Dungeon 7 Turn 5
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Ricki leads Kamau and Lohk across the patch of plants on the ground. Everyone can see them, but only Ricki notices that not all of them are the same. She doesn’t think walking across them will cause any harm, however.
Once the party draws close, the tomato vine whips its entire body as a melee attack. Kamau blocks it easily, but notes that it hits much harder this way than it did at range. A second tomato bursts during the attack. Ricki, Lohk, and Squirrel work together to hack the vine apart (it’s much less sturdy than the corn knight) and save the rest of the fruit growing on it. Ricki picks up three fresh tomatoes, then transfers all of the produce to Molly’s packs for safekeeping. Just three more and they can leave this dungeon successfully!
While the fight is going on, Macadamia considers the large tree. Although climbing a tree is something that most people could probably manage, this one’s limbs are too large and its bark too smooth to allow for a good grip, particularly at the part where you’d have to dangle upside down. If anyone’s going to reach that treehouse, they’re going to need a rope or some other way of making it easier to climb up.
Macadamia then heads to the right.
The third room doesn’t seem to have any new plants, but it does have new birds. Some of them are… unsettling.
The tomato vines seem to become aware of Macadamia immediately as he enters the room. It’s unclear how Macadamia can tell what tomato vines are thinking, but he can.
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TOMATO
Treasure
Can be used to grow more tomatoes.
Weight 1 (Stack 5), Cost 1
Aw crap
Everyone: Go to the third room.
Ricki: Attack the Rooster
Kamau: Interpose and feed Squirrel Cheese as part of his Attack.
Maca: Attack a Chicken
Lohk: Cast Ray of Frost on a different Chicken
Daisy: Attack another Chicken
Squirrel: Eat Kamau’s Cheese and attack the last Chicken
Explanation:
Someone has to suggest the Leroy plan. Ricki takes the Rooster in case it’s the most powerful and Lohk casts Ray of Frost for variety and to make it easier for LSN to draw.
The Magicrows are still in the second room, so we don’t have to worry about what they do with the big guy there too yet.
I totally agree that the flock of crows meeting this three-eyed crow might form a PITA.
If we’re going in we need to clear out the chickens to minimize the damage on future turns.
Kamau: Move right and intercede on Chickens
Squirrel: attack chicken 1
Mac: Attack Chicken 2
Daisy: attack Chicken 3
Ricki: Attack Rooster
Lohk: attack Chicken 4 with Cane
As stated earlier, we should try to clear as much as we can while we have high attack.
Chickens may be buffed, but I see no way to avoid both the chickens and the Tomatoes when we engage so Kamau is going to take some hits no matter what. Best to clear numbers
Big Crow may be NPC, or may buff/control other crows so we should leave the treehouse veggies alone to keep the groups separate. I don’t think the veggies will get eaten (because of scarecrow), but if they do, I can see at least another 9 veggies on this screen (not including the 4 tomatoes that will get smushed in the next 2 turns. It will give us a turn to figure out Big Crow before they meet up.
Next turn we can rush the tomatoes and take them both out and talk to Big Crow.
Tomatos are ranged so not like we avoid fighting them by sticking with Chikies
we should rush the backline
if we think we can spare attacks Rooster should go
but Tomatos are priority
The tomatoes do more damage in melee, and attack from just the known enemies on this screen is 12. Rushing the tomatoes guarantees that Kamau takes health damage from the increased tomato attack, and any buff to the chickens from the rooster/the rooster’s attack will be straight hp damage. Not to mention that rushing the tomato requires running right past the new crow that may or may not be friendly.
Maybe we should have squirrel attack the rooster and have Molly kick one of the other chickens? If we just have squirrel attack a chicken we will end up with one chicken left no matter what. It’s a waste of 1 damage, but kick goes down to 2 damage anyway on turn 10, and I’m not sure we are likely to find a better place to use it before then.
I’m not worried about leaving 1 chicken alive if the rest are gone. Squirrel reducing it to 1 hp leaves us open to it finishing it off if we end up fighting boss crow and tomato plants
At first glance I kind of interpreted this big crow as having glasses on and the orange do to be some kind of elevation on its beak (maybe to hold the glasses in place).
But looking at it closer, it seems that is has 3 eyes (that are visible atm, does that mean it got 6 eyes altogether)?!
And yeah, a “king crow” of all 3 tribes seems as likely explanation as any… (Could be NPC wanting to negotiate or have a quest for us, could be a mini-boss that buffs or IS buffed by the other crows or simply a “better” kind of crow, as apparently it is NOT afraid of the scarecrow, but uses it as a roost.)
I’m not sure if we leave the 2nd screen with all our chars what the crows there will do, whether or not they will try to go after the produce. On the other hand, we already got the tomatoes and there’s 3 of these green plant thingies in the ground in the 3rd screen, too (but those are all yellow).
No harm for a patch of plants, but only Ricky noticed that some of them are different. What does that tell us? I think it means that Ricky’s TrapDetection activated here.
This may mean one of two very important options:
1) Either this IS a trap, and the ‘different plants’ are but a ‘hidden detail’ that exposes the trap to us, but this traip is currently inactive for some reason. This could be for example a case of edible plant sprouts that need to be watered/fertilizer’ed/etc to grow, and when they grow, some of them hideously turn out to be poisonous kind.
