpion, and to go to the room down there. If there happen to be some enemies, then right away on the next turn, Kamau would join (*) and interpose there. Or something like that.
(*) scorpion would probably attack Kamau twice, once when Kamau enters and interposes, and then on the next turn when Kamau tries to go down and join the party. I’m not sure if the scoprion can stop Kamau from exiting. I think that if Kamau does not decide actively attack the scorpion back, then he can just take the hit and move as usual.
The most important point is, if we leave scorpion alive, it will make sure the guards won’t move more than one room at time. And if it has insane DEF maybe will buy us an extra turn, but that’s unlikely. I’m not sure how many room at time the guards can move through, but the guards did not ignore Rusty and immediately move left, so any monster in the room will prevent a double-move if they are capable of that at all. Leaving the beetles alive here will probably do the same.
I’d like to kill the scorpion, partly because we haven’t yet forced the family to run by an active combatant while guarded by Interpose (and they may not be willing to do so), and partly because I expect a chance of venom sac drop which would inform several of Lara’s level up choices.
Agreed that we’ve never been attacked on the turn of entry to a new room, and that Kamau would be able to advance with at worst a parting shot.
I just realized: Scorpions are arachnids, and have the same eye pattern. Spider-related abilities might work on them.
Not saying we should burn another corruption here, but something to keep in mind. I think that scorpions are stronger than spiders and I hear it has been said on discord that the spider is the strongest pet, so this may fall under the “merely becomes docile” part of Subdue Spider.
You know what else has a similar eye pattern? The helmet of the knight that took Kamau’s arm.
Ricki: Give Ring of Aggression to Lara and trade Oxidicer for Lara’s pick. Trade spiked buckler for Kamau’s Shield and ring of protection. Ask lone miner staring down the stag beetles to help everyone evacuate before the guard comes, and if there’s any reason they can’t help. Scout ahead with Daisy, going past the cultist group to the room to the right, past the scorpion, take a look at the indentation in the floor between the buzzer and chest, then explore the room beneath.
Kamau: Interpose with cultist group. Also Interpose for Ricki above if you can.
Lara: Trade greatsword for Macadamia’s Rat Fang and tails. Attack kobold cultist with Oxidicer, ring of aggression, and spider.
Macadamia: Attack injured miner with greatsword.
I don’t think we’ll be allowed to Interpose with multiple groups, even though we’ve done so before, because combat positioning has been clarified. I agree that the lone miner looks different because they’re not armed, which is also why I’m not concerned about them attacking. I really want to see what we’re getting into for the next/last room.
New plan! All attacks nonlethal.
Macadamia gets the ring of protection from Kamau and the ring of aggresssion from Lara, trading back any copper ring he has if necessary, then goes to attack the lone miner with no pick above using an empowered rat fang. If he ends up being nonhostile instead let him know he should evacuate or risk death/imprisonment at the hands of the guards. If there’s something he needs before evacuating he needs to tell us now.
Kamau interpose for the cultist fight.
Ricki, Lara and Spider attack the cultist.
Daisy attack the lone injured pick miner.
This may be overkill on the cultist, but it’s imperative that we get the hell out of here now, and if we still want any shot at completing the secondary objective now is the time. Worse comes to worse we will end up with one non Kamau person stuck in the scorpion room with Kamau next turn as we run, but I really doubt the scorpion will switch targets from Kamau then.
I suspect the scorpion has two attacks, with claws and stinger. The Owlbear entry has shown that multiple attacks are possible.
Sure, but even an owlbear was only 6 damage right? Even if we have to risk an attack on someone like Lara it should be survivable without risking max remorse given we can get her to 6 armor without consumeables.
I’m way to worried about the Bugs on the same floor. If they attack too, Mac is dead. I’d rather send Ricki to talk to the last guy because she has 6 Armor (8 Armor after item swapping) and we know she has more than 1 HP. It means Daisy can’t attack though, but losing one attack is better than risking losing a party member.
I’d have Ricki give her Spiked Buckler and Oxidicer for Mac’s Rat Fang and Rat Tail and trade Ricki’s Ring of Aggression and Thieves’ Tools for Lara’s Shield. I don’t think Kamau needs the Ring of Protection against the Robed Kobold any more, so he should give his Ring of Protection to Ricki.
The Reason for using a Rat Tail instead of letting Daisy attack is pets can only get attacked if they are attacking.
Mac can finish off the Miner he hit before with the Oxidicer and Lara could have the Ring of Aggression for extra damage.
Your plan doesn’t work if the miner has 2 armor.
Actually there’s a 30% chance it works because the Oxidicer can break. 😛
Seriously though, we can give the Ring of Aggression to Mac instead of Lara.