Intermission 5 Page 1
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The party finds a ladder at the end of the tunnel leading into an abandoned warehouse. The kobold with the pick collapses a specially-prepared beam behind them, bringing down the ceiling and blocking the tunnel at this end so the Guard won’t be able to follow. Still, it would probably be a good idea to get out of the area quickly.
“I can’t believe this! I’ve lost everything! I’ll never be able to go back to ringsmiffing after this! And the human says I’ll probably need to go into hiding… oh, how could everything have gone so wrong?!”
“Ricki, I wanted to thank you for helping to get my family to safety.”
“No problem! We’re happy we could help after all the trouble we caused!”
“Well, I know the miners blame the ringsmif, but it’s not like they weren’t putting us all at risk with their little operation.”
“And… and I can probably never see my boyfriend again! I don’t want to drag him into all this! And we were just talking about moving in together, too!”
“Anyway, I’ve decided that I’m getting out. Leaving the city, if we can manage it.”
“That’s probably a good idea.”
“But since you helped us so much, I wanted to leave you with a little something. The miners gave it to me in case someone attacked us.”
“I’ll have to at least send him a note, somehow… let’s see, do I have any spare paper?”
“My Dear, Beloved Chester… I am writing this missive to inform you with a heavy heart that as of this moment we may no longer see each other.”
“It’s a wand of death touch. Very dangerous, but limited range.”
“I find myself having fallen into the lifestyle of a CRIMINAL MOST VILE and cannot in good conscience burden you with my further association.”
“Wow, you’re not kidding. Is this what you had in your locked chest?”
“Yeah. Thanks to all of you I never needed it, and hopefully I never will again.”
“Thanks! Take care of yourselves!”
“Bye, Ricki.”
“Please know that as I gaze up at the stars through the hole in the roof of whatever den of iniquity I inevitably find myself calling home, I will always be thinking of you with fondness and regret.”
Nice wand. I kinda feel sorry for Mac at this point.
Meh, 1 damage per turn is really not a big deal, even if it’s unblockable, and 3 damage per dungeon is kinda lame too. With party full and lots of equipment we can slice through any defense anyway. We can keep the wand for while just in case, but I would sell it for something more useful eventually.
I love mac. He is so innocent
It’s okay, Mac. You’re probably going to see your boyfriend again soon. I mean, your friends seem resourceful; maybe they can sneak you back to your lover some day!
Unpause.
Given how Macadamia’s life has gone thus far, I’m not sure if Chestnut will be heartbroken or if he already broke up with Macadamia months ago and Mac hasn’t gotten the hint yet.
Wand of Death Touch is neat, but situational. Best against an enemy like the Snale which has 3 Def and 2 HP, when alone. Still, unblockable damage only matters if you aren’t already using enough damage to break Def, and most enemies that wear armour seem to have more than 3 HP. I suppose it’d work well to finish off an enemy that was almost but not quite downed, or to chip away at a hard target while allies clear out multiple softer targets. I’d like to take it for a spin, but the main reason not to sell is because there isn’t much more space for gear. We’ll see.
I can imagine specialized low-hp high-def (or high-resistance) enemies, i.e. magic-wall, animated-armours, golems, etc, for which unblockable damage would be their weak point, and which we’d learn only through lens as any traditional scanning-by-damaging wouldn’t work (attacks just saying no or tiny damage all the time).
I also thought about Ricky-only areas, but … nah, not really useful.
I also thought about ‘mechanisms’ like traps and contraptions – creative notion of defense and hp – attempt to use a wand on a locking mechanism hidden in a wall, bypass wall as “the defense”, and hit the lock (and what? jam it?). But these things rarely are “living” so “death touch” may not apply.
So.. other creative uses on living things then? High-def high-hp opponent, as we often see, and aim for the balls, erm, eyes? Helmet won’t protect, 1dmg straight to the point. Could work. Or could work as a scare factor for intimidation. 1dmg straight through omfg-lots-of-armour may give some big guys some food for thoughts, maybe they won’t know we have only 3 uses.
One use that I do see is if we want to trigger bats that are otherwise out of reach. We could also use it to trigger something like a Snale so that it starts attacking anything in the area.
It’s said to be “limited range” and it’s called “death touch”, so I think it actually needs a melee style attack to be possible. But the description doesn’t mention it, odd. I think we’ll soon have a chance to test it 😀
Compare to the Wand of Magic Missile, which deals damage at range. I can’t readily find a rule that specifies you need to be in melee unless stated otherwise, but it is a wand of Death “Touch”, and in general you need to be near something to use a regular weapon/thieves tools/keys/rope/etc.
We still have Venomous Sting for a reusable ranged attack, and can throw random objects if the only goal is to wake up bats. Throwing a wand probably wouldn’t do anything, we saw in the Tavern Basement that a skeleton swinging a wand like a weapon didn’t activate it.
Not a big fan of Macadamia’s drama being the foreground with the real party in back. I feel like the exact same thing would feel way more palatable reversed.
Me too, but I’m not a huge fan of ‘the drama’ at all, so meh, my viewpoint is biased.
It’s supposed to feel that way. As Chris Claremont put it, “we’re playing the strings of your heart”.
This is the joke, though! For Mac (who seems to understand little of the world), this is a huge moment where his whole life has been thrown into chaos and everything is awful. For the others, this is Tuesday. As Mac begins to literally cry to the audience as he writes a letter to his lover (who he believes he’ll ever see again), we can tell that everything is still moving on, business as usual.
Basically, what you’re complaining about is the whole point of the setup. It’s why I chuckled when I read the page. You can get a laugh out of the scene and feel bad for Mac at the same time.
I can understand the setup and still find it annoying, rather than funny or interesting.
“I am never going to financially recover from this!”
I absolutely -love- how Ricki is coaxing Daisy to come up the ladder and how Daisy is looking up and wagging her tail. 😀
Am I the only one who thinks that the “death touch wand” kinda looks like a mic? Perhaps someone who wants to use that wand needs to sing (badly) into it and the target will start to bleed out of their ears (if they have any)? 😀 😀 😀
In that case wouldn’t be “death whisper” or something like this a bit more fitting?
While it resembles a mic, it also resembles some .. adult toys. NSFW warning: google out Hitachi Magic Wand. That’d be a ‘touch’, 1dmg would probably correlate, and also 3 uses.. you know, eats the batteries really quick!
edit: … and the look on kobold’s father’s face when he gives it to Ricky LOL
M. is enjoying his downfall a little too much.
But I suppose that was what Chestnut loved about him.
Also, I’m pretty sure that in his mind’s eye, M. sees himself in the near future as a ruthless and awesome lawless kobold, that is Peanut.
For posterity, our inventory with the prize and before shopping: (putting multi type items under the category I prefer, the encyclopedia is more of a tool because we might use it but the heavy gold shield is a treasure rather than a shield because we don’t want to risk the 30% break chance)
Weapons: 8 slots
Kamau’s Hilt
Oxidicer
Greatsword
Heavy Pick
Whip
Rat Fang + 1 rat tail
Ranged Weapons: 2 slots
Double crossbow
Shields: 6 slots
Magma shield
Shield x3
Spiked buckler
Armour: 9 slots
Leather armour
Wolf hide armour
Plate armour
Fire dragon robes
Wands: 1 slot
Wand of Death Touch
Tools: 2 slots
Purse
Encyclopedia (treasure)
Rings: 0 slots
Ring of protection
Ring of aggression x2
Consumables: 1 slot
Potion of Rage
Treasures: 3 slots
Heavy gold shield
Gold coin x39