2) Or, this is NOT a trap. That would be far more interesting, because that would mean that Ricky’s DungeonEyes or TrapDetection allows her to see extra details of more-or-less mundane objects, and maybe expose some extra interactions – but only after Ricky notices them and is “in range” (like warning others about traps).
Well, then there’s the 0) option that it’s just artistic drawing with no real in-game meaning. But if that’s the case, why would hear that only Ricky noticed it? I think option 0) has a very low probability.
I think when we pick the plants one variety will be hazardous. Think like mandrake roots in Harry Potter. It’s unclear if the hazardous one is the one with the yellow flesh above the ground or the full green one, but one of them is a trap.
Mandrakes are bulbous. I’m guessing the ones with white flesh.
I think it’s worth pointing out that, in the location with the tree, we had 3 type-A sprouts and 2 type-B sprouts (the one that only Ricky noticed as different), and in this location with three-eyed crow we have 3 type-B sprouts.
It shouldn’t matter much now, as “its not harmful”, but maybe it’s important that the number of A/B types varies.
Everyone: Go to the third room
Ricki: Attack a Tomato plant (and point out any traps in the Turnips if there’s any this time for some reason.)
Kamau: Interpose
Maca: Kill a Chicken.
Lohk: Attack Tomatoes Ricki attacks with your Torch.
Daisy: Attack the Rooster.
Squirrel: Attack the Tomatoes that Ricki and Lohk attacks.
Explanation: Ricki, Lohk, and Squirrel were all that were needed to take down one plant so they all focus on one. The Rooster might be buffing the other Chickens so Daisy tries to kill the Rooster and Maca kills a Chicken because there’s not much else he can do.
Maca: Back to the group
Kamau: Enchant the swiftblade permanently
Maca: Dig up as many plants as you can
Ricki, Daisy: Kill any monsters that pop out of the ground as a result
Lohk: Zap the annoying squirrel
We’re free to do this now I think. And someone needs to post a plan to start get the swiftblade ready
I think we should not dig up any plants right now, to stop the crows moving forward
If we dig up all plants we are screwed.
Macadamia: Return to the group, smif the corn spear with a silver ring.
Kamau: Permanently enchant the swiftblade with Shocking.
Lohk: Ray of Frost the squirrel which is attacking.
Ricki: Dig up the plants which don’t seem to cause any harm when walking over. Priority to the ones sticking out of the ground (second from left and rightmost), but dig up as many as possible.
Daisy: Attack any plant monsters which result from digging.
Crows have not moved on yet, so the root vegetables are probably produce. All the ones in the next room have that yellow base, so I’d like to identify that kind first.
Daisy could die from this since there’s no interpose.
We should keep corn spear for zombie dungeon
Kamau: Permanently enchant the swiftblade
Mac: trade the corn spear with Ricki
Ricki: take the corn spear from Mac
Lohk: ray of frost the rightmost squirrel
I really think this is a bad plan. We will have to use both Kamau and Mac’s actions next turn to trade for the swiftblade, and we still won’t have anything really useful for Lohk and Ricki to do. Maybe we get 3 more attack on Mac on turn 7 with this plan (meaning we get to use that attack on turn 8 for the first time) but what does that actually save us in terms of actions? We will be giving up two full turns of attacking the enemies we want to clear.
I must respectfully disagree here. We’ll get a boost for large enemies, and the next screen has tye first large enemy. Next turn Mac gets swiftblade from Kamau while Lohk heals kamau and we get a plant with Ricki (or more than one, but not all). Given traps usually have extra pixels, Or different pixels, take the pure green leaves next turn.
Then on turn 8 we storm the next part without distractions, and with a damage boosts for getting the tomatoes and crow down quicker. Also, shocking damage may work like fire damage as regards plants.
You’re giving up 5 actions to add 2 or 3 damage a turn. There’s no way that speeds us up, particularly when the first obstacle is 4 low hp enemies thar Mac can already kill and a rooster that he can probably also kill. By the time we get to the tomatoes you’ll have only added 2 damage to Mac vs his damage right now because it’ll take a turn or two to clear the chickens and the crow.
I think that the tomato plants are a great opening to test Lohk’s fireball. Every turn reduces our tomato reward, though realistically that only matters at stack boundaries. At best we get 8 more tomatoes by ignoring everything else, but 4+3 would neatly give us two stacks of 5 with the 3 we already have, and that’s before any other tomato plants appear.
Tomato plant dropped to (6-8)+3+(2 fire) damage. Fireball deals 4-7 with the robe, so the most intimation this could give us is if a fireball is not enough to one-shot a tomato plant. I still suspect that fire damage just ignores Def rather than dealing extra damage.
If chickens didn’t have a dodge chance, then I would consider setting up Kamau to Cleave through the flock. He needs 2 damage to kill a chicken, so with the swiftblade and ring of aggression his first attack hits for 6 and the first cleave hits for 3. Another 2 damage would let him drop the rooster and two chickens in one action (barring misses and rooster bonuses to Def). Also notable: Swiftblade deals extra damage equal to movement, it doesn’t boost Atk, so unless a negative Atk penalty takes away from bonus damage, Kamau with a swiftblade can kill any number of 1-HP targets in a group.